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Serenity now - A Blackwater riparium

Welcome i can't wait to see what you come up with. 🙂...

UG is a little difficult bugger i'm already trying to get my head around it for a year now.. It actualy is classified as a terestrial plant, most information you'll find is aimt to this direction. So when it comes to terrestrial growth it indeed hates ferts in the substrate, this will only prevent it stolones and attached utricles to do the nessecary job. But it also is an affixed aquatic (if there is moss even epiphytic and lithophitic) and if it is provided with sufficient aerated flow and microbial lifeforms around it's utricles it doesn't realy mind water collum ferts if it's utricles can do what they are meant to do. Catch life food. 🙂 That's where the decaying plant mass comes in handy, decaying plantmass and microbes go hand in hand. 🙂 and if this is free flowing outside the substrate even better for utricularia.. Fertilized substrate in submersed growth is same story, it wont live very long at the same spot.. 🙁

Cyano is a photosynthetic bacteria developing on decaying organic matter and of course light. Again a hand in hand scenario, especialy close to the surface with stacked up decaying organic matter and lots of light as described in previous post. Never mind the dying snail :hungover: in the moss at the surface even triggering it even faster.. Anyway the moment you see this BGA develop in surface growth drain the tank a bit and immediately spray a small amount of peroxide on the affected area and it's killed in minutes.. Realy don't let it develop and get out of hand, counter attack the minute you'll see it. The less peroxide you need the better.. :thumbup:
 
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I might add, forgot, if you have a lot of surface vegitation like this and you feed you fish wit floating flakes. You'll have a lot of dead pockets of no to less flow where little parts of this flake food accumulate and are not eaten by the fish.. Result.. 😉 Cyano bacteria.. So in setups like this, do not use to much floating flakes as food.. 🙂
 
The philodendron has grown well under the par38 led light, requiring trimming and the leaves have become a deeper red and brown... of course the leaves had shaded the underwater flora so only a few dwarf sag remain...

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It's not very Blackwater anymore... my plan is to add Indian almond leaves and more Adler cones... there's no livestock yet, but I am going to switch out the water with remineralized RO using salty shrimp mineral gh/kh so I can try an rcs colony... Maybe I will have better luck in this tank than the big riparium...

I need to find a way to calm the flow of the eheim 2213 canister... it's too turbulent for shrimp I think... ill neef a apo ge for the intake as well... anyways it need a good vacuum and filter cleaning too.
 
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Update:

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Nothing much has changed except more growth... I added an HOB breeder box to the back like before and 2 planters of some kind of bright philodenron...

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I never did change the water... it's still 525 tds and I almost never fertilize... I've added more Indian almond leaves and alert cones... still no fauna...
 
The tank is really lovely. I am a fan of ripariums myself.

In my experience, if you want to grow plants underwater as well as above water, you need light on both levels, at the surface and above the riparium plants.

As for fauna, flow and filtration is still essential, so are regular large water changes.

hitmanx said:
I need to find a way to calm the flow of the eheim 2213 canister... it's too turbulent for shrimp I think.
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Shrimp love high flow. They're quite capable of hanging in very high flow areas and in fact tend to gather there if there's anything to catch on to. I have moss growing on top of the spraybar in one of my tanks and its full of shrimp, just flowing in the water, hanging to the moss, though they have a choice not to...
 
zozo said:
I might add, forgot, if you have a lot of surface vegitation like this and you feed you fish wit floating flakes. You'll have a lot of dead pockets of no to less flow where little parts of this flake food accumulate and are not eaten by the fish.. Result.. 😉 Cyano bacteria.. So in setups like this, do not use to much floating flakes as food.. 🙂
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I can't believe you suggested all this almost 3 years ago and I haven't tried it yet... I had the idea in the back of my minds but could remember where I heard about... I'm gonna try all this on my big riparium on the manzi stump on the left...

Thanks again!
 
I finally moved this tank to my office...

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Here the old school "wood" paneling walls are painted so it gives a different vibe to it...

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It's beside my desk in a corner under a huge basement window, but I think the sunlight won't hit it directly... I'm still running the 12w LED par38 light which has been far better for growth then the cfl ever was... so much so that the philodenron has completely overshadowed the underwater section and only a few sprigs of dwarf sag survived... it's been top up only all this time with no fauna... I abandoned the Blackwater setup as the rotting leaves and alder cones became annoying...

