My pretty little ones

[Lily]

Those of you who visit the Sydney Cichlid Form may have seen these pics already.
Rather than post the images (because I am too stoopid to know how to do that),

here's a link - I hope :

My Photos

Cheers

L

[Proteus]

Nice pics...

I like this one the best...

[flukes]

hey ...L?
Nice looking tank..
Can you give us some water specs
And also lighting and any Co2??

reason for i want to copy your tank just joking looks good and i have very hardy, easy to grow plants atm, and i want to add some more challanging plants and add co2 but iam affraid of the changes the DIY Co2 will have on the water specs.

Thanks
Scott

[Cory21]

Wow! Beautiful tank and fish. What size of tank is it?

[Essayons89]

Great looking tanks and discus.

Bryan

[Annie]

They are fantastic looking. Love the Blues.

[Lily]

Hey, thanks everyone! I didn't expect them to be that well received.

It is a standard 4' tank, tankmates are 24 neons/cardinals (mixed school), 2 peppered cories, 1 betta and 4 otocinclus. The betta thinks he's King of the World

Lighting is just 2 fluro tubes but I replace them religiously every 6 months. The stem plants are going gangbusters so the light level seems to be ok.

I run 2 DIY CO2 bottles on it. The pH stays constantly at about 7.8 - which I absolutely cannot explain given the CO2 but figure that if it ain't broke don't fix it. I know the CO2 bottles are loading the water up with ... er, CO2 because the plants pearl beautifully by nightfall.

I imagine as the nitrates increase the pH will creep down, but for now I'm just happy that the CO2 hasn't made it unstable. The tank has been established since December but I still barely get a reading on nitrate despite feeding the discus pretty heavily with bloodworms and JBL discus food.

I use flourish, flourish Iron and flourish potassium when I can be bothered - come to think of it I have't added anything to the water column in about a month. I use JBL The 7 Balls and Ferrotabs around the root-feeding plants' roots.

The substrate is a mix of riversand and fine gravel (maybe the sand acts as a buffer keeping the pH up?)

I have found the tiger lotus to be a fabulous plant. It looks so exotic but has been a pleasure to grow. Also love the aponogetons. I have now added some nuphar japonicum and nympahea but they haven't taken off the way the aponogetons and tiger lotus have.

[Annie]

It is funny as I go back and look through your pics of the blues. It is like looking at my own. They are really awesome colored fish. And the planted tank..."Gotta love it"

[Lily]

Thanks Annie! I thought they looked very much like yours (which are beautiful)

[Annie]

Thanks Annie! I thought they looked very much like yours (which are beautiful)

Yes, maybe thay are related??LOL