My tanks journey so far.

[Martinspuddle]

I'm also a little concerned about your light - are the LEDs wide angle? What is the out put in lumens?

I've already covered his issues, including a certain skylite...

[fluxtor]

I'm also a little concerned about your light - are the LEDs wide angle? What is the out put in lumens?

I've already covered his issues, including a certain skylite...

[mikeyboy123]

Can't find any info about the lighting. The only info it has is it's 20V, 16W, PAR 223 and no mention of lunens anywhere I can find. It's not even dimmable. As I've said in another post in hindsight I wish I've have gone for the scaper option instead of this but it was more to do with the location it was going and convenience. Live and learn as with everything

I'm no good with lights other than just looking at the lumens and colour temp.

Get some fast growing stems in there and see if/how it settles down and report back.

[fluxtor]

Just a little update on my tank in case you thought I'd forgotten you all ;-)

I seem to be winning my battle with algae and as some eluded to I just needed to be patient. I'm not out of the woods completely as I still have cyano but at least the hair algae has pretty much gone! For information I changed my approach slightly and actually increase my lighting period to 8 hours from 5 and reduced ferts but continued with Seachem Flourish Excel and this seems to have done the trick.

I've lost all of my zebra nerites which I think could be down to the cyano but my remaining fish and amanos seem to be thriving and doing well os much so I added a pair of Blue Rams today. I just now need to continue my battle against the cyano and continue to learn from this process which I am thoroughly enjoying.

Here's a little video pre Blue Rams and post clean.



And here's a pic of the rams acclimatising.



In the tank, male (I think)..





In the tank, female (I think)

[Martinspuddle]

I've lost all of my zebra nerites which I think could be down to the cyano

Cyanobacteria won't kill Nerite snails, must be another reason.



How warm is your aquarium?

I started with 6 CPDs and then 6 Blood Fins. I'm now down to 4 of each.

Bloodfin Tetra (Aphyocharax anisitsi) temperatures of 18 to 26 °C but prefer the lower end of the scale.

Celestial Pearl 'Danio' (Celestichthys margaritatus) prefer temperatures of 20 to 24 °C

Ram cichlid (Mikrogeophagus ramirezi) prefer temperatures of 27 to 30 °C

Sorry to rain on your parade but either your going get coats and woolly hats for your Ram Cichlids or air conditioning for the other species

[plankton]

Agree with Martin.
Pics are good though.

[fluxtor]

Bloodfin Tetra (Aphyocharax anisitsi) temperatures of 18 to 26 °C but prefer the lower end of the scale.

Celestial Pearl 'Danio' (Celestichthys margaritatus) prefer temperatures of 20 to 24 °C

Ram cichlid (Mikrogeophagus ramirezi) prefer temperatures of 27 to 30 °C

Sorry to rain on your parade but either your going get coats and woolly hats for your Ram Cichlids or air conditioning for the other species

Completely understand and all part of my learning. I get carried away in my own excitement and sometimes forget to do the proper research. I always wanted Blue Rams but the CPDs and Bloodfins were more the spontaneous purchases. I guess the blood fins are kind of in the middle but CPDs and Rams are opposite ends of the temp ranges.

FYI I'm running at 25 °C which if I'm understanding is actually the lower end of the Rams temperature range not 27 °C as you quote but this is according to https://aquadiction.world/species-spotl ... m-cichlid/ but I appreciate they would prefer the tank a little warmer.

The CPDs are the ones which are probably most out of their comfort zone so I know my choices are not the best informed. You'd have thought the guy at the LFS would have told me this as I've bought all my fish there!

Thank you for the information, I'm here to learn!

[fluxtor]

My tank today.




Still battling the algae on a weekly basis. Experimented with different lighting periods with some success but still haven't found the right solution.

I'm wondering if reducing the light intensity would help? I know you can get an online dimmer for this light so maybe that might work?

[fr499y]

Lowering the intensity of the light will certainly help with the algae issues.

[Martinspuddle]

Your aquarium is a young setup and every aquarium does go through various algae stages but your aquarium is going to have issues in summer with that skylight over the top of it. Might pay to install a blind on that skylight window.

Try splitting your photoperiod, few hours in the morning and some for evening viewing.