I'm just going to begin this thread with a load of photographs, inline so that I can easily caption.
This is my first-ever high-tech tank. It was a year in the planning, but in the end I did a lot of impulse buying. I also made a lot of mistakes at every phase, and it's still nowhere near where I want it.
I'm not looking for advice on this tank at the moment- in fact, today I am sick to the teeth of the thing. But I will probably feel better tomorrow, so here are pics from start until today.
Were I a clever woman, I would have started asking for advice round about here. This was the seventh of July and I was planning a dry start method. I also thought that little trail would not be difficult to maintain (lol- such a sweet summer child).
This was a half an hour and two XL in vitro pots of Micrantheum 'Monte Carlo' later. I was trying to do the "Lazy Man's DSM" according to Jurijs Jutjajevs. I thought I was going to just leave it alone for a month and have a nice carpet when it was time to flood.
However, by the 14th of July, the substrate was overgrowing with mould. My first impulse was to treat with H2O2, then I realised that mould would die underwater, so the answer was to flood.
As it turns out, it's a good thing I didn't manage to DSM a carpet, because that bonsai floated.
24 July. The Bonsai sank. Added more MC, a pot of Marsilea hirsuta, a pot of Pogostemon erectus, and planted the bonsai with Anubias barteri var. nana 'Pangolino'. That's bio CO2, which I got fed up with quickly and bought a pressurized CO2 system. I should have tried to fix the little trail at this stage but I did not.
Closeup of the bonsai, because I like the Anubias.
Then I let it grow for a while, added pressurized CO2, posted this thread with photos because the carpet wasn't growing fast enough for me:
https://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/carpet-not-carpeting.62463/
Took some advice. Now today I have this:
The stuff in front of the Pogostemon erectus that looks like crumpled autumn leaves is newly planted in vitro Alternanthera reineckii 'Rosanervig' which I hope will stop looking like crumped autumn leaves soon.
Stocking is 10 Crystal Black shrimp which have somehow survived since I bought them on 31 August. They aren't breeding yet but they've moulted a couple of times- they were very small on purchase.
This has definitely been a journey, and at this moment it feels like a big mess, but we'll see how it goes.
This is my first-ever high-tech tank. It was a year in the planning, but in the end I did a lot of impulse buying. I also made a lot of mistakes at every phase, and it's still nowhere near where I want it.
I'm not looking for advice on this tank at the moment- in fact, today I am sick to the teeth of the thing. But I will probably feel better tomorrow, so here are pics from start until today.
Were I a clever woman, I would have started asking for advice round about here. This was the seventh of July and I was planning a dry start method. I also thought that little trail would not be difficult to maintain (lol- such a sweet summer child).
This was a half an hour and two XL in vitro pots of Micrantheum 'Monte Carlo' later. I was trying to do the "Lazy Man's DSM" according to Jurijs Jutjajevs. I thought I was going to just leave it alone for a month and have a nice carpet when it was time to flood.
However, by the 14th of July, the substrate was overgrowing with mould. My first impulse was to treat with H2O2, then I realised that mould would die underwater, so the answer was to flood.
As it turns out, it's a good thing I didn't manage to DSM a carpet, because that bonsai floated.
24 July. The Bonsai sank. Added more MC, a pot of Marsilea hirsuta, a pot of Pogostemon erectus, and planted the bonsai with Anubias barteri var. nana 'Pangolino'. That's bio CO2, which I got fed up with quickly and bought a pressurized CO2 system. I should have tried to fix the little trail at this stage but I did not.
Closeup of the bonsai, because I like the Anubias.
Then I let it grow for a while, added pressurized CO2, posted this thread with photos because the carpet wasn't growing fast enough for me:
https://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/carpet-not-carpeting.62463/
Took some advice. Now today I have this:
The stuff in front of the Pogostemon erectus that looks like crumpled autumn leaves is newly planted in vitro Alternanthera reineckii 'Rosanervig' which I hope will stop looking like crumped autumn leaves soon.
Stocking is 10 Crystal Black shrimp which have somehow survived since I bought them on 31 August. They aren't breeding yet but they've moulted a couple of times- they were very small on purchase.
This has definitely been a journey, and at this moment it feels like a big mess, but we'll see how it goes.
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