New Inhabitants Arrived!

The new additions ordered from LiveAquaria.com arrived this morning via Federal Express. I ordered one freshwater clam (corbicual sp.), two japanese trapdoor snails (viviparus malleattus), two japonica amano shrimps (caridina japonica) and a breeding pair of golden lyretail panchax killifish (aphyosemion australe). However, only one of the shrimps arrived alive. One guarantee that I really like about LiveAquaria.com versus any local fish shop is the "10-Day Guarantee". I simply called LiveAquaria.com to inform them that one of the shrimps did not survive the shipping process and they told me that my account had been credited - no questions asked. (I could have had my credit card credited, but I'm probably going to order more specimens later, so I'll just leave the credit.) I didn't even have to return the specimen.



I proceeded to acclimate the animals using the acclimation guide found at LiveAquaria.com. It took me almost two full hours to fully acclimate all of the live animals, and I used up almost 2.0 gallons of aquarium water in the process. I went back to work and when I returned home around 6:00PM, I performed my weekly water change - removing an additional 3.0 gallons of water and adding back 5.5 gallons of replacement water.

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Aquarium Picture Post As Promised

As the title above states, here are two of the four pictures I took today:



2004-04-28 Aquarium

Ella, the elephant nose fish, seems to enjoy the extra plants and the *protection* they give her.

2004-04-28 Aquarium





The rest of the pictures can be found in the Pictures of Aquarium link to the right.

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Water Testing...

I tested the two water samples thatI had collected - the water sample gather before the water change and the sample gathered tonight. Here are the results:

Pre-Water Change Sample (2004-04-23)

Test	Results
NH3 (ammonia)	0 mg/L
NO2 (nitrite)	0 mg/L
NO3 (nitrate)	10 mg/L
CA (calcium)	2 drops = 2*20 = 40 mg/L
PO4 (phosphate)	0 mg/L
FE #1 (toxic iron)	0 mg/L
FE #2 (chelated iron)	0 mg/L
GH (general hardness)	5 drops = 5*20 = 100 ppm = 5.60 dH
KH (carbonate hardness)	6 drops = 6*10 = 60 ppm = 3.36 dCH
pH (low test)	7.4 pH

Of course, this is the water before the new plant additions and the 50% or greater water change, so everything looks ok (well, the hardness numbers are lower than I would like.)

"48 Hour" Water Sample

Test	Results
NH3 (ammonia)	0 mg/L
NO2 (nitrite)	0 mg/L
NO3 (nitrate)	0-5 mg/L
CA (calcium)	2 drops = 2*20 = 40 mg/L
PO4 (phosphate)	0.25 mg/L
FE #1 (toxic iron)	0 mg/L
FE #2 (chelated iron)	0 mg/L
GH (general hardness)	5 drops = 5*20 = 100 ppm = 5.60 dH
KH (carbonate hardness)	7 drops = 7*10 = 70 ppm = 3.92 dCH
pH (high test)	7.8 pH

Wow! The water is already experiencing a pH increase due to CO2 consumption in the aquarium. I need to try to keep that total hardness a little higher and that carbonate hardness is exactly where I want it to be.

I'm going to try to get a picture post of the aquarium in the next few days, so be looking for it!

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A Very Informative New Friend

Tonight, Christy and I went to a "Meet & Greet" for the new members of the Service Guild of which my wife is a member. While there, I met Hugh Hammer, the professor who oversees the Aquatic Science Department at Gadsden State Community College. We talked extensively about my aquarium. I expressed my concerns about not having enough nitrous wastes resources. He told me that my tank should be in excellent condition (I'm not so sure).



Since I am looking at getting a freshwater clam, some japanese trapdoor snails, and some japonica amano shrimps, I want to make sure that the general hardness and carbonate hardness of the aquarium is suitable for these new inhabitants. Hugh recommended that one of the easiest ways to increase hardness was by adding one teaspoon of baking soda when doing water changes. By doing this, I would be increasing the carbonate hardness and it should make the tank more suitable for the anticipated new inhabitants.

