20 watt bulb. The saleslady let us put it in one of the display light fixtures to see if it worked before we bought it, and it did, so I gathered up a few other things I needed and left. I changed the bulb when we got home, and the new one sort of makes my tank look red? It's really weird, but I'm sure the yellow water doesn't really help.The other stuff I got was for a diy CO2 diffuser. I decided last night that I was going to make one for my 20 long. So I followed the instructions on here, but I used a milk jug, along with more sugar and a whole packet of yeast. I didn't seal the the hose in the cap because my dad used a drill bit smaller than the hose's diameter and pulled the hose through with pliers, so it's a pretty tight fit.
After I got everything ready, I hooked up hoses and airstones and everything and put them behind my filters. While I was messing with the filters, I cleaned the sponges and everything; that was disgustingg. I also hooked up an air pump with a timer set opposite my lights. If the water's surface doesn't break, then it will trap CO2 in the water, and when there isn't any light, plants use oxygen and produce CO2 instead. With the extra CO2 that I'm adding, there would be quite a bit of it building up while my lights are off. All the CO2 at night would also cause pH fluctuations, which are never good. This would make my fishies die, and we do not want that to happen.
I decided today would also be a good day to pick off all the dead leaves on my plants, scrape some algae off the wood, and replant everything that came up in the process. I also changed the direction of one filter to go the same direction as the other, rather than having them both pointed toward the back wall. Now the current is going around the entire tank.
The Bolivians seem to be really shy since I took Liberty out. They always flip out and hide now when I come near the tank. So these guys definitely need some dither fish. Next weekend my dad said I might be able to get some tetras or something, probably either serpaes or cardinals.
And one thing that ruined my day? My kissing gourami died. Josh said his other eye was missing, but my dad fished him out of the tank and flushed him before I even woke up. I feel pretty bad about it, mostly because I'm the one who took him out of isolation. And I didn't even get to say goodbye to him. My dad said that when we get the tetras, I might be able to get a new centerpiece for the 55 too. I don't really know if I trust the bichir enough for that though.
Tomorrow, I'm going to take both of my 2.5 gallon tanks and dump them. I'll scrub the decorations with something, not sure what yet, but I don't really want the algae coming back. I'll replace the gravel with some regular stuff, then set them both back up. Gary is finally going to have an actual tank again, so I think he'll be pretty happy with that.
