# Joe's tank



## mrjackdempsey

Yesterday myself and son, Reuben went visiting ( where we pop in to see friends totally uninvited) in West Cork ,about 50 miles from where we live (East Cork) to a good friend Joe who is a landscape gardener and a avid fish keeper who keeps a wide range of fish especially a few different Geophagus species.Joe has for the last few months as been experimenting with his low light planted tank (55 watts over a 6 foot tank).Always found visiting Joe a great craic,good coffee and plenty of food and he is a fountain of knowledge but what I would like to share is a video of Joe's tank to see if you like it too.The tank is only two thirds full and he has anubis and other plants growing out of the water and his spraybars are above water to keep the plants wet (like rain). Just click on the picture with your mouse and I apologise for the quality as I took it with my phone 

Hope you enjoy


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## bogman

hello Dave, 
 just signed up at to the forum at your recomendation, sure you make me out to be such a  knowledgeable friendly  fella i would nearly call in to see myself  
regards
joe


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## mrjackdempsey

Hello Joe and a big welcome, delighted to have you here ,you never know you might develop a sense of humour here   and it is nice to have someone with a horticultural background to tell me the proper latin names of plants rather than me saying the small plant with round leaves


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## greenjar

That looks awesome    

You should definitely share some more pictures/vids and details of the setup.  I love these low tech setups....fantastic


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## George Farmer

Congratulations, Joe, and welcome to UKAPS!

That's a really lovely set-up.

Thanks for sharing guys.


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## Mark Evans

welcome Joe.



			
				mrjackdempsey said:
			
		

> rather than me saying the small plant with round leaves



 Dave!  that'd be rotundifolia right?


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## faizal

Hi !   

Wow!! The plants are looking really healthy & well settled,...Congratulations. Hope to see more pics soon please!!!

Faizal


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## mrjackdempsey

Mark Evans said:
			
		

> welcome Joe.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> mrjackdempsey said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> rather than me saying the small plant with round leaves
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Dave!  that'd be rotundifolia right?
Click to expand...

Not to sure , I 'borrow' plants from Joe's tank when he is not looking then leave it a couple of days then ask   . Do the same with his garden but it's big enough to harbour a hidden town so he doesn't notice that as quick. Have to be quick as Joe has a black belt in something  or another. Seriously though the tank looks seriously cool in the flesh and a video from a phone could never do it justice. Makes me wonder what your tanks looks like in the flesh, Mark think I would go home and cry if I ever saw them as I could never even get close


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## bogman

thanks for the  warm welcomes guys, i have skimmed over some of the many postings here, there is a mine of information posted i am looking forward to sitting down and reading through lots of it over the next while.
As for more pictures, well i  will get Dave to video or take some shots when he calls down next, that video is from about a month or so ago i think, so the tank would have grown a lot more since then.
the details of the tank are 
tank size, 72" long, 27-28" high and 18 " from front to back.
about 18-19 inches of water in there, 80gallons (i actually did do a calculation at some stage!)
55 watts approx of lights, bit of a mish mash of lights, 2 spots, an under kitchen light unit and 2 20 watt tubes, all on one timer to come on for 3 and a half hours, then 4 hour break then back on for 3 and a half hours
substrate is about 2" of silica sand, it is dosed daily (unless i forget) with 8 ml of Lidl liquid plant food and i do approx 25 litre water change most days. thats mostly it i think, i started adding easi carbo recently as some of the plants i aquired had a bit of BBA on them, i was hoping that it would just fade away once under different conditions, but it seemed to just sit there, not growing , but not dying either, and then it started to irritate me and became the one thing that my eyes were drawn to every time i looked at the tank!, so i have been using a srynge to squirt 5ml onto the algae daily and it is now starting to turn white and fall off the plants, slowly  but surely!


