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Creepy Hollow

Kogre said:
@Wookii was kind enough to send me some frogbit and red root floaters. Those came on Thursday, and a majority of them were a vivid green.

Since putting them in my tank, some of the frogbit has yellowed, the majority has stayed qreen but a lot of the red root floaters have just parted ways with their roots. The roots have gotten pretty long on some of the frogbit (+3 inches) and I can see some baby plants coming through from a couple.
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I trimmed the roots on the Frogbit for easier shipping, but they always grow back, and can end up very long.

The were out of my high tech tank, so may need to do some transitioning to your water parameters - but they are all pretty resilient plants and providing you dose a decent amount of ferts (and get rid of that ammonia ;)), they should reward you with quite considerable growth due to their easy access to unlimited CO2.

Just pinch off any damaged or yellowing leaves and it will encourage the plants to put out new growth.

Incidentally I’ve never managed to get the red root floaters to actually go red, beyond a gentle reddening of the roots, and some red to the edges of the leaves - but nothing like the solid red leaves you see in images on the net. I’ve read that the darker colouration occurs under strong light, But despite mine being directly under quite considerable light, they still haven’t ‘turned’.
 
I promise, the ammonia has been trashed. It was a tough choice but it had to be done. The repeated advice would have made me the fool (or had already) to dose my aquarium with ammonia any further.


Regarding the red root floaters, I'll give 'em a good whipping and give it a go, providing they survive to the point of planting the tank out.
 
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Kogre said:
I promise, the ammonia has been trashed. It was a tough choice but it had to be done. The repeated advice would have made me the fool (or had already) to dose my aquarium with ammonia any further.


Regarding the red root floaters, I'll give 'em a good whipping and give it a go, providing they survive to the point of planting the tank out.
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If they don't I can always send you some more. I need to thin them out on my low tech, they are now starting to grow up and out of the tank!
 
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The vallisneria is looking better.

I added a few crypts and moss. I ended up getting fed up with reaching into the tank and fiddling around with the thread so I just started using liberally large patches of it where I could easily reach.

I changed the inlets and outlets back to the original ones. I also used a spare intake pipe, cut it in half and then used 16/22 hose to add the pipe to the bottom of the intake, so I'm now pretty close to the bottom of the tank. I need to fiddle around with the outlet on the right to get it level, my OCD won't let me leave it as crooked as it is. I should probably angle them upwards too for better surface agitation. Right now there is little next to none.

Oh, and I have snails in there. 😕
IMG_20210327_234526.jpg
 
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I'm not sure about things when it comes to snails but some of these look like adults already and laying eggs everywhere. I had purchased some Nerites and before they turned up and after planting the vallesneria, I must have had a few ramshorns on them and possibly pond snails. The ramshorns are doing a great job of destroying the mold on the wood but are pooping everywhere and also laying eggs everywhere. Some of these must have hatched as I have baby snails zipping about the tank with semi translucent shells, but some of these look like they are a different shaped shell and moving differently, which is why I think I might also have picked up some pond snails... possibly on the moss or crypts.

Anyway, other than the poop the ramshorns are putting out (it's a lot), it's looking good. The poop is beginning to have put me off using a fine silver sand cap.

I think my shrimp arrive tomorrow. That's unfortunate as I had hoped for the tank to be majorly planted before putting them into the tank. I'm hoping the plants turn up before Good Friday this week. I have a vaccine jab on Wednesday and can't imagine feeling like doing much of anything until after I've recovered if it knocks me for six like it did a few of my colleagues and friends.

I'm now also looking at the spraybars. I don't like the gap between the two on either side. I might use another length of pipe to attach to the existing bars just for an extension on both sides and to eliminate any dead/minimal flow areas. After having seen reviews of the filter I have (Oase Biomaster 850 Thermo) I may decide to drill the prefilter with a thicker pipe for better flow. I'll add the spraybars first though, that's easily reversed and is cheap to do. I say I will, I actually mean I might...

I ended up buying a bit of water sprite from proshrimp and chucking it in to float. The issue with my two portions I had was that where the plant (despite looking healthy) met the rock wool, it turned black like it was rotting so just sort of broke away from the rock wool. Some root structure survived and is in my tank along with the rest of whatever survived, but a majority of the root structure ended up in the bin with the rock wool.😕 Gutted.
 
