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Sounds like you're having fun with your 20g!
I found a great article at one point about starting a planted tank... It had a week by week approach to cycling as well - apparently if you're using fast growing plants, they'll take care of most of the ammonia for you. It worked nicely for me, anyway.

I lost my swordtail fry last night. The angels came out of hiding and found him. GULP! Didn't take long. Well, I know I won't have a problem with too many fry! I'm going to try and raise one or two out of the next batch, in a separate tank, but that will be enough.

I'm going away for a week starting today... Hope my hubby takes good care of my little fishie friends!!!

Just picked up a PH kit that measures high end PH...and found out that what I have is an 8.0 reading...not really great for rams. Don't know how that will effect the little ones, though their parents seem to be doing rather well in the 29...the other two I have are not quite as happy.

I have one in my 2 gallon quarenteen with a cave thing and lots of silk plants..the other one I put in one of the sections of my divided 10 gallon, because the water is warmer in there and she and the other little girl weren't getting along very well in the 2 gallon. I hope they can last long enough for me to get that 20L set up. I just got the echo complete substrate delivered yesturday, just waiting for the glass canopy to arrive...and have to get a stand too. I would rather do a fishless cycle, but I have these 5 danios I had to boot out of the 15 for the unexpected batch of baby rams...they,the danios, are scattered in the other tanks I have. 4 are in the 10 gallon with my female bettas, one is in the newt tank with another of my females and the zebra is the 5 gallon with my yellow female. I may just toss the danios in the 20L and let them get the cycle started instead...dang, I wanted to try out that 'wine cooler and raw shrimp" cycle process I posted earlier. Of course the directions I posted said beer, but I prefer the wine cooler...lol..

how are things going with the 20L Emg?

I'm having fun with my 20g - the angels are definitely not shy anymore. Trying to figure out if the angels are preparing to spawn - either that or one of them is constipated. Not sure which yet! Ever tried feeding everyone in the tank except the angels? Good luck. That will be my challenge tonight - have to figure out what this is.

I've also discovered that shrimp can live (more or less) in harmony with angels. Ok, I lost two shrimp to the angels - but the other two have figured out when to come out and when to hide. Community tanks are fun. I'm really enjoying this! <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

My 20L is coming along slow but sure. I have the tank, the strip light, the glass cover came in the other day, the Echo-Complete substrate..(I think I need another bag,dang)..I need to pick up a filter and a heater and a stand.

I start a long term sub position at school tomorrow, so if all goes well I'll have the change to pick up the other stuff I need...and maybe another bag of substrate. I'm going to need it soon, lol...I have a 15 gallon full of babies and they will need some room if all goes well with them.

I have 3 female rams in quarenteen...all of them from the same batch I picked up at PetCo. They have nemetodes..those ugly red ones that come out the vent. I am treating them with medicated food per instructions on the package. Two of them I think will be ok, but one isnt' too keen on eating and seems worse than the others. I'm not worried about this spreading to my other fish as these buggers need a crustacean to complete thier cycle, and I don't have any. Either way, I'm treating the male ram and the gouramis anyway, to be sure...since they were in the same tank with these ladies. What a pain, but hey, could be worse so I won't complain.

One of the females I have in a quarenteen thing that hangs on the side of the tank..she's in the 29 and I wanted to be sure she got plenty of the medicated food. The others kept chasing her away. Well, she layed eggs in that thing..lol..then ate them all up. I hope she doesn't decide that eggs are better for eating than hatching...that would be the end of her spawning career...

Anyway, your right...this is a fun hobby !

Did a super duper cleaning of the 29 and the 15 ram fry tank yesturday and this morning.

I had to clean off the "fry box"..(don't know what to call that thing..it's a box with netting around it to keep fish fry safe from mom and dad)..I have it around the filter intake to keep baby fish from getting sucked up. It was getting covered in goop and algae. I also wiped down the sides and bottom of the tank (no gravel on the bottom) and took out about 5 gallons of water and replaced with clean. Poor babies were all huddling in a corner by the time I finished..lol..but they're looking very well today. They are starting to show a bit of color and I can see thier little faces now..cuties.. Gosh I love sparklingly clean tanks !!

