Category Archives: Plants

Battling blue green algae in your aquarium

Posted by on December 1, 2012 No comments

In July 2012 I noticed that something wasn’t right in my aquarium. I change the water in my freshwater aquarium regularly so it was a bit of a surprise to find algae in my tank as shown below.

The picture shows a bit of blue green algae or Cyanobacteria in my tank. I did regular water changes – a change between 2 to 3 weeks (which is plenty if you know my tank and if you live in Finland with good fresh water) so I knew it wasn’t because of that. It seems you can get blue green algae in your tank even if you change water regularly! I also hadn’t change the lighting conditions in the tank nor added new fish nor had I in my opinion changed my feeding habits either. Read more »

Freshwater aquarium plant growth tips

Posted by on June 19, 2011 No comments

I believe strongly that a healthy aquarium with healthy fish requires healthy plants. Below are my tips on how I try to see to it that my freshwater aquarium plants grow as well as possible. I’d like to share these tips with anyone who is interested in them and of course get some feedback on what you think. I hope with the things below also your plants will grow well!

Even if I speak of some specific products in this article, I am sure there are many equally good or even better ones. It just very hard to compare the products on your own, so I am more than happy to receive feedback on some products that you have used and that you think work better than the ones here.

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Our freshwater aquarium 30.10.2010 – Or how I made my freshwater aquarium beautiful.

Posted by on October 30, 2010 No comments

Below in an image of our aquarium taken 30.10.2010.

Our freshwater aquarium - 30.10.2010At least to me the aquarium looks more or less like an aquarium I would like to have. Recently I have been more focusing on good plant growth since to me that is the basic for any good and beautiful aquarium. Good plant growth without algae shows immediately that the aquarium is healthy and to me at least showing nice looking, healthy plants is to show that I keep good care of my aquarium in the long run. Anyone can drop in a few fish and buy some plastic boats that will spit air bubbles, but having healthy plants requires some effort.

I have also had some troubles with the fish in the past, especially in the beginning of our new tank. I had some issues with the N-cycle but it is looking all better now. I haven’t changed the water in three weeks and my readings look good: pH: 7.0, NO2: <0.025 ppm and NO3: 10 ppm. To add to this, we are also having guppy babies in the tank. We got five of them and they are all still alive. They are now two weeks old and about 1-1.5cm long and it looks very promising for them to reach full growth. People say that this is not a big deal for guppies as they give birth so often, but to me this tells that my aquarium is healthy!
Especially people that are new to aquariums and getting their first tank, I think they start wondering shortly how they can achieve these results and a healthy looking aquarium. I will give you my advice below so you don’t need to wonder what are the secret to have a good looking aquarium. Read more »

The secret to good plant growth?

Posted by on October 2, 2010 1 comment

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In my opinion the plants in a freshwater aquarium is equally important to the fish. The plants make the aquarium look alive and more natural. It also of course fills the void in in the tank and give shelter to the fish. I want tank to have many plants and them to grow well so we try to do everything we can do ensure good plant growth. I don’t say the plants in our aquarium are in bad shape, but since I try to focus on them very much, I think they could look better. Some of the plants are from the old tank, but since it was a lot smaller than the current one, we had to buy new plants. Read more »

High temperature and Juwel’s light tubes

Posted by on September 20, 2010 4 comments

I have set the heater at 24-25C which should be the safe fallback temperature in case the temperature inside the aquarium drops. If you have an open aquarium with the light tubes on top of the tank you might wonder what I am talking about. You see – the Juwel tank is closed tank which means that the light tubes are inside the tank right next to the water.

The light tubes also emit heat and since the tubes are right next to the water it has a significant effect on the heating of the eco system. Despite that I have set the temperature to be 24-25C in the heater, I constantly measure water temperatures of 27-28C. I haven’t found an easy way to cool down the tank since our apartment temperature is anyway quite high too, even if not 27C. I have and air diffuser plugged in to the Juwel Bioflow pump which creates extra air flow to the water. This is recommended in any case, but necessary with high temperatures.

Do you think my water temperature is too high for normal fish like guppies or platys?

I have also been wondering if the temperature has a negative effect to any plants? I guess not since they look pretty healthy, but somehow this temperature makes me nervous. I hope in vain?