I changed the water finally with water from my big riparium and recently started changing 50% per week or 2 with salty shrimp gh+ remineralised RO water... I haven't cleaned the filter since I set it up with the 2213...

For now it's the home of a dwarf African frog and some ramshorn snails...

Here he is enjoying the surface scum that has plagued this tank since day one...

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My plan is to add some moss and plants to the floating foam as these additions are necessary to keep the frogbit and salvinia out in the light...
 
I like the overgrown natural look. Can i ask which philodendron species it is? Would quite like to try and replicate the look.
 
mort said:
I like the overgrown natural look. Can i ask which philodendron species it is? Would quite like to try and replicate the look.
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I believe it's Philodendron cordatum or Heart leaved... the lime colour phildendron in the back is unknown to me at this time.. .
 
hitmanx said:
the surface scum that has plagued this tank since day one
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Quite easy to do something about it.. Make some surface movement, doesn't need to be much, but the water needs to fall on the surface, doesn't need to be splashing or at a high speed. But it creates a mini edy (you maybe wont recognize it as an edy but it definitively is). All surface water and scum on it will be drawn to it by a natural surface circulation and because of the surface scum tension difference. The scum will get sucked under and dispersed into the water column. It will only accumulate in stagnant corners if there are any. But with the permanent surface circulation the surface will look clean within a day. :thumbup: A small spray bar for example or a small single outlet, as long as it falls on the surface and draws some air bubbles down with it is enough..

Surface scum only accumulates in tanks with the filter outlet bellow the water surface. 🙂
 
hitmanx said:
I believe it's Philodendron cordatum or Heart leaved... the lime colour phildendron in the back is unknown to me at this time.. .
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Thanks
I think the lime coloured one might be a epipremnum "golden pothos". If the new leaves are glossy then its a pothos, matte then phildendron. I've got a young one so might give it a try. I also have philodendron micans which I could give a go.
 
zozo said:
Quite easy to do something about it.. Make some surface movement, doesn't need to be much,

Surface scum only accumulates in tanks with the filter outlet bellow the water surface. 🙂
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The intake for the eheim 2213 is in the back of the cube but the outflow goes into the HOB planter box on the back and then spills into the tank creating a visible Edy.. . This does nothing for surface scum unfortunately...

I will take a close up picture...
 
mort said:
Thanks
I think the lime coloured one might be a epipremnum "golden pothos". If the new leaves are glossy then its a pothos, matte then phildendron. I've got a young one so might give it a try. I also have philodendron micans which I could give a go.
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I believe the lime plant is a hybrid called Philodendron ‘Moonlight’ which has leaves in the shape of a rubber plant...

I will take a close up picture...
 
hitmanx said:
I believe the lime plant is a hybrid called Philodendron ‘Moonlight’ which has leaves in the shape of a rubber plant...

I will take a close up picture...
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I have a philodendron imperial red which I think is the same basic form as yours if it's the Moonlight (stunning plant). I was thinking that yours was a creeping vine, hence my guess it was a pothos. I like the look of yours so will look out for it.
 
hitmanx said:
The intake for the eheim 2213 is in the back of the cube but the outflow goes into the HOB planter box on the back and then spills into the tank creating a visible Edy.. . This does nothing for surface scum unfortunately...

I will take a close up picture...
Click to expand...

Good to know that i'm wrong on this.. 🙂 For me it worked obviously luckely every time again if i raise the ouflow above the water level. 🙂
I guess it's a very common human mistake, thinking that personal experiences are unversal. At least that is what i often say and now i trapped in it myself.. 🙄
 
Cyanobacteria is a problem now... when I neglected this tank it ran just fine... now that I'm trying to improve it, I'm running into cyano on the substrate and glass... I removed the frog awhile back and the Ramshorn snails did not survive for some reason...

I've cleaned the substrate and filter and I'm sucking out the bga with massive regular water changes and I'm keeping up with the ferts but it keeps coming back... this tank has had almost no animal bioload this whole time but maybe rotted leaves and roots are contributing... the driftwood in this tank has been submerged in various tanks for 5 years so maybe its creating and organic build up... really the only change has been switching out the water chemistry from rock hard tap water to remineralised RO...

I'm thinking that a tank reset is in order... take out the 4 year old aquasoil Malaya, wash the wood down and replace with sand and gravel and get back to a black water setup with botanicals...

Of course the riparium above is doing great, but as per usual I am struggling with the submerssed section...
 
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