My 120G low tech planted community Tank

[Doberman13]

This is my Planted tank right before a water and filter change. No CO2, just flourish and flourish excel every week, once a month I add a small amount of homemade calcium(boiled then baked and ground eggshells). Water changes every ten days.
90-95% of the filtration is DIY
Homemade 30G Sump with acrylic baffles, I use filter socks or if I am lazy and don't want to clean them I will go back to using a plastic flower pot(multiple holes cut into bottom) stuffed with filter floss, a ton of biological media.
I have a small area that used to be my homes laundry room that was opened up into the living room. It is perfect for my fish room. I run a large air pump meant for hydroponic systems to power all of my tanks.
I also have a 275g aquaponic system in the backyard as a grow out tank for koi. I'll get around to posting that as well

 

[Doberman13]

 

[vols22]

Nice tank! Very clean

 

[Doberman13]

Thanks! I actually think it was quite dirty! I do have a small problem with BBA(Black beard algae). I turned the other tank lights off for this picture but behind this tank. I have a 29G FW tank for my breeding pair of Angels as well as 10g and 5 g quarantine tanks. I have some SAE in the 10g waiting to go into the 120 and take care of the BBA.
I have 5 otos and 3 plecos( blue panague, Blue phanton, and a lemon eye bristlenose) but they only eat the algae when its starting if it takes hold they won't eat it.

 

[Mom2Many]

Beautiful! I have two planted nanos. Yours is very nice! The fish are georgous!

 

[AG36]

Any feedback on the SAE's success with beating back the BBA is greatly appreciated. Started to see the stuff arise in my aquarium. Wanting to know how the SAE's do against this stuff.

Thanks !

 

[Doberman13]

It's sort of hit or miss. I had gotten 2 SAE and they didn't do anything for a while until I added another 2. I guess the new two had to show the first two that they could eat it(?). Be careful, originally I had bought what I thought was a SAE but it ended up being Chinese algae eater instead, he was extremely aggressive and grew very quickly. SAE has a solid stripe that goes from head to tail, when CAE are young they look the same but with a splotchy stripe.

 

[AG36]

Yes, thank you. I've heard the SAE's can be some of the most mislabeled fish in the industry. I am going to have to go off your indicator before I buy some. Any thoughts, or have you heard that essentially Co2 is the silver bullet for eradicating BBA? I have used the Flourish liquid Co2 without any good results. Wondering if a full blown Co2 systems running everyday is what it takes ?

 

[Doberman13]

I tried using flourish excel and tetra CO2 booster but it never seemed to make a difference. Before I got the SAE I would use hydrogen peroxide in a 5ml industrial syringe(long, blunt needle on the end) and slowly "inject" the H2O2 in and around all of the BBA. While it was very effective it required a lot of hands on work. I would have been a little more cautious about putting 5 ml of H2O2 if it was a smaller tank.

 

[codesensei]

nice