The Puffer Forum

Thanks Dr.K
I'm going to be mailing out the off shoots/baby swords to anyone that wants them. You interested? I have about 20 individual baby plants, er on a stick. But they all have roots and can be separated.

Id like a few, maybe I can get them to grow in Bloats tank

i would love any plants you could send me. im hard up for money but want a planted tank SO BADLY. ill send you a picture of my tank as it sits as soon as i get my camera back. i will pay pal you shipping if you'd like. are the swords easy to maintain/quick growers in the set up i have described??? and whats that grass in your planted tank???

p.s. i know growing speed and all things really depend on light, ferts, and blah blah blah, i just mean generally are they fast growers?? cause i have a crypt and it is healthy and beautiful but it refuses to get bigger!!! i've had it for maybe 4 or 5 months and its grown a bit thicker but not in any way bigger really. i could maybe get a small piece of that if you were interested and throw it your way in return. its a truly beautiful plant ill send you a picture. it just had a baby and im trying to grow it!

Crypts are on the slow growing side, swords can grow quickly under the right conditions.
Low light tanks don't grow plants quickly, but they don't require as much supplements. In a high light tank, if the tank isn't fertilized, algae will grow like crazy.

yes i assumed that, and i think you may have mentioned it to me before. my lights read this:

F32T8 - soft white.

im pretty sure the soft white isnt good. you want daylight, correct? if im not doing this wrong, someone said less than 2 watts per gallon in a low light tank. i have 64 watts over a 65 gallon tank (2 florescent bulbs @ 32 watts each) so im a bit on the low side probably.... also you think i'll have an issue with the dwarf hair grass with my set up?? (if you know my setup at all)

and just to confirm; i would love a few baby swords!!

Soft white is going to probably be 2800K to 4100K, you will want to get 6500K. GE Daylight, medium blue and white label. Phillips makes one too.

You would be rocking pretty low light. What does the inside of your fixture look like?
That's a bit low to support hair grass. The grass I have is dwarf sagitaria. It does well in all light.

I will let you guys know when I'll be mailing the swords, need to figure out the shipping.

alright thanks. they dont have that grass near me but i will look into getting new bulbs... an the inside of my fixture is just white painted aluminum (i assume aluminum but it doesnt really matter) goes on a diagonal from the bulb about 45 out to 3 or 4 inches away. its one of the cheaper 4 ft lights from home depot. i think it was 20 Canadian dollars. than the bulbs were 5 or something. but i will try to get a new setup there, and some ferts.

and some IP meds (1st), and some more substrate, and a skimmer, and a better filter for my puffers, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and...............

i need to get a loan out

Ok, that's good that it's painted white, that's highly reflective. IP medicine only costs 3-4 dollars at walmart or Petsmart. Jungle Parasite Clear or Tetra Parasite Guard, just need a fresh garlic bulb too. Do you have those stores?

yes both. thank you, i will do that tomorrow. as for light i just threw my 10g light fixture on top of my tank also as it has 2 luminus daylight plus 5600k energy saver bulbs in it. i assumed that would help the grass for now, until i can get those other bulbs. my puffers will have to suffer with my 20g light fixture and blue aquaglow bulb that doesnt give off that much light. but those 2 little daylight bulbs really brightened up the little section of my tank where the grass is its amazing! thanks so much for the lighting help, and the IP help, and all the help you have personally given me since i became a member here i really honestly appreciate the patience and advice.

btw i havent closed that planted tank tab yet ive just been looking at it...thats a beautiful tank. i will be asking you lots so i can hopefully one day have something like that

Lol! No problem and thank you
That tank had a pretty bad algae issue before I figured out the right amount of fertilizer and CO2 to use. I made the mistake of thinking the lighting was low, and was under dosing.