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## mrjackdempsey

Poor ol' Joe is in a little dilemma here, does he let me into his place to take a new video of the tank and risk me taking more plants, drinking more coffee or is it safer to keep me out   Joe, I promise I won't take more plants than the last time but might 'liberate' some cardinals plus I heard a rumour you might be a proud owner of some Morpho Tetras and some new Apistos. A calculated risk   
http://www.fishfiles.net/up/1010/4o1tc4 ... _Tetra.jpg


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## bogman

plenty of cardinals and geos down here at the moment, morpho tetras, checkerboard cichlids, biotodoma wavrini, cories, brochis multiradiatus ,oto cocama wild discus and apisto inca sp1, barlowi and trifaciata 'Blue Flash' for your choosing at the end of the month onwards


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## mrjackdempsey

Well done Joe, you know how to keep your light handed friends happy just don't hide the fish nets


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## bogman

here are two updated pics of the tank taken yesterday, excuse my poor quality photo skills!, just not a clue how to work a digital camera correctly  
i have taken one of each side of the tank, most of the other pics are too poor to post!

one of the most enjoyable things i have found with  the tank water level so low is not just the view above the water, but that third dimention of looking at an angle down into the water, thats what i was trying to show  here.


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## mrjackdempsey

Hi Joe, great to see you're finally pulling yourself out of the dark ages and using a camera, you might next be tempted to use a extra watt or two of light   Still your tank is looking great and contains some great and interesting fish so try your hand and show the good folks here some of the beauties that are lurking beneath the water in your tanks though I would love to see you capture a Morpho tetra in your lens   .Also a little birdie has told me that your checkerboard cichlids have done the deed and laid some eggs, again if you could catch that for all to see


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## Matt Warner

I love the tank its just like looking into a flooded Amazon Rainforest. I was thinking of trying this myself by only filling the tank two thirds full, then I was either going to have a spraybar with rain, or construct some kind of small waterfall and have plants growing around it!


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## bogman

yes Dave, i could bore the readers to death if i got into taking and uploading pics 
when i meet up with you next i will bring the camera along and you might fill me in on what all the different settings do.
i have taken a few of the fish, not as easy as a non moving tank though!


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## mrjackdempsey

bogman said:
			
		

> yes Dave, i could bore the readers to death if i got into taking and uploading pics
> when i meet up with you next i will bring the camera along and you might fill me in on what all the different settings do.
> i have taken a few of the fish, not as easy as a non moving tank though!


You are popping down Saturday? I probably break the camera knowing me rather than be able to show you how to use it.Talked the good wife into buying me a camera for our anniversary    but I have to buy her a i-pad    Still at least it beats another pair of socks


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## mrjackdempsey

Finally got myself the camera from my good wife (after she was able to prise the i-pad from my fingers) and went to Joe's yesterday to meet up with other fish keepers for enjoyable day out. The tank is looking very well and there are some interesting fish lurking in there so armed with said camera you know where this is going!One thing worth mentioning is that Joe's tank is low tech with 'candles' for lights, don't think it's 60 watts over the 6' tank but Joe can fill you in there ( he doesn't know I'm doing this, a 'surprise')



Some of Joe's checkerboards mixing with the cardinals



Same cichlids having a pose



Forgive the reflections   



Zebra otto chilling



Expensive wood???Ivy long dead and debarked by bristle nose plecs



Joe's other tank with his Geophagus and other delights


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## bogman

here's a little guy you missed Dave, I would highly recommend them for any heavily planted tank, a fantastic fish with a very interesting breeding habit for a tetra plus great colours but a very discrete fish for a planted tank and will not outshine or distract from the plants it that is the main purpose of the tank


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## mrjackdempsey

Missed this Joe but there was a reason I didn't post a picture of your Morpho tetras as a friend saw these charming lads in your tanks and took over 20. If I posted the pic then the remaining ones would soon be gone before I could mount a raid to 'liberate' them


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## mrjackdempsey

Missed this Joe but there was a reason I didn't post a picture of your Morpho tetras as a friend saw these charming lads in your tanks and took over 20. If I posted the pic then the remaining ones would soon be gone before I could mount a raid to 'liberate' them


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## bogman

i  thought you took two dozen already Dave!!, i have set up another heavily planted tank with about 10 or12 morphos in it to grow on, so hopefully i will get them to spawn , then there will be loads more to go around, fingers crossed!


