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Thanks everyone, I have been picking them out every morning when they are above the surface which has stopped them.

When you add water, the worms come to the surface. I can then remove them. Earth worms can survive under water if the water is very oxygenated I have read.

I have noticed that there are some earthworms in my DIY substrate. I figure that either there were some worms in it that I was not aware of or perhaps some worm eggs that got in via dosing the emersed setup worm pee. I am wondering if you guys would have any suggestions as to how I can remove...

The outbreaks I have had I fixed almost instantly by siphoning as much rotting stuff from the substrate as possible, removing as much dead stuff as possible and doing a large water change. I thought it was due to a excessive build up of organic waste in the substrate.... That's how I think of it...

Lovely as usual George. I have always wondered, how do you keep the other plants that spread by runners from growing out from underneath your HC?

I would love to put Pogostemon Helferi in but it is unavailable here so I have been considering using Heteranthera zosterifolia (Stargrass) instead and keep it low. For the long term, once I am tired of the Iwagumi I will convert this tank into one with a lot of background and midground plants...

I have enjoyed following this journal very much. Thanks for the journey!

Another update. Not a lot to report but a few photos anyway. The threadfins are continuing to breed very well and are too many to count now. I estimate at least 50-60. :clap: The shrimp are 7 weeks in and are still carrying berries so I can only assume that they are breeding, time will tell. I...

Could you post some more photos? Perhaps of a few of the other ones of these?

Looks good mate. You have the right idea heavily planting with that much light. It really is too much, I suggest raising it about 2 feet above the rim of your tank. Good luck!

There are not a lot of tadpoles in the breeding tank now but I should be able to find at least a few I'd say. Another funny note though... There are millions of bugs living inside the emersed tank at the moment which does not concern me a lot because they would be encouraging a healthy...

Since it has been over a month since the last update I thought I had better tell of the progress so far. The breeding tank is still going very well with many many fish in there. I will need a few hundred because I intend to have most of the 200 or so Threadfins to be males. The shrimp are going...

It will eventually be about 200 Threadfins and a ton of shrimp. I bought 37 shrimp which are from that same region as the Threadfins. I put them in the same breeding tank. This is what they look like. The one that I have pictured on the first page are not available at the moment as my...

Yes, the slime is a nasty reminder to not get too excited about humidity LOL. It does not appear to be leaving any time soon. But is not spreading which is a relief. Thanks for your kind words. I am very excited about this scape coming together in time. This is the first time I have...

It has been one month now since the planting and things have been a bit up and down. I had some trouble with some fungus which is under control now. It was too humid in the tank. DAY 1 WEEK 4 As you can see in the foreground that the excess water led to a green slime outbreak which looks...

I am about to buy 20 shrimp for breeding stock and out of curiosity I am wondering generally how long it will take from when the babies hatch to when they will be about 10mm in length?

Your rocks look amazing. Such an awesome texture to them. It's great to see a journal with such beautiful pictures and detailed updates. Love your work!

A quick update guys. I have had some fungi trouble which I believe is due to having too much water inside the tank and misting every day. Where the water level was above the substrate the HC has melted. I decreased the water level to below the substrate and stopped misting. I have phoenix moss...

I added the Phoenix moss today and I am finding that the sandstone hardscape is absorbing alot of water which is drying out the moss on it. I had no idea that it would be so absorbent. Anyways, I have the missus on spray duty regularly to make sure that the moss does not dry out too much. I am...

Everything is going well so far. My HC has been planted and on day 3 it is already creeping. My Iriatherina Wermeri breeding tank is off to a good start. The freshwater plankton are starting to grow via a pond fertilization schedule used in the ponds where I bought my breeding stock from and...

Lovely, can't wait to see it grow in.

I have capped with Amazonia 2 now and I am finding that because of the steep angle of the substrate from front to back that it looks a bit dry at the back. Because this will be a dry start tank, I am wondering how you guys found growing emersed with such a steep incline on the substrate? How...

am going all out this time round and making my own substrate and using very strong light. The plan is to cap with some old Amazonia 2 and do a dry start with light set to 3000 lux. I will lower it to 2000 when I eventually add water. Thread on how I made my substrate can be found here: Started...

I have completed my substrate and have laid out my hardscape. I added volcanic basalt rock dust to the mix and it looks like this. All I have to do now is add the mycorrhiza, water down with worm pee and cap with my old Amazonia 2.

My plant friend said: "Not sure, but most plants have them so there would probably be some in underwater environments. Most need air though so any of the things you buy for normal plants would probably die underwater. I doubt you would need to add any as it would come in the roots of the plants...

any hardware store will have it, you can buy it made out of thin wire if you need something with a bit of strength to it.

