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3 Nano 'heterogeneous' Triptych - The end.

Hi Jack

The carbonated water is a source of CO2, and a more natural way of providing it than liquid carbon / gluteralderhyde.
6ml per tank looks fine to me, and i would add it just before the lights are switched on. If you are able you could also dose the same again half way through the photo period.

The other thing I would suggest, for filterless tanks, are large regular water changes. As much as 80% every day especially in the early stages.

Cheers,
James
 
Thanks James to start with. I am currently doing 50 percent a day and been doing that for 7 days. I am a very heavy reader of the walstad method so I think the beginning is absolute key. I will start to reduce the WC after 2 weeks down to every other day. I'm glad I have another triptych man on the case ;) I will go and buy some carbonated water today. I am not adding fauna till the 4th week so amount is not essential in my eyes. :)

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Ok you lot... plant dealer came round a couple days ago and planted yesterday done my water change and a general clean to the tank.. Here is what I got..

pogostemon helferi, vivipara & parvula...

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Close ups suggest that maybe the pogostemon was grown immersed? I know it came from the far east so not sure. but It looks great and Im pleased with the quality...

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I drained the water prior to a 50% water change and begun planting.. I must say that the EBI 1-2mm plant/shrimp substrate is great for planting.. I have had no issues with planting as I did in my previous tank and as for scale in a small cube it does wonders. Here are some photos of the cubes after planting... Note that the 2 filters get switched around the tank for a couple hours after planting so clear the "light smog" from the tanks ;) tank has been cycling 7 days now and I have been adding 6ml of carbonated water daily, 15 mins before lights on.. now when I fertilise and and add my carbonated water I feel I have to stir this up by hand to allow for the substances to really travel around the tanks with no filtration.. Im worried about algae attacking my hairgrass but my water changes are so frequent this past week I cant see this happening just yet..

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I also managed to get the riccia pads finished early this week when they arrived and can already see shoots coming through... A worry I do have.. is that I had ordered two lots of riccia so I run the risk of maybe having patches of different riccia in different tanks.. I hope this isn't the case and if it is the case I hope they seem to blend and mould naturally with one another..

I do need to finish off the far left tank and get some more parvula and riccia dotted around the rocks to give it some natural life.. I didn't want to cloud the rock edges with parvula so decided to dot it in areas where I think would hold realism. Im planning on all the grass to get settled and not look so pencil like. so fingers crossed.
Cheers guys :)
 
cheers boys.. yeah I have a few syringes I use for my bearded dragons recovery I needed. So yeah. you think squirting above the flora areas will be adequate? Shall I trim the vivipara too? or just the parvula? what you suggest? I was worried about melt on the staurogyne but since the carbonated water and fertz and regular water change it seems to be getting better.. I also planted them at night so they had 14 hours of darkness before the lights came on. my plant dealer recommended I do this to avoid melt :)
 
Im thinking keeping the same fauna, 15 bright red chilli rasboras in each. But shrimp wise I would like to mix it up. On ordering my super tiger shrimp and have been looking at black bee shrimp and crustal shrimp.. I have a few weeks left of cycling my tank through so guess I have time to plan. Riccia is breaking through now so end of the week I'll post some photos up :)

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Thank you Ian.. I can finally post some decent photos...

Here is just a small update of how my triptych is coming on, I have attached some very nice weeping moss I recieved from AAB, to the dragon-stone I have in there.

My eleocharis parvula and my pogostemon helferi in the background is growing nicely despite injecting with co2. happy at the min with how things are going. But Im ready for a flow problem anytime soon lol..


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IMG_5783 edit by Jack Dicker, on Flickr

Here is an image of the whole set up to give you an idea of where the riccia will finally be grown..

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IMG_5762edit by Jack Dicker, on Flickr
 
Have always found the 'triptych' concept an interesting one, this though I feel is a particularly impressive example. I love the way the scape flows between the three tanks. Any one of these tanks would be a nice looking nano taken on their own, seeing the three together elevates the whole composition to a really high level IMO.

Top work! Can't wait to see how it grows in...
 
Thanks mate, all I'm waiting on is my tank to cycle. Another couple of weeks and I will feel more comfortable with putting fish and shrimp in etc. The advantage is I can have different fish and shrimp in each... although... this may make it too fussy.. I'm thinking chilli rasboras and tiger shrimp in the center and just shrimp in the two side tanks giving it more of a central display.

:)
 
Ok thought I would stick a few photos up of my Riccia breaking through. Not much else has been going on apart form constant maintainable work.. Water changes, cleans, cuttings etc. soon ordering my fish and shrimp. Just a time period where I have to focus of keeping the tank to a high quality and let it run it's course...

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Going to aquatics live next weekend so I'll have a think about what route I wanna take with fish.. Still confident I wanna go with bright chilli rasboras. Feel it will really work with my cherry red walls in my lounge! These things need to be thought about! ;)

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after a clean out of all the very irrating debris that kept coming from the rocks and lack of flow I think I have just about got it clean again... I have had 3-4 weeks allowing the tank to mature and have been thinking ong and hard about this and have decided to install 3 external filters.. please do not think I failed as I beleive to fail something must go wrong.. nothing has gone wrong, not fundamentally anyway.. fluff and debris were ataching it self to the grass and it was just becoming dpressing so I have decided to get some external filters. Ordered now I need to be patient and wait. My jungle nano walstad is 4 months old and has the same conditioning as these 3 tanks only my junlge holds so much more maturity and cleanliness. there is no debris, there is no dirt, there is nothing unsightly about my jungle nano so I guess walstad only works a certain way. I always knew it would be tough to pull off an iwagumi walstad due to the less amounts of flora situated in the tanks.. on this note the waters are clear the gravels are lean there is no sign of algae whatsoever so put it down to flow. I had thought about getting a few small water pumps and pushing them to the bottom but I dont want anything in my tank, this was the main reason I was going walstad and I wouldnt want to throw that away on the basis I need flow circulation. I picked out an ld filter I had laying around so have trown it in the cetral tank with the pogostemon helferi as I thought that would need it the most if any needed it at all. for those who wish to try walstad I would like to say if I had gone with riccia fluitans all over the bottom and got rid of the grasses all together I think there would be no issue at all. I would put money on it. the fact is the grass needs movement through it otherwise the debris etc just clings to the spindles..

Here are some recent photos of my riccia pearling.. I know I have posted this above but I have never seen it so bubbly in any tank I have had.. especially with no flow or co2 :) I have also uploaded a photo oh my tall hair grass swirling round the main featured rock. looks pretty cool...

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2012-11-07 17.04.02edit by Jack Dicker, on Flickr

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2012-11-07 16.57.56edit by Jack Dicker, on Flickr

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2012-11-07 16.57.33edit by Jack Dicker, on Flickr

any comments would be good :)
 
Yeah fish is still a big questionable area.. Grey should I say.. I was thinking blue neon endlers with blue tiger shrimp in one. Red Chilli rasboras and red cherry shrimp in one and another match of shrimp and fish in another.. Still unsure.. Want it to flow through in each so it's hard. I would love to mix things up but I don't want to make them seem separate. I'm still unsure so just focusing on the overall setting first. :) cheers for the comments Mate..

Jack

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That Ricca pearling is bloody amazing for that set-up Jack. Outstanding! I was just about to try a dwarf hairgrass carpet in one of my classes Walstad bowls so really interested in your comments. What about putting an air pump in just to get the water moving a bit? Do you think that might work for a small bowl or just blow all the CO2 away? I don't have any Ricca but do have quite a bit of DH so your thoughts would be appreciated.

Cheers

Steve
 
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