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## mrjackdempsey

A morpho in the hand is better than two in the tank of someone else


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## bogman

just to add to the thread, the wood used in the tank is all native wood, collected locally from my garden, surrounding fields and the stream behind my house, the species are  as follows, about 60-70% is ivy including the main piece of wood that breaks the surface of the water with Ricca , Anubais ferns  and mosses attached, to the right the piece emerging from the water is Amalanchier, not sure of the common name, snowy messipus, i think!
most of the other pieces in the tank are Alnus glutinosa (common alder) and one piece of bog wood (oak) from a bog not to far from my house


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## Iain Sutherland

Really lovely tank Joe, i wish there were more widely available pictures of great low tech set ups like this, I reakon it would make an awful lot of people reconsider buying expensive lights and co2 set ups.
If i dont get the results i want after my soon to be second attempt , this has inpired me to go back and learnt to walk before running and try something similar.... I do love feeling a bit mad scientist with hi-tech though 
Thanks


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## bogman

i would like to try a high tech setup some day, just to see if there is any difference other than growth rates and the ability to grow species of plants that require lots of watts!, but for now this tank is just my speed!


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## Iain Sutherland

bogman said:
			
		

> but for now this tank is just my speed!



 like it.


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## bogman

just an update on the tank, moved about and removed a couple of plants since last pics, plus added a bit of narrow leaved java fern, fish are mostly the same with only the addition of a young pair of Apistograma benshi inka 1
also added a tunse wave make to help circulate the water as i had some melt on my crypts which i put down to low flow


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## mattb180

I love this style of tank! If that was in my living room i would sit there and watch it all day! I wasn't aware that low flow can make crypts melt?


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## bogman

not so much the low flow persay but the poor distrubition of co2 and nutrients in the water by the lack of water movement, and i do use the tank like a tv, sitting staring into it for ages, but i have found it does not rot the brain like tv can


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## dw1305

Hi all,


> Amalanchier, not sure of the common name, snowy messipus, i think!


 Yes it is, _Amelanchier_ and "Snowy Mespilus". It is just a brilliant tank and some lovely fish, particularly like _Apistogramma baenschii, Dicrossus filamentosus_ and _Poecilocharax_.

cheers Darrel


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## BigTom

Very nice Joe. Almost makes me with I had a top on my tank to try some of the high humidty emersed plants.


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## mrjackdempsey

Been quiet lately due to my computer having a argument with the floor and losing (my 6 year old son dropped it and the screen broke) but have a few more pictures of Joe's tank that I thought I share   



























Think you will be as taken with Joe's Morphos as I am, is certainly a beauty of a tank just ripe for another visit


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## TetraUK

Wow Joe, wonderful tank really enjoyed looking at the photos will keep checking in... Currently in the proccess of trying to do a low tech planted set-up myself


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## bogman

here is an update of my planted tank, it is now planted over one year from when it started.
I have to say that i have learned loads from having a go at planting out a tank like this, there was no real plan originally, it just kind of took shape itself.it has not been fed anything for months but has had its regular (almost) daily water changes, the fish stock is much the same, though now there are some young baenchi swimming about and the morphos have almost doubled in numbers with young darting in and out of the plants every now and then, my lone male checkerboard died, so his harem are now only appreciating what a good thing us male really are, now they spend their days chasing apisto or morpho fry and talking about handbags and frocks.
next time i would not add any cardinals, they eat 99% of all fry and eggs in the tank
next fish to be added to this tank will be splash tetras.
on the plant front 
it has been really interesting to see the difference in growth between above and below the water of Anubais species and cultivars.
seeing the changes in the moss growth habit and seeing it go into sexual reproductive stage sending up sporophytes, it will be interesting to see if new mosses start to appear here or there in the tank.
likewise the difference in Riccia growth  above water.   
if i set up a tank like this again i would use sturdier branches and build the framework up from day one before starting to add plants as one of the problems i encountered recently was some of the thinner pieces of wood cracking or bending with the weight of the plant mass as they matured.
The only new plant i added as a trial was an earth star (Cryptanthus sp.) that was sitting neglected on a dark window sill. It seems to have taken a liking to its new location, with the few offsets i broke off and placed on the wood taking hold and throwing out roots, makes me think about looking at some airplant species for the next tank for a bit of variance in plant shape colour and effect.


