In this entry I'll try to summarize all the events that occured since my last post related to my aquarium.
Everything begun last October with my obligations at the university. First algae incident (diatoms or Brown Algae) due to low light intensity and initial lack of equlibrium in my aquarium turned out to be only a temporary menace. In the middle of last October I introduced my first fish inhabitants, 7 fish in total during the 3rd week. 6th day was the last one for my Sailfin Pleco (Gibicebs). 10 days after introduction I had another fish desease followed by death in several days (Green Barbus Tetrazona). About the same time I also got first instance of hairy green algae, that I tried to combat ever since. This was all typical and expected for my newly established tank and looking closely at my Aquarium Log (at least I was regularly logging every major change or event), I clearly had something in my aquarium that attacked more sensitive fishes.
One particular problem I was aware of was the fact that I never had enough plants for a start and when I eventually added more I was never saticfied either with available plant species, or with their position, so, I changed that in week after week, trimming, re-arranging, trying to create professionally looking aquarium over night, eventually started adding fertilizer that in the end only favored hairy algae! What a typical begginer's mistakes, and I read so many books before I've got first aquarium. Well, it seems I couldn't resist temptations after all...
Picture 1: The Disaster
So, in spite all the knowledge prior gained, I thought I can go my way, instead of Mother Nature's. I tryed various startegies that only temporarely worked: complete light cut-off for several days, siesta period and drastic food reduction, but algae didn't care.
Plants obviously started loosing battle, so my last chance was CO2 addition. I've built a custom CO2 reactor/diffusor, and plants did respond, alas, so did algae! Eventually I got lazy at aquarium maintenance and week after week I ommited regular water changes, wich eventually reached 4 weeks in a row in between! From January till April this year I switched to 30-50% water change per month. Next 4 months (untill August this year) I virtually hadn't touched aquarium, so it become a complete ALGARIUM insted.
Eventually, I was desperate and forced to try chemical weapon: Copper Sulfate, poisonous thing for shrimp and fish in mild and high doses, but I was cautious with only half-dosage printed on the package. Ofcourse, this was only a temporary solution. Algae still managed to survive.
Picture 2: Syphoning Algae
In August 2010, following a sudden death of one of my 2 Tiger Barbs who were very cute, I finally made time, energy and will to reverse the situation and do it right. Complete vacuuming of algae from the gravel, stones and sides, followed by rapid water changes 3 days in a row resulted in a pretty clean aquarium. I was acctually amazed how easy this job was, since algae after many months now formed a tick biofilm. They became tightly inter-connected, thus very easy to clean. Complete vaccuming was done in under 10 minutes!
Picture 3: Syphoning Algae
Alas, this was only the begining of new things to come. Algae was a pretty disturbing sight for many months in my room for myself (eventually get used to) and to my friends and family visitors. But, they were virtually a heaven to my fish inhabitants, since algae drained all the poisons from the water and kept it extremely clean! Biofilm acted as a HUGE biological filter, where my actuall bio-mechanical filter couldn't manage. Several times I've tested water parameters in such unpleasent conditions for the eye, and yet everything was p-e-r-f-e-c-t-l-y fine! This is a miracle of Nature at it's best: a natural way of self-cleaning in the works.
Algae removal (Operation X) took place on August 9, 10 and 11. On the first day only changed 30% water, second day removed half the algae throughout siphoning with 50% water change, and repeated the same on the August 11; followed by immediate introduction of 10 Amano schrimps (Caridina japonica) as perfect algae eaters. The algae removal apparently did a huge shock to my 3 fish survivors (2 Rasbora Heteromorpha and 1 Tiger Barb). First, one Rasbora started behiving strange 6-7 days after the removal. This monday morning I found her stucked between filter and heater swimming upright. My first thought was that she got stucked and i thought that was funny. Didn't took much to release she was sick, eather from a shock due major environmental change last week, or from some bacterial infection.
Picture 4: Rasbora
I immediatelly run into local store with intention of buying small quarantine aquarium with filter and some medicine, but I got a double-sword advice from a salesperson, so I returned empty hands home, hoping it was a shock that Rasbora will survive. Next morning Rasbora was motionless. I went again into store, took 9 liters aquarium, adequate filter and JBL Furanol (5mg Nifurpirinol), set-up everything very quickly: washed quarantine aquarium with KMnO4 and lots of hot water, filled it with water from main aquarium, run the filter, dissolved 1 tablet of Furanol and put 2 only survivors Rasbora nad Tiger Barb in the antibiotic bath. I left to work for another 8 hours and when I got home I had a saddest moment in my life! My two dear little friends were gone, pale, without color, without a sign of life!
Picture 5: 9 Liter Quarantine Aquarium
Did medicine, that supposed to help, acctually killed them!?
Picture 6: Poisone or medicine?
I had only the best intentions, alas, it all turned upside down. Lucky enough, I knew this medicine could be harmfull to Amano shrimps, so I left them intact in main aquarium. Now Amano's are alone active 24/7 cleaning and solving my initial algae problem.
Plan: what next? To introduce huge amount of new plants, and after another week or so small amount of new fish. All in good time and with little luck.
