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Consistency Deficiency

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Regarding Osmocote, There is a nutrient 'dump' in the first few weeks (but note that this was done in 40 degree celsius water to accelerate things) but otherwise osmocote is good for about 3 months. Based on this release pattern I have been adding small amounts each week instead of inserting everything all at once. This will smooth out the release curve.

Polyon is far better behaved doesn't seem to be sold retail. Nutricote is sold in the US under the Dynamite brand.
 
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Seems so, should be approved til 2030.
Id buy older ones for cheaper but there wasn't any

Might just be a different setup in the UK. You can buy brand new bottles and physically own them, and they’ll cost similar to what you paid.


More typically though is you pseudo-rent them, paying slightly more when you first get the bottle, and less then for each refill/replacement. The bottle will be pre-used, and technically you never actually own the bottle, but for all intents and purposes, you could keep it forever if you wished.
 
Im crossing my fingers I dont have the same regulator experience @KirstyF has had, must have got a real monday reg 😬

Yep, they were definitely having a bad hair day when they built that one. Reassuringly, the second one however has been a dream and working perfectly from first fit so 🤞

wish it was 😭 3800 NOK to be precise

Ouch!! 🙁Paid £60 each for brand new 5kg’s (full) and it’s £25 for a re-fill.

Mind you, I think you guys pay near £20 for a Big Mac and a beer? 😳😂
 
Might just be a different setup in the UK. You can buy brand new bottles and physically own them, and they’ll cost similar to what you paid.
Yes that could be it. These ones are mine to keep (I think). Havent signed any documents and the guy didnt mention anything about renting.

Ouch!! 🙁Paid £60 each for brand new 5kg’s (full) and it’s £25 for a re-fill.
Is this to own or rent?

Mind you, I think you guys pay near £20 for a Big Mac and a beer? 😳😂
Yeah, I think our cost of living is higher than the UK but salaries are also comparatively higher too. At least thats what ive heard.
I looked into it for you to get some exact numbers, since im not familiar with the prices of those two, a Big Mac will cost you £4.94 while 0,5L of beer on the town will be an average of about £7.51, so £12.45 total. Not quite as bad but still.
 
Is this to own or rent?

Technically it’s to own.

Some companies do rent so, as low as a £30 deposit, and then swap canisters. If you ever stop you get your £30 back.

I ‘own’ my canisters, but they still get swapped rather than filled whilst I wait, so if I ever stopped, I’d get to keep whatever canister I had at that time. (No guarantee I’d get my original back) Not sure what for, of course, they don’t make great ornaments 😂

It does mean that I could take them anywhere to get a re-fill if I chose but not much real benefit over renting tbf.

The company I use currently, doesn’t do rental (probably because people pinch their canisters) or fill whilst you wait, but was the only one I could find when I started up.

They will also deliver swaps to your door for an extra £3.60, so not bad.
 
Some companies do rent so, as low as a £30 deposit, and then swap canisters. If you ever stop you get your £30 back.

I ‘own’ my canisters, but they still get swapped rather than filled whilst I wait, so if I ever stopped, I’d get to keep whatever canister I had at that time.

That’s what I referred to above - the fact that you swap your canister and paid more for it initially than a refill means you are technically renting it, not buying it, even though you don’t have to sign anything or give it back at any point - but if you were to hand it back you would get back a proportion of your initial payment. This is generally the way it works for all gas bottles be they for BBQ’s or welding etc.
 
While you lot are crying into your imaginary overpriced beer, I was surprised it didnt cost more! 😂

Horrible timing, but I just came across a deal too good to pass up on a local site, several rare mosses for a good price (Nobody tell my wallet :shh:)
I ordered;
Hookeriaceae sp. "Hooker Moss"
Hydropogonella gymnostoma "Queen Moss"
Plagiochila sp. "Cameroon Moss"
Fissidens fontanus
+ small Fissidens sp. of an unknown variety, seller thought maybe "Micro Q"

Im really stoked to get these, Aquasabi doesnt ship to Norway (as well as many many other online stores), so we are a bit starved when it comes to rarities.
Im gonna have all the preciouses
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For anyone reading this thinking of buying their first buce or getting into rare mosses. Just dont do it. Not even once. You wont be able to stop
 
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@Wookii please explain 😅
Well I guess I will never know the answer..


Photo dump time instead :snaphappy: As usual im going for quantity over quality so sensitive souls best click away 😁

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Did a large waterchange on sunday, took pictures of the flow from the top mounted spraybar for reference. This is the flow of one Aquael Ultramax 2000 through a 16mm PVC bar with 20 3mm holes. I tried 16 holes first but found the flow too strong for the inmates. The holes are all wonky but this is just a testing bar + a bunch of electrical tape. Going to make a prettier spraybar before the CO2 reactor arrives in a months time. Planning to paint the spraybar with Plasti Dip, unable to get Krylon Fusion without paying outrageous amounts for shipping.

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Took a few pics from above of the Buces during the water change, its so much easier to see the iridescense from above. Pictured is Kedagang and Black Ventii

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Pruned a few plant groupings to sell the surplus, look at the roots on S. subulata. I hear people say sand is no good for plants, they cant root in it etc. These roots grew in 0.1-0.5mm sand, for reference the average grain of sugar is 0.4mm. It doesnt look like theyre having any problems ;)

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FTS from today, the Bolbitis especially got a big prune as it was growing massive wandering rhizomes all over the place. Pruned many more iffy leaves off the right side as well.

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Fissidens adianthoides, doing ok but not exactly decorative. If I cant figure out how to grow these native Fissidens species lushly even with CO2, I will probably get rid of them eventually. Theres no point in having a bunch of scraggly stuff around just cause.