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Sneaked A Picture of My Wife with My Son....

I love both my wife and my son. Tonight, I caught them taking an after-dinner nap...

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Live Plants

Today, I received my plant order from LiveAquaria.com. I ordered one java fern, one micro sword, one temple - narrow leaf, and one water wisteria. I performed a partial water change - removing 5.5 gallons, then planting the received plants (I received two of the temple - narrow leaf), and then added back 6.0 gallons of replacement water.



The following tables lists the live plants in the aquarium:

Live Plants and Recommended Environments

	Temp Range			pH Range			dH Range
	Low	High		Low	High		Low	High
Amazon Sword Plant (echinodorus amazonicus)	72°	82°		6.5	7.2		2	12
Java Fern (microsorum pteropus)	68°	82°		5.5	7.5		2	12
Micro Sword (lilaeopsis novae-zelandiae)	64°	77°		6.8	7.5		8	15
Temple - Narrow Leaf (hygrophila corymbosa)	72°	82°		6.5	7.5		5	12
Water Wisteria (hygrophila difformis)	74°	82°		6.5	7.5		2	12

Based on the recommendations, my tank to be optimally set for these plants should be between 74° and 77° Fahrenheit, between 6.8 and 7.2 pH, and between 8 and 12 dH.

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More Boring Aquarium Stuff

Again, I dosed the tank with 1.0 ml of SeaChem Flourish Excel. At least I am following the directions on the bottle of the Flourish Excel.

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Boring Aquarium Stuff

After feeding the elephant nose fish, added 1.0 ml of SeaChem Flourish Excel to the aquarium. Right now, I'm adding stuff to the tank fairly *blindly* in the hope that I am doing the right thing for the aquarium.

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Aquarium Stuff - Maintenance Time...

Came home, worked on the aquarium... Performed a water change - removed 6 gallons, added 6.5 gallons back. Ella, the elephant nose fish, had to check out the incoming water - to the point that she actually touched the vinyl hose with the incoming water. She always exhibits improved, more active behavior with any water change. After reading "The Simple Guide To Freshwater Aquariums" by David E. Boruchowitz and seeing the behaviour of the fish, I am now a firm believer of frequent large water changes.



[For the record, my aquarium is an Marineland Labs Eclipse System 12 - 12 gallon tank. Yes, I know, I screwed up getting a small aquarium as opposed to a larger one] I will be adding pictures of my tank and some background information on the tank setup as I continue to add to this blog...

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First Blog

As the title states.... This is my first blog. Blah!

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My Wedding Anniversary!

Christy and I were married on this day just four years ago. Wow! And it seems like it was just yesterday.

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Water Testing...

Tested the aquarium water today with the following results:

Aquarium Water Sample

Test	Results
NH3 (ammonia)	0 mg/L
NO2 (nitrite)	0 mg/L
NO3 (nitrate)	10 mg/L
CA (calcium)	2 drops = 2*20 = 40 mg/L
PO4 (phosphate)	0.25 mg/L
FE #1 (toxic iron)	0 mg/L
FE #2 (chelated iron)	0 mg/L
GH (general hardness)	4 drops = 4*20 = 80 ppm = 4.48 dH
KH (carbonate hardness)	4 drops = 4*10 = 40 ppm = 2.24 dCH
pH (high test)	7.4 pH
pH (low test)	7.4 pH

The general hardness and carbonate hardness has dropped drastically. Either the plants are consuming some of the "hardness", or the tap water has also experienced a drop in hardness. I decided to test the tap water hardness just to check:

Tap Water Sample

Test	Results
GH (general hardness)	6 drops = 6*20 = 120 ppm = 6.72 dH
KH (carbonate hardness)	10 drops = 10*10 = 100 ppm = 5.60 dCH

Great. Now I have no idea what is going on with the water in the aquarium. I'm hoping that I get a chance to talk to Greg the fish tech at Drs. Foster Smith for further help.

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Something for The Plants

I purchased SeaChem Flourish Excel from Drs. Foster Smith back in March for my plants (all two of them! ), but I had not gotten around to using it. Tonight, I added approximately 2.5 ml of the Flourish Excel to the aquarium.



