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AS600 - Jade

Hi,
Be warned regarding A. Crispus. Mine has suddenly taken off and is now producing a new leaf every couple of days which are 30mm wide and over a metre long. I'm going to try and remove it tomorrow during maintenance and may well have to sever the leaves just below the top of the substrate as I fear pulling it up will destroy the integrity of the substrate.
My aquarium is 900 x 550 x 530mm:
Cheers!

Looking forward to that, actually. O:
They can get massive, as I well know. I had two bulbs taking over a 63 L tank (600 × 300 × 350 mm). Ofc, this was back in the '90s, and my software wasn't updated, so I ran that tank as most would've done in the '70s (ie. no CO2, ferts was occult knowledge, waterchanges bad etc), so the bulbs eventually gave up. Flowered several times too.

I probably have way overplanted with them, and will hopefully have to remove half of them once they take off, but it's anticipated and planned for.

At least they don't produce runners everywhere like the crispatula did, in addition to roots almost pinky finger thick; covering almost the entire footprint of the tank. The back corner where they were originally planted had a 2-3 cm layer of roots at the bottom glass, no substrate, just roots...

So, warning noted, but I'm not too worried : D

In other news, chugging along nicely. Waterchanges (almost) everyday, dosing EI as of today. No melt, no algae, no problems. There must be mayhem just around the corner...

I probably lost a few green jades, maybe they had trouble acclimatising, and at least one seemed to have some molting problems. Also saw an amano munching on one more... Last count gave around 12-13 minimum and amanos seem to leave the rest alone, so fingers crossed.

Looking forward to the year 2525 where I can finally remove the grey rock from the big root. 🤔

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One month update:

Boasting "no melt" has its way of getting back at you. C. albida is losing a couple of leaves everyday. Hopefully this will end, this is one of those few crypts I have not have any luck with. At all.
So would like to get this going right. Not sure if my water is too hard for it?
Everything else is growing, or rooting, even Aponogetons seem to have picked up speed and is now almost as fast as Bolbitis and java fern 😅 C. petchii is putting out new, low dark leaves entirely different to the old ones. Same pattern for wendtii and willisii, the latter also has send out its first runners. Willisii also have put out new leaves with beautiful red/brown edges.
Have sorted Bucephs in the right hand side. Most were just stuffed in, and I decided to get some of them glued to pebbles and placed properly. Need to get the last 6-7 individual plants sorted on the left side, no biggie.
Sir Grey Rock has left the building, leaving room for a few more crew cut java ferns. Hooray.

On the whole start up: I was halfway through first week of the usual "low light, 50% daily wc first week, every 2nd day etc" when I read @Geoffrey Rea's New Decadence journal (again). Aside from being riddled with glorious tanks and onions, he also had some notes on his start up method. Now I'm nowhere near Geoffs talent, but the general idea made sense, so I thought might as well shoot both feet off and do something similar. I was quite certain my CO2 were settled, so after that first week I upped the light considerably, and trucked on with daily waterchanges for 3 weeks (I think I missed 2 or 3 single days, and some wcs were only 30-40% due to time constraints, but yeah...). I also started dosing full EI at the end of the 3rd week.
In retrospect, aside from the constant waterchanges, this has probably been the most troublefree startup ever. No huge algaeblooms and no en masse melt of everything. Granted, filter was already mature and a lot of the plants already settled for submerged growth. I'm going to do something similar with the 45P, see how that goes.

Issues encountered:
Melt on crypts (was expected and was over quickly, except albida)
Minute amounts of brown diatoms getting munched overnight by various inverts
Some GDA on glass when ferts got upped and on Sir Grey Rock (who has left the building) in particular...
A leech
I have hydra, although not seen one for days

Have a berried amano, so infanticide is in progress. Seeing fewer and fewer green jades, I hope they are just hidey, but not too sure if I'm not losing them slowly. They do seem to be some of the less hardy cherry types.
Mr. Oto has moved in. When I started the dismantling of the 45P, I had the chance to nab him at the front glass without drama so he moved in. Doing fine, although he is not too keen on the amanos; they are larger than he is. Just checked, and Mr. Oto has been with me 18 months. He might get a friend or 2.

Speaking of this: Adding fish is probably at least a couple of weeks out, I want everything to grow in more. That has not stopped me from considering stocking. This far I'm considering:

1. A good sized group of Emperor tetra (N. palmeri). Completely smitten with these after reading @CooKieS Lazarus journal. Sources say that would be shrimp holocaust, others that they don't bother shrimp. I'd really like them though, so if green jades do multiply... Hmmm...
2. A big bag of neons (P. axelrodii or innesi), maybe a handful of cories.
3. Some other tetras... or dwarf pencils
4. Outsiders are something like Pseudomugils or a bunch of Boraras, Hara jerdoni, or...

Really hot on tetras this time around though...

Looking to splurge immense amounts of dough on a new camera, but for now: still crappy phone pics

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So, finally got around to buying a new camera. Just for @£$€ and giggles, I went nuts with manual settings and fooling around in the editor.
No.
Tank doesn't look like this in meatspace, although this isn't all that far from the original RAW file.
I expect to get a little more serious with the pics in the future though, just a bit giddy from excitement over my new expensive toy. And real macro fun is on the table, in time...

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Some staghorn started to pop up, mainly on older not so hot buceph leaves. Had a big think: When did I clean the filter? Oh right, I didn't. It was nasty.
Filter clean a monthly exercise from now on, I guess.
Apo's slowly starting their bid for world domination. Lots of new leaves on ferns.

