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The upgrade!

keymaker said:
Great tank, Egmel!
What confuses me though is that I read you have Glosso in your tank. Can it grow that high (just like a stem plant)? By the shape of the leaves I first thought it is HM, but now, I don't know any more.
Fairly certain that it is glosso, the tropica website says that it grows up if light is poor. I've got about 60W t8 over a 30G tanks so I'm guessing 2wpg is low enough to allow it to grow tall. This site seems to confirm my theory. (Though he calls it 'ugly vertical growth' :? I quite like it!)

I finished the re-scape last night and I'll try to get some photos up later.
 
The one point I would take from that article that is very true is when he says that the growth is fine further toward the centre of the tank where it is directly under the lights. This shows how important the positioning of the lamps are.

In stock tanks the positioning varies quite a lot. The Juwel I bars tend to have both tubes fairly close together whereas the old Fluval hoods had a large ballast recess which positioned the tubes quite far apart.

Also shows the difference between PCT5 and T8 in terms of light seeing as he only went from 60W of T8 to 72W of PC. 12W wouldn't be a huge difference. It was the PC efficiency that made the major difference. T5HO would be even more of a difference.

I do think he gets carried away when saying at least 3WPG would be needed. 3WPG of what?. I think 2WPG T8 positioned well and with good dosing allied with high CO2 would be able to grow a nice low carpet. Think more high CO2 and adequate light rather than just high light.

Does help to move onto T5 linears though. intense light and unlike PCs you have the choice of where to position the "2" tubes.

AC
 
SuperColey1 said:
I think 2WPG T8 positioned well and with good dosing allied with high CO2 would be able to grow a nice low carpet. Think more high CO2 and adequate light rather than just high light.
Possibly, mine has never been that enthusiastic about growing compactly. It's got good growth but the leaves are quite well spaced.

As promised, photos of the current scape. I cleared out all the pest snails I could see and I think if I do the same over the next few evenings I might just get on top of the problem!

First off my CO2 kit since I've been raving about it to everyone for the last month or so!
3017225262_97ff2351fa.jpg

Then there's the tank from the front (Please excuse the snail porn going on in these pics :wideyed: :oops: ;) )
3016394499_c957fde761_b.jpg

And from the angle I see when I sit on my bed and use my chest of drawers as a table (which is most of the time I'm awake and in my room!)
3017221244_be59ac72fa_b.jpg

And finally, this is my current holding tank with spare plants and the like. It's also where I attach plants to hardscape before putting it in my main tank as sometimes that thread I'm using to hold it on can be quite fishing net like!
3016397323_04c9f3727f.jpg
 
A small illustration of where I sit on the OCD scale... I decided to re-organise the cupboard under my tank yesterday...
3033908613_05c94550e0_b.jpg
Though as I was discussing with my housemate, it's the process of organising that I enjoy rather than the result. So time will tell how long it will stay like that!
 
SteveUK said:
What's in all of them??
Everything! They are all labelled and the labels say ...
Left Column
misc spares
TPN+ Capsules
Trace
Ascorbic Acid + Potassium Sorbate
KNO3
MgSO4
Freebies, Flubenol 15, Tonic Salts
Stones

RIght Column
Suckers and Clips
Measuring Spoons and Pipettes
Lead Weights
Cleaning Bits
Granulated Food
Wafer Food
Jelly Food
CO2 Glassware
Test Kits

So basically anything that arrived in a plastic bag or a box has been transferred to something uniform and stackable. All the dry ferts and food are still in their plastic bags as I don't think for one minute that the boxes are air-tight! I have a box under my bed for all the bulky infrequently used stuff like filter floss, spare heaters, air pumps etc.

What I'd like to get is a pill tray type box that has different sections into which I could put different types of food so each morning I could just choose what I'm putting in easily. At the moment they're mixed in the 2 normal sized containers at the front, wafers (4 different types) with the yellow lid and granules/flake (5 different types) in the blue lidded one. It would need to be airtight though and have at least 9 sections.
 
at first i didnt thik your OCD was bad ;) but after seeing this


What I'd like to get is a pill tray type box that has different sections into which I could put different types of food so each morning I could just choose what I'm putting in easily. At the moment they're mixed in the 2 normal sized containers at the front, wafers (4 different types) with the yellow lid and granules/flake (5 different types) in the blue lidded one. It would need to be airtight though and have at least 9 sections.

