Twenty Gallon Community Journal.

[ABCDemily]

Well, as I am here, I thought I'd keep a journal of all the innings and outings of my twenty gallon.

As of the 28th May 2009;
Current Residents:
Three female Guppies;
One half black, one white and orange round tail, one shovel tail.
One Male Guppy; Gilbert. Grey bodied with green and black tail, orange and blue patches.
One Red Wag Male Platy
One Dwarf Gourami; Darwin, orange and blue stripes.
Four Glowlight Tetras.
Two Neon Tetras

PLANTS
Glossa, not doing too well.
Green Hygro, doing very well.
Carolina Fanwort, doing fine, new shoots after just one week!

Currently my ammonia and nitrite readings are fine, however I've had an 80PPM nitrate spike, which I'm doing water changes to combat.

I'll update this weekly as newcomers arrive and go, plants grow, and fry appear.

[ABCDemily]

Just ordered an API Liquid master from ebay for £15
Test strips, I bid you farewell!

[harpua2002]

Good for you! The API kit is so much more accurate than the test strips. I'm sure you'll like it.

[ABCDemily]

Originally Posted by harpua2002

Good for you! The API kit is so much more accurate than the test strips. I'm sure you'll like it.

Yeah, in my LPS it cost a whopping £30.00! (About $50)
But Ebay had it for £15.60. I'd just got some allowance from my dearest parents, therefore I figured it couldn't do any harm

[ABCDemily]

My Glossa isn't doing so well, it's lost a lot of the leaves, no thanks to a very greedy guppy who bites the leaves off.
I think it's on it's way out, I'll probably remove it asap, to stop the leaves from clogging up the filter.
Which is was doing.

[harpua2002]

Glosso is not an easy plant to keep. As I understand it, it needs high lighting, CO2 and ferts to thrive. I've not had any luck with it either.

[ABCDemily]

Originally Posted by harpua2002

Glosso is not an easy plant to keep. As I understand it, it needs high lighting, CO2 and ferts to thrive. I've not had any luck with it either.

They didn't have any lables when I bought any of my plants. Which sucks, considering I guess well not getting any darker leafed plants.

This one looked really good in the shop, I think I'll throw it soon, it's pretty much totally rotten, all brown and see through at the base, but my boyfriend'll be annoyed, he paid for it haha!

[ABCDemily]

As I returned home from my boyfriends (One night...) I discovered that my favourite half black guppy had white all over her. ICH. Then, I noticed she had white around her eyes. Popeye. I am NOT happy!

I'm not going to try any meds for now, mainly because I can't get into the nearest town. I'm not using Melafix or Pimafix as I had a DG, and it probably wouldn't work too well.

I've gravel vacuumed and I'm doing 30% water changes each day, and the temps at 84F (I hate imperial, metric makes more sense to me so sorry if I switch it around a bit)

I guess I'm just waiting it out right now, I can't see any spores about, but I don't want to risk it.

Apparently I've got some nice yummy extra ammonia banging about. My API text kit STILL hasn't arrived after TWO WEEKS of cleared payment!

My other guppies have ammonia burns on their gills, and one is acting very off-colour.

Right now, I've just done a 50% change to try and sort this all out. I'm really worried right now.

I know that the guppy probably won't make it, she's really badly covered in it, the others have no signs at all. I'm pretty bummed right now.

I've enclosed some pics of the poor girl.

I'll update on the progress and the tanks progress. I'm staying away from meds for now.

[ABCDemily]

Success! My API Liquid master came. The Nitrate One bottle was leaking though. So I now have green all over everything in my bed. It's fun watching the colours develop hehe! I got between 0 and 0.25 ammonia, the colouration was smack bang in the middle so I ran off and did a nice big water change. It's now all stable.

The little guppy girl had to be euthanized unfortunately. One of my other guppies likes to nibble on ill fish. Where to scales were missing she developed a massive fungus infection, along with ICH and popeye. I knew she wasn't going to pull through and I couldn't deal with the poor thing having to survive in so much pain. She was my first ever guppy

Right now I've upgraded to a digital thermometre with probe 'n' all. ANd I've got a nice jazzy new gravel vaccum on the way

[ABCDemily]

Okay, we've had the death of Daisy, my favourite guppy, the orange and white one, she was about four years old though-blooming good going!

Darwin appears to have a case of the nasties. May be Iridovirus unforunately, he's just lying gasping at the bottom of the tank, whilst ammo. remains at 0. Poor guy.

[ABCDemily]

Okay, I picked up a gorgeous male rainbow platy, called silent bob, he's already made friends with his platy pal Jay. (Anyone notice a trend?)

[bolivianbaby]

I'm sorry you lost your guppy and Darwin is sick

I like the names. Maybe you can name one Dogma

Could you post a picture of the rainbow platy? I've never seen one.

[ABCDemily]

Originally Posted by bolivianbaby

I'm sorry you lost your guppy and Darwin is sick

I like the names. Maybe you can name one Dogma

Could you post a picture of the rainbow platy? I've never seen one.

Unfortunately Drwin passed on, I suspect Iridovirus, the poor guy just wasted away, I mo0ved him to a large breeder so he could get up for air, but he just didn't have the energy

I'm round my boyfriends right now so I'll send you a link to the closest one

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/109/2...c83d0e.jpg?v=0

I'll definatly name my next Platy dude dogma, I want to have a little trio

[bolivianbaby]

That is a great-looking platy! I'll have to see if I can find one around here

[ABCDemily]

Everyone's doing well right now. Battling with nitrates to some degree, they just won't go down, and I'm doing all the right things

On a better note, all my guppyXendlers are going to a nice home, not to be used as feeder fish either!

The French Family that are staying with me right now (Laurance, Thomas et Nicolas, Zuit Allor! Je suis parles les Francais!) adore the tanks, especially Galileo. I taught Thomas how to get him to chase food around the tank, and they love it

A little bit of aggression between Jay and Silent Bob, the two male platies. If it gets too bad I'll transfer one to my 15 for a while.

Apart from this, everything's ship shape and ready for when I go on holiday to La Rochelle in SW France

[bolivianbaby]

Great news! We...want...more...pics...please