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3ft of Uncertainty... Now Planted!

nothing at all but 4 months in and I am sick to the back teeth of cutting it and picking it out from my tank lol, once you make that first cut you will NOT get it all out lol it just keeps re-appearing lol
 
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There's already been plenty of it floating around while I've been growing up my stock to have enough to plant :).
 
Hi all,
nothing at all but 4 months in and I am sick to the back teeth of cutting it and picking it out from my tank lol, once you make that first cut you will NOT get it all out lol it just keeps re-appearing lol
There's already been plenty of it floating around while I've been growing up my stock to have enough to plant
My only carpet success (other than Duckweed), like Duckweed I've found that a Riccia carpet is easy, but only as long as you want it at the waters surface.

cheers Darrel
 
Right, a brief update, both good and bad!

On the good side, the riccia carpet is growing in nicely (this is 6 weeks of growth). By the end of April or so I should have a fairly reasonable carpet in there!

On the down side, for some reason I've steadily lost my ele. acic. from the back of the tank. Most of it is perfectly healthy and just floating around, which leads me to one of two conclusions - either it has failed to put down roots, and gradually been pulled out by filter flow (but I can't see why it wouldn't root), or my ever helpful cherry and amano shrimp have dug it all up. Short of putting lead on every single plantlet I really can't see how I'm going to make this work!

Anyways, pictures being a thousand words and all that, here you go:

2013-03-13-18.50.32.jpg
 
9 weeks of growth now - low tech riccia carpet is well underway!

2013-04-06-18.35.00.jpg
 
Had no problems at all with it being dislodged. They're keeping it immaculately clean too which is great. It won't be long before it needs its first trim at this rate, and then I'll just have to wait for it to fill out a bit more.

The rest of the tank needs a tidy up - you can spot where some breakaway fissidens has tried to set up camp in the riccia, so I'll remove that at some point.
 
Ok, bit of an update for this one.

I've been rebuilding my bathroom at home, and as a result my tank maintenance has taken a backburner. I've since learnt a big lesson - neglect a riccia carpet's need for mowing at your own risk! My nice healthy carpet decided to detach itself and go wandering around the tank. Since the hairgrass in the tank never really took off, I decided to do a real overhaul.

Healthy Carpet - https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2793861/2013-05-09%2020.55.27.jpg
The aftermath - https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2793861/2013-06-16%2018.00.28.jpg

The rebirth! - https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2793861/2013-06-16%2021.10.28-2.jpg

One thing I do have is some weird "mould like" algae on the glass, notably the rear panel. Details in the thread below, any thoughts?

Green algae on glass (not green dust) | UK Aquatic Plant Society
 
Don't like the current hardscape nearly as much as the hardscape I had when my soil substrate attempt failed, but at least the tank seems to be doing well now. Riccia carpet is re-establishing itself well at the moment after my previous episode of neglect!
tW70cqY.jpg
 
Right, well a fair bit has happened since my last update.

The riccia carpet grew well - too well. I couldn't keep enough riccia alive underneath the mesh, and as a result I repeatedly got sections breaking away and floating up to the surface. I therefore got rid of the carpet, despite it looking really really healthy, and have since set up a java moss carpet. It's going to take months rather than weeks to fill in, and it traps dirt far more willingly, but I'll stick with it for the time being.

The other main change has been as a result of today. I've shut down my Trigon, and consolidated all the plants and livestock into the Rio. I'd like to think that this has been a significant improvement in the scape, and will hopefully grow in really well. There is some evident BBA on some plants, but as I've dipped them all in glut when transferring them over, that should die off in the coming days. Comments welcomed!

5HMJBW2.jpg
 
Really nice mate whats the large leaf plant towards the front from center going to the right ? Some sort of anubias ?
 
Not sure what you're referring to mark, but almost certainly yes.

Plants are:

Java moss carpet at front right and very front of rest of tank.
Couple of tufts of fissidens in rock cracks.
Some sort of liverwort in a few of the other rock cracks.
Various anubias, mostsly var nana and caladiifolia
Two large java ferns on bogwood
Amazon sword nestled behind the two java ferns.
Lots of sagi. subulata.
 
Dipping in 2% Glut is clearly bad news for both Anubias and Echinodorus!

Dropbox - 2013-12-26 10.12.47.jpg

AquaEssentials order going in today if they're open...Lesson learnt there! Shame as quite a few of those anubias are 18months+ of growth.
 
Good shout tim. I didn't realise that with zero leaves I still stood a chance of keeping the rhizome, but I'll give it a shot! Doesn't look like AE is open today :(.
 
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