# 2ft Endler's livebearer tank



## Justikanz (Nov 4, 2005)

Hi!! I custom made a 2ft (24" x 16" x 18") tank for Endler's Livebearers. Here it is...



















The tank is lit by 2 x 24W T5HO and kept to 23-28C by a fan in the day and air-conditioning at night. The tank is currently being filtered by a EDEN 501 canister and a hang-on filter (unknown brand). Thinking of removing the hang-on later as the outflow is disturbing the plant growth.

Plants include _Lobelia cardinalis_, _Blyxa japonica_, _Elatine triandra_, _Hottonia palustris_, _Limnophila sessiflora_, _Ranunculus papulentus_, _Echinodoras tenellus_ and _Salvannia sp_.

Fertilization is by Seachem Excel, Phosphate, Flourish and Flourish Trace.

Flora now includes 120 x Endler's livebearers, 2 x bristlenose, n x cherry shrimps, ramshorn snails and nerite snails. Thinking of adding neon and red-finned gobies... But am afraid that they will harm the Endler's and the shrimps. Any idea?

Algae is growing on the rocks... Which should keep the gobies happy if I add them...

Some pictures...








































































Any comments? The Blyxa japonica seem to not do too well... Am thinking of either adding more Lobelia cardinalis or Echinodoras tenellus to have the sloping effect...

Also, the high lighting is causing some spot algae on the glass and hair algae on some of the plants...


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## SinSisteR (Mar 8, 2006)

The layout seems nice. dun add too much fishes in the tank just sufficient will do or else it will seems messy. the lighting if it's causing algae reduce the lenght of exposure like reduce to 5-6 hrs. and put more shrimps to take out the algae


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## MikeD (Feb 26, 2006)

Looks very nice. Maybe you should take out the outlflow pipe and the other things when you take the pictures, because they dont look good like this.
But the layout is well done!


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## chili_is_hot (Dec 2, 2005)

I'v always liked the look of alge on rocks/wood, especialy the type that you have, it gives it caracter,and makes it look more wild, natural, and lived in. I agree taking a few of the fish will make it look messy. also the hardscape is good, you just have to let the plants grow into it. also get a back ground. in a month it will look realy good.


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## Jdinh04 (Oct 7, 2004)

The tank looks decent however you still have a long ways to go. I also have a 2ft tank, but the width is shorter, its a standard size 20g. When I first recieved my blyxa, it didn't do too well for the first 1-2 weeks. However, I just kept it there and finally it started to grow really well. What are your nitrate levels? Make sure they are between 15-20ppm, and keep the CO2 up as well. Reading from APC's algae finder section, you may want to increase your PO4 to 2ppm. 

Also cutting down on your lighting hours will help as well, I also have some green spot algae thats appearing on the glass of my tank (this was probably caused due to the stop piece on my timer fell off so my tank light was on for over 20 hours before I noticed that it was missing) however it was resolved. I also cut down my light hours from 10 to 8 hours and hopefully the algae will start to go away.


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## JerseyScape (Nov 18, 2005)

Very nice Endlers. Your females seem sort of small, are they young? My Endler females are about 3x the size of my males.


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## Justikanz (Nov 4, 2005)

Yes, there are only a couple of old females. I started with only 2-4 pairs a few months back...


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