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## mrjackdempsey

Looking awesome Joe, the tank that is, not yourself   Is that the Coffeefolia in the last picture, it has really grown. Must really make the effort to drop by for a decent look armed with a fish net. The Cardinals might get 99% of your fry I'm only after the remaining 1%   Take care


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## bogman

no Dave, that's Anubias  barteri,the cofeefolia was on a branch sticking out of the water behind the Java fern in the center of the tank but the branch cracked, so most of it is now under water but still in the same position,it might be more visible in another 6 months! i have found the cofeefolia to be probably the slowest growing anubias in the tank


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## dw1305

Hi all,
Still my favourite tank, I just love these semi-emersed riparium type set ups. Not many people successfully spawn _Poecilocharax_, so it might be worth writing up how you/they did it.

If you can find them _Nidularium_ and _Pitcarnia_ are Bromeliads that like damper conditions, although they may be a bit big. 

cheers Darrel


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## bogman

thanks Darrel  (p.s the money is in the post  )
 i will sit down and type out the care the morpho tetras have recieved, water parameters and anything i have noticed re their behaviour, hopefully that will be helpful to other keepers.
on another note i see my messing with trying to resize the pictures on my photobucket account has messed up the pictures here?/ %^&* i am not the most gifted with computers, if i can't fix it i will take anothe couple of replacement pictures and post them, there is nothing as annoying as looking at tiny pictures and not being able to click on them to enlarge them. esp with old eyes like mine


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## bogman

hers are some notes of my experience with the morpho tetra, a bit rambling, but i think i have most of it i will take a few pics of the fish later today and post them if i can manage any half decent shots

water params ...........temp 24-25C, ph 4.5 KH 1.5-2 
the ph is very low, but that is just this tank and is not necessary to keep this species in my experience as i have two morphos in a 4 ft tank that houses a breeding group of C.cutteri params in that tank are temp 21C ph 7.5 and kh 4.5 

feeding despite reading that they will only take live food i have only ever fed these fish tetra prima grannuals , in the begining i crumbled them down after reading that they will only take very small food items, but i noticed that they went for the bigger pieces in the water so i started to just drop the full sized crumbs into  the tank, which they preferred, their mouth is a lot bigger than you would think. if they are hungry they will take food from the surface, otherwise they will take it in mid water, also if hungry they will try feed from the tank floor, though the females are more successful at this than the males who's very large upturned mouth makes it difficult to  feed, they have to turn their whole body sideways to grab the food from the bottom.

 tank mates
other fish in the tank are cardinals apistos and checkerboards, none of which i would really recommend and would not keep them together again if i had the option as they prey on the young and eggs.
other fish in the tankthat are fine are Brochis splendens, a couple of types of ottos a few small plec species and some bristlenose cats
size
the females grow to about the size of an adult glowlight tetra, though a little bit slimmer.
the males grow much bigger, equal to or larger than an adult female checkerboard cichlid, though slimmer.
breeding
these tetras are unusual in that they are a cave spawning species with the male caring for the eggs until they hatch. The  first time i noticed that they were spawning it was taking place in a large clump of java fern and moss which was intertwined and growing through a pile of branches and twigs in  the left handside of the tank, later i added some 3-4 inch lengths of one inch pipe to offer more 'caves' for the fish to sellect from as spawning sites, the males took up residence in some of these and only came out to feed or court a female.
The actual spawning is quite a secerative affair, taking place deep in the planting, only occasionally have i been able to see what i thought were eggs or the  actual spawning when it occured in one of the pipes i put in the tank,the eggs were quite large not hugh numbers of them, maybe about 30 and laid on the roof or side of the pipes, these seem to hatch within 2-3 days and the fry were huddled on the bottom of the  pipe with the male still in attendance the next stage seems to be the problem once the fry can move they tended to fall out of the tube and to the tank floor where they were quickly eaten by other fish, it is a regular sight to see a shoal of cardinals or checkerboards cruising through the java fern making darting movements, i presume that this is them picking off any exposed recently hatched fry, some survive and at a little over a quater of an inch long can be spotted darting out o the clump of plants about 2-3 inches and then back in again, once they reach a half inch they are more confident and easier to see and come out at feeding time when the adults feed. they grow fast and look exactly like a young female but much thinner.
the tank setup is not really conducive to producing a large number of offspring due to the  other inhabitants and i would be nervous of moving some of the adults to another tank in case they did not take the move well, so all  i have done recently is move some of the lengths of pip so that they are slightly tilted to the back and tilted into a dence clump of java fern, hopefully this will increase the number of surviving young.
photos of the fish to follow . if i can get a couple of half decent ones!


