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Novice Trigon 190 from absolute blank canvas...

Right, few additions so I thought I'd post up.

So far my 9 (was 10, who knows where the body went...) Cardinals have been incredibly timid, spending 90% of their time hiding in the java fern and hygrophilia at the back. Last night I added another 10 Cardinals, 8 (very) juvenile Corys, 3 small crypts, 1 tiger lotus, and another red plant that I forget the name of.

The change in Cardinal behaviour is massive, they're now happily shoalling around the tank and seem much happier, so I'm viewing that as a great success. The Cory's are brilliant, doing their manic little "dances" up and down the tank every now and again. I gave them some bloodworm later, and whilst a lot has been eaten, the remainder seems to have been all "swept up" into a few little mounds by the Cory's, which they are hoarding!!

I need to pull up the Crypts and trim the "thread" roots back, but wanted to check what I was best doing first.

The heater in my tank won't adjust, so I'm going to replace it I think - it's keeping it at 23C at present but I think most things appreciate being a bit warmer, so was going to slap something new in there at some point.

Anyways, updated picture!

IMG-20120501-00164.jpg
 
Good to meet you last night at PDAS
Think you need to get more cardinals, and at that price I'm sure you will :)
Nice plants you got too
I got two different species of crypts (8 good size plants) for £2
And a good bunch of Lindernia rotundifolia for £1
But best off all I got a trio of apistogramma hongsloi for £3 :) :)
I'm away for the next one but will see you at the show
More pics of your tank please
 
Hi Dean,

The cardinals are much happier now that they're in a bigger shoal, but they're still abject cowards and spend most of their time hiding at the back of the tank in the hygrophilia!!!

The Corys are definitely good additions to the tank, and the schwartzi's have loads of energy, definitely the star fish in there at present!

I'm having real problems with the java moss I have picking up all manner of crud - I think it's partly because of where it's position, a lot of flakes get pushed onto it by the pump, so I might have to rethink my tank flow.

Today saw a bit of tank maintenance and the addition of some lilea brasiliensis.

Anyways, pictures!!!

P1010049.jpg
 
Well on the positive side, the tank is starting to look good, although I'm going through the diatom stage at present, so plenty of grubby brown looking leaves. Apologies for the "snow" in the picture, if I'd been thinking then I'd have fed the fish AFTER trying to take the pictures!!

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On a more quizzical note, I have two anubias in my tank, a calidifloria and a nana var barteri. They are both happy, so much so that the nana has just throw out another new leaf, but on one of the nana's old leaves, there is a "hole". It almost looks like something has burnt through, with a very fine "membrane" remaining where the leaf veins once were. Any ideas?

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Thanks!
 
ianho said:
they are great tanks to learn on as you have things stacked against you from the beginning (ie flow and distribution). If you can win in a Trigon, you'll win in any tank.

I'll be keeping tabs on this thread.


I'll second that with my experience with my corner tank.

Looking forward to seeing how this develops.

Best Regards,
John
 
Rescape is in progress as we speak. Taken most of the afternoon to get the silicon off the glass, but I'm committed to getting to done today as the fish are in a 30l tub at the moment!

IMG-20120625-00193.jpg
 
Ok, well it's done! Fish (somewhat stressed, poor buggers) are in, and scape is set up. I only snapped a quick picture on my phone, so I'll take some proper ones tomorrow since these don't show the swords/rotundfolia/hygrophila I've planted behind the wood.

I've had to lump some stones/weights on top of the wood temporarily, since it refused to stay sunk (only got it yesterday).

So, picture!

day1.jpg
 
Updated with shots from my decent camera, really need to source some black card to back this with though.

P1010112.jpg

P1010119.jpg

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Hey Rick, Trigon are really difficult to scape, it took me ages to actually sus out how to get 'it'. I have old journals on here that are total tripe! My first one is on here somewhere and it's really badly aquascaped. You are doing a hell of a lot better than i did!

It looks good, have you thought about a carpet of some sort in the front, i think that will make it an even better scape, personally i'd carpet it. You have a tiger lotus in the front as well, just be aware that that will get quite big. But keep it up mate!
 
Thanks ian, really appreciate your input :). I'd love to try carpetting, just not sure what would work best bearing in mind I've only got 2 T8s over 190l that's 2ft deep. If you had a learning curve that's only human, love some of your later scapes though!
 
no probs mate, you could always try a moss capet, moss carpets look good when settled in.
 
The issue I have with moss is that more than anything else in the tank it captures crud, and is a nightmare to clean. I've got some java moss on bogwood and it's the least appealling thing in the tank! Is there a secret I'm missing?
 
you could in effect try any carpet plant...i wouldn't go mad and get 10 pots of whatever. I would get a pot of glosso or Hc or whatever and plant it and see what happens. If the glosso takes and starts to grow, they you can get started with a carpet. It's worth trying.
 
Thanks awtong :). I'm loads happier with the rescape, I know it's not a work of art, but I definitely feel like I'm learning!

My worry with hairgrass was that from what I've read it can be a bit like moss in that it traps a lot of dirt and requires a fair bit of cleaning? I'm trying to stay low tech to avoid high maintenance burdens, so anything that requires a lot of cleaning would defeat that.

That said, I really like the idea of getting a carpet plat in there, so will be doing my research :).
 
I am low tech and I have been using crypt parva as a kind of carpet. Its a lovely little crypt and I am crypto-holic. You will see it in some of my terrible journal pics. I believe AE and tropica have pics on their websites too. It spreads via little white root runners under my sand substrate. My later pics have some lilaeopsis brasiliensis mixed in but this isn't doing so well at the moment.

Hope this helps you with some ideas.

Andy
 
Thanks, I'm going to check out various carpet options and have a think. I've got to say, purigen does a cracking job of keeping the water crystal clear :)

IMG-20120630-00203.jpg
 
If you like plants it's only matter of time until you get co2. So don't waste the Ti
E. Get plugged in... The sooner the better for you. You will die of boredom waiting for a low tech carpet.
Don't be put of by maintenance. You are fiddling with the tank 10 times more than high tech setup requires after you get some experience.
If you still want low tech the only option would be moss carpet. All the rest will be impossible or ridiculously slow.
 
It's more a case that I can't guarantee to be around all the time to maintain it, and I have read about what happens if CO2 isn't kept constant! The other aspect is of course the initial outlay.

I'm not ruling CO2 out at all, but more saying that at this point in time I'm not looking at it. But things can change with time...
 
Well I thought I'd post a couple of pictures on how this has grown in over time, - it's a bit of a jungle now!

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2012-10-22%2018.31.58.jpg


The tank is really stable and very low effort. I do a 25-30% water change maybe once a month or even less frequently, and clean the filters the same. The only real issues I have is with a "green spot" sort of algae on some of the anubias, and a bit of hair algae in some places. I tend to deal with that by hand with a toothbrush.

I'd like to style the tank a bit more but I'm really not sure what to do with it to be honest. I'm slowly trimming the stauro at the front and using the cuttings to expand the carpet, but that will be a slow process.

Comments and suggestions welcome on this!!

Cheers.
 
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