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@shangman I think the Plagiochila heard you cheering it on, its already sprouting a lot of new little shoots. Im almost scared to get my hopes up but its looking really positive so far 🤞 Guest starring a really fake looking blue shrimp butt 🦐

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My Fontinalis colony is coming along great, there are some small visible differences between some of the samples but I havent been able to find any conclusive differences under the microscope yet

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Took a photo series to try to show how fickle photographing buce is. Just a little tilt and it looks completely different. This is Brownie Blue, it has a really strong blue shine :D

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Black Ventii is is very shiny but in a darker sort of oil-spill kind of way.

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This one is unknown variety, I bought it because it was growing grey and red leaves in the store, but so far hasnt seen any of that coloration in my tank.

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Kedagang and Blue Green. Blue Green is pretty new to my tank so doesnt have many submersed leaves, but so far I cant see much iridescense on it.

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Kedagang looks the best from a strange angle, slanted from above, the camera does not like to focus through the glass this way.

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Fissidens osmundoides making new shoots after the trim, for personal note it is now on three small lava stones instead of the biggest stone.

Thats it for today folks :wave:
 
Hi all,
How very dare you Darrel, I’m a child of the 80’s
I think that is <"probably worse">.

It was a grim show, you could tell how bad they are going to be by the angle of the heads of "Cutie and Hunk", greater the angle, worse the show.

For those who are unfamiliar with Willian Shatner's vocal work, here is "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" from <"The Transformed Man">



cheers Darrel
 
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Might just be a different setup in the UK. You can buy brand new bottles and physically own them, and they’ll cost similar to what you paid.


More typically though is you pseudo-rent them, paying slightly more when you first get the bottle, and less then for each refill/replacement. The bottle will be pre-used, and technically you never actually own the bottle, but for all intents and purposes, you could keep it forever if you wished.
Around here (Germany), you can either buy a bottle or rent one. But the prices are not that different. For example, the fee for renting a 10 kg cylinder is ~140 EUR, and each refill costs ~20 EUR. A brand new 6 Kg cylinder costs ~150 EUR and a 10 Kg ~180 EUR and the refill price is also ~20 EUR. With the rental model, you leave the empty bottle in the (hardware or garden) store and exchange it for a full bottle. If you have your own cylinder, you can refill it at any industrial gas dealer. However, cylinders must have a valid certificate to be refilled. Certificates are valid for 8-10 years in a new bottle. When the certificate expires, either you buy a new cylinder or have the cylinder inspected (and usually the valve replaced) and a new certificate issued, which will add to the cost of ownership. The disadvantage of the rental model is that you are the dependent on the availability of bottles and, of course, you need to have a place near you that offers such service.
 
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The rare mosses arrived yesterday evening 😄

The samples were much larger than I expected, and the Cameroon and Queen moss were especially big portions.
I spent a fair bit of time going through them all, there was a bit of duckweed, riccia and vesicularia/taxiphyllum mixed into some of them, as well as snail eggs that looked like they came from the hunting snail, I cant remember the latin name right now but you know the kind. I quite like the work my pest snails are doing so I would like to keep them employed, and also the hunting snails creep me out, I dont trust those sneaky little predators. So I took the time carefully sorting through it all.

There was even a little passenger, a small bluish black shrimp with fairly light brown eyes. It sat in one of the cups of moss while I sorted and mulled over what I was gonna do with the little fellow. I didnt fancy mixing a different strain with my Blue Dreams, but since I didnt have the heart to dispose of it I decided bluish black was close enough and it was allowed to live with the colony. Later that night I asked the seller if he knew what strain the passenger could be. He didnt, but he said he only keeps Caridina, so that means there is no risk of crossbreeding and wild color babies :thumbup: The little traveler can live out its shrimpy life with me then, unless the water values are too far out for it. I hope it does ok, I have maybe gotten a little bit attached already.

Back to the moss, I can already tell im really gonna like the Cameroon Moss. Its a very big leafy impactful moss. The Queen moss is also cute, the leaves are very visibly growing every other side a bit wonky-like, and it has the appearance of a bad hair day I feel.
While the samples of Fissidens were larger than expected, oh lord was I regretting a bit asking for the smallest variety he had 😅 Absolutely miniscule fronds, I had to use tiny pointed tweezers to get the moss arranged on the coconut pieces, as my fingertips were just too big. The seller sent me three mystery samples of Fissidens instead of one, in addition to Fissidens fontanus. I also found some Fissidens in the Cameroon moss, so might have four mystery varieties.

Im gonna be real with you guys, there are at least four hundred gazillion varieties of Fissidens, and most of them look exactly the same.
I want to collect mosses, but im gonna try to only collect species/varieties that look distinct from each other.
I have never heard anyone say "Wow, those 17 different species of Fissidens really tie your tank together!" Not. Once.

I also discovered a problem with operation "Get the Preciousesss". I have to figure out where to put all of this 🤔 The main problem was the massive amounts of Cameroon and Queen moss, and I wasnt about to throw out any bits of these rare mosses I just spent my hard earned money on. The tank has never been a proper aquascape, but now it is definitely a moss holding facility 😂 So will grow out the coconuts they are on, and then offer portions to other hobbyists and downsize the amount I keep.

Will post pictures of the new mosses as soon as I have some good growth coming out :thumbup:
I have also kept a little secret from you, there has emerged some interesting little things from some of the mossy cups, and it looks like it could be a species of Riccardia, and a smaller one that could be a Riccia sp. Seems like some of the samples contained spores :geek:

Until next time 😙
 
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