58g Planted w/overflow and sump

I love slow growers too. You know I'm scared of co2 & fish/critter death. (but that's just me).

Awesome on the shrimp refund/replacement thing, go Petco! Nice to do business with a reliable Co.
 
Never gassed any fish. Had just about every other problem with CO2 but critters were always fine. ;)

Trying to share pics but drag and drop seems to be giving me errors, again. Gonna try a new post, it just keeps loading the draft that causes errors.
 
New Affinis leaves are looking great! Marked with arrows, if it wasn't obvious.
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This older Affinis leaf is turning red from the bottom up.
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New Nurii leaves look good too!
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Alright, got it to work! So here's more pictures. :)

A behind the wood shot of the balansae. Lots of baby leaves.
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Some amano shots
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Well I guess they are happy cause at least 2 are berried, maybe a third even. I had Amanos for year and years (way longer their expected life span) and this is the first berried ones I can recall. I got some pictures but they aren't very good and too tired to post them now but too excited not to share the discovery! :) I doubt I will try to raise any babies though....but I wouldn't rule it out either. ;) Everything is going well, I'll update soon.
 
Raising Amanos seen like a bunch work but I don't remember the details. Be glad your shrimp are happy enough to berry!

Your crypts are looking great!
 
Playing a little catch up so it's gonna be a long post! You've been warned. :)

I've confirmed 4 Amanos with eggs, woot woot! I have about 4 weeks to figure out if I want to raise the eggs so I'll get to that later.
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Possibly the biggest one at nearly 2"
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I took some more pictures in between but I don't think anyone would care about them besides me, mostly random amano pics and plant growth tracking pics. So let's jump into today!

Algae was back as bad as before but this time I was too excited to clean the glass I didn't take pictures lol.

FTS - Lights at about 9pm, one of my favorite times for plant color but pictures always have a lot of blue cloudiness to the water. Sorry I stole the light blocker for the 29g and forgot to put it back for the first couple shots.
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FTS - set to Sunny - This is what is looks like from about noon to 3:30. Very crisp and clean looking but all color is washed out.
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Affinis - 9pm setting - More and more red is coming up! A little bullation coming up in there too. A few stray Nurii in there still ugh.
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Affinis - Sunny
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Nurii - 9pm - a couple stray Affinis up front here too...
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Nurii - Sunny
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Buce - 9pm - All the pink leaves are new growth! The big variety has quite a bit of new growth.
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Buce - Sunny
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Only got a Sunny Balansae shot- One of the leaves is now laying across the top by about 4"
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I don't take any shots of the Usteriana huh? That's cause it's always done well and is big so I don't notice any changes in it. lol

Something new started happening with the hudoroi. It is coming up with brown edges. Not like rotting brown but growing brown. And the bullation is intense so I think the brown edges are a good sign? This is the light colored leaf you see in the FTS, well the light side is it's underside. The current kinda flips it over. I don't want these to be brown though, I was hoping for a nice green to background the affinis.
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I took the buce out for comparison shots. The forked one was glued and it was COVERED in buce to begin with. Both certainly had some die off but the glued one had significantly more. The 2nd shot you can really tell by how much rhizome you see.
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And say hi to my little friends! I love my strain of MTS! I've never seen an almost solid band like the one guy has. Unfortunately I have every other kind of snail in here too. I don't mind regular rams and even pond/bladder snails are ok but the mini rams bother me cause they are so tiny and will forever be tiny specks distracting my view.
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pH - 8.1
KH - 9.5
GH - 9
0-0-20
Phos - 2+ish lol test jumps from 2 to 5 and it gets cloudy after about 2 mins and 45 seconds (test is 3 mins) so if I don't check it right before time is up it can be hard to determine due to cloudiness.
Temp - 71 I don't use a heater usually but weather is cooling off here, we'll see.

Petco update - After I spoke to them on the 13th I never got a replacement order email and shrimp never came so I called them a couple days ago. They tried to send them several time but they are out of stock (never informing me though). When I ordered them originally they immediately went out of stock after I ordered mine and they sent X-lrg instead of X-sml so I think they have been out of them the whole time and I got lucky to begin with. I just asked for a refund cause the 30 day period is ..over, almost over? No email about that yet either or refund processed but I expect that to take awhile. They were very quick to give me whatever I wanted so let's hope they follow through.
 
Tank looks very nice, I like the different lighting shots. All the crypt look fab, but since you said it, I need an Usteriana pic next time, lol.

It looks like the buces have tiny new growth, the forked 1 especially, maybe because it lost so many leaves?

From your reading & experience do buces have to have co2? I know I'll be tempted my next club meet, sorely tempted :D. But free plants I don't mind killing as much as 1's I buy :eek:
 
Thanks Nancy! :) Will do!

Good catch I actually have a close up of the tiny new growth but thought the post was running long enough. lol I just put the card back into the camera though and now the camera is so far away...lol

Absolutely not. Everything I've heard says buce is super easy and besides the odd melting it did here I'd agree. Remember how scared I was when I got it for the 29g!? But it's done great in there and I expect it to do great in here now that it's adjusted.

And unless things change in this tank I don't plan to add CO2. Why mess why a good thing? Get faster growth yeah but the health of the plants is currently superb IMO so I'm fine with slow growth and a bit of brown algae on the glass only (I've searched and couldn't find any on the plants).
 
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