All the points made about the PH being very low are very valid and it makes sense since I plan to have Threadfin rainbows in there I should aim for a PH of 6.5-7 which is the PH of the water they are bred in. It probably worth the risk and trouble to put the fungi in the substrate. A mate of...

Have you tried using fly screen. That stuff you put over your windows to keep bugs out? The substrate would have to be dry of course.

I will be capping it with 10mm of Amazonia 2 but intend to have pogostemon helferi and a hair grassy type plant behind rocks. So the DIY substrate it more for them but if the HC can root deep enough then that's great. I was looking at the analysis of ADA substrates where Amazonia 2 has a PH...

I would like to run a sump from now on mainly as a way of keeping my tank tidy by having my heaters, and filter inlets etc. in it. I am wondering why I do not see fresh water tank setups with a sump? Can anyone clarify this for my please before I go drilling holes into my tank? Thanks in advance.

I have started making my substrate for my upcoming iwagumi. So far it is a mix of approximately 70% mineralised soil and compost & 30% 6 month old compost which still has a lot of organic matter in it. I have been using a home test kit to measure the PH and amount of NPK in it. I intend to...

I have moved to a new home where our water comes from underground. I have been unable to test the GH of this water because after putting 45 drops of test liquid into my 5 mls of water I gave up. I then experimented with diluting the water further with distilled water anywhere from 1 part...

I am interested in knowing as the growth in my tank has slowed alot over the last few months.

I had the same problem. Everything in the tank was fine but some thread algae came in on some moss I bought and it ran rampart through the tank under good conditions. I could never shake it. I ended up getting angry and took out all of the moss (because I coluldnt get rid of the algae on it)...

Here are the blue shrimp I caught in the wild that I am attempting to breed. Both have since given birth.

Re: 120 x 55 x 55 @ 7 weeks and a Canon 550d I love th 550d aswell. I use the kit lense and havent userd any better lenses so I dont know how good it is but one thing that annoys me about it is that sometimes I can have f 4.5 and others I cant go below 5.. I dont understand why... I am not...

ate 1/2 a shopping bag of those once.. :thumbup:

How did you acclimate them? The single most thing which has led to me killing a ton of shrimp was not giving them time to slowly adjust to the water perameters in my tank. These days I do it over 2 or more hours of putting small amounts of water into my bucket with the shirmp in it from my tank...

I have heard them commonly called "pond snails" and I catch them form my local river to put into my tank. I find that my fish keep them in check and have never had an over population problem.

Thanks, I haven't found alot of information about selective breeding of shrimp so I am kind of in the dark. I will do it as you say but about every 5 generations. I figure that it will take a very long time (10-20 generations) to see any difference. LOL just as well I love shrimp!

I am interested in your thoughts on selective breeding as I am working at breeding a more colourful strain of shrimp that I have sourced from my local river. We do not have a wide variety of shrimp available here in australia and I would like to do my part. I have a good brood stock of about 30...

I have only seen shrimp climb when they are stressed... sorry but thats I can say

I am glad that you solved your problem. I personally have lossed alot of shrimp over the years. I always acclimate them over hours now and not minutes. Once had a bacterial problem like you did. The shrimp would literally glow in the dark once they died. I would love to see some more pictures...

I agree with milla. Lots of shrimp. At least 100. Once thread algae hits the moss you are in trouble. I just removed about 2 buckets of moss from my tank today because it just gets infested with thread algae and no matter how much you hassle it, it stays deep inside. Riccia is even more messy...

This guy has a hilly look to his HC and I can't get a straight answer about how to acheive it other than pruning it... Thanks!

At some time in the future I would like to take the plants out of my tank and start it fresh again. It has been over run with thread algae and I want to make sure that it is dead before replanting.... The reason why I want to do it this was because I have alot of ADA Amazon II that is still...

thanks again guys. It has been a very slow journey up until now. My tank is not deep like the other good setups that I have liked over the years so this time around I decided to squeeze it all together as though it is a deeper tank and use the glosso to add depth. I will take a few decent...

Thanks Mark, I appretiate your input. I look forward to seeing your layout. I am pretty happy with this setup. I have learned alot that I will take into my next tank when the day comes.

Thanks guys. How long would the liquid carb overdose take to do the job? I have enough for 20 days at 4x strength. I have about 150 shrimp in there although about 3/4 of them prefer to stay under the shade of the mosses. At present I think I prefer to get a few algae eaters and harass the moss...

