Dry fertilizers

Well, I finally broke down and ordered a package of dry fertilizer - for my phosphates! I still have a bit of Seachem Nitrate left, but I'm thinking that now that I have pressurized CO2, and if I keep on top of my maintenance and feeding, I shouldn't need to dose N with my livestock levels. I do need K, but I'm dosing that with a K+traces Brightwell product that's worked for me so far, so why fix what's not broken? The green spot algae is getting a bit annoying on the slower-growing plants, so I'd like to knock it down a bit with some added P, and dry ferts are really the most economical. A pound of the stuff should last me approximately forever, I'm hoping.

My angelfish is doing quite well - I'm really pleased with him, which is great for an impulse buy. I don't have a good track record with those, which is why I usually pass on sales unless I've been planning to buy a particular kind of fish for a while already! On the other hand, the two little fry I got from the store I'm probably going to take back - they're way too aggressive with each other, and one of them came out in stripes! Not a rusty by any means. If only I didn't have to special order real mbuna around here, not even the local fish shop is willing to get me good quality fish, I have to order them myself!

But I did find some good prices, shipping included... so here goes another round of shipped fish!

Weekly cleaning

The new arrangement has had a bit of time to settle in - I pulled another few leaves off the ozelot sword there on the left to let a bit more light down onto the crypts underneath. They're not really thick enough to please me, probably due to a combination of too little light, and too little nutrients in the substrate. I added some Flourish root tabs, though, so I'm hoping that they'll grow in a bit more.

I actually harvested a java fern from the far left side and placed it above a root tab in the cichlid tank - the saulosi gave it a few exploratory nibbles but didn't immediately tear it to shreds, so there may be hope that it will be spared the nibbling that's taking a toll on the Amazon sword in that tank! I did find some aragonite coarse-grained sand, and have added a few cupfuls to the cichlid tanks. I'm not used to living in a place with such soft water yet - hardly any scale forms on the equipment compared to what happens at my parents' house. The aragonite is a pain to clean - it's too cold to take a bucket out back and wash the sand out with a hose - but adding it cupful by cupful is probably helping keep the water clear. Even after a dozen rinses, the stuff is still really dusty, but a cupful's-worth doesn't cloud the water for long. At some point I'll have to test the pH and see if it rose!

I haven't added any aragonite to the filter of the planted tank yet; I'd prefer to have dolomite but I'm not sure if any of the garden centers will have a suitable grade in stock. I did end up moving the second nerite snail from the planted tank to the fry grow-out tank.

Snail first aid

I've had two nerite snails in my planted tank for quite some time now, but unfortunately the soft, slightly acidic water has taken its toll on the poor things. My zebra nerite in particular has suffered shell erosion; I hadn't realized how bad it was until I got a good look a couple days ago. So tonight I pulled her out of the tank and applied some superglue to the eroded portions of her shell.

I'll be transferring her to my cichlid fry grow-out tank; the pH in that tank is 7.8, rather than the 6.4 of the planted aquarium. So although there isn't a difference in the GH between those two tanks, at least the water won't be eating away at what's left of the shell.

My other nerite hasn't been in as long, and doesn't seem to be in as bad a shape, so I'm going to see if I can't find a good calcium supplement for my tanks. The Amazon sword is definitely suffering what looks like calcium deficiency, so I don't think bumping the GH up a bit will hurt. (Famous last words. I can hear the algae laughing already!) I need some extra substrate for my main cichlid tank, which means a nice calcium carbonate sand and a few filter bags should take care of all the tanks at once.

Housekeeping and new additions

I don't normally do major aquarium cleanings during the workweek (average time to clean all four tanks: four hours) but since I'm coming off the holidays/midterms crunch there was still a lot to do. The planted tank got a long-overdue filter cleaning, and my bag of Purigen is recharging in its 1:1 bleach and water solution. Predictably now the water flow from the filter is much larger! I also did a major trim - I was getting tired of the layout, some of the plants were outgrowing their spots, etc. For the first time I "mowed" the cardinal plants! Once everything settles in a bit I'll take another photo. I actually removed all but one stem of the Hygrophila difformis - I want the newer stems to fill in the middle instead, and the fast-growing water sprite tends to shade them quite rapidly.

I had ordered and Eheim automatic feeder for the cichlid tank - not sure if I've got it set up quite the way I want it yet, and I need to do some tinkering to make sure food isn't being left on the lip of the tank rim. Of course, now that the fish are being fed every day I'm going to have to be a bit more punctual about their water changes! With the larger tank, it simply takes time, but I think I may do a series of 20-minute WCs bi-weekly for a while. I still have to do the testing, but I suspect nitrates are pretty high in there, and constant feeding is going to mean more nitrate production. I'm also hoping to find some Vallisneria for this tank, since the Amazon sword is not exactly biotope compliant.

In my search of the local chain pet stores, I didn't find any Vals, but I did find what looks like two tiny rusties in the mixed mbuna tank at one shop. They're the perfect size to go in my fry-grow-out tank with the baby acei after they've gone through quarantine. Despite having three of the same chain store in the area, I couldn't find any more than those two! They're on sale for a good price, so I'm hoping to go back and get at least three more at the end of the week when the stores get more livestock delivered. I was also surprised to see them selling fish labeled Cynotilapia afra! If only I didn't already have saulosi, I would have snapped them up right away. But they're blue-barred, and I have enough trouble without courting more by combining two different blue-barred species in the same tank. Some of the afra subgroups are so beautiful... of course, I have substantial doubts as to whether those fish even are afra, since no one at a big box can be trusted to order the right fish from reputable dealers. Oh well. No guarantees on purity when dealing with chain stores, after all. Hopefully I can resist temptation. It would be easier if I could actually get more saulosi locally!

Fish have grudges too

African cichlids have a lot of personality. An excess of it, in fact - the alpha fish of any one species may take a very particular dislike to another individual fish and harass that fish to death. And these aren't even predatory fish! (Ironically, the predatory African cichlids tend to be more easygoing fish, although of course if they spot any fish small enough to fit into their mouths, the little one is history!)

I've had to remove and rehome an acei due to a grudge, and it's looking like I'll have to do the same for one of my cherry red zebras. The dominant fish of the trio simply cannot stand one of the two others at all; I've already had to remove it to quarantine to recover once, and rearranging the rockscape and reintroducing the gamma fish didn't go well. The poor thing hung in the corner and tried to become invisible, which of course didn't work. Within a week its fins have been shredded, again. But as I had already disassembled the quarantine tank for now, I've isolated the poor thing inside a net box in the main tank, where the bully fish can't get to it, and I can give it food without the other fish taking it away. (They're all very frustrated by this.)

The prospect of having to rehome this fish is upsetting, because they were quite expensive to buy; one of the major downfalls of keeping African cichlids. Unfortunately at the time there weren't any juveniles available, so I had to buy adults, which are far more expensive. But the probability of somehow making these fish get along together is pretty much zero. If only I could get them to breed for me, and save some fry, I wouldn't mind it at all! But so far only the acei have been breeding.