My Ever Changing Life....

I was getting bored of the layout of my tank so I decided to give it a little white sand to brighten it up. I also purchased some lava rock to give a little more dimension. Perhaps having 2 large hardscape pieces might be a bit much, but it has grown on me.

I made this change about 2 weeks ago and have not had a chance to post it on my neglected blog. The past couple of months have been hectic. This includes a bridal shower, Easter, a wedding, several birthdays, and too much overtime at work.

I made the big decision to study Civil/Environmental Engineering at CalPoly San Luis Obispo starting Fall 2014. As a bonus to this great news, I can take my tank with me! I was granted housing on the On Campus Apartments. After carefully reading the terms and conditions, it states that "Licensees shall not bring or keep any animal in or around University Housing other than fish in aquariums." :) They don't say anything about shrimp.

But I can always get a fish if someone complains. But who would complain when they see THIS BEAUTY:

One other big event coming up in my life is a month long trip to Europe! I'm very excited for that. My tank will have to fend for itself for a month because I don't trust anyone in my family to take care of it. I think it should be ok, but before I leave for my trip, I will have to relocate the entire tank... somewhere in the house, so that my sister and her husband can start preparing the room for their new little human. All will be well! I will try to post more soon. 

Ditch the moss!

So I decided to ditch the moss, because I did not buy enough to make a good mat, and it grows very slowly. It did start to grow a bit, but with recent acceptance letters from graduate schools, I am now on a time limit on how much longer I will have my tank! Maybe, if the school I choose is close enough, I may be able to keep my tank. If not, one lucky person gets to have my tank.

I still want to create a carpet of some sort, but didn't want to try another moss because I wanted a lighter green carpet cover to contrast with the darker leaves of the anubias. I decided to pick hemianthus callitrichoides (HC) also known as dwarf baby tears. I have never used HC before so I hope that it will do well in the tank. I will post a plant profile about it in a week or two so that I can give a better review of the plant.




I also purchased this plant:


I'm not 100% sure what it is, but if I were to guess it is a ludwigia repens also known as creeping primrose. I thought the red color would give more life to the tank, and add more coverage as well. The shrimp are enjoying the new plants!

Aquarium Products: Flourish Excel by Seachem

At the beginning of this month I noticed a sudden explosion in the amount of hair algae in my tank and decided to do a little search on the plantedtank forums to see how people were getting rid of their hair algae issues. Many people were doing peroxide dips which requires you to mix a small amount of peroxide and water and dipping the affected plants. This seemed dangerous to the plant and it also would be inconvenient because my plants are placed strategically on the manzanita wood.

The other solutions to the problem was to: 

1) increase the amount of carbon in the tank 

2) do more frequent minor water changes

3) raise your lighting 

At first I started with increasing the carbon amount by using Flourish Excel by Seachem ($9 on amazon.com). I've been using this product for about a week now and noticed the first signs of it working within the first day. The hair algae began to change to a bright orange color and did not spread as quickly as it had before. Much of the algae began to shrink back and become lighter and weaker. 

The extra liquid carbon did not do any harm to my plants at all! Infact it has improved the growth in my plants. I was afraid that the moss would not do well with the added carbon, but there is an obvious difference between the dying hair algae and the growing moss. 

I started the use of the liquid carbon, by doing a major water change, then shocking the tank with a 2x higher concentration of the flourish excel carbon than recommended, then for every day after I added the recommended dose. 

I also started to do the minor water changes more often, and raised my lights from the tank as seen in my previous post. :) Really love the addition of flourish excel in my tank. I highly recommend it! 

P.S. In case you are wondering, the shrimp don't seem to have any negative effects from it either. 

DIY Project: Light Stand

Ever since the first week I bought my LED lights I've been complaining about how low to the tank the lights were.

Since I mainly have plants that do not require much light to grow, I've been OK leaving the tank lights on the lower setting. However, it's pretty annoying to know that I have a light with a high and low setting, but I can't use the high setting because it is too close to the water! With the lights close to the tank, it produces more heat and the brightness can also harm the leaves of the plants as well.



Challenges:
1) Try not to put holes in the wall. 
This is especially important since I do not own the house I'm living in. 
2) Don't cover the rim of the tank.
What's the point of a rimless tank, if you're gonna put a rim on it? 
3) Try not to make it ugly.
4) Make it simple.
Let's face it, I'm not the best at DIY, I didn't grow up learning to be a master craftsman, so let's not complicate things.
5) Keep the budget low.
I don't make enough money to make it expensive. If I did, I wouldn't be doing a DIY project, I'd just have someone else make it!

