# Journal In The Making



## jagz (20 Jul 2012)

Well this is my start to a future project, 

I currently have a juwel rio 180 whihc im am about to strip down and redo as a high tech planted aquarium, so i thought with the amount of plants i would need to completely plant it out, it would be a good idea to try to grow as many as i can before im ready to use them, using only a few pots to start with,

So in my tank i currently only want a few different species of plant and they are
Hemianthus callitrichoides "cuba"
Pogostemon helferi
Staurogyne repens
Blyxa Japonica
Glossostigma Elatinoides


Well i thought the best way for me to start off was to get myself a propagator and have a go at growing a few pots emersed, so after lots of research into propagators and finding out what was what, i found a electric proagator for a price i  was happy with and it was at my local garden center, the unit is the 52cm x 40cm x 28cm version with a 22w heater underneath it, 

I wanted to grow the plants in trays , i found gravel trays to be the best as these dont have holes in like the seed trays, so i got 2 of the 38cm x 24cm  trays and both of these fit side by side in my propagator.

My plan is to use akadama as the planted substrate in the rio180 when it is ready so i thought it would be best to grow the plants in this also, i already had enough of the akadama to fill both trays,






next i had to soak the akadama in some EI tank water so i done a water change on my fluval edge and saved the water i poured enough water in the tray not so you could see it at the top of the substrate but so if you was to tip the tray up water would run to the edge of the tray. the rest of the EI i put into a spray bottle ready for misting.

I went a picked up a few plants today, so far i have only got hold of 1 pot of Hc , 2 pots of p helferi, and 1 pot of glosso.

i started with the HC i only brought 1 pot of this, as that is all the lfs had, so was hoping i could spread it a bit, i split it up into single stems and some small clumps as it was taking ages to plant   













As i want more hc than anything else i have filled 1 complete traywith just hc hoping to have that full of just hc ready for planting in the main tank later,

once that was finished i got started with the p helferi i had 2 pots of this so i split it up into quite a few portions,













as i dont need as much p helferi and glosso i have decided that i will use 1 tray for both of these and split the tray into 3rds, 2/3s for p helferi and 1/3 for glosso, so next i got planting the glosso in the last 3rd of the tray









this is both trays in the propagator





and this is it complete



.

In this little project i plan to run the heater on the unit until i find it is causing a problem, and as i will be using lights instead of a windowsill, im hoping the heat from the unit helps keep the humidity up,

I will be misting as and when needs be im not sure when that will be right now but i will check it daily at first to make sure the leaves are not drying out, 

As for the light  i have a arcpod 11w light on hand and as the propagator will be on my kitchen side i have lights under my top cupboards which are low output t5s im planning on using a mix of these at first and have a rethink if things are not working as i plan.

so that is where im at as of tonight, i plan to keep posting updates on this so i can keep track of how things are going.

I always happy to hear your thoughts.

Ric


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## SO19Firearms (20 Jul 2012)

Take a high quality reference pic that you can repeat daily. That way you can see the growth. It's always fun to see HC has grown overnight. It's so easy to miss without a pic.  8) 

And don't allow them to get too "wet" on the leaves. You want to be making use of all that extra CO2  8)


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## jagz (20 Jul 2012)

thank you mate, 

i will do extra pics daily then if you think it grows that fast, and also about have the leaves to wet im guessing they still need to be moist but not dripping,

this morning i have got up and the condensation as covered all the lid, will this effect the amount of light able to get though , should i leave it or wipe it off the lid 

Cheers Ric


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## JenCliBee (20 Jul 2012)

Looking good Jagz, but you already know i know that lol.... keep the updates coming


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## jagz (20 Jul 2012)

JenCliBee said:
			
		

> Looking good Jagz, but you already know i know that lol.... keep the updates coming



lol yea i know lol, cheers for ya help yesterday


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## JenCliBee (20 Jul 2012)

jagz said:
			
		

> JenCliBee said:
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Didn't really do much other than take the mick but your welcome lol .


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## sr20det (20 Jul 2012)

jagz said:
			
		

> thank you mate,
> 
> i will do extra pics daily then if you think it grows that fast, and also about have the leaves to wet im guessing they still need to be moist but not dripping,
> 
> ...


don't think condensation will block light , well not enough to cause any issues mate. It should be fine.


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## jagz (21 Jul 2012)

sr20det said:
			
		

> jagz said:
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thank you for that mate, 

How often should i be misting them?


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## spyder (29 Jul 2012)

I try and mist at least once daily. You may be able to go a day or 2 without misting if the unit is well sealed. HC does grow fast once it gets started.

Welcome to the emersed club, at times I find it more fun than submerged although I want to flood my Iwagumi cube now.


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