I got some water sprite from same vendor about 2 weeks ago, plants were healthy, roots were rotten. I just planted the healthy tops and they are putting out new growth and seem to be doing well.
 
Thank you for the feedback about it mate.

I've just floated all of mine to make life easier for me not to get algae 🤣 If I end up with space once it's all planted I'll definitely plant the sprite.

Your post gives me reassurance that the water sprite will survive, so I appreciate it. 🙂
 
Just had a nice chat with Vera from Birstall who gave me the awesome news of my plants being on the way to arrive with me tomorrow. I hope they arrive before I have to go out!

I had my shrimp arrive this morning. I drip acclimated them for almost 2 hours and put them into the tank. They swam around for the first 10 minutes and then settled on the moss/substrate. Now most of them seem to be swimming around which I read was a sign of stress. I've tested the water and everything is coming up zeroes. Perhaps I just need to be patient for them to get settled in...
 
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Kogre said:
Just had a nice chat with Vera from Birstall who gave me the awesome news of my plants being on the way to arrive with me tomorrow. I hope they arrive before I have to go out!

I had my shrimp arrive this morning. I drip acclimated them for almost 2 hours and put them into the tank. They swam around for the first 10 minutes and then settled on the moss/substrate. Now most of them seem to be swimming around which I read was a sign of stress. I've tested the water and everything is coming up zeroes. Perhaps I just need to be patient for them to get settled in...
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Exciting!!! Better make yourself some scaping food in advance lol.

My Amano shrimp swam around like crazy for around 3 days, they actually looked like they were trying to escape. All settled now.
 
Most of the plants are in, just the foreground that needs to be planted.

IMG_20210331_194623.jpg


There's one Anubias that is perling like crazy. You can see it just off center in that picture.

The ferns and Anubias were just jammed into gaps, some gaps were barely gaps at all. I used thread to stick one piece down. I'll keep an eye on it but hopefully they stay in place and attach.

I've cancelled the trident and a sword (can't recall which, I'll look it up later) as I have LOADS of plants left and will barely have room for those that hadn't arrived.

Just off right is a bland looking gap. That's where the ludwigia super red will grow in eventually.

It's taken me almost 8 years to get to this point and I must say I feel rather proud and happy. Both my sons were awestruck when they saw it.
 
I had completely forgotten I had anubias caladiifolia, it was in the box tucked away under all the s repens. I have to say my favourite plant out of the lot has to be the anubias nana, just love the leaf shape.

Cracked on with the planting today and finally finished. I'm not happy with the way the front right looks with the s repens, but I guess I can try trimming it down. I trimmed a few and planted them amongst the sag in the middle and kept the longer stems for the right. I could have trimmed them more (I should have) and packed them in more densely, but it looks okay for now. Ultimately, I'm just glad it's over and done with. There is some prime real estate I've missed out on using (back left fallen branch) but that'll have to wait for another occasion. For now I'm done with planting.

I had a few left over plants. Both echinodorus, one is reni and five are bleherae.

I'm not sure how but during refilling, I saw some shrimp in the outlet of the filter on the right. They couldn't have gotten through the inlet, it has a prefilter of course sponge inside it and they're simply too big to get sucked through the tiny slits. I did notice yesterday that there were only about four tops that I could see at any given time. I guess I must have stopped the filter and dropped the water level after, so they probably must have swam into the holes on the spraybar and gotten stuck. This means they spent around 16-20 hours in there with it on. They seemed happy enough when I tipped them into the tank.




IMG_20210401_174554.jpg


Oh and I can't tell if the snails are having an orgy.
 
Looking great already! Looking forward to seeing it grow in. Keep up with the dosing and water changes now, and let it start growing in.

Kogre said:
Oh and I can't tell if the snails are having an orgy.
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More than likely 😂
 
Bah! I just saw these posts and Gill has called dibs already.

The substrate is pretty low on the corners and planting the bleherae took way too many tries even where there was depth. I'm leaning towards placing stem plants, not sure which yet, either another ludwigia but green or a hygrophila.
 
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