Can I add to my tank?

Polleni has overcome some of his shyness -- ate today and spent some time hanging out. Not seeing any aggression issues between the salvini, fm, and polleni so things are looking good! :thumbsup:

Here's a pic of the polleni (sorry it's a little dark):

All the white spots are gone, and I completed the treatment cycle recommended by the API super ich cure instructions, so hopefully all the ich is gone.

Stocking-wise, I'm all set for now. I think I may have some filtration / aggression issues down the road once everyone gets bigger, but think I'll have some stability for a while.

As soon as I get everything in the tank cleaned up I'll try to take some more pics.

Thanks again for the help!

Plants?

Things in the 75g are going pretty well (see pics below). The silver dollars, though, are starting to go to work on my plants. So, have a question I'm hoping to get some feedback on:

Should I take out the plants and go un-planted / super low-light, with just rocks and driftwood?

Thanks for the comments!

FTS


Left Side (with the sd's in hover mode)


Right Side (with lots of colorful rocks and algae)


Salvini in the cave he dug out


Firemouth (with flash)


Firemouth (no flash)

Will try to get some more pics, but thought I would post a quick update....

Salvini is good
Firemouth is good
Polleni has nipped fins again -- haven't caught the culprit in action
Silver Dollars are happily destroying all plant life
Raphael is fat and happy
Trying to find a dark substrate to switch to

Big news!: On impluse, I picked up a bushy nose pleco...he looks great -- huge schnaz covered in bristles!

I have a kind of spiralis that's getting eaten a little, but I think also just not growing very well. Other plants are all Amazon swords, which are getting very heavily grazed.

I've "rescued" some of these to my other tanks, so I think I'll try to slowly migrated to an unplanted set-up. Then maybe switch out to a darker substrate as I mentioned and go for a clean low-light kind of look.

I think that would look nice, only concerns I have are (1) that removing the plants may deprive the sd's of some essential nutrients, and (2) that the plants form nice hiding spots for the polleni.

I'll try to get some updated pics over the break. Progress

abarilot said:

Well I'd plant some plants like anubius or java fern cuz they aren't very paleatable. The plant section might be able to make some better suggestions cuz I'm not a plant guy.

IMO I wouldnt switch out the gravel cuz your tank looks good plus its a pain to change gravel in an established tank.

Click to expand...

Good stuff (and thanks again for the props ). Did a lot this w/e with the 75g:

+ Swapped out the big swords for java fern from my other tank. I plan to keep an eye out for some really big ferns to fill out the space.
--> I have some other substrate on order so might try that, but won't do a total replacement.
+ Added some more rock and driftwood and re-organized the scape a bit
--> The salvini seemed really annoyed that I deconstructed his house, but I built hm a new one
+ Tried adding in my severum again. As before, the sal started chasing and beating on him. I thought it might go a littlle different now that the sev has grown a bit, but no -- sev is still a big baby.
--> I'm thnking I may not be able to add the sev until he's got serious size on the sal -- hopefully along the way he won't start bullying his 55g tankmates.

Here are some pics. FTS:


Left:


Right:


Sal and SD's in the shade:


Sev trying to hide:

Just a quick pic of the new bushy nose pleco I added -- he's quite bristly!