Light Up My Tank

The rotala indica has been one of the more noticeable beneficiaries of the increase in CO2, and it is hanging over the front of the tank, much to the detriment of the lower plants. The glosso was taking a definite hit, and the upper rotala branches were emerging from the water, so I spent a bit of time Saturday morning clearing out all of the extra foliage.


Rotala indica was not the only victim, although it was the most thoroughly butchered. I also grabbed some ludwigia, stargrass, bacopa, foxtail, temple, a crypto wendtii, and some watersprites. This picture gives you an idea of what I had to throw away, much less that freezer bag worth of stuff that I brought to Alamo Aquatics.

The extra CO2 has been great for growth, and it's led to consistently high pearling all week, but the extra consumption has already "emptied" the tank. That is, the pressure is dropping below 1000 psi, so all the liquid CO2 has been consumed. I'm thinking about buying a 5 lb tank to increase the time between refills (aquariumplants.com has some affordable ones). If I stick with this higher flowrate, I'll have to refill more than once a month. With gas prices what they are, I'll probably save money. I'm also motivated by the fact that my tank seems to be breaking; it seems to leak after every refill, and I'm not sure they can keep tightening whatever nut that's causing trouble.


My new bulbs (26 watt, 6400 K) from 1000bulbs.com came in late last week, so I replaced them today (the far right and middle left bulbs). I even found a use for the extras, because my girlfriend's having some light bulbs go out on her, but unfortunately, the temperature does not match the orangey color of her existing bulbs.

I'm planning on replacing two every four months, giving them eight months each. Before I flush a bunch of money down the toilet, though, I think I'll check on some forums to make sure they really lose 50% of their brightness or whatever after six months. I was surprised I couldn't notice more of a different between the new and old bulbs when they were plugged in.

Here's what I scared up about light intensity over time. Maybe The plan will be to replace two every 9 months; that way they'll be replaced when they are 1.5 years old.

I found a cherry shrimp that was as brilliant a red as any I've seen while ripping up the rotala indica. Since then, he's been hanging out a bit with the temple, creating some very striking images, with the bold reds and greens complementing each other nicely. Humorously, this was among the same shrimp sold to me originally as "blue-black algae-eating shrimp".

Also, in regards to the 5-gallon tank, the black skirts are doing much better since the medication and seem to have reestablished their territories, I suppose. I see a tiger shrimp on occasion, but I really have no clue as to how many are still alive. There is a new wendtii shoot that I'm pretty excited about; hopefully this means I won't have to go in and destroy the substrate in an attempt to add more plants again.

The water change I did scared up the bamboo shrimp from who knows wear; he was looking a little pale, but he also looked pretty stressed out as he tried to hide.