Ever since I finished reading "Aquarium Plants Manual" by Ines Scheurmann, I've been somewhat overwhelmed with the amount of work that is added when trying to maintain a thriving planted tank. But I do want this tank to thrive, and so, I'm doing what I can to make sure that it does. That includes reading, researching and the extra work in trying to keep everything in balance. However, I am afraid that the plants that I've decided to try to grow in this tank will cause some problems with the fish and other inverterbrates that I want to put into the aquarium.

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Notes on Feedings

Perhaps it's just me, but it does seem as if the elephant nose fish Ella feeds better and reacts better with the smaller feeding regimen. At this point I plan to continue with the once daily small feedings until Tuesday or Wednesday and at that time, I will return to the the twice daily small feedings.

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Any Effect from Substrate Replacement?

Tonight I tested the water to check to see if there were any ill effects from changing out the substrate. Here are the test results:

Water Sample

Test	Results
NH3 (ammonia)	0 mg/L
NO2 (nitrite)	0 mg/L
NO3 (nitrate)	10 mg/L
CA (calcium)	drops = 2*20 = 40 mg/L
PO4 (phosphate)	0.25 mg/L
FE #1 (toxic iron)	0 mg/L
FE #2 (chelated iron)	0.1 mg/L
GH (general hardness)	6 drops = 6*20 = 120 ppm = 6.72 dH
KH (carbonate hardness)	7 drops = 7*10 = 70 ppm = 3.92 dCH
pH (high test)	7.6 pH

Everything looks likes it is in the green. If there had been any problems, I would have probably seen some ammonia and/or nitrites.

I called Drs. Foster Smith and again talked to Greg the fish tech. I really wanted to see if I could go ahead and order plants and other live inhabitants for my tank. Greg suggested that I wait a week or so and then retest the water - just to make sure that the tank really is still ok. Sounds like a plan!

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Replacement of The Substrate

Wow, what fun... As the title states, I replaced the substrate in my aquarium today with SeaChem Flourite. I followed the directions/method mentioned in the Simple Guide to Freshwater Aquariums by David Boruchowitz. That is, I used two five gallons buckets and with the garden hose pouring water into one, I dropped the Flourite into the moving water - letting the dust and smaller particles pour off. I then drained the bucket and moved the now rinsed substrate into the second bucket. It took me about thirty minutes to completely rinse the two bags of flourite I had purchased.



I then removed about six gallons of the aquarium's water. I also removed the amazon sword plants and most of the existing gravel substrate. Once this was done, I moved the tank to it's new home on the side wall of Christian's room on top of the Eclipse System 12 Stand purchased from Drs. Foster Smith. I then started adding the rinsed Flourite to the tank - sloping it from the rear to the front. I also re-planted the amazon sword plants, placing the larger one in the rear of the tank. I'm planning on adding more plants, so I left some areas *blank*. I then refilled the tank with tap water that had been overdosed with SeaChem Prime (I overdosed to catch any residual chlorine in the substrate from the rinsing.) I also dosed the tank with the appropriate amount of Hagen Cycle - I did so to help with any bacteria die off that might have occurred when removing the existing gravel. I'm planning to cut back on the twice-daily feedings of the elephant nose fish and work back up to smaller feedings twice daily. (I had been feeding the fish 0.25 of a 1.75 ounce cube of Hikari Frozen Brine Shrimp.



I'm changing some of what I'm doing with the tank as a direct result of the Simple Guide to Freshwater Aquariums book. A lot of what I've read makes a great deal of sense. For example, the water changes make sense for diluting the pollutants in the water. I am also cutting back on the feedings because it seems that I was way overfeeding - and that could have been why the nitrates were so high in that last test.