Not hard, just requiring a different tank operation than what I use almost across the board. It can be tricky in small tanks also, but I don't do any small tanks anymore either. Currently I only run mid-sized fish tanks, mostly planted. Many hobbyists would consider my set-ups rather techie, but they really are not. Complexity does not necessarily mean techie. They appear complex only because I use lots of filters and linked tanks. I do use lots of sumps/refugia (i.e., linked tanks), where the intent is to keep water conditions more stable and even over both short and quite long periods. I aim for diurnal stability (within 24 hours) as well as long-term (at least a decade) stability. I only have two stand-alone tanks, but will be setting a few more this winter as I want ti isolate some more of the geriatric catfish.

okay. it sounds like you are light years ahead of me in the stability of your tanks. by midsize tanks what do you mean? i know you've been in the hobby for a long time so thats probably bigger to you than me. my planted is a 65g at about 48'' x 18'' x 24'' i think by a quick look. thats a medium sized tank in my books and should be easier to keep stable than something smaller. as for filtration and well, all my my electrical devices on the tank i have just an AC 300 filter (older, i think its now called a 70..??) and a small heater not sure of the watts, and of course a 4 foot light. that is about as technical as im going to be able to go for quite some time. I would consider the DIY Co2 though as it would be cheap. As far as catfish go im quite sad mine will have to find a new home as i dont think they would be ideal in my planted tank. They swim so quickly and turn so abruptly they uproot plants. Them along with my golden loach and i have to many fish that are hard on the plants. If i got rid of my loach my cat would never forgive me, she chases him around the tank all day and night. and it doesn't other him at all.

Mid-sized for me is 30-75 US gallons (I don't have any tanks between 75 and 120 nominal gallons: mid-sized should cover up to ~100 USG). So, your tank is definitely mid-sized to me.

Many of my lights are shop-lights, especially 48" units over 48" tanks. Many are still old-fashioned NO (normal output) tubes, some are more efficient lower wattage but higher output tubes) Most are 6500K tubes. NO tubes are replaced annually, but staggered through the year. Higher tech tubes run longer.

All of my tanks are multi-filtered. I use separate mechanical and biological filters. Mechanical filters are rinsed weekly, biofilters rarely (generally back-flushed monthly), although their mechanical prefiters are rinsed weekly just like the routine mech filters. That translates into my using lots of mechanical filters and smaller but still generous biofilters. All of my tanks have what I call "tuned" current. That means that the first few months of any tank's life I do spend time fine-tuning the current in a tank. After that it is largely thought-free maintenance, and weekly or bi-weekly routine partials (also largely thought-free). All my make-up and water change water is aged at least 48 hours and tempered to approximately tank temp.

I do little testing after a tank is established (3-12 months) other than occasional spot checks unless something looks "off". Experiment tanks get much more testing, and I do have field grade test equipment for multiple parameters, which most folks do not need at all. That is solely because I do play with filtration techniques prefer somewhat unconventional techniques which give better control IMHO & IME.

I am a fanatic on QT. I am also a fanatic on tank sizes per fish. I quit "upgrading" tanks about 20 years ago. And that was well after I quit dong "community" tanks, which I consider high-stress environments which radically shorten fish's lives. QT may or may not be in a smallish tank, but post-QT the fish moves to its permanent home if not placed there from the start. IMO & IME, that is one of the biggest reasons that my fish tend to easily reach full wild size, and also live so long. Conditions in the wild change radically season to season and year to year. Wild fish must deal with those challenges. In captivity, stability seems to remove or reduce many issues for the captive fish and markedly prolong their lives and health.

I suspect that I spend no more time on my tanks than many folks here, despite having too many tanks. When they are set for ease of operation, you can spend more time fish-watching. And of course plotting what to try out next...

HTH

thanks rtr. that was very informative. i have now picked up 2 GE 6500k cool daylight bulbs for my planted tank, some seachem flourish, and some IP meds for my puffers! i am going to strongly consider this multi-filter system. it seems ingenius. im assuming you use canister filters??? between this explanation and what SYN has written i think im going to get a grip on my tanks.