Saturday, March 24, 2012

Introduction

My aquarium was set up in January this year.
However, the filter started operating 2. February 2012. It was cycling for 6 weeks and then, the fishes (7x Tanichthys Micagemmae) were settled in it. After a few days, a hull of garlic was added for 3 days, to prevent any diseases and the possibility of internal parasites.

The aquarium dimensions are 60x30x30 cm. It can hold 54 litres.
It has one 15W T8 light.

The plants:
Ceratophyllum
Hydrocotyle Leucocephala
Egeria Densa
Anubias barteri var. Nana
Taxiphyllum barbieri
Flame moss
and Monosolenium Tenerum

But the problem is that Hydrocotyle Leucocephala (in the back) doesn't have enough light, so it is rather pale. Other plants look and grow well.

Here is the picture of my little bucket on 25. March 2012.
I do apologize for the dirty glass. I didn't remove the filter, the heater and the thermometer because I want you to see how this aquarium actually looks.
This is not the final composition, so there is still plenty of room for plants.

My aquarium

I measured water parameters on 1. March 2012.
The results (approximate):

No3: 0-10 mg/l
No2: 0
GH: 16 dGH
KH: 15 dH
pH: 7,6-8,0


Total water hardness was reduced on approximate 11 dGH before the fish invasion. For this task, I used one of those Brita filters. When the filter is new, it can reduce total water hardness to something like 3 dGH. So I calculated how much litres do I need to reduce the water hardness to 11 degrees.


Brita filter


I did all this stuff just because my fishes (Tanichthys micagemmae) really like soft water.