I finished my blackout but everything seems to be the same as it was before I did the blackout. The glosso has faded slightly and the threqad algae is slightly faded aswell.. All in all I would say that it was failure. My next plan is to get 4 or so Siamese Algae Eaters

I have gone ahead with the blackout and have finished day 1. I intend to do a 5 day blackout. I have complete, uninterupted, darkness. I did a 60% water change and removed the hose leading from my co2 regulator and plugged it into an air pump which leads into one of my filters. I removed as...

Just a quick update and a few questions regarding algae treatment. I was away for a week and had the mother in law dosing my dry salts and all went well except I ran out of co2 sometime during the week. I am going to do a light black out to deal with the green thread algae which is now getting...

Does that take a number of weeks? months?

I find that my drop checker solution fades over the course of a few weeks. My current solution is somwhere inbetween the green and yellow although over time it gets harder to tell what the colour is because it just fades away :? How often do you guys change your soution? Cheers!

Thankyou. I am rather proud of myself as it has made working with moss so much easier.

Thankyou for your kind words Gill and Tom. I look forward to the day!

A quick update on the progress so far. I have sorted out the growth trouble with the glosso. I needed to put all 312w T5 light on to make it creep properly. I have had a bit of algae trouble stemming from the Java moss which I have been buying from my LFS. It has been comming with thread algae...

Re: New journal, coming soon! seeing your journals always keeps my comming back to UKAPS. Always inspirational and motivational.

It is so refreshing to see how you achieved this kind of look. I would have been scratching my head wondering how you did it.

wow, thanks for that info. It happened to die yesterday so I wont need to worry about that anymore.

A small update: I have sorted out some problems with the stability of my setup and the moss is recovering from the algae bloom. Once it gets some healthy growth back I will trim it heavily and continue to add more until I have a full "forest". I beleive that one of my extended maintenance...

Interesting, thankyou.

Here is an update guys. I am having some major trouble with algae at the moment. I think that it is due to a few reasons. I tried to introduce alot of shrimp and they just about all died (about 100 or so) which I think led to an ammonia spike. Also at the same time I ran out of co2 for a few...

Re: Tonys 'Triassic Hollow' 420L - Zebra otos I am sorry to hear about your daughter. Its great to see your tank getting back on track. It would be great to see this tank become a great success story!

My red nose shrimp have never eaten any of my plants but they are a variety from northern Australia

Re: Vibrio harveyi bacteria cause death and shrimp glow in d I have caught local shrimp from the river near my house. The water would get up to about 25 I would guess in summer I is funny though that they would not appear stressed until their colour starts to go milky

I was frantically trying to work out why my shrimp are all dying and it just so happened that I couldn't sleep last night and walked past my tank and saw recently dead shrimp glowing in the dark! I couldn't beleive it. I have since learned that this is caused by the Vibrio harveyi bacteria...

Did you make a plasta base for your wood? Love it.

Just a quick update. The ammonia spike has gone and I added about 80 shrimp. I also added the remaining rainbows a few days later. Within one day they ate all of the glosso and most of the shrimp. I gave them away and am now planning to go down the HC route again... Fingers crossed. I have a...

I think that you are right and thanks for the advice. They are growing very fast and I am now starting to see small shoots comming from the lower nodes. They are experiencing no die back from going to emmersed. I have switched the light back to 156w from 312w. Alot of algae has came in with the...

Re: FishBeasts 500 Ltr "Forests Edge" (Blood, sweat & tears) Added HD video of tank at:

Re: FishBeasts 500 Ltr "Forests Edge" (Blood, sweat & tears) I have increased the light so I will see how it goes.

Re: FishBeasts 500 Ltr "Forests Edge" (Blood, sweat & tears) Thanks B7fec. I am going to take strands which I snip off or which dissconnect from the wood and zip tie them in bare places and over time I am hoping that they grow in well. I think it will require alot of maintanence :D Thanks...

Re: FishBeasts 500 Ltr "Forests Edge" (Blood, sweat & tears) I have a question. When I planted the Glosso I cut the stems into 1-2 inch lengths and dragged them horizonally into the substrate. From what I understand I have plenty of light for it but they are reaching up and growth vertically...

Re: FishBeasts 500 Ltr "Forests Edge" (Blood, sweat & tears) I use seachem prime. It claims to fix ammonia in the water but it didn't. I don't beleive that it is because it is buried within the kitty litter and hasn't been exposed to the water outside of itself. That is my oppinion but time...

Re: FishBeasts 500 Ltr "Forests Edge" (Blood, sweat & tears) I feel fairly confident that the pine should be ok. It has been dead and dry for a very long time. I have not boiled it and it is leaching tannins into the water. It is funny though that the fish were doing better when I was not...

