today was not a good day!

[plantnoob]

woke up this morning , looked at the tank and thought something doesnt look right . so i switched the lights on to find that the 1200lph powerhead i use to power my co2 reactor had slid down the glass , ripping the hose off , and was sat in the bottom of the tank blasting aquasoil and plants everywhere . water like gravy , bent or broken stems everywhere , thick coating of aquasoil dust on all the plants , a big hole blasted in the substrate . the moss and anubias of the wood were actually brown with dust instead of green . had to spend a few hours draining the tank down , taking out the plants cleaning them , re-planting and re-filling . not what you need , especially having been out on the town the night before and feeling somewhat worse for wear . i had just added lots more plants and got the tank looking reasonably good too . planted tank is turning out to be a difficult journey for me !

 

[oldbloke]

 

[Ian Holdich]

You just wanted a reason to rescape...we've all been there! ; )

 

[plantnoob]

yesterday i had just added 2 pots of bacopa carolina , 2 pots of Limnophila sessiliflora , 3 pots of staurogyne repens a nice large echinodorus bleheri and 8 columbian red finned tetras . had it looking really nice , only for it to get blasted to bits . still its all good experience for the next tank i suppose

 

[Mick.Dk]

My condolances, mate
- But at least, you now have the experience to get it all started right, this time........... Lim. aquatica and all.
Get up on the horse again.............
Mick

 

[plantnoob]

the aquatica was 1 of the plants i melted/killed when i had poor co2 . i wanted to get more but could only get the sessiliflora . to me it looks quite similar to aquatica , and from the info i found it seems less demanding too . its been a frustrating few weeks , but it has taught me some useful lessons . not least of all to trust the reaction of your plants to co2 over the colour of your drop checkers .

 

[Mick.Dk]

He he - it's called "learningby doing (mistakes)"...............but the point is still learning. Any mistakes gives possibility to learn
The Lim. sess. is definitely easier than tbe Lim. aqua............but it'll never beat it in beauty
- and believing in what your plants say is allways right - they never lie - but you need to remember that they sometimes do speak a language that recuires capability to undrstand it...............and we all misinterpret sometimes (some more often, than others) depending on knowledge.
Mick.

 

[plantnoob]

i will try aquatica again 1 day for sure , most probably in the next tank . 1 thing i found with it , is that even though it isnt classed as particularly demanding in terms of difficulty , it does seem that to get the beauty from it everything has to be just so . clearly that wasnt the case for me

but then i had expected to encounter problems in the start . this tank was always intended as a learning tank , with a view to a 100cm optiwhite in the new year . in the meantime , i need to get my growing and trimming thechniques perfect , as i want to do a dutch scape in the new tank . for me so much more beautiful than a nature aquarium .