New Beginning after years of absent

[FishKeeper55]

We have been patiently waiting for the filter to establish and finally have managed it, has been couple of weeks now and we have added betta fish named "Blu" (yep without e at the end), he is very shy, always likes to be hidden until you get close to the tank it self then likes to show up, due to nature of betta we had to remove spray bar as this was just to wide and lower the flow of water a lot, I think the MC doing extremely well in our setup as I didn't expect any grow, I was concern about the light and no CO2, definitely is slow grow, 99% of the fungus has gone now so we was able to attach some Christmas Moss in few places and need to wait for this to grow over next few weeks, planted some Limnophila heterophylla behind the wood and this is very fast growing plant, just wow you can see new grow every day sort of thing.

Phew pic of the progress

 

[FishKeeper55]

We have decided to change things a bit again, I was pulling the plants up and couldn't belive how well they was attached to substrate. Not sure if we going to get crypts melt and how well the montecarlo will respond.

Sent from my SM-G950F using Tapatalk

 

[FishKeeper55]

Not sure how many times we have change this setup now, I did find the hard way that keeping Monte Carlo in little tank is fairly difficult, we had grow but also wasn't attached very well, due to huge diatoms grow it was nearly impossible to keep on top of it, so couple of weeks ago had a little change along with white spot problem which is under control now, covered rear glass in black, couple Twisted Vallis and some Ludwiga Repens, what I didn't realise how tall this Ludwiga grow until had a look on net, still need to sort the blue silicone due to medication used.

Having a look on this Ludwiga am I correct thinking the light is insufficient? plants getting more red but only near the top, been honest I am surprised is changing colour at all been honest.

 

[alto]

Change is grand
It’s definitely the right size tank for trying and learning

I’d trim back the melting edges (tops) of the Vallisneria, use very sharp scissors so you get a clean cut without any “crush”
Note that this Vallisneria variant can be more particular than the straight leaf ones
(Try Tropica’s Vallisneria nana https://tropica.com/en/plants/plantdetails/Vallisnerianana(056C)/4505 if this one struggles)

As for the L repens, it’s very common for it to show much more red color as it approaches the light - I wouldn’t add more light to your current setup unless you want to go corresponding high CO2, fertilizers etc etc

Betta still there?
(such a pretty boy)

 

[FishKeeper55]

@alto Will trim the Vallineria as per advice and see what happens, oh Betta still there, had to turn the flow right down been honest as he don't like it at all, grown is well a bit, overtime you put lights on or you approach the tank will swim out, we are looking at getting bit bigger tank soon

I'm already using liquid fertilizer and was thinking about changing light as all the plants heading to middle where the strongest light is, was hopping to have the light spread out a bit or am I getting thing wrong?

 

[alto]

was thinking about changing light as all the plants heading to middle where the strongest light is, was hopping to have the light spread out a bit or am I getting thing wrong?

Better light distribution is good but as you want to maintain this as a non-CO2 tank, be careful of adding too much light intensity
- floating plants will help and Tropica’s new https://tropica.com/en/plants/plantdetails/Phyllanthusfluitans(028TC)/22848 is more moderate in growth

A shorter finned Betta does better with more flow - Blu looks like he may be an OHM Rosetail type (so LOTS of finnage) and they definitely do better with limited flow

 

[FishKeeper55]

After getting bigger tank up and running for my daughter bedroom this little gem became spare, and wasn't sure what to do with this, I never was fun of the white plastic tray on bottom or this huge white lid but it was her tank in her bedroom but now is mine I manage to remove it, had couple spare bits of wood along with unused rock and aqua one 10w led lamp and decided to set it up, I'm not so sure about my plant choice but will see how this will grow. Pipework and heater will be replace in near future once I find suitable replacements in mean time this will house 6 neon tetras few shrimps and 2 Otocinclus, plan is to let the plants grow and see how will turn out, I would like to in future maybe remove the sand in front and try to get carpet growing with CO2