DISASTER STRIKES!

stupid me forgot to take out the CO2 thingy yesterday before going to sleep…today was a real disaster. 5 of my scissortail rasboras, 1 zebra danio and the two kubotais died today.. I had to scoop them all out, flush the dead away quickly while all the still living ones would be in the 30 liter tank as an emergency (I must say, Apple was very gentle, he did not annoy any fish). I was really scared that my 3 Amano shrimps would also die but they got scooped out quickly. The rest of the shrimps,.. well I couldn’t scoop them all out they were just to much. I counted 20 died.. A lot of females too, not sure if Ill be able to retrieve the eggs… I had to make lots of water change and clean the whole thing out to find all the dead bodies.. so yeah..My plan was to clean the 30 liter tank but I just didn’t have ANY time today. And since I was thoroughly cleaning my brothers aquarium I decided to re-scape the whole thing and make it a whole more clean-friendly than before. the whole thing looks a bit empty now, but I just want to keep it that way until I find some nice foreground plants or so.. I also didn’t have any time to go to the fish store so that will happen tomorrow. Im not sure if Im going to buy directly new fish now.. It would be nice though but I just don’t know.. everything is a mess!

this is the old big tank (how it used to look like (salad-soup):

how it’s now (empty!):

the survivors!

update 28-02-2015

Here’s an update of all of my tanks (counting: 4 now..I think Im addicted; I really need to stop now). The first one, a +-10 liter planted tank, is currently on my little ikea table surrounded with chamber plants. I had to buy a clip-on lamp though, but Im happy I did it because the plants are growing well. I re-used one of the HOB filters and the shrimp heather (Im planning on selling the other one since I will not use it anymore). The NO2 and NO3 levels are still wayyy too high, but Im patient. I still have to wait at least 2 weeks.

oh and as future inhabitants: I really like yellow shrimps and maybe one or two snails. the tank’s function is to grow little plants though.. because you always need more plants!

citroen garnaal – yellow shrimp – neocaridina

I have good news for the second tank! I saw the baby shrimp again! yay, he survived (I could not take any good pictures of him, he’s soooo tiny). Im planning on buying new red cherries soon because 3 females died (found the problem but I still need to go to the store).  I also added a little bit more sand, to make the background a bit higher, the tank looks bigger now and there’s more light for the plants (see before and after pics). The anubia’s are growing very well, I have two new leaves already!

before: messy with plants growing everywhere.

after: more space and light enters!

 

The betta tank is also doing really well! The plants are growing fast and all inhabitants are are less shy (they often come closer to my finger now). Apple is a very friendly betta, he really doesn’t care about the buzzing kubotai’s (I love them, they are very active and so nice to look at) the scissortail rasboras are also less shy, and getting bigger everyday. their tails are bright yellow and black now (used to be light grey when they were stressed).

  

The last tank (the biggest) had some problems.. the tank is still empty, because of the high NO3 and NO2 levels. I tried to add as much as possible plants, to make the process quicker. I recently found out that my tap water wasn’t ideal for the tank (PH = HIGH, KH = super LOW, GH too, NO3 = high) so I started using rainwater now, It’s better but the KH is still very low and KH is okay’ish.. so yes, I have a slight green and brown algae problem, but Im planning on making a good bio-CO2 set to lower the PH and give the plants a boost.