# Jeffboyarrdee's 50 gallon ADA Amazon



## jeffboyarrdee (Jun 9, 2007)

Hello! alot has grown out since the last update. My balansae is growing slowly and some leaves still melt. I thought it was the ammonia or water quality so i kept a regime of Brighty K, Step 1, and Green bacter for the beneficial bacteria growth. The water quality is better, but still dirty because i have 10 peruvian angels. Should i get rid of maybe 4 angels? I know that even my crypt lutea and crypt pygmea look stunted and dont seem to be growing, but dont seem to be dying. Is there a reason why? or anything that i can do to make them grow?


























here is a link to my original thread on planted tank.

http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/photo-album/31549-jeffboyarrdees-50-ada-amazon-6-19-a.html


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## goalcreas (Nov 20, 2006)

Wow, that hairgrass sure took off, looks great and filled in rather quickly, I have not been able to get mine to do it like that. Any tips?

Great looking tank, all that work paid off.


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## jeffboyarrdee (Jun 9, 2007)

the best thing to do is actually trim your hair grass ya know semi short...below the halfway point down the stalk. You wouldnt think this would do anything, but it promotes new runners and it fills in more densely with each trim. usually two trims would make a perfect lawn. i also have bright enough light and CO2. But the trimmings help alot.


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## LindaC (Nov 7, 2005)

Your tank looks great, I love the set up and from the photographs, the plants look very healthy!


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## goalcreas (Nov 20, 2006)

Then a trimming I will go.
does that work withe the Giant hairgrass as well?


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## freakmonkey1423 (Jan 21, 2007)

Just inspired me to "mow". I think the angles are beautiful. If they are producing too much waste, I would pull a few. I just took half my guppies out of a tank and the water looks clearer than it did, and it was pretty clear...


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## dhavoc (Mar 17, 2006)

mowing it does wonders. i do it more to keep it from overgrowing my eriocaulons and other smaller foreground plants, but it comes back thicker than before. kinda like a real lawn does. mine is now so thick it looks better than my real lawn outside, i can almost make it look like a golf course fairway. i use garden shears and regular scissors, makes an ungodly mess, but the clippings float, and whatever i dont net out rots away pretty quickly. makes a much better carpet than HC IMO, at least the clippings rot, and dont float around your tank forever....


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## DonaldmBoyer (Aug 18, 2005)

Great job! Any concern, though, when your angels get bigger of the tank perhaps being a tad too small?


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## jeffboyarrdee (Jun 9, 2007)

im hoping 6 angels will do ok if they are full grown? i know they arent growing that fast either. Im sure others or i myself can tell if the tank is too small for the number of fish when they get to the size. I will surely find someone who will take care of them or maybe donate them to the steinhart aquarium. I will enjoy these angels while i have them...i love the wild caught nature they have to them, they are very tame and passive.


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## goalcreas (Nov 20, 2006)

Just got done cropping all my hairgrass, hopefully it will start taking off.


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## jeffboyarrdee (Jun 9, 2007)

Ok everyone...there has been a major change in the scape and plants in this tank since my last update. I was having trouble growing crypts, i guess the tank was getting dirty fast and with such a great bioload i couldnt keep up with the cleaning and syphoning because the wood was in the way for the most part, and my crypts werent really growing fast enough to fight off some algae. SO i thought that i would re-do the aquascape because i wasnt really pleased with the wood before, and i wanted to use faster growing plants. So i traded all my balansae for valsneria nana, and i got rid of the becketti and got cyprus helferi. I have planted these in hopes that they would grow faster, and help keep my tank a little cleaner. and the wood arrangement makes it alot easier for me to gravel vac most areas of the tank without have to struggle. This tank is probably only a week old, so the water JUST cleared up because i had a bacteria bloom and so when the plants grow out it will hopefully look alot better, and definitely different. As for the java ferns, they are needle leaf java fern in the middle, and the two sides have phillipines java fern which is like a mini java fern and it stays small and the veins in the leaves are more distinct, its a very beautiful plant, one of my favorites.

as for the fish i had lost 2 angels due to internal infections and they had died of starvation, i managed to heal the 8 left, and i took out my SAE's cuz they were eating all the worms and getting real big. An d i took out the 2 chocolate guoramis and i added 2 gudgeon fish, and 2 AMAZON pUFFERS which are AWESOME!


