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AS600 - Jade

Removed about ½ a kilo of C. crispatula yesterday, not that you can see it:

2020-08-26%2018.44.16.jpg


Fishies out and about way more as result.

pinnatifida looking a bit oof after growing in the dark:

2020-08-26%2018.46.37.jpg


Reflections are win:

2020-08-26%2018.47.11.jpg
 
Really love that carpet.. planning a capret too in my next scape but I like to combine different types also and with so much options it's pretty hard..


You should zoom in 😁 it looks like absolute crap these days. It was much better some months ago, before the hairgrass balded. Don't know what caused it, it got yellow and started losing leaves en masse. Probably lack of light, or some deficiency.
 
You should zoom in 😁 it looks like absolute crap these days. It was much better some months ago, before the hairgrass balded. Don't know what caused it, it got yellow and started losing leaves en masse. Probably lack of light, or some deficiency.
Yes I noticed but i did look at earlier pictures and i liked that.. Myself was thinking about lileanopsis b. in the front and e. parvula in the back to create a bit of depth.. And then gradient in to each other..
 
I think you over did it with the trimming. 😅

It's a full body brazilian.

In reality, I had to. 8+ months of neglect, infrequent, if any, dosing, no waterchanges, no CO2, and a Twinstar light going bad had the following results. Crispatula took over the tank. Carpet died off mostly, except for a bit of Lilaeopsis hanging on (the official 'winner' of the carpet deathmatch then), everything was mulmy, staghorny and generally in bad shape. Even the java fern was ailing.

Everything had to go.

All critters went to the no less messy 45P, where they will spend the remainder of their days (probably having to suffer another rescape there some time this fall). Count was 4 cpd's, one oto, 6 titteyas, and 6 (7?) extremely fat kuhlii loaches. Tbh I thought the loaches were goners, not having seen a single one in ½ a year. On the other hand I'm almost out of shrimp, laying the blame firmly on the titteyas (I saw them gang up and demolish a shrimp yesterday), leaving a bit of blame for the loaches for maybe eradicating the offspring. Hence the fatness.

Most plants hit the compost. I did save all buces, they got quite a bit of algae, but are generally fine. Saved some heavily trimmed willisii and wendtii too.

Halfway through planting it already looks better:
2021-08-23 13.23.26.jpg

Crap photo, I know.
 
I'm almost out of shrimp, laying the blame firmly on the titteyas (I saw them gang up and demolish a shrimp yesterday)
Whoa - is that titteyas as in Puntius Titteya? You clearly have Krav Maga Ninja ones. Mine are about as placid as you can get - they can just about square off to a cherry shrimp and are definitely lower in the pecking order than the Amanos!
 
Whoa - is that titteyas as in Puntius Titteya? You clearly have Krav Maga Ninja ones. Mine are about as placid as you can get - they can just about square off to a cherry shrimp and are definitely lower in the pecking order than the Amanos!

Yeah, cherry barbs. There was some commotion when I passed by the tank, and sure enough, 4 or 5 titteyas was shredding a medium sized cherry shrimp. They're totally peaceful the rest of the time, and do not usually hunt shrimp AFAIK. They're just always looking for FOOOOD! I do liken them to be the fish equivalent of black labradors 🤣, as are most barbs.

I do have a suspicion someone has been snacking on my shrimp though, because there really wasn't many left...
 
So, planting almost done, except for where the grey rock is (looking forward to be able to move that. There might be a few changes if something goes bad or melts, hopefully not.

Added a few root tabs along the back, have added small amounts of micros but most have gone down the drain I suspect. 50-60 % wc everyday.

I'm going to give the remaining staghorn a knockout 1-2 punch tomorrow followed by a 90+% waterchange.

The tank is on the 3rd filter. After ditching the Oase/Niagara emulator, I got an Eheim Pro 4+ 350T. All those numbers are there to disguise the fact that this is another overengineered piece of expletive. It leaked around the pump head almost from first clean, and was impossible to prime. Made a fair amount of noise too, since it really liked to trap air like the Oase.

Enter a Classic. Eheim 600 or 2217. It's a bucket with a pump. Works. Just as good as the 100-150 % more expensive Rube Goldberg contraptions that I could design better in the sunset hours of a one week beer binge. Maybe with more flow than its predecessors. Yeah, I need to add a heater to the tank, small loss. Not gonna waste more time on crap designed by engineering school dropouts /rant over

The Twinstar light tried to burn the house down, doomed project since there was 100 liters of water above the ignition point. That explained the erratic lightning schedule it ran towards the end, that was true new age psychedelics.

Seems I have crap luck in aquarium technology, or maybe a lot of it really just is expensive garbage.