*UPDATED 20/5/11* Size: 500 Ltr Filtration: 2x 2400 Ltr/Hr Canister Wave Maker: 12000 Ltr/Hr - Reduced to 6000 Ltr/Hr and then removed completely as it was too hectic. Total Filtration: 9.6 turnover/Hr Total Turnover: 9.6 turnover/Hr Lighting: 156w 6500k T5 for 8.5 hrs a day...

Thanks mate. I will look into it.

Re: Volcanic springs in CA, Hat Creek source, aquatic plant Some of those species I have seen growing not 2 km's from my house here. Some I didnt know the names of.. Thanks

yeah it sux pretty bad... I searched for it locally last time around and aswell as ebay and had no luck... I just did a search for it again on ebay and sure enough 2 came up in the UK.

I have been running the same internal filter since I bought them about 1 year ago and I have seen them grow from very small to medium size. At first I was lazy and didnt do water changes nearly enough... then I put them into another tank and lossed alot in the filter. I happened to do a water...

I will give it some more thought. I have enough dry salts to get me by for a while whilst I decide what to do... I found that saucing my salts last time cost an aweful lot because I had to get some of it from your side of the world.

yeah man. I am having some trouble with them because I am using a small tank to breed them in. I am not used to the water turning to ammonia so quickly. 1 week isnt enough for a water change. I am lucky that the darwin red nose shrimp are very tolerant to ammonia.... (from experience) but I am...

Re: Volcanic springs in CA, Hat Creek source, aquatic plant over here the flora and fauna endure temps of about 4 C to 30+ in the water.... maybe the stuff over there can be adaptable to moderate temps in the tank?

Re: Volcanic springs in CA, Hat Creek source, aquatic plant Man I am drooling at your photos. Imagine all of the mosses growing in the waterfall :jawdrop I wonder what the inverts look like living in that stream of awesomeness? I would love to know more about this place.

Thanks mate, I had it lying about from my last setup. I dosed dry salts.

I have checked my cupboard and noticed that I have a heap of mono potassium phosphate. This is what I need to put into the tank isn't it? I will have to store it in a different liquid bottle than the dinosaur pee right?

Basically my question relates to lighting but I have put it here because there are other factors which come into play. Any advice is welcome but basically my question relates to lighting. Cheers! 500 LTR (132 gallon US) Filtration: Canister 5500 LTR/HR 10.5 filtration turnover. Total water...

Re: My First Planted Tank "Never Ending Journal" Juwel Rio 1 You're threadfins loog amazing, especially the males.

The world is a truly amazing place. So many beautiful plant and fish species.

There was alot of talk on an australia website http://www.rainbowfish.info/forum/viewt ... =15&t=1784 about connecting Dave Wilson from aquagreen with sellers in ohter countries. The last I checked it had gone fairly well so far with red tape and what not. People here are concerned about...

It is a 120 or so gallon. I had poor water turnover at 8x. The next setup will be 30x

This is a pic of Glossostigma diandrum from http://www.aquagreen.com.au (awesome plant and fish supplier here in Aus). My variety doesn't look like this one. This is the glosso elatiniodes Dave from aquagreen has listed which I think looks to be the one I have. The flowers also look to be the...

Here are some pics of this moss which I found about a year ago and trialed in my last tank. I have never seen it online before. It is somewhat similar to star moss but is also unique. I refer to it as "Spire moss" as it grows in a spire type growth. I have no idea how to fix it to stuff...

Hi guys. My next scape will primarily be of local species of plants native to Australia. I have alot that I have found over the last year or so and I have decided to use this Glosso. I just need a confirmation that it is Glossostigma Elatinoides before I go ahead. I am sure that it grows...

Re: “Nano Tor”, Andyh's 35l (Lighting Test 29-12-10) Tank looks beautiful mate. Your HC really did come up well with the close pruning. Your shrimp look very happy all out in the open :) Your threadfins are amazing! I am sold, I am going to buy some. What type of moss is that you are...

I am wondering if you guys would share your experience with using cheaper t5's compared to those of a higher price? I am running some cheap ones and I didnt have great sucess with them. I did not have a very nutrient rich substrate but fed to the water colum. I would like to know so I can have...

Very cool. Got to love a good shrimp tank.

Glad to hear that you are making progress with the algae. Congrats with the sucess of the HC. Amano is looking a little old these days. I am also jealous.

Sweet. I have been admiring that kind of colour scheme you have in the first picture. I love how sharp the cliffs are and how dark and ominous the sky and clouds are and have been wondering how people acheive this. I also use lightroom 2 and am wondering if you could give me a quick rundown or...