Natural plant tank 2

April 24, 2007 - the fish club had their annual auction and I purchased a bunch of plants, in a fairly random way. I didn't know enough of the plants by name to really know what I was getting into.

April 25 - I worked like a son-of-a-gun all day to clean the 55g tank George had vacated when he moved into the big tank. There was 7 years of algae on the glass in spots! But eventually I cleaned it all out and removed all the gravel (big chunky stuff).

April 26 - I had to go help Grandma in the morning, so on the way home I swung by Family Pet and bought some wood and fine gravel from Glenn. I also picked up some baby clown loaches with incomplete stripes to add to my 110g tank (but that's another story).

I got home and we had moved the tank into the living room the night before. I spent the rest of the afternoon and some of the evening putting in soil, gravel, the wood (I boiled it first, as Glenn suggested that would help keep the water from turning that tea color), and then planting all the plants I had got at the auction. I ended up with more than I wanted to put in there to start with, so some of them went in other tanks in the fishroom. In fact none of the tanks have silk plants anymore except the 110g tank.

And by evening here is the fruit of all my labors. Doesn't look like much now, but I think it's going to be a really nice tank. Unlike my other plant tank which is in front of a window, this tank is a black-back, so it will get almost all of it's light from the fluorescent fixture, which is currently a 48" shoplight with one daylight and one cool white bulb. I have been very happy with the triple bulb hood I bought for the other plant tank, I might get one of those for here as well. I've been having a lot of trouble with the cheap shop lights going out (we have a bunch in our shop which have been giving us trouble too).

The new inhabitants:

Valisneria asiatica "Corkscrew Val" (all across the back)

Ludwigia Inclinata (dark green, small leaves, two stems to the right of center behind the log)

Aponogeton rigidfolius (small, dark apon, in front of the left log)

Cryptocoryne Wendtii "Bronze Wendtii"

schollera graminea

Echinodorus radican "Marble Queen Sword"

Hemianthus Micranthemoides (in the foreground)

Polygonum "Sao Paulo" (on the left, single stem in front of the log)

Blyxa Japonica

Ludwigia arcuata x repens 

Rotala Rotundifolian

Bacopa Monieri "Moneywort" (short green stems in the foreground)

5/13/07

I added a Duetto filter to move the water around. I also moved the Gold Danios, Ember Tetras, and Pearl Gouramis from other tanks, along with a lot of snails (trumpet and mystery). I had to put a Magnum on the tank for a day to finally filter the cloudiness out of the water.

I have cut back some of the plants as they got taller and replanted the clippings, hoping to make them bushier. I think all the plants are doing well, except the schollera graminea and the Japonica both look a little yellow.

5/23/07

Did a bit more pruning today and cleared away the waterlettuce and duckweed which was blocking the light. I also snipped back some of the stem plants. All the plants seem to be hanging in there. The water is nice and clear, and we have really been enjoying watching the tank, since it is in the family room near the TV (where we are most of the time).

6/8/07

Can't believe it's the same tank! I picked up some sparkling gourami before we went camping on memorial day, and I threw a few clumps of water lettuce in there so they would have a place to hide when the pearls were picking on them. I left the light on for two days while we were gone, and here's how it looks now. Notice the schollera graminea is really reaching for the sky!

July 4

Everything is still growing good. I pulled out the water lettuce and it grows back pretty quick. I leave some in because the sparkling gouramis hide from the pearls in it. The residents are gold white clouds, flame tetras, pearls, sparkling gourami, ottos, and three amano shrimp. Since the tank is in the TV room we end up watching it every evening, especially looking for the shrimp. They're really interesting to watch.

October 13, 07

I got the water lettuce under control, but I still have to regularly pull the duckweed out. The fish seem to like it though, so I leave a little bit floating around. The Epiplatys Infrafasciatus hang at the top under the duckweed, so I don't want them feeling left out in the open.

The Marble Queen Sword flowered and has a new plant on a runner. The runner comes above the surface, where it flowered, then back into the water where the new plant is. Once it looks like it has good roots I'll trim it and put it in the soil and see if it grows.

Here's the tank after the most recent pruning. I really like the look of it, and it's become one of those tanks where every time you look you see something different going on in there. Hard to believe this tank looked like the picture at the top of the page just a few months ago.

One of the five Amano Shrimp in the tank.

Other inhabitants: Ember tetras, cardinal tetras, epiplatys, sparkling gourami, ottocinculus, three large pearl gourami, lots of snails.

April 8, 2008

The annual plant sale is coming around again. My only complaint about this tank is that the val has taken it over. Add the shade form the val and the duckweed, and the stem plants have all clustered at the top popping out of the water (even putting up some flowers), and the bottom is just all stems - sparse and dark. So I decided to trim back the stem plants and remove as much of the val as possible in preparation for adding some neat plants from the plant sale later this month.

Unfortunately due to the nature of val, and it's 'chaining', the val all came out in giant clumps, and took a lot of dirt and gravel with them. What a mess. I ended up pulling all the stem plants as well. After pulling a few clumps of val I was doing it all by touch as the visibility was zero. Everything went back into a temporary tank in the fish room.

April 9, 08

I have heard people say they don't want a dirt-substrate tank because of the mess it makes when you change things around. Well, it's not that bad. The dirt has settled significantly in less than 24 hours. Now I can see some of the stuff I missed pulling. The shrimp are very busy going through all the dirt on the bottom of the tank. The fish don't seem too annoyed, except for the killiefish. They enjoyed the thick jungle of plants at the top.

April 10, 2008

Much better. I kind of like it this way, I can see the neons schooling again.