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## mrjackdempsey

Saw Joe's tank yesterday and his pics really don't do it justice, there is Java fern growing from the bottom of the tank up some wood then growing emmersed and the leaves above water must easily be 10" or more plus the different shapes of different Anubias leaves above  the water compared to under the water. My morpho tetras seem to do their courtship in the open, the male opening all all his fins and 'dancing' in front of the female and where ever she turns her head he places himself straight in front. Can't catch in on the camera as it won't focus on the fish unless I stand too far back, must get a macro lens. Seem quite secretive fish then 10 minutes later they are all out, males flaring up to each other then displaying to the females. Love 'em!


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## bogman

just to add to my observations, they are quite sensitive to some things, when i imported these fish originally they were divided up equally with 5 fish keepers, two have since lost all their fish one by increasing the temp overnight from 23 to 29 to begin tackling a white spot outbreak on some rams all the morphos were dead and floating in the morning and the other loss was a dose of whitespot related case too, the tank was treated with salt, all the morphos died within hours.


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## bogman

first attempt at pictures, here is a video of the morphos feeding, not great quality, but it shows how they feed and the size of food they take


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## BigTom

Love those morphos. Never kept them myself, but they're definitely on the 'one day' list.


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## dw1305

Hi all,
Brilliant, I've posted your spawning diary on the BCA forum where there are a few breeders of interesting non-cichlids.
cheers Darrel


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## bogman

no problem Darrel, stick it up anywhere  that you think someone would be interested in reading it, I have other thoughts  and observations on the morphos, but they  are only that at the moment, and i might be a bit off the mark with what i think i see, things like the young males moving away from the group and positioning themselves elsewhere in the tank once their fins star to grow and color up and also changes in the adult breeding males fin shape when spawning, it may just be disfigurement from the healing process after getting split with the displaying and posturing up to each other, but i have noticed the exact same  growth( / regrowth) on a couple of the males.
on another note, i only looked at my own video in full tonight , now i can see exactly why people gave them the common name of 'darter tetra' !!! what other fish feeds like that!!!


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## bogman

here are the photos i promised to post a while back, my photography skill are total crap.. i think even with a good camera i would produce rubbish!
here are a few, there are lots more posted on my photobucket account, (none award winning though!)

adult male beside adult female checkerboard for size comparison, you can see how big they get!!





young male, starting to show the extended fins and lots of red in the dorsal alongside an unsexed youngster.
the males fins become red and the dorsal looks larger and sail like as they grow but does not overlap or have the spotting and lines on it until adult size




now i need to find one or two of adult and young females!


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## bogman

here is a 3 second video of some adult females, i just could not manage a photo of them yet.


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## frothhelmet

This tank ruwelz. 

I am a bit confused though, in some earlier posts you say you dont feed the tank, but then you show photos of you clearly feeding it....

Also, I was wondering how you were able to tweak the spraybar flow just right - close the output valve on your canister?

Such a nice set-up and fish breeding with ease. Gotta love it.


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## dean

great tank Joe
did i read right you said you used lidl plant food?


