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Jimbooo's 450L / 100G high tech journal

Hi All,

Well it's been an eventful week my regulator has sprung a leak so i need to arrange for a replacement from malaysia (ebay..Doh!) so luckily i had a nutrafin canister around and plugged it into the co2 hose for a temporary fix. after about 24 hours it started bubbling away nicely. i've bought some excel as well to dose daily until i get a new reg just to make sure i'm not running low on carbon.

The angels have settled in nicely i forgot what great lawn mowers they were, my wood was covered in a 1cm thick beard of fluffy algae all over it and after two days in the tank it's all completely gone. the angels and Otto's have slowly pecked it all away.

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Plants are coming along well. the unnamed feathery plant at the back centre has adapted to underwater life rather nicely. see in the pic below the emersed light green growth in front and the submersed finer, red growth behind. i'm sure someone can give a positive id now. anyone care to step in.

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The Madagascar Lace Plant is doing well
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carpeting plants coming soon...watch this space...well that space..
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Fish stock so far:

- 10 Juvenile Angelfish
- 7 Zebra Danios (temporary)
- 10 Otto's
- 20 Amano Shrinp
- 1 Bamboo Shrimp
- 2 Sterbai Cory's

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And just for fun a video. sorry about the quality it's from my camera's movie mode.

CLICK HERE
 
As you may know Jim i'm a huge fan of you previous 180 tank and it looks like this one is set to superseed that and IMO that is saying somthing!
Great job 😀
 
Sam, cheers mate. just a tight 100% carpet for the exposed eco complete. mix of glosso, HC, hairgrass and some other bits and bobs. i'm sure it will all and up as one messy clump i'm just fancying a bit of experimentation.

Thanks Dan. i have high hopes thats for sure.

Beeky, no discount as i am yet to find a store with more than 10 in stock. i have paid between 99p and £3.99 for the current stock. TBH if i see any i just buy all their stock regardless of the price.

no pics of the bamboo shrimp. i bought 2 and one died within 3 hours of putting in the tank. the remaining one seems to live in the wood cave in total darkness hence i cant get a pic.
 
Looking good Jim. The angels especially look great and when they get bigger they'll look amazing.

I like the big Aponogeton ulvaceous at either end, look great.

As to the feathery plant; I'm still thinking Myriophyllum, but really not sure which species. Probably M.aquaticum.
 
hmmm...angels and shrimp! Good luck seeing any of those shrimp 😀

Mind you i did have some in one of my tanks once - i placed some oscars in there after a couple of years, moved some decor around and there the shrimp were quite happily living in total seclusion under a piece of bogwood. I hadnt seen hide nor hair of them during that whole two years.

Maybe if they stay hidden the angels wont find em.
 
thanks eds.

Steve i have a rio180 as well (40G) with about 20 shrimp and a now fully mature angel and the shrimp are always out on the anubias and wood. they even stroll around on the open forground, they have never been bothered about the angel.

this is a 100G so i dont have any worries there, plenty of room for them to hide if necessary. at the moment you can easily see at least 10 shrimp at any one time. They are really there for algae control and constantly clamber all over the wood picking away at any minute algae strands they come across.
 
It works for some obviously. I put about ten in my discus tank once and that was the last i saw of them apart from the very occasional glimpse. They seemed extraordinarily shy creatures. Maybe i was just unlucky...

I may try them again at some point. I wouldnt trust Angels as far as i could spit one. I'd be very surprised if they dont start in on the shrimp when they can fit them into their gobs.

...but ive been surprised before. Like the time i stated quite categorically that a Rio 400 and cabinet would NEVER fit into a Nissan MIcra! Boy was i wrong!!
 
Hi All. Time for an update.
My Aponogeton ulvaceus has been throwing out flowers for the past fortnight all over the place. i've never had anything flower before so this has been quite exciting.

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i have just left the plants unpruned for a fortnight with a water change after a week. Still no replacement regulator so i have been surviving on one nutrafin canister plugged into my rinox. funnily enough it works surprisingly well.

I went to Sams "Themuleous" UKAPS meet last weekend and bought some new plants on our store trip. i realised the anubias i had in there was non aquatic as were the red stem plants in the right for ground so i have replaced these with hairgrass and another anubias.

I also bought 10 sterbai cory's from the goldfish bowl, oxford taking the stocking to 12. Here's the pics.

before prune
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after
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Themuleous said:
Crikey mate, thats some crazy growth! Love the sterbai in that shoal, they look like a herd of bison or something. How many times did you wave your hand at the tank to get them to do that? 😉

Sam
Click to expand...

Haha, I saw this comment before the picture and it made me laugh. You described it very well!

Well done James, you must be very pleased. It's interesting you're using DIY CO2 with a diffuser, I wouldn't have thought the pressure would be high enough. I bought a Dennerle CO2 kit that comes with a bottle of slow release sugar gel that supposedly lasts a month. I don't doubt it, but 3 days to start and one bubble every 5 minutes that never gets diffused is not what I call effective!!
 
Sam: no waving of hands just a fistful of sinking pellets lol

Beeky: i was surprised as well. I do have a top quality aquarium gardening non return valve (£18!) i suppose once the gas gets past the valve the pressure on the end part of the tube should stay quite constant. i just couldn't be bothered to put the ladder in so thought i'd give it a go. it's only a short term solution but seems to work very well indeed.
 
i have only had it installed recently, after the regulator packed up. it's kind of middle of the road green. i guess 10 - 15ppm but who knows lol
 
i've just planted the main carpet. I bought some HC from James3200 and it came entangled in loads of hairgrass which was great as i want that in there as well. after spending 20 mins trying to separate it all i decided on planting a mix of HC and hairgrass through out the forground after all it's going to mix eventually anyway. there was quite a lot of HC but most of it is buried in the pics with just the tips poking out of the substrate. the rest of the stem plants are growing very quickly as well. at least an inch a day some of them two.

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I have found that some tiny remnants my HC has grown up out of my hairgrass in my Iwagumi, and are now starting to creep along the top of it.

It looks great, provided the HC is kept in check. What you may find is that the hairgrass will grow faster than the HC and appear to swamp it, but the HC may be able make a comeback after a month or three.

I bet the colours of this tank look pretty spectacular in the flesh.

Do you find your herd of Corys all stay together, or do their largish numbers give them the confidence to stray out on their own?
 
Good to see its gone to a good home

I recon the HC should be ok, as it is submersed and should start growing pretty quick.. on a plus note, your HC wont be getting uprooted with that hairgrass in there 🙂

James
 
Hi guys, TBH i'm not too fussed what the final established carpet consists of. i just want 100% coverage of the EC ideally that would be mainly HC with hairgrass dotted about but that obviously isn't going to happen. i took a look at james3200's initial layout that this came from and i really like the mixed HC/Hairgrass areas so if it ends up like that i'll be pleased.

also the cory's do tend to rummage a lot so as james said the hairgrass will keep the HC down hopefully.

as to the corys they pretty much do both. spread about rummaging for food then get together for a swim then go off again. they tend to play together and eat on their own if that makes sense. i was watching them for hours last night after i'd planted they were all messing about in the sandy area (so glad i incorporated that) tumbling over each other and flicking sand everywhere. thats the other benefit of Hairgrass, hopefully it will help to keep the EC and sand separate, well at least it'll stop the mound of ec leveling off.

the colours are fantastic in the flesh dave my point and shoot camera cannot fully do it justice. I am very impressed with the ecocomplete as well, i have not added anything at all to it and the plants are looking very healthy indeed. i am now on full EI though so this may have been the case whatever the substrate. root growth is very good though so that must be the EC i suppose.
 
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