MTS rescape for my 50gal
- Thread starter Fozzybear
- Start date
Its a lot cheaper than that if you make it yourself, but that is not always easy for some people. You need room.
It is really nice to plant right?? Keep in mind, it will form up over time and compact a bit, so its good practice from time to time to poke at it (I use tweezers and drag it thru), just to loosen it up for the roots. In can get anaerobic also if unattended for a long time. Something to be careful of with those beautiful plecos you have there. nothing to panic about, but got to do every now and then when you are doing a water change or something.
I have yet to really find a plant that doesn't like Mineralized Soil. Its also killer for emersed setups as well.
Good to hear you like the MTS. I'm definitely going to go that route on my new 75g. Hopefully I can find the time to make it. As Plantkeeper pointed out, it's great for emersed setups too. I want to try going a carpet of dwarf baby tears and dwarf hairgrass for about 4 weeks before flooding the tank. Hopefully I'll have the patience.
Great thread so far. Keep us updated!
Great thread so far. Keep us updated!
Interesting development in cory behavior as the day progresses. With the addition of the plecos (mainly the flash panaque), the black substrate and the driftwood (unbleached mopani, still leaching enough tannins to give the water some color) they have reduced average speed by about 50%. They DO NOT look stressed, and their schooling behavior has intensified drastically. Their black coloring has significantly increased as well. The flash is more than willing to share much of his caving space with them (was tank raised with corys) and I've watched each of them individually investigate both the pleco and the cave with no negative response but they all seem content to just calmly travel the tank in a nice school. With the blue substrate and brighter lighting, plastic fixtures and lack of plecos they tended to spend much of their time in caves, and their time out grazing was spent almost exclusively at the bottom of the tank. They've always grabbed bubbles (as I've heard they're apt to) and seemed like happy mellow peaceful fish...its just that now...they seem to have either smoked a bunch of pot or.........like the tank dark?
My ancistrus and corys are filling me with a great deal of fury. The ancistrus began exploring the tank this evening, fins high and flying, nice bright markings. He'd stay out in good form with me right up at the tank, but every time i touched my camera he'd dart off leaving me with a blurry frame. I managed to snap these...the corys don't even need explanation...impossible to photograph nearly.
lol you have no idea. these fish are absolutely gorgeous. I'd worked so hard to to get this tank ready for them and finally seeing them moving in and making themselves at home is fun as hell....what am I saying, just keeping this tank is fun as hell, lol.
So, I've decided, and its final. One of you guys need to convey the message to my L204 that my house is a safe place for plecos and that he should abandon his hideouts and come get photographed. This guy is not yet comfortable with me and its sad...my corys will stay at the glass with my nieces and nephews in the house. Anybody know how long it takes panaques to stop hiding in a new habitat?
I've recently decided to make my 10 Gal QT tank permanent, and I'm going to try MTS for the first time. I ordered some from the same place, but I don't have the capping sand yet. I was thinking about using Flourite Black sand, but the Tahitian Moon sand looks pretty cool. Does the normal digging behavior of the cories kick up the MTS at all, or does the cap just have to be thick enough to make sure that they don't reach the soil under it?
Great looking tank.
Great looking tank.
The corys don't kick up the MTS at all, not even a little bit, and where they do get to it (where i've turned some up with planting etc) the flocculant drops it back down to the bottom immediately. LOL funny you ask that tho...I JUST had to reconstruct my panaque's caves, He'd decided they weren't deep enough for him and he started heading south in tight circles just LAUNCHING substrate out of the den. So i popped the roof off the cave dug a ditch almost to the glass and filled it back in the just the black sand (plants don't grow that great in caves anyways) and the tank is already mostly clear and the **** panaque is much happier with an inch deed crater at the bottom of his cave. So, it certainly can be kicked up with a 4-5inch denning fish but clears quickly and can be adjusted for. The corys don't even come close to possessing the destructive power necessary to disrupt....anything.....in my tank.