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## bogman

sorry for not answering you guys earlier, i haven't logged on for a few weeks, too many things to do not enough time!
yes the plant food i used last year for a while was lidl  liquid plant food, the brand was Grandiole and it was a liter bottle costing about 2-3 euro. i fed it more or less daily , i built up from a couple of mil to 8 ml a day for the 80 gallons of water that was in the tank, when it ran out lidl had stopped stocking it so the tank was not fed any more, i just bought a bottle of it the other day as it is back in stock again for the summer, but i have not got round to using it yet for anything other than the pot plants about the house. I am not recommending you use this in place of what you normally use,do it at your own risk!!!! if you read the contents of the bottle you will see that some of the ingredients would be considered a no no for adding to a tank, such as the form some of the Nitrogen comes in, i have used it and had no problems, but i have a fairly rigorous water changing routine and i would have what i consider a half decent eye for trouble with plants in general, not that that has always worked in the past!
the only other addition that i used in the tank was easy-carbo for the black beard algae i had, i got lazy and learned to live with it in the end, though it has been starting to really bug me recently so i may have another go at eliminating it.
 the spray bar was a bit of move and check, move and check, the two externals are on full output, the tetratec filter spray bar is in three 7-8-or 9" pieces, i cannot remember if it came like that or i added the third one from another filter i had, so each one can be set to spray in a slightly different direction to give the effect i wanted the other spraybar on the jbl is a one piece one and i have that aimed directly onto into the inside upper corner plus i think it is set diagionally again that was just trial and error to get the effect i wanted, one of the things i also had to take into account other than the best effect and benefit to the plants was minimum noise to avoid me suffering the wrath of my better half!
Ithink the only other changes i have made to the tank in the recent past i iadded a pot of the radicans sword, there were three plants in the pot, 2 good and one small, my hope is they will rise above the water and grow hugh once they take off to date they have been pretty slow, but i reckon they are putting their energy into root formation now and i expect to see some good leaf growth soon esp with the sun starting to shine more and give the tank a bit of extra light, fishwise i added a group of 5 splash tetras 1mf 4 m as it turned out, they have been spawning like clockwork every 3.5 to 4 days, fun to watch their behavior Ihave not saved any eggs to hatch seperatly but am hoping for a few survivors in the plant mass. other than that the tank has sort of been a bit neglected with other things needing my attention recently
hope that answers your questions, if not shout and i will get back to you, i must log on more often


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## bogman

a quick update, one of the branches i mentioned in an earlier post finally gave up the other day, bending until it cracked and broke resulting in the java fern clump tilting and sinking into the tank so i bit the bullet and pulled it out, here is a picture of the plant. It started life in the tank as a small piece of rhizome less than 2" without any fronds just placed on a branch at water level less than a year ago.
the plant



I have broken it into a number of pieces, will replant one or two and pass on the rest to other fish keepers in the area


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## sr20det

Wow, that java fern is massive, good growth well done.


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## bogman

it is either a different species or else a different form of pteropus, I don't know which, this is different from the plants generally offered for sale, I had never seen it offered before. It can produce leaves over 12" long, some of them trilobite from about a third of the way up the frond and the fronds are slightly puckered, it is a beautiful plant and worthy of a place in any aquarium, as long as the tank is not too small! It is also the most vigorous Microsorum I have ever grown
Does anyone know any more about this Microsorum? is it offered for sale under any trade name, or has it been classified as a separate species or cultivar ? any info would be good, I think the general label of java fern is a bit over used and tends to cover a group of plants with very different characteristics ... any thoughts?
I sort of suspect that it is a sport as i found it mixed in a batch of pots of java fern and picked it as it looked slightly different


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## dw1305

Hi all,
The big form of _Microsorum pteropus_ with the leaves often having 3 branches is known the "vigorous form". I'm not sure if it really is the same species as the gracile form.

