5 Gallon Planted Journal

Karackle

Hanging out:




A couple (not so great) ones of the 2 Otos:

Karackle

And a couple of my Betta (i think he needs a name...)



(please excuse the glass that desperately needs a good cleaning on the outside)

Enjoy! As always, all suggestions, comments, questions, concerns, whatever are welcome!

Thanks for looking!

nyrmel

They are SOOOO TINYYY how big will they get when grown? I am surprised you can find them in the tank can you see them if they arent gathered around the wafer. and is that a flicker of purple near the tail.... I may need to look these up as futher additions to tank when the time comes. meanwhile thank you for the pics i really like them and the very informative shopping list at the top I think i will be coming back to that several times.

Karackle

In looking up their full grown size (0.8 - 1.0") I discovered that it appears the tank at the store was mis-labeled and these are actually Corydoras pygmaeus...but I'm still happy because those were the 2 types of dwarf cory I was looking for. So mislabeled or not, I'm happy with my teeny new additions to the tank! And it sounds like these guys stay a little smaller than the hastatus anyway, which is good because the tank is only 5g and already has a Betta and 2 otos in it.

Nyrmel - I'm glad you like my fish choices, I hope the list helps you when you are ready to add fish to your tank! And yes they are TINY I believe the purpleish color you might be seeing is an effect of the flash and whatever setting i had the camera on...but they're so teensy it's hard to tell Thanks!

Karackle

Well, it's a sad day for me, I came home from my long weekend away, and the Wisteria in my 5g seems not to have re-taken after the excessive light incident (the lights are on timers now) and there was a bunch of die-off, which wouldn't be SO terrible (i have FLOURISHING replacement wisteria in my 20g) but I fear the excess of ammonia from the dying plants and new cories caused one of my Otos and 3 of the new cories to pass
I pulled all of the dead and dying Wisteria from the tank, did a 75% water change, replanted the one wisteria stalk with a good root base, pulled a LARGE stalk of Wisteria with a great root base from the 20g and planted it in the 5g.
I'll give it a day or two to settle in, then as long as the params are ok, i'll probably add back an Oto since they do well in groups, but I will wait a little longer to add back the cories.
I took a couple pictures of my now very sad looking tank, they're not great because the water was still cloudy, and some of the cabomba is bent over because it got uprooted while I was away and was floating or stuck under part of another stalk upside down and curved up and around to the light :-P, anyway I thought I'd post something...Once everything starts growing back in I'll post more new photos...Thanks for looking!







As always, questions, comments, concerns are welcome!

missfish

Thanks for taking the time to post these pictures, it was really intersting. sad about the corys. I just couldn't believe how fast things went downhill. I guess thats just life as a fish fanatic, but onwards and upwards! best wishes in getting it back to its former glory!
oh and we will need piccys then too!

Karackle

Thanks for looking! Yeah, it's crazy how quickly things can go downhill, but like you said, it's on of the things to deal with in this hobby. So far my Betta and the other Oto are still looking healthy and the plants seem ok too. I'll definitely post updates and pictures when it's grown in a bit again. Thanks for the encouragement!

Karackle

I picked up another Oto while I was at my LFS for the 5g, it's drip-acclimating right now I'll wait until the tank is back up and lush and green before adding back any cories though.

Karackle

Just thought I would post a quick update. I went away for the weekend again and came home to a crystal clear tank with only a smattering of dead Wisteria leaves (only 1 or 2). The cabomba had little to no death, and the Crypt wendtii and the Anubias both has NEW growth. So it seems like the tank is starting to bounce back! Both Otos and my betta are doing well. Tank appears to be having a mini-cycle, ammonia and nitrIte are both at readable levels (~.25) NitrAte is 5-10, but I think mostly that's from the fert tablets I put in the tank. I did a ~50% water change to reduce the ammonia and added some pieces of wisteria with good roots growing out of them from my 20g to float in the water and hopefully suck up some of the pH, and hopefully the beneficial bacteria on the leaves will help as well The pH is low I believe from the driftwood. So i'll be keeping a close eye on this tank and trying to get it to bounce fully back.

Karackle

Just wanted to post another quick update, had a couple randomly melting crypt leaves today, but the wisteria finally seems to have bounced back and is growing instead of dying, so yay for that! I added a tiny bit of crushed coral to the filter, pH is up a bit! Betta and Otos are still happy. And the mini-cycling is progressing nicely, ammonia is still around .25, but the nitrIte is at about .5, and nitrAte is at ~10+ even though i haven't added any more fert tabs recently, so the bacteria seem to be kicking into gear and hopefully we'll have the ammonia and nitrIte back down to 0 again in no time! Here's a couple of pictures, i know i need to move things around a bit, but I want to let everything get some roots and get healthy again for a little longer before I start moving things

2 Tank shots (different settings):