# 20G Long with a loach.



## Conankills (Aug 26, 2007)

Hello all!

I took a loooong break from checking this forum (2-3 years, give or take a month). 

My last posts were about some funky stuff happening in my 10G NPT. (A quick update on this tank - my Cichlid had outgrown it so I decided to dig out my 20G long from the attic and set it up as an NPT.) But this tank is not why I'm posting. 

I have another 20 Long, which has lots of gravel (about 2 inches) with 4 years of mulm build-up, no soil, 2 healthy-esque 4 year old Java Ferns, cool looking rocks, 2 pieces of drift wood, a loach, 3 elderly Gouramis, and a load of your average local wildlife supplied snails. Also, a branch from my Willow tree that I stuck in the tank that has sprouted roots and is happily growing leaves outside of the tank.

Obvious issues: Algae, bacteria, chemistry? What chemistry? A loach that loves to dig, laziness on my part, 1 single 26 W warm white CFL bulb 5 inches off top of water, the usual hang on side filter with no carbon (Duh!), a heater that I can hear in the other room when it turns on. Glass hood.

My question: since I can't have a dirt substrate due to my now 6-7 year old loach, I need to do something with the water so that it doesn't suffer from the present overload of nutrients in the water column. 
--Outside of Java Fern, what other plants can I stick in there that are stupid hardy, need no soil, and don't mind so-so lighting?--

Any input, questions, comments, condemnations are welcome!

BYTW: I turned my girlfriend onto a NPT bowl when I started feeling sorry for her Betta in his sterile, nasty plastic tank - so far so good on the NPT bowl, which is 2 weeks old. Once the Ammonia is checked the Betta is getting tossed in it!


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## Michael (Jul 20, 2010)

No condemnations here--it sounds like you really aren't having any severe problems. If you are just worried about excess nutrients in the water, do more frequent water changes.

Your tank fits the description one hears of old, stable tanks that go for years with minimal maintenance. The accumulated mulm in the gravel is serving the same purpose as old soil substrate--it has high CEC and can absorb nutrients from the water column and hold them. You have low fish stocking rates (I think, depending on size of the gouramis), moderate lighting, and slow growing plants. You don't need carbon in the filter, just plenty of bio-media and lots of flow.

It would help if you could get some strong rooted plants established to use those nutrients stored in the substrate. Try this: get some easy, strong rooted plants (Nymphaea, swords, vallisneria, sagittaria, pygmy chain sword, some types of cryptocoryne). Plant them under your single CFL, and arrange rocks to protect the roots from digging. The rock trick allows me to grow plants in a tank full of digging cichlids.

If you want to up the light a little, get a new CFL with a high Kelvin (Sylvania makes a 6500K) and mount it vertically, not horizontally. Higher Kelvin usually gives more PAR, and mounting vertically focuses more light into the tank.

These are just little tweaks to a tank that seems to be working pretty well as is.


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## tonnakpil (Jul 29, 2013)

Having a willow "tree" in your tank sounds cool. Do you have a photo of your tank? I'd love to see it. ☺☺


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## Conankills (Aug 26, 2007)

@ Michael - thanks for the advice. Since I'm moving my cichlid from the 10G NPT to the new 20 long, I think I will take the sword from the 10G (about 4 years old) and put it in the Loach/Gourami tank. My one concern will be that the plant roots might have to adjust to gravel with mulm from topsoil and sand (which I don't think should be an issue, but you never know). 
Also, I will change the mounting to vertical, though I'm still baffled at how this position change works. The light that I have is one of the $8 pinch-on jobs from Home Depot, so should I clamp it onto a pole (right now I have metal electrical conduit bent 45 degrees over the tank. I might just buy a new conduit and leave it standing) and angle it onto the water? I think I just confused myself.

@tonnakpill - umm... Right now fs I take a picture of the tank, I'm pretty sure your computer screen will malfunction then explode - it is not pretty, but the fish love it, as evidenced by them dying of nothing but old age. So, once I clean the glass, glass top, and everything else around it, I will post some pics.


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## Michael (Jul 20, 2010)

The reason for the position change is a phenomenon called restrike. The light from all fluorescent tubes radiates in all directions. This includes back into the tube itself, which decreases its efficiency. There is much more restrike in a CFL than in a straight tube because of the spiral shape. For some reason which I do not completely understand, if you use any type of reflector with CFLs they will produce more light in the direction you want if they are mounted vertically in the middle of the reflector. And it is not a small difference--tests show 50% to almost 100% more useful light in the vertical position!

The cheap clamp lights work well, just hang them from your conduit above the tank. I have a set-up like this over a 20 tall with the fixtures about 6" above the tank, and get a PAR of 35 at the substrate.


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## Conankills (Aug 26, 2007)

Update: due to holiday madness I have not done much with the loach 20L, but I will this coming weekend when my cichlid moves into her new tank. Once this happens I will move my Amazon and the other plant (forgot the name) into the loach tank from the old 10G. 

I will be posting pics as soon as that happens. 

In the meantime, I was planning to get a couple of Gold or black mystery snails for both tanks, however the new planted tank ( the cichlid's new home 20L) has a bunch of pond snails poopin' like a herd of cattle, so I'm not sure if I will be overloading the tank with all the snails and the fish (plus micro fauna, i.e.: copepods, polyps, worms etc.)

Any thoughts on how much bio load large snails carry? And what do they eat - bacteria or algae? I've searched but I have limited time to spend in front of a screen.

Thanks all and happy holidays!


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## Michael (Jul 20, 2010)

Less bioload than a fish of similar size or weight, but some mystery snails get pretty big. They eat algae, dead plant leaves and stems, left-over fish food, bacteria, and biofilm.


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## Conankills (Aug 26, 2007)

I will try the mystery snails. Maybe if I get lucky they will reproduce; I seem to have some good blind luck in having animals reproduce in my tanks, though usually it happens in the warmer months. 

I moved my cichlid on the 25th. She loves the bigger 20L play-pen (she being a Red Zebra African Cichlid, Metriaclima esthera of full 6 inch size). 

The Amazons are in the loach tank so I will get some pics of them this weekend.


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## Conankills (Aug 26, 2007)

This is the upstairs tank with the cichlid. As you can see, there's a slight algae problem.













Questions:

1. The water smells great! Just like a slow running woodland stream. Is this because of all the flora and fauna or because the water from the filter (sponge filter only) is splashing into the tank and somehow making it smell fresh? (I did do a smell test away from the splashing water And it still smells great.

2. It seems like the lighter color green hair-like algae is slimy, but can be pulled out of the thicket with fingers, while the dark colored hair-like algae is very stubborn on the hard non-living surfaces. What should I do to get rid of them? The toothbrush doesn't work as well as advertised. The pond snails seem to also be eating the light green algae (obviously not fast enough).

3. How should I trim back the jungle? Just nip each stalk at the base with fingernails or do some fancy angled cut with scissors? How much should I trim back?

My gut is telling me to prune the bushes and get rid of a majority of visible algae. I think the algae is serving a purpose and keeping everything fairly we'll balanced.

Thanks for any advice!

(Substrate is 60% aerated dirt, 40% kitty litter. Have other stowaway copepods, little worms, etc. from the old tank, pond snails too. 2 23W mid range compact fl. Bulbs, one 4" the other 6" off water surface. I'll do a chemistry test soon, but I got a feeling it will be good to go.)


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