The Darkness Begins

As I have mentioned before, I have an algae outbreak in my tank.  I have added Co2 to help the plants grow more to compete for nutrients, but it isn't helping as much as I would like.  The algae that is growing is apparently unappetizing to my current cleanup crew and I am having trouble finding additions to my cleanup crew that would find it appealing.  I need nerite snails and amano shrimp, but the closest fish stores don't carry them.  So the next stage if the battle begins.  I removed the Co2 (since the plants don't use it in the dark, I don't want it to gas the tank and kill the fish), put the air stone back in, gave the fish a really good meal, and covered the tank with all our old towels.  Now I just have to cross my fingers that the plants and fish survive the next couple of days without too much trouble.  The purpose of this is to deprive the algae of the thing it needs most (more than any of the plants I put in there on purpose), light.  This is a tried method that supposedly works well, so wish me luck.

If all goes well, when I take the towels off in couple or three days, all the algae should be white or pink and be well into it's death throws.  Then maybe the plants will be able to get a better hold and take over as they should.  I sure wish fish would eat in the dark, hope they'll be okay with empty bellies for a few days.  At least the cherry shrimp will be happy.  They love the dark.

Denise will have to survive one Monday without her tank time with Baggs, sorry Neese.

I also got my 10 gallon going finally.  I went to Petco the other day and fell in love with a betta there.  I can't put one in the 50 as the likely hood of him fighting with the gourami is pretty high, so I decided I really needed to get it going so I could bring a betta home the next time I fall in love with one.

I can't put fish in yet, so I thought the no fishing sign
was funny

I could make the 10 cycle much faster than the 50 by stealing filter media from the 50's filter, but I was too lazy to open the filter up on Saturday to do so.  Its a pain.  I did fill the 10 with water from the 50 and will be putting plants in it from the 50 as soon as the black out is done, and that should speed it along. 

Before I get a betta tho, I need to use this as a quarantine tank.  I need two more otos and six more lemon tetras (as soon as I find somewhere else to buy them, grrr) to fill out my stock in my 50, but I've gotten paranoid about getting sick fish and killing off all my current fish.  The new fish will go in here first until I know they are healthy, then I can put them in with the rest.  If I do happen to get sick fish, then I can medicate them without medicating my healthy fish as well.

Anyone know where to get lemon tetras?  I no longer trust the source for the ones I have, and no one else has heard of them.  Sigh.

Well, for a post that was simply going to be about blacking out my tank, it got lengthy.  Until next time.

Bye