20150130 Seachem

Seachem is a pretty popular company among aquarium trade and hobbyists alike. They have a wide range of products crossing the freshwater, planted, and reef spectrums.
Since I use and test out a wide range of brands and products, I am not writing this particular post to promote Seachem or praise their product. In fact, I find most of the products, regardless of brand, to perform in the similar range. What's really important is the hobbyists own husbandry and keeping up with maintenance.

That being said, I am impressed with some of these tools designed and distributed by Seachem. I have always wanted to have a more complete snipping and trimming tool for planted tanks with precision and also to be stainless! Check out these snippers! Most of them retail for range of $7 to $20ish.

Seachem also provide a wide range of readily prepared food for your fish and coral. I have rarely used these products since I produce my own fish food for the most part.

20141008 Freshwater Angelfish

I have been posting almost exclusively saltwater content sometimes it seems like I don't have any freshwater tanks at all! But like most aquarists, I also began my adventure with freshwater.

Here is a photo of my 75 Gallon freshwater setup. I wanted to do a planted tank. But with four plecos in this tank I don't know if that's a good idea. I have four Angelfish, five Denison's barbs (they are beautiful), five Congo tetras (2 male, 3 female), 3 Pearl Gourami, and an assortment of tetras. The four plecos I have are 1 bushy nose, 1 gold nugget, 1 leopard, and 1 snowball. Ironically, the last three are the most expensive fish I have in the tank yet are the least seen!

New freshwater light

My previous light on the Freshwater 46 Bowfront was a Marineland double bright LED system for about two years. The light actually ended its life sooner than I thought it should. The light began flickering and died. So this time I purchased Current USA LED light. The review is still out. I shall report back in a month or two:

Freshwater painted

Last week I decided to move my 42bow freshwater tank downstairs. The main reason is I installed a new faucet to my kitchen sink and it is not compatible to any of my python's adopters! So I have not changed the water for this tank for nearly two months, ew~

I used this opportunity to clean the tank, toss out an old Drs foster and smith hang on filter. Clean out my Hagen fluval filter(which I still think is the best hand on filter ever), bought a powerhead to increase flow, and painted the back of this tank black.

How to tackle algae problem in a planted tank?

A month ago my planted tank (bow front 46 gallon) had a nasty algae break out. And I had to take drastic measures to control it. I am sure many of your have also experienced algae issues as I have. It is one of the biggest headaches for many hobbyist. And from all the stories I have heard, probably the #2 reason for people to exit the hobby behind disease/parasite breakout.

Algae is naturally occuring in the water. There is almost no way for anyone to avoid it. Even if you use strictly RO/DI water from the 1st day of your tank set up. The bag you have brought the new fish home from the pet store is full of algae cells. Even if you dump the water out, you cannot dry off the fish's slime coat to rid of the algae already attached to them. With that said, there are ways to prevent them:

1) Light. As anything else that relies on photosynthesis to survive and thrive, algae needs light to grow and take over the tank. Some people keep their tank's light on for over 10 hours a day. The prolonged photo-period is the easiest way to encourage algae growth. If you have a planted tank, and you need to leave the light that long to allow your plants to grow, it means your light is too dim. What you should do is upgrade to a brighter light source and shorten the photo period to no longer than 8 hours.

2) Dissolved nutrient. Like any other creatures, light is not the only thing that is required for growth. Algae also need minerals and dissolved nutrient such as nitrate to thrive. If you have minimum lighting in your tank and your algae is still growing like weed, you might want to cut back on your feeding and up your water change frequency.

3) Prey. There are many critters to select from your local aquarium stores to help control the algae pest by consuming them. The options range from algae eating fish to algae nipping shrimps. Be careful with what you select though. The common pleco can grow into a foot long monster and will require additional feeding to satisfy its appetite. My best recommendations are amano shrimps and otocinclus catfish (grow to 1 inch long). Other no-no is the Chinese algae eater (becomes large and aggressive), and the flying fox (abandons the algae diet once it matures). And also compliment the cleaning crew with a few cute cory cats as they will help pick up all the table scraps.

4) Chemicals* Finally, there are chemicals you can acquire from stores to control algae as well. Personally I do not recommend it as it can be very harmful to your fish as well. Especially the sensitive catfish and any invertebrates you have.

The picture above is my tank a month after the battle. I have taken three drastic measures: 1) Rid of all my plants that were infested. 2) Turn the light on for only 2-3 hours while we are home in the evening and then turn it off before bedtime. 3) Cut back on feeding volume.

So far it has worked well, the once blooming algae is now under control. My next phase is to upgrade my light to a brighter source, reselect and stock my plants so I can enjoy my freshwater garden again.