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FishBeasts 500 Ltr "Forests Edge" Video added

I'm so sorry i missed this before but pine wood is very toxic its releases chemicals into the water along with oils. I remeber reading up on it a while back, altho you can use Pine wood thats been soaking in bogs for a while as most of the oils and toxins have leeched out.

Pine sap is also highly toxic to insects (defense mechanism) and as crustaceans are not too far away from them along the tree, I'd guess that bathing in the toxins are whats killing your shimp.

I'll do a bit of diggings see what I can pull up.

Ok. So the first thing I've found whislt talking to a friend of mine is that pine tree's are amazing at creating toxins to slow plant growth giving them an advantage over competitors. ~

" In most cases decaying needles, needle leachate, and field soils significantly reduced germination and radicle growth ofAndropogon gerardii andA. scoparius, pine-associated herbaceous species"

Effects of pine-produced chemicals on selected understory species in aPinus ponderosa community M. A. K. Lodhi and Keith T. Killingbeck Journal of Chemical Ecology Volume 8, Number 1, 275-283
 
A small update:

I have sorted out some problems with the stability of my setup and the moss is recovering from the algae bloom. Once it gets some healthy growth back I will trim it heavily and continue to add more until I have a full "forest". I beleive that one of my extended maintenance sessions allowed my willow moss to dry out too much between sprays.

IMG_6337.jpg


It is sort of funny though because I learned something very unusual about this moss. Once it began to recover it changed its growth from that of a willow moss to fissidens, crazy. Check it:

IMG_6335.jpg


On another note, the fauna deaths have subsided. I have 6 survivor shrimp in there, a foreign invader creature and some unusual snails. I intend to get some more hardy shrimp and introduce them as soon as I can afford it (baby on the way) but for now here is a picture of the invader creature.

I appologize for the bad quality pictures, it is true that kit lenses suck.

invader1.jpg
 
Whoa, that looks like some predatory insect larva of some kind. I would not keep that with shrimp. Thanks for the update.
 
frothhelmet said:
Whoa, that looks like some predatory insect larva of some kind. I would not keep that with shrimp. Thanks for the update.
Thats a dragon fly larvae, it will hunt and kill shrimp and small fish!
 
Thats quite some insect. Reminds me a little of the sentinals in matrix (lol)

Shame it will eat your fish and shrimp.
 
LondonDragon said:
frothhelmet said:
Whoa, that looks like some predatory insect larva of some kind. I would not keep that with shrimp. Thanks for the update.
Thats a dragon fly larvae, it will hunt and kill shrimp and small fish!

wow, thanks for that info. It happened to die yesterday so I wont need to worry about that anymore.
 
A quick update on the progress so far. I have sorted out the growth trouble with the glosso. I needed to put all 312w T5 light on to make it creep properly. I have had a bit of algae trouble stemming from the Java moss which I have been buying from my LFS. It has been comming with thread algae attached for no extra cost. The glosso still has alot of creeping to do before looking good.

I figured out that dosing a massive amount of liquid carb as a foliar spray will kill the thread algae and the moss also :S.

All in all it is going well but with a few tweaks needed over the next few weeks. But for now here is a quick photo of week 1 and then how it looks at present.

IMG_4430.jpg


IMG_6353.jpg
 
This is going to be amazing when it grows in, the madness of all that wood and moss works really well, I wouldn't of though it would haha. Cable clips for holding it down is a 1st I've seen :)

How badass did that insect loook!!! My god haha
 
Great news :D that moss is going to look amazing!
 
Just a quick update and a few questions regarding algae treatment. I was away for a week and had the mother in law dosing my dry salts and all went well except I ran out of co2 sometime during the week. I am going to do a light black out to deal with the green thread algae which is now getting out of control.

I have never done this before and I am would like to know if any of you guys have experience doing this and I would like to know whether this is a viable option or not. I figure I may aswell since I am not going to be able to refil my co2 bottle for a bit.

I also don't know how the glosso will handle 4-5 days without light. I think that it will climb a bit and run out of energy, which would take a bit too recover once I put the light back on.

Thanks guys!
 
I have gone ahead with the blackout and have finished day 1. I intend to do a 5 day blackout. I have complete, uninterupted, darkness. I did a 60% water change and removed the hose leading from my co2 regulator and plugged it into an air pump which leads into one of my filters. I removed as much of the thread algae as was possible without destroying the moss.

I do not think that I wil have my co2 bottle refilled before I finish the blackout and am wondering if I should halve my light watts and reduce everything else accordingly once my black out is done?

I have plenty of liquid carbs and at this point intend to just reduce everything to a more low tech setup until I get the bottle refilled.
 
I finished my blackout but everything seems to be the same as it was before I did the blackout. The glosso has faded slightly and the threqad algae is slightly faded aswell.. All in all I would say that it was failure.

My next plan is to get 4 or so Siamese Algae Eaters
 
hello.
Try to use this --> Liquid CO2, this is an liquid carbon. Use four times more than recomended dosage is, it won't kill any fauna from your tank ! If You use CO2, increse dosage, double be inuf.
As well you can use internal UV filter --> UV Filter
(I'm using external and internal filter in my 54L, its a very good solution, biological + mechanicla filtration)
If You gona use internal filter you can throw out wave maker, those filters do very same job on max seting !
 
(Referring to last pictures)
You overcame the biggest issues with the mosses.
I have to say i was a bit sceptic about it, but it looks great already.
Can't wait to see more glosso in action!

My experiences with liquid carbo in high doses in combination with mosses where not so good. I had good result with normal light/dosing/water change and removing algae old fashion style.

More SAE and shrimp will help you also with controlling the issue.

Good luck!
Keep it up! :thumbup:
 
Thanks guys. How long would the liquid carb overdose take to do the job? I have enough for 20 days at 4x strength. I have about 150 shrimp in there although about 3/4 of them prefer to stay under the shade of the mosses.

At present I think I prefer to get a few algae eaters and harass the moss as much a possible because I have read that carb overdose can take months.

Here is a pic of the tank today. It needs some maintainence.
IMG_6834.jpg
 
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