55G planted South American themed planted tank journal

[cobfreak]

That's looking very nice. Glad to hear of your fertcicle experience too, maybe I'll try a little water in each cube spot then add some osmocote & more water. Just as a guess how big would you say the little scoop is 1/4 teasp? tip of little finger? I have some osmocote someome gave me in a jar for houseplants so I'm not sure which type it is. So the cube didn't just come floating up? I'm worried my goofy shrimp would to eat any fallout LOL.

Tip of the little finger is about exactly right. And no, nothing floating up. the idea of freezing some water, then adding the ferts, then adding more water and freezing again may or may not work. I guess it probably would.

I'm getting some amanos this week, which I'll probably quarantine before adding to the tank. But before that I have to do some clean up to make sure there are no more little osmocote balls on the substrate, because I've seen a couple that dropped off from the ice cubes when I was trying to add them.

thanks!

 

[imafreak]

How is the Lowe's 4 T-8 shop light setup working for you? I saw those T8 shop lights the other night and was thinking about buying two of them and doing the same type of thing on my 90 gallon.

 

[cobfreak]

How is the Lowe's 4 T-8 shop light setup working for you? I saw those T8 shop lights the other night and was thinking about buying two of them and doing the same type of thing on my 90 gallon.

Well, that's very hard for me to say. It provides a lot of light. But since this is a new setup and I've never had a tank with this much light, I'm not sure how it would compare to any of the alternatives. I find myself frequently questioning whether T5s would make a noticeable difference, and whether I should raise the hood higher, whether if I do that it'd reduce the amount of light hitting the bottom too much, etc.

Additionally it's a pain dealing with the thing just sitting on the tank. I don't have a good place on the ceiling above it to hang it, so I am still lifting it off the tank anytime I do maintenance inside the tank.

So in short, it's probably a good solution for some people. But for me I'm looking to at least change how I've got it set up soon.

 

[cobfreak]

a good day

This morning I was pretty happy with the condition of the tank. The brown diatom algae is diminishing noticably, although it is still obvious in some places, especially on the jungle vals. Some parts of the tank though have improved enough that I was actually surprised. The Blyxxa and water sprite, which have been covered in lots of brown, have started looking all green again. The stargrass and the roseafolia are looking pretty healthy. The micro sword and dwarf sag don't look too bad either.

There is also some nice growth that I haven't really been paying attention to. The jungle vals are putting out runners with baby plants on them in a number of places. The corkscrew val also (though in the following pictures there aren't any pictures of the new corkscrews, as they're behind the driftwood for the most part.) The apongeton crispus is starting to really look healthy.

Here are some pictures, more discussion below:

full tank this morning:

tank depth shot:

the left side of the tank, which I like a lot, both for how it's scaped and how the algae's going away:

new val, beside a curious bleeding heart:

roseafolia:

stargrass:

apongeton (and you actually can see some of the new corkscrew val growth behind the wood here):

My sword plants aren't doing great. They're definitely growing, and rooted, but the new leaves continue to look pretty faded and translucent. I'm not sure if that's a sign of a nutrient deficiency or maybe not enough light or CO2. The mother plant in my much lower-tech tank looks much better, although it always has some dark green algae on it.

The more I get happy with the growth and the diminishing algae, the less I like my aquascape. Like I said above, I like the left side. But the right side looks pretty bad to me. For one thing I hadn't intended to do a well-tended-garden look here. That circle of rocks, encircling the stem plant "bush", is something that I sort of improvised as I've added plants and moved things around. I don't really like it right now, though I think if that were the only non-natural looking section it might work. But all of the rest of the right side also looks too man-made. Obviously it's a work in progress here - I need to take the anubias out of the pot and attach it to something, and I have plans to put more driftwood over there. I'd really like to do something that looks natural and not planned, though. So still things to think about. Right now in general it's too hodge-podge and unnatural. Maybe eventually I'll let the vals take over more. Or that stargrass, depending on how it develops (I don't know much about it right now.) Definitely will be getting rid of the anacharis (well, moving it into an overflow tank for now.)

The background also needs help, and I need to come up with a way to stop seeing the equipment so clearly.

I received my order of dry ferts in the mail yesterday from aquariumfertilizer.com. They were pretty quick with the delivery. I'm really not sure how I'm going to approach dosing right now. I am wanting to try staying away from a straight-up EI approach, as I don't want to (nor think I should need to) change 50% of the water weekly. I'd like to do a more limited fertilizing approach, but I'm not sure how to go about that yet.

STILL haven't switched to the 3 bottle CO2 setup I made. I have a glass diffuser coming that I got used from somebody, and I think once I get that I'll put it in on the other side of the tank. Then I'll decide whether to remove the current bottle or just setup more bottles to continue pumping bubbes into the canister.

