Fozzybear Update (Pic Heavy)

Thanks...but Bob's isn't anymore :rofl:. After hours of aquascaping that tank all of the stemmed plants are spinning in circles in the current at the top of the tank, one of the bigger crypts is completely shredded and half eaten. Bob looks brilliant, the room is dark but from the light of the computer monitor I can see tons of bright spangles and he's contentedly motoring around making house. So....here comes the awkward moment where Fozzy swallows his pride and asks a silly question...anybody know of some real nice looking fake plants? :duh:Probably gonna go down to petco here and pick some realistic looking ones, I'm hoping he'll leave the grasses where they are though, I'd like to have some roots in the substrate to work at the mulm. Thrilled to see him this decisive though, I've been thinking all night about what this must be like for him. I always think of my new fish as extremely stressed in their new environments, but compared to the tankmates he had PLUS booger nosed kids poking the glass and laughing at the funny fish with no tail this has to be the Ritz. Other than the disturbances of aquascaping (he went in a Rubbermaid in the closet with all his plants, rocks a heater and both filters running and then into his new tank) I haven't spoken above a whisper in the fish room, haven't played music or even walked with heavy feet and have kept the dogs out at risk of life and limb.
 
petsmart in ropo has some decent looking plants. i know caesars has some good ones too but kinda pricey from what i remember. as for petco's fake plants i wasnt impressed last time i was there.
 
sweet, I got to school across the street from the petsmart, so I'll just stop in there at lunch.
 
Great looking tanks man. Was looking through the picture and I was stunned when I saw this. I want the top of my tank to look like that. There probably some guy that already asked this but I did a quick search for "floating" and the only thing that came up was frogbit. Are those plants that are floating really frogbits?

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Edit: are they hard to grow?
 
Great looking tanks man. Was looking through the picture and I was stunned when I saw this. I want the top of my tank to look like that. There probably some guy that already asked this but I did a quick search for "floating" and the only thing that came up was frogbit. Are those plants that are floating really frogbits?

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Edit: are they hard to grow?

they are water lettuce, super easy to grow, fozzy gave me some to put into my tanks when i was just starting. now they exploded all over my tanks and i have to prune some out every week. great for preventing algae too.
 
dwarf water lettuce but yes, exactly as he said, very cool looking plant too with big hydrophobic leaves. I'm bet if you asked real nice chem could be persuaded to ship some to you, I would but I've actually only got a few in my tanks right now because I'm working on carpeting these days and the tanks I have full of floaters would be over-run by them. They grow great and give nice texture to a tank.


I've played with lots of floaters by the way, frogbit you can see in some of the earlier pictures, it has thin roots that will actually hit the substrate and root for real. Its very cool for tanks that you don't want to "plant" heavily, it gives a kindof ethereal wispy look to the tank, I've got a friend that just has those a various crypts in a tank with the fancy white clouds that Jinkzd carries and its absolutely stunning, then there is salvinia which has small leaves and whispy short roots, I use it to cover up all of my smaller tanks that i'm not really trying to grow anything significant in (for instance it keeps that 20L multies tank more or less algae free despite the fact that there are only two anubias which are slow growing and hence basically useless for competing with algae). It also has hydrophobic leaves and gives really nice texture...then there is good old duckweed which has tiny root systems and is...weedy...idk...Salvinia>duckweed. Almost forgot, there is also red root salvinia which is pretty much epic, I've got that in the 10g that's all overgrown with the guppy grass and has the badidae.


This is that same tank about a year and a half ago with frogbit and salvinia...let me go grab you a picture of the waterlettuce
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As promised.
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yes im totally down to ship some to ya if ya pay the shipping, ive got tons, and it grows like weeds , literally when i started my new 20 i put a handful in and in no time it had covered the tank. ive got it growing in my friends tanks too. pm if u want some
 
My god, Bob is a destructive fish. I'm quite pleased, A: its great to have the challenge of building a habitat he'll like, and B: its good to see him being decisive and active. Today I watched him pick up the petite anubias by the stick its attached to like a dog with a bone in its mouth and haul it (plant flapping in his face) across the tank where he deposited it and hasn't looked at it since. There's been allot of other moving including hauling gravel to perfect his caves and general digging and moving, he's even tried to figure out how to move the salvinia from the surface around the tank. At this point I've grabbed a couple pieces of wood in the hopes that i can make him the hiding places he needs without plants and then I'll just tie the anubias to the Malaysian driftwood that I got and pull anything out of the tank that he uproots. I've got him gobbling up spirulina like a hound, he ate a couple peas but has turned down the NLS pellets so far. Once I see him with consistent clean BMs I'll start him in on some live superworms and cyclopeeze. So far I've seen two good BMs and one that was correct color but had a hint of stringiness. Also, I'm planning his final home at this point, I'm thinking 55 or 40b with a basic canister filter, 200w heat, PFS substrate, rock and driftwood hardscape mainly focused on driftwood, maybe manzanita, with anubias and java fern tied in. At this point I'm leaning towards a fine sand substrate since he's been spending so much time digging. I've been watching him eat and he roots for food allot, I'm thinking its easier to pass sand than rocks, thoughts?


Bob's renovations

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there were two more whole large crypts there last night
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these three were taken within seconds of eachother, Bob making his rounds
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LOOK CLOSELY AT THE STUMP!!!!! Seriously though, do it...I'm pretty sure I see a thin film of tissue there, if you look back in the other pictures that wasn't present when I got him, this is me crossing my fingers...but i think he's growing a tail!!! :headbang2:
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Th

the wood I chose, been soaking for a while now
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the Malaysian, I'm going to put the rhizome in that notched part in the bottom picture.
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