Fishes and Plants Updates

Since his arrival, our Siamese Algae Eater (SAE) has been doing fine, busying himself swimming around swiftly and munching on the algae he can find.

Although he does frequent those fragile plants such as the HC, I seldomg see him uproot anything. He is large in size, but delicate at the same time. That is how we came out with the name ‘Big Friendly Giant’ (BFG in short) for him. 🙂

The other fishes are living peacefully (except for occassionally chasing between the Guppy males) and seem to be enjoying their lives in the tank. Here’s a clip of them rushing for the sinking pellet:

Regarding the plants, most of them appear to be doing well now, with the increase of CO2 input and dosing of liquid fertilisers. Despite a recent outbreak of Green Hair and Spot Algae, I have continued with the 12-hour 4 x 39 Watt T5H0 daily. I believed in eradicating the source of the algae problem, instead of reducing the lights etc.

By introducing more nutrients and CO2 for the plants, now the plants are healthier while countering the growth of the algae. Also with the help of our BFG, the 4 Otos and our 6 Corys, the algae problem appears to be contained for most parts. I will still have to perform regular cleanup of the walls using a scraper (and my fingernails) though.

The Riccia are pearling nicely every night, and growth has been encouraging. I understand that I need to trim the Riccia regularly to ensure the leaves below continue to get adequate light to prevent them from rotting and thus causing the entire plant to float to the surface. So far, they appear to be doing fine so no pruning has been performed on them yet.

The HC is starting to look good too, with more and more new green leaves growing above the withering leaves. I can’t say for sure that everything will be smooth sailing from here on though, as a proper fertilising regime still needs to be followed and monitored.

I will be performing a water change tonight, to clear off the excess nutrients and harmful substances, before dosing liquid fertilisers into the tank.