It just made it worst :lol:

very neat, mine is a right tip, i have to pull evrything out just to get a net :lol: :twisted:
 
aaronnorth said:
at first i didnt thik your OCD was bad ;) but after seeing this


What I'd like to get is a pill tray type box that has different sections into which I could put different types of food so each morning I could just choose what I'm putting in easily. At the moment they're mixed in the 2 normal sized containers at the front, wafers (4 different types) with the yellow lid and granules/flake (5 different types) in the blue lidded one. It would need to be airtight though and have at least 9 sections.

It just made it worst :lol:

very neat, mine is a right tip, i have to pull evrything out just to get a net :lol: :twisted:
hehe, I am resigned to the fact that I will always have a place for everything, whether everything is in its place though is another matter!

The basic problem is I have too much stuff. I need to keep everything organised or it just ends up spilling out onto the floor.
SteveUK said:
I wish I could even get into my cabinet. I have a damned sofa in the way :lol: I have to drag it out of the way when doing water changes etc to get at the filter.
Know the feeling, it took me ages to get the layout of my room just right. I had been used to having a 2 bed flat and now I'm in a single room! One of the things I had to do was make sure that I could get at everything easily.
 
Yeah, I have far too much stuff.

And I'm not overly organised. In some aspects I can be fairly organised, such as with work related things, but at home, I'm totally disorganised. It might be the bachelor lifestyle ;)
 
Egmel said:
keymaker said:
Great tank, Egmel!
What confuses me though is that I read you have Glosso in your tank. Can it grow that high (just like a stem plant)? By the shape of the leaves I first thought it is HM, but now, I don't know any more.
Fairly certain that it is glosso, the tropica website says that it grows up if light is poor. I've got about 60W t8 over a 30G tanks so I'm guessing 2wpg is low enough to allow it to grow tall. This site seems to confirm my theory. (Though he calls it 'ugly vertical growth' :? I quite like it!)
Having just sent some of this plant to someone more knowledgeable than myself I have been told it's definitely not glosso! :oops:

They too suggested that it might be Hemianthus micranthemoides, whatever it is it's growing well and bushing out beautifully :)
 
Egmel said:
Having just sent some of this plant to someone more knowledgeable than myself I have been told it's definitely not glosso! :oops:
They too suggested that it might be Hemianthus micranthemoides, whatever it is it's growing well and bushing out beautifully :)
Thats more like it, from the photos I don't see any glosso either and I have been growing it for a few months now ;)
 
Egmel said:
... I have been told it's definitely not glosso! :oops:

They too suggested that it might be Hemianthus micranthemoides, whatever it is it's growing well and bushing out beautifully :)
HM it is, then! ;) Nice little plant, you'll see how thick it will get, check out what's in planter's hand on the fourth photo of this thread. :)
 
That's probably one of the better photos of it I've seen, looks almost identical to mine when I haul it out for a proper trim :)
 
here is a close pic of my HM:

hm.jpg
 
That's the one, though the main stem in your pic is a 4 leaf version, must be lucky, mine are mainly 3 leaf versions with only a couple of 4 leaf ones! :)
 
As usual it's been a while! I've added in quite a few plants (thanks to my secret santa) and removed a couple too. I took 4 days away for Christmas at my parents, I shut off the lights and CO2 for my absence as I wasn't going to be there to dose the nutrients and I wasn't sure how long I was going to be away for. However other than a bit of crypt melt here and there everything seems fine.

So in has gone water lettuce, Crypt Wenditti 'Tropica', Java ferns (bog standard and 'Windeløv'), Limnophila aromatica and some Limnophila sessiliflora I treated myself to from ebay. Out has come the dwarf hair grass which always seemed to be covered in BBA regardless of how much flow there was or where it was placed, it was the only thing in the tank to be affected!

Anyway some shots from the pre-Christmas prune.
3151613376_d919e8fda0_b.jpg
3150786433_10be7f5f33_b.jpg

Hope everyone had a good Christmas and that you're all set for 2009 :)
 
Themuleous said:
Gotta love a bit of OCD ;)
Keep that in mind for the next photo...
3185604232_91d415f576.jpg
If you're interested in what the foods are then click on the photo to go to the flickr page where I've labelled them all up :oops:
I'd like to plug http://www.discusessentials.com/ it's where I bought the generic food and the fish think it's great. I prefer it to the tetra prima as the granule size is that much smaller. The wafers are good but they don't go down as well as the Hikari ones, I've yet to find any that do!
 
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