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Fluval Roma 200 LED

Excellent journal to date ...
though now I’m waiting for the next entry :nailbiting:

You’ve the stone lying very flat so far, I’d angle it for more height and interest
(when using stone just to elevate wood, you can use any cheap rock, saving your dragonstone for more viewable locations)

Recently Filipe Oliveira has been using lots of dragonstone, so may be worth looking through his FB page and videos
- when I first saw this scape photo on his FB page I was unexcited (I’m just not a tree scape person) but then was intrigued as he chose one of my all time favourite plants for the “trees”



Hi,

Thanks for your comments


Really impressed with the dragonstone and forest “floor”
 
Hi,

Its been just over a week since my last post.

In that time I've been over to visit Fil and his 2000l 'Beast', Thanks Fil, your advice and the plants were much appreciated.

It was my intention to finally scape, plant and fill my tank last weekend but this had to be put on hold as I needed to get a non return valve for my Co2 system as I had water back flowing from the in-line diffuser to the solenoid. Its now sorted and the valve has been fitted.

Below are some images showing my scape and the planting that I have done. Some of the plants came from Fil, others from LFS and some were ordered from Aquarium Gardens (Thanks). I have done a fairly heavily planted scape and my intention was to have a sort of Jungle with a small valley running through it.

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Tank after initial fill

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Over the following days the Co2 was brought on-line and balanced so the drop checker is green when the lights come on, the dosing pump was set up and the EI additives are now up and running and the Chihiros Doctor was set up (not sure if it actually does anything but I like the look of it when on)

Some images showing where I'm up too now, just letting everything settle down and grow.

Any critique gratefully received.

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Hi,

Can anyone please help me identify this plant, I'm not sure where I got it and I would like to identity it so I know where to place it in my tank.



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I've also started to get a little fungus on the wood which I know is normal, is it just a matter of brushing it off as and when I can or is there anything else I can do to help \get rid of it.

Thanks
 
Hey douglas, i had a load of fungus grow on my DW after a little while in the tank, i did eventually just wipe it off, also my BN pleco took care of the rest and it is still ok after a bout of dodgy hallucinations;). The plant looks like a cryptocoryne but the species is a bit difficult to tell. Looks like it needs a bit of TLC to get some new leaves out, maybe then decide where it should go. Keep up the good work.
 
Unknown Crypt looks to be a “hammered” leaf type, these are usually midground (unless it’s a seriously stunted C usteriana - but the leafs look “wrong”), think C wendtii ‘Tropica’, C wendtii ‘My Oya’ (Aquasabi lists their cultivar as reaching 20-35cm, when I grew the Tropica cultivar, it was 10-15 or 15-20 depending upon conditions)
The present leafs look somewhat damaged and perhaps on the “melt verge”, so I’d trim any obvious damage and monitor remaining leafs (better to remove any likely to melt leafs proactively, as this seems somewhat “contagious” between crypts)

As you’ve no livestock, I’d increase CO2 to a more yellow-green during photoperiod

Wood slime of various origins seems to be fairly tasty to Otocinclus, shrimp, snails so while I’d remove the bulk of it, you can also just leave it (though some have reported issues with nearby mosses) - if you obtained some filter media from Fil, you can add some algae crew fairly early on (depending on water change schedule)

Overall tank looks good
But
I’d separate the grasses into small clumps placed a cm apart (they’ll quickly fill in the space)
I’d thin out that large moss “Pom Pom” and jams bits here and there into rocks etc (you can still leave a good chunk of it behind)

Not sure if you’ve any “fast growing” stems?
Tropica’s Auxiliary plants

The sword in the back corner looks very close to the glass walls and will soon be pressed against them (if the rosette part is healthy and bulky, I’d remain be any damaged leafs)
 
Thanks for the comments.

I'll look at moving the sword over slightly away from the glass as best I can.

The moss pompom is Fissedens that I got from Fil and it is on a metal sheet, Fil advice me to keep it as one piece so this is what ive done.