Any thoughts on anything would be much appreciated.

 

[RazzleFish]

I think that it looks great. If you don't like the right side then maybe take out or move the rocks so it's more of a natural look. then spread the micro swords out along the front of the right side.

As for the filters I think you just have to wait until the tall plants fill in and cover it up.

It looks great!!!!!!!

 

[cobfreak]

I think that it looks great. If you don't like the right side then maybe take out or move the rocks so it's more of a natural look. then spread the micro swords out along the front of the right side.

As for the filters I think you just have to wait until the tall plants fill in and cover it up.

It looks great!!!!!!!

Thanks very much I appreciate that. I like your idea of letting the microsword fill toward the right side. If it starts propogating itself I might do that. I'll probably pull those rocks out soon, but I'll still want another piece of wood in there somewhere.

I got a package in the mail today with a lot of small plants. I wish I could remember the name of the user who shipped it, because they're very nice healthy plants. I put most of them in this tank, after (finally) removing the last of the anacharis. There was a piece of anubias nana, and some moss ball (I think it was java moss), both of which I attached to a small piece of wood that I hope is okay for the tank. Then there was... other stuff. Some small java fern type stuff (probably more narrow leaf java fern) and some vals of some sort (maybe corkscrew again, not sure,) and then some other stuff. I should probably figure out what the heck all of the stuff is. But anyway even more stuff in there now, but hopefully when it fills in it'll look like what I'm after, whatever that is.

Also got the CO2 diffuser with that shipment, so I'll be hooking that up ASAP. Maybe not tonight.

 

[JAY973]

It does look really good!!! Keep up the good work.

 

[cobfreak]

I received a shipment today from msjinkzd with amano shrimp, and some java moss. There were at least 10 shrimp, but I had a heck of a time trying to count them in the bag.

I had my 29 gallon all setup to quarantine, then decided to just add them to the tank (after floating a bag for a while, "drip" acclimating, and then netting them out.) If they were fish I would've quarantined, but (probably wrongly) I decided to trust the many sources I've read around the net that say there's no need to QT inverts. Funny how easy it is to find the answer you WANT to find in this hobby. I just really wanted them in the tank, basically.

So now there at last check there are AT LEAST two of them in there. My black skirt tetras seem to be convinced that I've simply added a gourmet snack to the tank for them. In all my time watching I didn't see any of them get eaten, but the black skirts just kept trying to find them. The ones that I saw would be in the top corners, and then they found their way to the floating water sprite. Last check that's all I could find, were the two or three that were in that floating plant. Of course there are plenty of places to hide in the tank, and it's pretty likely that more of them, if not all, are just hiding down on the bottom somewhere. More pics of those later if I can manage it.

I added some of the java moss to a piece of wood I'd been thinking about adding to the tank. I also added a couple of tiny pieces of java fern that came along for the ride in the moss. Here's a closeup of that side of the tank:

I think the right side looks better now, though still maybe too "manmade" that piece of driftwood just looks too much like a little tree for me to NOT try setting it up like that; but in the long run I may end up laying it down once it's staying under water on its own.

(I did soak these pieces of wood on and off for a couple of months, at least. This one I also boiled, one side at a time.)

Finally, I setup the three bottle DIY CO2 today. No bubbles yet, I'm just being patient.

Oh, and THANKS msjinkzd for prompt shipment of the little guys and plants all in great shape. Plus the stickers! Awesome. And speaking of that, I've been thinking that there should be some logo for AquariaCentral the way there's that (very cool) logo for MonsterFishkeepers. I love that logo, but I'm not a monster fish keeper. I'm sorta the opposite of that. Anybody ever come up with a cool logo for AC?

 

[fastlight81]

Dude your tank looks great! Awesome man. Hey what type of rotala is that in the last picture with the pink tops?

 

[cobfreak]

Dude your tank looks great! Awesome man. Hey what type of rotala is that in the last picture with the pink tops?

thanks a lot.

That "rotala" in that last shot is the big mystery of the tank. Or, well, one of them. I'm very confused about it. I had been saying it was moneywort. Someone here (fishycat?) said it was not moneywort because of the coloration. I told her the coloration in the pic was due to algae. But as time passed obviously I noticed that she was right.

Trouble is, I THOUGHT that was the stuff I bought from my LFS and had in my 20 gallon and moved out. That stuff was sold as moneywort. But it looks for all the world pretty much exactly like the Rotala I got... wait. I was thinking I got the rotala with my big order, but I didn't, I got it just before that from Jerzguy. I bet I put part of it there. That must be what happened. Now I just need to figure out what kind of Rotala that was I bought then.