With all of these things in mind, I finally figured out what I could do to make my light stand. I went to HomeDepot and walked around the store about 50 times to get some inspiration from the materials they had. The employees looked at me like I was crazy (especially since I was wearing a dress and opened toed sandals). I walked into the lumber section and noticed the scrap wood section. I grabbed 4 pieces of 1ftx.75inx.75in pieces and had 2 pieces of 3ftx.75inx.75in cut in half for me. The total cost was about 5 dollars (that's goal number 5 settled). I also purchased some nails and a couple of corner braces (All together the cost was under $10).


At home I sketched up a little idea that looked something like this: (goals # 1,2, and 4 settled)

Then I started hammering away!

The end product looks like this:

The thin pieces of light colored wood makes it pleasing to look at, but it also does not take away from what's really important, which is the tank itself! (I think I settled goal #3 here). I'm so happy that I can finally turn on my light at full blast without having to worry about it heating up the water or burning the leaves. Hopefully this added light will make my plants grow like mad!

Plant Profile: Fissidens Fontanus

Why I love this plant: this moss has a delicate look to it with a nice light green coloration and clings to wood and stones naturally.

Fissidens Fontanus is also known as Pheonix Moss. Although it is on the pricey side, growing a nice thick carpet of it will give the tank a nice full leafy green look to it. I purchased my moss off of ebay from some sellers in Singapore. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Fissidens-fontanus-Live-Aquarium-Plant-Fish-Moss-Tank-/260713686058 I wish I had purchased more, however, it's a pretty expensive and hard to come across! It took me a long time to find this moss. I wanted to buy it from a seller in the US, but it never seems to be in stock. If anyone knows where I can get more fissidens, I would love to know!

Fissidens Fontanus grows quite slowly for a moss, but it is often used to make a carpet or to cover driftwood. The shrimp love the moss and enjoy grazing through them. It originates from the US and is easy to care for. Once it takes root, it does not need much maintenance. It does not require extra CO2 and only needs low light to thrive.

I have attempted to try and grow a moss mat, but I don't think i purchased enough to start one. Also, I left the moss in a cup to the side of the tank for a little too long, and lost quite a significant amount from my original purchase. The moss that I have put into the tank is starting to grow, so perhaps it will start to really take root in another month or so.

I followed this technique to make the carpet square: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMJzW7-iI08

What do you feed your shrimp?

It's always a great feeling when someone asks me: "What do you feed your shrimp?" and I reply with a simple: "I don't." The confusion and shock on their face makes me happy inside.

Part of what I wanted my tank to be was self sustaining. The substrate and light provides the plants with nutrients and energy to grow, and the shrimp live off of the algae that's bound to grow on the plants! Of course... in a closed environment like the tank, I do have to add some extra nutrients for the plants, but I add it to the water I use for water changes.

It is important, that even if you only have shrimp and plants, that you do regular water changes. A closed system will not be able to have pollutants wash downstream or be diluted by new water, unless more water is added!


However, if your substrate and filter are able to house enough good bacteria, the effects of nutrient pollution may lessen. I can sit here watching my shrimp and plants all day!

DIY Project: Rimless Tank Cover

EVAPORATION. 

This winter weather has been taking away all of the water in my tank (I say "winter" but really... I live in Southern California...I really shouldn't complain). My sister's fiance turns on the heating system in the house to keep the house warm at night. (Too warm in my opinion! I am sweating bullets when I wake up in the morning). But because of the dry heat, it causes the water in my tank to evaporate at an alarming rate! In one week I loose about 1.5 cm of water from the top of my tank. So, to combat the rate of evaporation, I had to create a cover for the tank. I'm not the best at DIY so give me a break about how it looks OK?!?! Maybe I'll give it a second go. But for now this will do. 

Purchased some cover "clips" off of amazon.com for about $8. They're not really clips. They are more like slips. I thought I purchased 5mm clips, but they turned out to be 6mm, but it works anyways. The slips don't fit perfectly on the glass and kinda hang down a little (boooo! dislike!) but it works to hold up the acrylic sheet I purchased from homedepot. 

I bought a large 32x20inch sheet of acrylic. I mainly purchased this big sheet just in case I messed up (which I did). At first I started cutting the acrylic using an acrylic scorer. Basically, you score the plastic sheet in the same area until the plastic is thin enough to break. It didn't really work out the way I wanted it to. So instead I grabbed a hacksaw, and used my ultra DIY skills and just cut along the line I drew out on the acrylic. I continued to use the ugly acrylic that I broke wrong because I didn't want to waste any acrylic. It looks uneven because of the bad breaking after scoring, not because of my sawing skills! I didn't care to make it fit perfectly to the shape of my tank because I figured it was easier to cut a rectangular shape than a bowfront. Plus I needed something quick and easy to put on my tank ASAP. I did, however, remember to cut out a section for the filter! 