I've used Marsilea Crenata and Marsilea Hirsuta for ground cover which ive split into clumps. The clumps are a couple of CM apart which is the recommended distance for planting, this may not be clear from the images. I'll see how they grow over the coming weeks.
 
The moss pompom is Fissedens that I got from Fil and it is on a metal sheet
I did suspect as much, but you should be able to quite easily lift some bits off - sometimes it transitions well as is, but I find the lifted off bits do excellent (no cutting required :))

The Marsilea looks fine, I really meant just separating the grasses

You can just leave the sword as placed (especially if there really isn’t more room), just keep it nicely trimmed, removing all the original leafs as it generates new leafs
 
Hi,

Can anyone please help me identify this plant, I'm not sure where I got it and I would like to identity it so I know where to place it in my tank.



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Hey Doug!

Tank is looking good so far!

This crypt is in a sorry state, and its from me ;)
Crypts do not like the beast, not sure why, could be too high energy.

It was originally sold to me by aquarium gardens as albida brown, and looked like it too for a while.
But now its gotten really dark and is melting.

Good luck with it. I might list the rest for free as a "rescue" plant.

Fil
 
Definitely doesn’t look like any Tropic C albida brown I’ve had :)

I can’t grow C usteriana - it’s notorious locally for melting upon arrival from Denmark, though it may hold leaf for up to 2 weeks if not disturbed in its pot, planting in substrate then signals the plant to dump ALL leaf, truly impressive melt in just a short time :eek:
It will then reluctantly put out the odd leaf that might even manage a respectable 25-30 cm, but a year on, it still looks much the same (I usually dispose of it sooner but I was determined to try properly at least once :angelic: ) ... and it will gratuitously melt after the same water change it’s not melted through the previous 12 or so times
 
Hi,

My tank has now been running for a couple of weeks, over the last few days I've started to see some hair algea appearing on the wood and there appears to be some algea on the plant leaves. On seeing this i've reduced the light intensity, the lights are on for 6 hours and I'm also doing twice weekly 50% water changes.

Is there anything I can add to the tank at this time to help with the algea (fish/ shrimps) or is it just a matter of letting the algea burn itself out.

Doug
 
How would you feel about adding some horned nerites?
Start with 10 nerites then just keep adding 10 at a time until the algae goes.
Another option would be the glutaraldehyde. Apparently all of the tanks at Green Aqua in Hungary include this algaecide. I don't.
It looks like a matter of days until your tank explodes into growth. It is quite typical for anubias to get algae when it is at this height at this stage.

Your crypt looks more like Cryptocoryne Nurii Rosen Maiden, but I think it has just morphed due to emergent growth. When I was at AG it was interesting to see that their flamingo crypts were green because they went with the pots. I went with the tissue culture and mine are psychedelic pink. My preference for crypts has now shifted back to tissue culture pots.
 
How would you feel about adding some horned nerites?
Start with 10 nerites then just keep adding 10 at a time until the algae goes.
Another option would be the glutaraldehyde. Apparently all of the tanks at Green Aqua in Hungary include this algaecide. I don't.
It looks like a matter of days until your tank explodes into growth. It is quite typical for anubias to get algae when it is at this height at this stage.

Your crypt looks more like Cryptocoryne Nurii Rosen Maiden, but I think it has just morphed due to emergent growth. When I was at AG it was interesting to see that their flamingo crypts were green because they went with the pots. I went with the tissue culture and mine are psychedelic pink. My preference for crypts has now shifted back to tissue culture pots.


Thanks for the reply.

I checked my water earlier today and the Ammonium and Nitrate were very low so I decided to start stocking my tank.

On your advice I bought 10 Nerite Snails but they only had Zebra Nerites locally so I bought them. I also got some Cherry Shrimp and some other shrimp which were described as Algea Eating Shrimp, They look like Amano shrimp.

Along with the snails and shrimp I also bought some Cardinal Tetra and Ember Tetras. I'll let the tank settle for a few week then I'll add some more.
 
Hooray :thumbup: fish are in :clap: and the algae eaters.
It's a good set up so I've got my fingers crossed for you.
I order off Ebay... lazy or what.
 
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