What a difference a week makes, the 45f seems to be rounding a corner. From nowhere some blades of ug have started to pop up into small plants. If I can keep the tank stable I’ll split every plant into blades and see if I can’t get it to work. I have to order some stuff this week so if it all vanishes within a couple of weeks I’ll likely plant the tank with hc. The other thing is something is eating all my p helfri. I suspect it to be the snails so I’ve been on a remove on sight erradication program to try and fix it.
The cube too, seems to be coming into shape. Still need to work on the trimming pattern but over all it looks okay. In this tank too something is eating all the p helfri. I’ll likely remove it and just top and replant the h arauigia to build up the mid ground.
The excel dosing is doing nothing to fix the staghorn in this tank, the limno Vietnam and the kedegang are just getting swamped. Ill swap to every other day 10l water changes to try and fix it as excel didn’t touch it. To my chagrin the raccoon tiger shrimp in this tank are extremely timid which is a shame because they’re stunning little guys when I do see them. Their eyes “seem” much less developed than say cherries so I think they might be rather photosensitive. The amanos true to their trickster nature insist on burying the hydropiper carpet by the end of every other day.
And the 45p is well, changing. Not really for the best I’d say. I’ve been topping and replanting all the stems that bolt but the more I look the more staghorn I see starting. I put this down to putting off cleaning the pipe work for about a month too long. I’m loath the go scissor mad when all the slow growers are only just establishing but I think it might be the only option as I can’t use excel with their being Ricardia and mini Christmas moss which in my experience really aren’t happy to get into contact with the stuff.
You can at least see the roughly triangle composition Im aiming for. The c helfri seems especially susceptible to stag horn, it also is in the wrong place in the scape so that will get pushed behind the wood more and more in line with 1/3rd position, right now it’s too central. I’ll also keep pushing the stems towards the triangle composition I had in mind. I’ll also siphon off the sand and replace it in a month or so, the amanos carry substrate out from all over the place only to dump it on the foreground and magnet fishing it out is a chore.
At a distance the tank looks great but I can’t get a decent photo of anything.