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## jeffboyarrdee (Jun 9, 2007)

This tank still gets real dirty for some reason. I dont know why. I know maybe dead leaves or debrit just is in random places. Maybe its my filtration even though i think the flow is strong enough. I added 6 amanos to the group so maybe they'll help clean up my mosses.


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## arowanaman (Jun 14, 2006)

aqua soil likes to do this to your water no matter how big the filter is. The cure is Clear super, and green bacter from ADA these combined together make for clear water every time. It just might take a few day's to really work.


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## aquanut (Jun 26, 2007)

hey jeff, are you not using purigen? use about 4x as much as they recommend and water looks great.

also curious to hear more about the ada products jordan mentioned. ie, how often do they get used, how long it seems to last etc....


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## jeffboyarrdee (Jun 9, 2007)

yea next time I'll try those methods. But this time I used Ada cleardash and green baxter and they worked good. Thanks for the tips.


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## jeffboyarrdee (Jun 9, 2007)

Here is another update since i left for school and came back this weekend for thanksgiving.
i actually cleaned this tank up last presidents day weekend, so i didnt really work on it this weekend.
the valsneria nana grew real fast, and the fish are still alive, and there is alot of algae, like hair algae and green slime all over the moss and grass, but sometimes its dying, and sometimes when i come back home its back like crazy. i think if i were home to do weekly water changes it would go away, but i guess its ok. the vals have algae on them too. =(


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## HoldingWine (Oct 7, 2007)

What kind of moss is that? Is that Java moss or "flame" moss? I think it looks pretty neat the way you had it kind of "layered" (if that makes any sense  ).


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## capn_kirkl (Jul 4, 2006)

I would be happy to come home for break to a jungle like that... Congrats. In your first picture in the journal, you have something attached to a powerhead on the right side of your tank. What is that? At first it looked like a power diffuser but I see the glass thingy on the left. Is that a SeaClear acrylic tank? Does it have the internal filter system?

Thanks
Kirk


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## rbittman (Apr 27, 2006)

For better clarity with bigger fish or bigger tanks, you could try installing an in-line UV sterilizer. In the short term you could borrow/buy a diatom filter and clean it up initially. Then, hopefully the uv will keep it clear. Tank is lovely.


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## jeffboyarrdee (Jun 9, 2007)

Yes that is java moss growing on the driftwood.

and initially i had a uv sterilizer connected to a powerhead when i first started my setups. the water is actually clear, but its juts that thte water is yellow from the driftwood. I think it helps the angelfish. and my tank is a truvu 50 gallon tank.

thanks for the comments, i am trying to battle the algae. But i cant do much because i am living in LA for school and my tank is back home in SF.


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## jeffboyarrdee (Jun 9, 2007)

the tank still has slimy algae as usual, if i only was able to keep up with water changes i could battle my algae, but for now the plants still grow and the fish still live.


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## EdTheEdge (Jan 17, 2007)

Very interesting thread. Those are some beautiful angels. Looks like you're doing pretty good against the algae. Keep up the good work.


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## jeffboyarrdee (Jun 9, 2007)

Ok so bad news...angels and puffers have been dying off one by one, since my brother doesnt really know how to take care of the fish...i thought just feeding them would be fine, but i dont know if he doest that consistently. So ive decided to take out whatever fish i had left and i got 3 pitbull plecos to go into the tank. So now my tank has no fish that really need to be fed. There are only a few amanos, a number of ottocinclus niger, and 3 pitbull plecos. the plecos only grow to be like 3-4 inches which is pretty small, and im hoping they would eat up alot of the algae that the dead carcasses created. Hopefully this new change will help with the algae while im away. but other than that...the tank is ok i guesss...alot of blue green slime algae...some green beard algae. Nothing a healthy tank cant compete!









The tank after a MAJOR cleaning!









the underside of a pitbull pleco, they are shy so its hard to get a picture of them.









one of the shrimp


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## goalcreas (Nov 20, 2006)

From what I hear, you got the right Pleco.
I heard they will devour all the algae and scum in your tank, but leave plants alone.
I have been wanting to try them out.
Post back on the job they are doing for you in a week or two to let us know how good or bad they are.


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## Genin (Jan 28, 2007)

good luck with the algae issues. the only bad thing that I have personally noticed with plecos is how much waste they produce. I mean good gosh, they are poop factories!


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