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Initial Aquarium Water Test

Since I got my Hagen Master water test kit in, I haven't tested the aquarium water from before the water change on April 1st. Here are the results:

Aquarium Water Sample

Test	Results
NH3 (ammonia)	0 mg/L
NO2 (nitrite)	0 mg/L
NO3 (nitrate)	50 mg/L
CA (calcium)	2 drops = 2*20 = 40 mg/L
PO4 (phosphate)	1.0 mg/L
FE #1 (toxic iron)	0 mg/L
FE #2 (chelated iron)	0 mg/L
GH (general hardness)	7 drops = 7*20 = 140 ppm = 7.84 dH
KH (carbonate hardness)	9 drops = 9*10 = 90 ppm = 5.04 dCH
pH (high test)	7.6 pH

Notes: Zero ammonia, zero nitrites, and some nitrate indicates that the aquarium is past "new tank syndrome." However, that nitrate number is higher than I would want. I guess it was good thing that I changed as much water as I did at the time.

I will be replacing the substrate in the aquarium in the next few days. I'm removing the vanilla smooth rock substrate with SeaChem Flourite to provide the plants in the aquarium with a more appropriate substrate.

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Calculations for GH And KH

Ack! It seems that all the tests that you use to test water give parts per million (ppm) or milligrams per liter (mg/l) - same thing. But everything in books or online for environments use esoteric terms such as dH or KH. I did some research and finally found the following equations:



1 dGH (dH) = 17.8 CaCO3 ppm

1 dKH (dCH) = 17.8 carbonate hardness ppm



But that is still a pain in the butt for having to grab a calculator to figure dH and dCH after water testing, so I googled further and was fortunate to find this.



Thank you Hagen USA.

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Aquarium Picture Post

These are the first pictures that I have taken of the aquarium. It is an Marineland Labs Eclipse System 12 twelve gallon aquarium. You can see the Visi-Therm 100 Watt Submersible heater as well as the Penn-Plax medium car wreck decoration. (The elephant nose fish uses this as her hiding place.) Pretty much all that is seen here was purchased from Lang's in Glencoe, including the two amazon sword plants.



Aquarium





Aquarium - Amazon Sword Plants





Aquarium - Elephant Nose Fish





I will post these pictures in the Pictures of Aquarium link to the right.

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Internet Research

I wanted to know more about the elephant nose fish, so I did a Google search on it. One of the reasons for the research is that the place where I purchased the fish - Lang's in Glencoe - told me that the fish will only eat brine shrimp. I just wanted to check if there might be something else that the fish might eat.



Here is what I found: the elephant nose (gnathonemus petersii) lives in environments ranging in pH from 6.0 to 8.0, dH ranges from 5.0 to 19.0, and temperatures from 72° to 82°. This fish is a carnivore and can eat brine shrimp, as well as freeze dried tubifex worms and sinking shrimp pellets.



I'll probably order some sinking shrimp pellets from Drs. Foster Smith to provide the fish with some variety in her meals.

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First Water Testing

I tested the tap water this afternoon after work. My tap water - from Southside, Alabama - goes through an electronic water softener (the "Super Imp" purchased from The Water Imp Company in the UK), then into a 5 micron filter, into a carbon canister filter, and then into another 5 micron filter. The tap water tested:

Southside, AL Tap Water Sample

Test	Results
NH3 (ammonia)	0 mg/L
NO2 (nitrite)	0 mg/L
NO3 (nitrate)	0 mg/L
CA (calcium)	2 drops = 2*20 = 40 mg/L
PO4 (phosphate)	0 mg/L
FE #1 (toxic iron)	0 mg/L
FE #2 (chelated iron)	0 mg/L
GH (general hardness)	7 drops = 7*20 = 140 ppm = 7.84 dH
KH (carbonate hardness)	10 drops = 10*10 = 100 ppm = 5.60 dCH
pH (low test)	7.4 pH

It looks as if Southside has moderately hard water - not that I am surprised in the least. I mean, I already had purchased that electronic water softener a year or so ago.

After testing the tap water, I performed a 60%-70% water change (the number one thing stressed in "Simple Guide to Freshwater Aquariums" by David Boruchowitz is periodic, frequent water changes). I immediately noticed improved behavior in the elephant nose fish. She (Christy is calling the fish "Ella") seems to be playing in the water as it is poured into the tank.

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