After cutting everything up, I placed the clips on the glass, and laid the acrylic that I cut out on top. Looks like this!

Hopefully the water won't evaporate as much. Plus, now that I know I can just hacksaw the acrylic, I might try again to cut the sheet to fit the top of the aquarium better. All I need is to find the time to do it! Busy busy! 

Happy Belated Birthday to Me!

Another book!

A good friend of mine, Louise Le, recently gave me the book Encyclopedia of Aquarium&Pond Fish by David Alderton. 

This book is great for fish identification and includes both Freshwater and Marine Fish. Each fish described has information on its origin, size, diet, water, and temperament, along with its scientific name and a picture of the fish.

It also includes some detail about freshwater and marine tank setups, medicines/illnesses, breeding, and an introduction to fish-keeping.

This book does not have much information about aquarium plants, but it does have information on pond plants.

I think this book is better for freshwater fish and pond information, but is also a great book for beginners just like the Mini Encyclopedia of Aquarium Plants book I have mentioned in an earlier post.

The Biology of a Plant

Happy New Year!

To celebrate this special occasion, I thought I'd make a little post about the basic biology of a plant... with a bit of hand sketched doodling to add in a little fun! In my opinion, if one is to set up a planted tank, one should know a little about how plants work. With several ecology and biology courses under my belt, plant systems have repeatedly been hammered into my mind, but for those who have not had the honor of taking such courses, I want to share the basic details of a plant. So... here goes!

A plant's basic structure contains the following:
**note there are certainly plenty of variations depending on the plant and I'm also leaving a lot of details out.


A shoot system and a root system.

The shoot system is found above the substrate and is where you typically find, the stem, leaves, and flowers. It has many functions such as plant structure, reproduction, nutrient transportation and photosynthesis.


The root system of a plant is the part of the plant that is typically found below the substrate. This can include things such as taproots, lateral roots, or rhizomes (like those found on Anubias sp.). The main functions of roots are to provide a method for nutrient absorption and to provide support for the plant.


Just for the fun of making this post even longer... let us dig into plant cells!

Plant cells are different to animal cells mainly because plant cells have a cell wall and chloroplasts. There are many parts to a cell but I am going to focus on  the chloroplasts.

Photosynthesis occurs in the chloroplasts. Light energy is captured and used along with water molecules and carbon dioxide to synthesize sugars. A bi-product of oxygen is also created in this process. If the sugar is not used immediately, it is stored as starch. Rhizomes are examples of where starch can be stored in a plant. When the plant needs more energy, it converts the starch back into sugars so that it can go on expending its energy to grow flowers, new leaves, roots, ect.

And ta-da! That's my basic description of plant biology. Any academic would probably shake their finger at me for butchering all the details, but I think I summed it up pretty well!

**note: vocab definitions were taken from http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com

Shoot System Vocabulary
-Lateral Bud:A bud located on the side of the stem, usually in a leaf axil
-Terminal Bud:A small swelling on a branch or stem, containing an undeveloped shoot, leaf, or flower and occurs at the end of a stem, twig, or branch
-Leaf Blade: usually green, flattened, lateral structure attached to a stem and functioning as a principal organ of photosynthesis and transpiration in most plants.
-Node:the place on a plant stem where a leaf is attached
-Stem: the above ground structures that have vascular tissue and that support leaves and flowers

Root System Vocabulary:
-Tap Root:enlarged, somewhat straight to tapering plant root that grows downward. 
-Lateral Root:extend horizontally from the primary root (radicle) and serve to anchor the plant securely into the soil. This branching of roots also contributes to water uptake, and facilitates the extraction of nutrients required for the growth and development of the plant.

Plant Cell Vocabulary:
-Cell Wall: the tough, usually flexible but sometimes fairly rigid layer that surrounds some types of cells
-Golgi Apparatus:packages proteins inside the cell before they are sent to their destination; it is particularly important in the processing of proteins
-Vacuole:enclosed compartments which are filled with water containing inorganic and organic molecules including enzymes in solution, though in certain cases they may contain solids which have been engulfed
-Chloroplast: conducts photosynthesis and carries out almost all fatty acid synthesis in plants, and are involved in a plant's immune response.
-Endoplasmic Reticulum: Rough endoplasmic reticulum are the sites of protein synthesis. The smooth endoplasmic reticulum is concerned with lipid metabolism, carbohydrate metabolism, and detoxification
-Nucleus:the control center of a cell, containing the cell's chromosomal DNA
-Nucleolus: transcribes ribosomal RNA (rRNA) and assembles it within the cell.
-Mitochondria: generates most of the cell's supply of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) and is involved in other tasks such as signaling, cellular differentiation, cell death, as well as the control of the cell cycle and cell growth.