You can find a similar one for sale sometimes as M. pteropus "Tropica", although the "Tropica" I bought was a different plant again.

cheers Darrel


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## bogman

Tks Darrel,





> "vigorous form"


 make sense it is a good descriptive term for the plants growth habit, now if they could add in something about the frond shape they would have it sorted!  I would tend to go towards thinking it is a different species to the gracile form as it grows and looks so differently under the same conditions. the plant in the picture was picked from a tray of plants supplied by 'Dennerl'  I grew the 'Tropica' java fern before but that did not develop into anything like the specimen in the picture, maybe theirs too can be very variable I don't know.
Looking at how widespread the plant is found in its native habitat there are bound to be many different forms evolved and growing, I think it would be an excellent subject for a thesis for some enthusiastic horticulture student ......... I wonder is there any student reading this that is stuck for a topic


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## bogman

just a short update on the tank, there have not been many big changes other than adding a couple of cuttings and offsets of some plant species not generally planted  by aquarium keepers, I added these just to see how they would behave, the idea came after the previous addition of a couple of earth stars ( Cryptanthus bivittatus ) which took well to the tank, so i added the following
1. Aeschynanthus cult 'mona lisa' 
 this has thrown out roots that seem to have attached to the branch and is starting to put out some side shoots.
2. Rhipsalis cassutha
this sat for a while doing nothing but now is growing throwing out roots and plenty of new growth too, this one looks interesting.
3. Tillandsia usneoides (spanish moss)
this is growing well and is tempting me to try a couple more Tillandsia species
4. Vriesea hybrid
possibly guttata  or guttata x unknown  :?  just not sure on this one at the moment, it is not in long so i will just wait and see how it does,  maybe time will help with the i.d.
here is a pic of some of the ones i have added


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## Samuran

I know it's really dead but I love this tank, wish there was more information tho


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## bogman

hi, sorry for the late reply, yep the tank is now dead, i sold it over a  year ago and split and gave away all the plants to friends, I have not been keeping that many fish in the past year, too many other things were taking up my time, but i miss that tank and it is the one that everyone else living in the house liked and were drawn to too, so maybe in the spring i will set up another one, maybe doing it a bit better, learning from my mistakes with the structures i built and some of the plant selections from the old one
so for now it is a bit of day dreaming about what i want it to look like and what fish will live in it


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## Jose

bogman said:


> hi, sorry for the late reply, yep the tank is now dead, i sold it over a year ago and split and gave away all the plants to friends, I have not been keeping that many fish in the past year, too many other things were taking up my time, but i miss that tank and it is the one that everyone else living in the house liked and were drawn to too, so maybe in the spring i will set up another one, maybe doing it a bit better, learning from my mistakes with the structures i built and some of the plant selections from the old one
> so for now it is a bit of day dreaming about what i want it to look like and what fish will live in it


Good luck mate. The way I see it is a house is soul-less without a planted tank or something alike.


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## faizal

Looking forward to your new tank sir


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## angelfishguy

Hi Joe,

Jason here aka angelfishguy, ive talked to you a few times on the irish forum, ive recently started a low-tech tank so if you do deciede to start yours up again, send me a pm and ill see what plants i can post up to you.


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## bogman

hi, it is sooooooooo long since  I have logged in it is embarrassing, tks for the offer of plants Jason, I did set up another tank last year, but this time I set it up slightly differently, I used much heavier branching to avoid them breaking ,bending and cracking as the plants grew, the tank substrate is silica sand,  the return flow from the external filter is sent directly back into the water in one corner to illiminate any splashing, the only time there is splashing onto the plants is when i am doing a water change  and the tank is fed nothing other than the inhabitants waste and what is delivered via the fresh water changes as the animals living in it would be pretty sensitive to any nutrients added, it is home to a reverse trio of Pipa pipa that have been doing pretty well, growing steadily since i picked them up, fingers crossed and hoping that they will decide to breed in the future, here is a picture of the tank


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## PARAGUAY

First time I have read this thread great natural set up with interesting fish as well


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## bogman

tks, there were a few nice fish species in that last tank, I don't think they would last too long in this new setup with the toads though!! this is a different tank, this one is a 6x2x2 tank with a sump, the sump is connected but not opperational at the moment as the water level is pretty low at the moment so the durso would not work, I have been slowly reducing the water level and increasing the temp recently to try simulate a water pool in the dry season, my next stage will be to flood it with cool rainwater and increase turbulence a bit for my pretend rainy season, just to see if it stimulates the toads towards reproductive mode......... we'll see, if not i will try something else, there is bound to be something to get them in the mood!


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