Another silly pic of the central area + a shot from my playing around with the Canon 28 mm macro. Entirely unsuitable for tank photos, unless your subject is right next to the glass.

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Whatever tetras I decide on, they'll still be a couple of weeks out.
 
2 month update:
Chugging along nicely. Did have some melt on bucephs coming out of nowhere really. Flow was a bit low too...

So, remember to clean your shrimpguards, people, if using any. Flow much better now, hope I nipped this in the bud.

Moved the filter intake towards the back, also moved a few plants around, and removed some wendtii. Love this plant, but it was taking up space towards the back right. Nowhere to put them, so some very healthy looking plants wendtiiinto the compost (so, so sorry, I'm not sorry). Aponogeton slowly getting it's game face on, and start taking over the joint, 2 flowerspikes coming along.

Got more green jade, since I've lost a few. New batch of course has scutiarella. Also still have hydra.

Got 25 green neons, hilariously enough those are called blue neon in Denmark, green neon was another one, hardly seen anymore (guy in LFS reminded me, but I had to goog to go "aha! yes" In case you're puzzled, these were known as green neon/costello tetra back in the day (probably 15+ years back). Haven't seen these around for a looong time, apparently also known as January tetra in the big abroad, never seen that used here. Hyanuary )

We're talking P. simulans to dispel any confusion. Guess I'm fully stocked now :angelic:
Pygmaeus and simulans frequently grouping up for a few rounds around the tank. So far clockwise is the preferred direction.

Quick phone snap from yesterday:

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Also had a bit of fun shooting macros, almost everything ended up blurred due to too long shutter times. I really, really need a flash. Also, the borrowed tripod was a plastic wobbly thing, but can get around that with remote control. Had luck with a few, though:

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That's it for now I guess.
 
Fiske, where in Denmark are you based?
I was told the same story in my lfs! With the added wrinkle that the name blue neon was picked by Glazer over in Germany.
 
Fiske, where in Denmark are you based?
I was told the same story in my lfs! With the added wrinkle that the name blue neon was picked by Glazer over in Germany.

Outside Køge.

It makes sense though. We have the regular neons, red neons (cardinals) and blue neons. Very little red on the simulans I have, and not any green either, really :p
If anything, violet neon would be closer to the mark.
 
Ahh nice. Not so very far from me then. Where did you pick up the tank, amazoonia?
Are there any nice shops your way? I use akvariunbuttiken and poppi osterbro mainly and neonfisken in a pinch but always nice to know my alternatives.

Ps. If you ever want any trimmings or breedject shrimps or endlers feel free to write me.
I often just give the plants away and the shrimp pay for themselves in store credit so it’s no big thing to pass on some stuff to another aquarista
 
Ahh nice. Not so very far from me then. Where did you pick up the tank, amazoonia?
Are there any nice shops your way? I use akvariunbuttiken and poppi osterbro mainly and neonfisken in a pinch but always nice to know my alternatives.

Ps. If you ever want any trimmings or breedject shrimps or endlers feel free to write me.
I often just give the plants away and the shrimp pay for themselves in store credit so it’s no big thing to pass on some stuff to another aquarista

Yeah, the tank is from Amazoonia, although they didn't use that name then.
I use the same shops mainly, not Poppi Osterbro as it is a bit out of the way, is it worth the detour? Only shop down here is a Superpet, which I haven't been to for years as last time I left it disgusted at the state both tanks, but also other pets were in. Things might have changed there since, I wouldn't know... I believe there's a few other smaller shops within driving distance, but haven't really checked them out.
Tbh, I buy a lot of stuff from Aquasabi too, since it's easy...

And the same goes for you, currently my multies are back to spawning like psychos again LOL I think they heard me mention a bigger tank...
Currently I have a surplus of Aponogeton bulbs, and am going to rip more wendtii out in a week or two.
 
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Hmmm. Probably not worth the detour unless they have just come back from their German jollies to buy fish, the 2 weeks after that is when they have all the fish you wished you had a tank ready for. For example right now they have tucano tetras and I have no space. I like the owner a lot and the staff are very friendly with me whereas AB are very knowledgeable but not exactly friendly.
 
I’ll have a lot of rotala variants available every other week and always have a surplus of mini Christmas moss. I’ve got half a pot of persicaria soa Paulo that will have to be thrown out in a week or two that’s surplus if you want
 
@Garuf : thank you for the offer. I might take you up on it sometime. Currently, I have way too many plants, though (or too few tanks, however you look at it).

By way of minor updates, everything is going along nicely. I removed the metal mesh shrimp guard over the filter intake, which turned it into a snail death trap. Now there's a sponge over it. Less of an eyesore, and probably better in the long run.

Fish are doing well, no jumpers, and they have learned to beg when I approach the tank. :D
Doing waterchanges with 80-90% rainwater these days, to see if I can get some softer more acidic water going. Probably have to ease up a bit on that soon-ish, although after several weeks of this, my water is still alkaline when not injecting CO2, and about 300 ppm... Neons seem to appreciate my efforts on that front + tinting, and have coloured up nicely,
Aponogeton did send up a flower spike, the other was what I guess would have been a floating leaf. Surface agitation was to much for it, and now I just have a small curled leaf at the end of a very long stalk... Another flowerspike is on it's way, though.

Ordered a flash, but it will be a couple of weeks in delivery, so I'm mostly getting my macro on outside the tank.

A couple of tank shots, and a few macros; arachnophobes should be advised to stay away from the last one.

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