PSYCHO Junkyard

         
      So my attempt to blog again seems to have gone well so far. Probably because the topic I chose was the easiest and my favourite too. The only thing I told myself when I started my aquarium post was to at least post 5 blogs about it. I am glad I reached that milestone. That brings us to the question "What next?". The so called psycho junkyard does not quite live up to its name. Moving ahead, I will sincerely try to add more junk to my blog in the form of movie reviews, book reviews, random thoughts that I get while I'm at the loo, starting at the walls and of course the aquarium adventures. Lets see how it goes..

                    Day 64 now and I have quite a few updates to share. First and foremost, all that I mentioned in my previous post seem to have helped in getting rid of the algae. I finally got to see the brown tinge fade away and the greenery spreading out. In the process of all this I lost a couple of my Amano shrimps and 3 Red Cherry Shrimps. But rest of the tank (fauna and flora) are healthy as ever.

                    A few plant additions. I was quite worried about the carpet growth on the rocky side of my tank. I had planted some glossostigma but they didn't progress that well. Its plainly because I chose to do that in a very wrong time when I was fighting algae and reducing my lighting period. Now things are back to normal. So my lighting period has been restored to 8 hrs a day ( 4 hrs in the morning and 4 in the evening). So I replaced the glosso with dwarf hairgrass. They have been doing well and finally giving some green color to the barren rocky hill. My wife and I felt we had made the tank a little too green now. You can see that from the image on my homepage. The Rotala wallichi gives a nice rose tip and gives a great effect, but I felt there should be more red added now. Currently I am on the lookout for some red plants. My next pic update should have the plant.

                A digital lighting timer was a long time pending addition to my tank. I personally enjoy keeping my tank less automated so I get to spend dedicated time with it. But with some curiosity on how the timers work and keeping my future travel plans in mind, I decided to go for one. I got a Frontier Digital Timer from ebay and it took pretty less time to setup and works like a charm. So my lighting period now is 7 to 11 AM and 5 to 9 PM.

               And the final update as the picture above shows, is a dream come true moment for me to add 4 beautiful discus fishes to my tank. Its been a long pending item. I was a little scared of adding them as I hear from people that it is a sensitive fish and adding discus to planted tank makes it a double challenge for you. Well! What's in life if its not challenging? I thought if I came this far , then why not take a step further. So came the brave moment when I got these little beauties. My biggest worry right now is that they haven't eaten much in the last week. As I understand that they are too shy initially and take some time to settle down, I wait with fingers crossed....

            This part of my life is called "Fighting Algae".No aquarist can escape from this and I am in a way glad that my turn came in at a very early stage of my planted aquarium venture. You must have enjoyed the beautiful picture of Riccia fluitans that I posted a few days back. This is the sad state of the moss now.


Why did this happen? Quite simple. It all boils down to the basics.

The first and most important mistake is maintaining the levels. A newly planted tank always takes its time to get the balance right. If you thought you got the levels right, you cannot just maintain that in the initial stages. Because, your plants are growing, your nutrient levels are changing, you add more fish, you feed them. With so much going on, one has to be alert and keep a watch on the plant growth levels and keep a lookout for algae. The first and most basic solution to most problems is a regular water change. I guess I neglected it a little too much. With 4 X 54 watt lights on, CO2 at 2-3 bubbles per second, I should have kept a watch on the nutrient levels and did weekly water changes.

Leaving all the analysis aside, here is the problem in hand. How to get rid of them? Damage control begins! I have got a lot of suggestions from folks in indianaquariumhobbyist forum and here is what I am doing right now.

- Did a 20% water change
- Brought the CO2 level up a little
- Brought down light intensity ( only 2 tubes on now) and reduced photoperiod to 6 hrs
- Added an initial 20 ml of Seachem Flourish Excel and 5 ml on alternate days
- Did a manual scraping of some algae on glass and most of the hair algae using a brush.
- Some pruning of plants
- Added some micro and macro nutrients to boost plant growth

After all this, there is a fair amount of progress. The hair algae have cleared up on one side of the tank but my Riccia still has a long way to go. But such big change in water chemistry always comes with a cost. In my case, it was the death of 2 of my Amano shrimps and 2 Red Cherry shrimps. :( I hope there is no further damage and things get restored soon.

This too shall pass..

          It has been 4 weeks now. Quite a satisfying progress. The plants have established pretty well. There was some algae attack to take care of in between but it was not all that serious. Some green dot and hair algae had shown up ( which I believe is quite expected a new planted setup) but my algae eaters have done the job quite well and kept things under control.

        I now have populated the tank with Siamese Algae Eaters, Cherry Red Shrimps, Rummynose Tetras and Neon Tetra. Did a mistake of getting a pair of Bolivian Rams. They were not supposed to be good companions for the shrimps and I got feedback from folks to get rid of them. Dejection or loneliness seems to have got to them before me. They quit the aquatic world shortly and brought the shrimps out of their hideouts.

        I am continuing to do weekly 10% water changes and regular trimming of plants. The only worry right now is the carpet grass not getting spread on the left. I see some grass budding out but nothing significant. Got to do something about it...

       Here is how the tank evolved so far:

    Day 1:


    Day 4:


    Day 7:

There must have been times when you have been in long train journeys where you have nothing to do. You only get to do some visual work. Enjoy the scenery, the people , etc. You walk around the train and see a good set of people totally engrossed in their novels/newspapers/magazines. You wonder what they really enjoy about sitting in a place and reading. You wonder and wonder and you get back to your berth , wrap yourself in your little space again.

And then the wondering gets to peak and you get to talk to your reading friends about what they really enjoy about reading. You get the same constant answer. "Why don't you give it a try?". You very much want to give it a try but your so called inner ego shields you from doing it. And so you carry on saying its not your kinds. And then days pass . You get more and more curious. You want to give it a try. You take a book that might interest you. For a start, a medical thriller. You start with one book and you end up reading two, the second being the oxford dictionary. You give up again thinking this is definitely not your kinds. You forget it all for a while and be back to your happy outdoor calorie-burning activities. And then you travel time and suddenly you are in a mood to try it all again. You start reading Harry Potter. You read the first book and the second and third and fourth. You are not so well in love with any of the characters. You don't find the faintest of attachments with any of them . You know the series goes dull and the pages just got more for money making. But still you keep reading it all aloud and make your inner self close its ears.

And so your reading spree begins. You feel you have crossed the first barrier. You are not bothered about all those aspects good readers want: writing style , strong characters , philosophy, blah..blahs. You keep away from all those. You only pick books where people go into meaningless missions into dense forests, find talking gorillas , showing them routes to the hidden treasures . You end up reading every such book and you are totally happy about updating all those read books in your shelfari account. You are simply too proud that you are about to finish reading a hundred books.

And then one fine morning you get to read a blog of your friend about books he/she has read. You see a quick light in your eyes. You run through the entire blog series to see how many of those books you have read. You hardly find any. You wonder whats going on. You start reading the blog. You read about the characters, the mood , the style and what not. And then you walk to your book-shelf , visually run through the books and try to recollect about those books you have read. You only see a blank line running in your head.

And then you decide to give one of those books a try. You quickly narrow down on a couple of books and start reading them. Suddenly you feel everything makes sense now. You get to really think about what you are reading. You involuntarily begin to appreciate the writing style, the imagination , the perspective. You now get to realize all those 90 books you have read do not tag you as a reader. Your journey as a reader has just begun.

Well, if any of this is not you, it certainly is me .