I did the 29 this morning..took EVERYTHING out but the fish and gravel and cleaned it out good. Cleaned off all the decorations, trimmed off any old sick leaves from the plants and took out about 6 or 8 gallons of water. I had to put the 3 otos in a seperate tank while I did all this as they are very slow and I kept worrying about burying them in the gravel while I cleaned it.

I also got to regrade my gravel so that it is higher towards the back..something I read about AFTER I set up this tank the first time..lol..and it does look much better..gives the tank a bit more depth. I'm afraid I wasn't very gentle with the plants when moving them though, hope they do ok. I wiped off the leaves and did general maintenance on them while I had them out. I'm a bit happier with the setup now, though it isn't much different than before. It's not sparkling yet..lol..but I'm sure it will when the dust settles.

UGE...I saw a strange looking worm wriggling around in the water and before I had a chance to syphon it out my male ram scoffed it down. I hope it wasn't one of those nasty nematodes I have been treating them for. It was white and one end of it was spiraling as it swam through the water, the other end looked a bit thicker..it was white not red though. (the parasites my female rams came with are red and hang out their vent..blah!) Two of the females are doing rather well but the third one isn't eating so hasn't been getting the meds. I have her in a little cup with an airstone floating in a seperate tank. I change her water every day and just keep putting in the medicated food for her, even though she doesn't eat it. I'm hoping some of the meds get in the water and maybe can somehow negetively effect those ugly buggers...poor thing.

How often do you do a major clean like that Emg?

I figured out the deal with my angels. neither constipated or pregnant. Just fat. They're worse than bettas. On a good note, though, I discovered that they have NOT eaten my shrimp. YAY!!! In fact, I've seen the shrimp out a lot more recently, so maybe they'll put a new stake in the ground to identify their territory. I hope so. I love watching them zoom around the tank.

I added a new plant to the tank. The swordtails are getting close to having babies and I wanted to give them somewhere to hide. Especially with the angels around. I can hope, anyway, that at least one survives.

I was toying with the idea of getting a female betta to add to the tank. Still haven't decided yet. I want to give the tank a chance to settle down for a month... it's so hard to not make changes to the tanks. I have to force myself to just enjoy the fish for a change!!!

Lol JP....hey, welcome back, good to 'read' you again ! <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

That was the first major cleaning since I put that tank together just after Christmas...I bought it with a gift certificate that my husband gave me. Usually I just take out a couple of gallons a few times a week. I really wanted to regrade the gravel, it looked too flat and uninteresting to me. Now the water is nice and clear adn everything is so bright and sparkly! <img src="/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />

SEE !


<img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Very nice! And yes, very clean?
Who's that hanging out in the isolation chamber?

Oh, that's my female ram being treated for nematodes. Acutally I'm treating the whole tank since she was in there, but she is the only one who I can see them 'in' so I have her in there so I can be sure she eats the medicated food.

These particular nematodes need a crustacean to complete thier cycle, so I am hoping that the others won't be affected since I don't have any shrimp or anything here. She and one of the other females I bought from that batch are doing fine..all three of them had them..lost one last night though. She was the first one to show symptoms and I didn't realize what she had right away...she got to the point of not eating before I got the medication..not much I could to for her, but the other two eat like pigs and have been scoffing down the treatment without trouble..though they really don't like it much..lol.

Well, I lost my poor betta. Not sure what the cause was - could have been stress, could have been just not liking the 10 gallon after having his own little 1 gallon. Not really sure. We did what we could to make him better, but it looked like dropsy in the end. Poor little guy.

So my 10 gallon tank has now become a species tank - cories only. I picked up 6 really cute little pygmy cories - they're awesome!!! Now I just need another albino cory to my existing albino has some company his own size. Add to that the otos, and it's a nice little tank. I picked up another cave for the pygmies too.

Next challenge on that tank is to finish changing the substrate. When I first set it up, didn't know what I was doing, didn't have live plants, and got gravel that's really not appropriate... I've added some finer gravel and the plants in that portion of the tank are thriving, so now I just have to finish the job. Eventually!

I'm starting to like how my tanks look now. I'm not sure they're exactly the way I want them just yet, but getting a lot closer.