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A planted tank

Delapool

Member
Joined
27 Aug 2016
Messages
46
Location
Perth, Australia
Thought to start a journal to record changes. Will have to get a recent photo.

Tank is 4ft x 2ft x 2.5ft high. Running CO2 injected at either end. Light is quad-t5ho and a strip led light.

Nitrates about 20ppm and phosphates 2ppm.

Plants are just Java Fern, crypts, aponogetons, bolbitis and a few stem plants that aren't too much work.

Angelfish, Congo tetras, Bolivian rams, yoyo loaches, bn catfish, bumblebee catfish (impulse auction buy I never see).


15th July
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5th June
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14th May.
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4th April.
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One of the flowers. Seems to have survived the water change (they seem to hate those). I've left this one as it found a gap by itself in the tank covers. It gets even weirder as once one stem finds a gap, the rest will follow (maybe I'm over-reading it).


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Cracked it and pulled the bolbitis out so I can prune it. Thing is a foot across at base.

Plenty of gravel still attached so should be able to just put it back in I hope onto gravel. Going to get some wood for it though so I can prune it more easily, things a weed.


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Australian Ninja shrimp photos (the iPhone was struggling, sorry photos aren’t great). Bit more colour and maybe some banding. Very tiny but very busy! I took some other photos to check out if any better. Ended up leaning the iPhone on glass and waiting for a shrimp to walk into view as it wouldn’t focus on them (will have to see if there is some sort of extra zoom camera app).

Main tank clean and cleaned the par meter. Java fern will need drastic trimming soon.

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Results record:

Gh>
JBL - 7
API - 6

Ca>
API - 3

KH> still to sort out.

Nitrate>
JBL - 18ppm
API - 10 to 20ppm
 
The flowers of my aponogeton find gaps as well but never really thought much about it until I saw your post. Maybe they can sense dryer air?
 
The flowers of my aponogeton find gaps as well but never really thought much about it until I saw your post. Maybe they can sense dryer air?

Could be something like that. Must be something I guess. A few weeks back, one stem was growing out of the front, another had ducked under pipes and back up to grow out the back. Sometimes I wish I didn’t have the covers and high tank flow and could just let them grow to see what happens. At the moment they just get to be a nuisance sadly.
 
I confess I think I over-stocked the tank on these spanner barbs. Looked much smaller in shop... Very stocky, actually dwarf the angelfish a bit. And if the tank was a boat, they would be tipping it to one side as they rush to follow anyone coming into the room. They kind of remind me of keeping goldfish but I think goldfish have more manners.
 
Bit of an update.

Shifted into a rental. Almost cracked tank getting it out of door but made it!

Lost a few fish from them living in buckets but most made it.

Slight ammonia readings at moment while it re-cycles. Probably as I packed up canister filters week before. Nothing on nitrate test. Got CO2 injection running again.

Just java fern, bolbitis and anubias on just enough gravel to cover bottom.

Far cry from what it used to be. Sold all crypts, etc. Got $70 I might use on buying substrate this weekend.
 
Almost suspect it’s the same culprit each week. And egged on by his/her mates outside the gravel vac.

On the good news side starting to get the water changes sorted with how to run hoses.

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Sharing a wafer with the bn catfish ... erm, not my fault they can’t see me tucked way over here under driftwood at back of tank ...

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