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Starless & Bible Black

Hi Vinkenoog, Cannot wait to see more photos ;) Rotala, lud, & P Erectus :rolleyes::rolleyes: Rotala ?? not sure about that in a dry start. aren't the stems a bit floppy ??[DOUBLEPOST=1405865314][/DOUBLEPOST]Don't worry I was thinking of another plant:eek: Rotala has sturdy stems ;) Silly me :lol:
 
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Doing great in two small 6 ltr. jars I'm dry starting at the moment, both the sp. "Green" and the Rotundafolia. Am not sure about the P. Erectus, but that's more because I've never seen the plant "in the flesh", but from what I gathered, they are sturdy as well. And if not, I'll just cut them down a bit until they remain upright on their own, and see how they grow from there.
 
Hi Vinkenoog, What a great idea dry start in a jar :cool: Fantastic way to get the plants going :rolleyes: Bit like a Wabi-Kusa Hope you don't mind ;) One of my Grandsons W-K in a jar :) Never though of using the jars for plants to plant on though. Congrats on that idea :clap:

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Right, well, the stemplants have been added, being Ludwigia Palustris and Pogostemon Erectus. The idea at first, was to add some Rotala Rotundifolia between the PE and the LP, and some Rotala Green between the PE and the P. Helferi, but, due to space constraints, that idea had to be scrapped.
They were planted yesterday, and show no signs of stress so far. The rest of the plants are still doing great, even though the MC is still lagging behind as far as growth is concerned, and some of the leaves are turning yellowish to red, but they are not dying off. Never seen that behavious before, and we'll see what happens.

Some shots from the front and the side.
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And a shot of the inside of the cabinet with the reinforcements.
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I'm more amazed everytime I see your pictures Vinkenoog, those plants looks brilliant and are growing at a fast pace... I've had my aquarium 7 mths and haven't had a total growth like you have in 3 weeks
 
I did do a dry start, but id did not look remotely as good as yours, I waited 2 months or so, and ended up with not much more than I began with.... I'm going to have to try planting some plants in some other soil and see what happens, maybe it's indeed the soil that's stunting the progression and growth of my plants :\ would suck to find out at this point.

Good job though, looks very nice and clean.
 
That's it Gruff, just some 18 mm. MDF and a tight fit. I've had 165 kilos dancing on top of it (me and a mate; after a few beers, it seemed like a good way to test it), and it went nowhere.

@Alan Fluxion: I've done a dry start in several tanks now, from expensive enriched substrate with bacterial additives (as in this one), to soil-based tanks, and what I've found is that it has nothing to do with the soil (as long as it's rich in nutrients), it's more a case of enough lighting (mine is running at 14 hours with two reflectors), combined with a high enough temperature and humidity. Especially the latter is very important; in Spring, when the temperature outside was quite low, below 20 C at least, I used a cutup soda bottle filled with water to hold my thermostat heater, set at maximum, to release some extra heat plus moisture; worked a treat.
Another thing I've found, is that it's very important to remove as much standing water as you can; the substrate needs to be moist, but there must be no water puddles sitting on the substrate, as this is as good as flooding the plants, especially carpet plants. As you can see, on the lower right hand front corner, I've actually removed some of the gravel, so I can use a syringe to remove as much water as possible, so no puddles can form on the gravel.

Hope that helps! And as far as soil, I don't think I will ever buy expensive substrate again, and will be using potting soil from now on (Pokon Zaai- & Stekgrond works brilliantly, as you can see in the Propagator thread; it's comparable to John Innes No. 1 I believe, meant or plantlets and seedlings, extra enriched, all natural).; cheap as chips, and the plants definitely seem to prefer it!
 
Just look at the water level in this tank; it needs to be just BELOW the top of the substrate in the LOWEST part of the tank. It's the humidity that's supposed to keep everything growing, and the substrate just needs to be moist.
Jars are a great way to experiment with this, I did the same, and I think I have it nailed now. The only experiment left to do, will be the ebb and flow flooding, which means for a week, you flood the tank completely and then directly after drain it again completely. This should enable the plants enough time to adjust to the "drowning", and should help keep the stresslevels, and therefor the dreaded melt, down to a minimum.
 
I just set up a jar, took out some plants, took a bit of grass and moss, and put it on the jbl substrate, I'll be leaving for 2 weeks so asked a friend to come to water jut a little... placed it on the windo sil... :) We'll try and see what happens
 
NO!!! NO watering! It needs to be misted once a day, that should be enough! And just a little bit, to get the leaves nice and moist, but, when covered with cling film and in the window sill, humidity should be nice and high! So a little misting once a day, making sure no water accumulates on the substrate, and Bob's your uncle.

These are ideal btw for misting:
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By water I meant mist :p it's just a bottle of water (didn't have anything to mist with and I leave tomorrow morning after work), the cap has a tiny hole and is just enough to mist... she just has to keep it alive, when I get back I'll take care of it like you said :) I might even find time to get one of those misters you showed above. Cheers!
 
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