So for the listicularily inclined:

Aquascaper 600 (doh)
Chihiros WRGB II
Eheim 2217
Qanvee atomizer
Tunze dual reg
Eheim skim 350 (on a timer)
Aquael 100w heater
Glass pipe for sucky, Eheim-green Eheim spraybar for blowy (eeww)

And inside, apart from water:

Dragonstone
Redmoor wood
crushed lava
ADA Powersand
Tropica soils
ADA Colorado sand

Plants:

Anubias nana
Aponogeton crispus
Barclaya longifolia
Bolbitis heudelotii
Bucephelandra sp.
Bukit Kelam/sintang
Lamandau purple
Theia
Braun-Rot /serimbu
Alamanda v3 Dark
Velvet Leaf Entikong
Alamanda v1 Blue
Melawi Fine Edge
Kedagang
Pheww (not a buce)
C. albida (again-again, this one I've not gotten brilliant results with prior)
C. wendtii
C. willisii (nevillii?)
C. beckettii, (don't melt! don't melt! don't melt! don't melt!)
Lilaeopsis brasiliensis (Official Carpet Death Match winner of the World 2020-2021)
Microsorum pteropus 'Narrow'
Phyllanthus fluitans (temporary)
Riccardia sp. 'chamedrypholia'

Still needs more Microsorum, and am going to add more Riccardia too. I bought more plants than I could use, and seriously, I've got 7 or so Apo's in the back so will probably need to remove a few when they get going. I have Ceratopteris, Ludwigia lacustris, 3 pots of C. willisii 'Lucens' and Vallis nana in the holding tank + more Apo's and Bolbitis, some wendtii and one Barclaya went into the 45P. And a bucket of Xmas moss + one H. tenellus. Enough for a tank more.
Ridiculous.

2021-08-24 18.22.27.jpg 2021-08-24 18.22.33.jpg 2021-08-25 14.35.54.jpg

Since I'm using old established filtermedia I expect to send in the vanguard Clean Team very, very soon.

Amanos, don't think I've ever had those while they were known as amanos.
 
Smallish 1 week update:

Everything trucking along, not much different from a week ago. Starting to see very minute signs of growth. Big root still wants to float :/ Bit of melt here and there on crypts, which was expected. I punched staghorn in the kisser with some peroxide, then roundhouse kicked it with glut. Almost gone. Not dosed glut since, and hope I can avoid it. Amanos are in. Doing short work with the few remaining strands of algae.

2021-08-30 17.45.49-1.jpg 2021-08-29 19.52.52.jpg 2021-08-30 17.01.16.jpg

Running CO2 as high as I can, which is a bit lower than first week. One pump of Specialised per day, since friday, after waterchange ofc.
 
Did a heavy trim on old/melty leaves today. Will keep on doing this over the coming week. Very nice to have a job that respects your free time, so I can keep on top of things. That's a first since I started having tanks some 4-5 years ago. Hope it will reflect on the quality of the scape for the future.

FTS
20210902_154429.jpg
 
Hi all,
Enter a Classic. Eheim 600 or 2217. It's a bucket with a pump. Works. Just as good as the 100-150 % more expensive Rube Goldberg contraptions that I could design better in the sunset hours of a one week beer binge. Maybe with more flow than its predecessors. Yeah, I need to add a heater to the tank, small loss. Not gonna waste more time on crap designed by engineering school dropouts /rant over
<"Rant on">, I couldn't agree more. Clive's @ceg4048 immortal "pump in a bucket" description was one of the statements that really got me thinking about <"coffee and froth">.
........... that I could design better in the sunset hours of a one week beer binge..........
Now that is sheer poetry.
Like your Cycad (Cycas revoluta).

cheers Darrel
 
Hi all,

<"Rant on">, I couldn't agree more. Clive's @ceg4048 immortal "pump in a bucket" description was one of the statements that really got me thinking about <"coffee and froth">.

Now that is sheer poetry.

Like your Cycad (Cycas revoluta).

cheers Darrel
It's simply so much easier too handle the pump in a bucket. And I don't postpone filter maintenance because priming and bleeding air is a pain. Double win. And it has easily as much flow as the previous much more expensive models. Triple win.

I hope I can keep the cycad alive this time, after having failed several times. The trick so far this time is NOT replanting it in potting soil. So far so good. Now I need to find some nice loamy, sandy soil for when repotting is inevitable.
 
Hi all,
It's simply so much easier too handle the pump in a bucket.
Yes, they are just "Classic", a minimum of gaskets, <"no electronics, water in at the bottom and out at the top">.
The trick so far this time is NOT replanting it in potting soil. So far so good. Now I need to find some nice loamy, sandy soil for when repotting is inevitable.
That sounds a good potting mix, I'd probably add some perlite or pumice as well. I've had some for over thirty years, they haven't grown much, but I've very rarely re-potted or fed them.

They thrive on neglect, the only thing that normally kills them is too warm and wet in the winter. They want dryish, as much light as you can give them and <"cool in the winter">.

cheers Darrel
 
Minor update:

Cryptocorynes has mostly stopped melting. There's a few I have to keep an eye on, but nothing alarming. Did massive trim of all leaves that were not actively growing on the ferns, hence the windswept look... Big root almost ready to stay put; almost removed the rock today, but felt a slight buoyancy in my fingertips and promptly got cold feet.
Plants have started growing all around, aponogetons still a bit slow on the lift off.

Almost no algae. Minute amounts of diatoms, some other stuff on the silicon along the front pane, that I couldn't get rid of. Amanos have gotten rid of every trace of staghorn/BBA.

Since last post, amanos have gotten company of several horned nerites, a boatload of ramshorns and oodles of Hyalella. And today I took delivery of some lovely green jade shrimp.

And two hours later saw an amano eating one... :oops: Hope that's not a regular occurrence, that would be... mildly disappointing, to say the least.

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Hi,
Be warned regarding A. Crispus. Mine has suddenly taken off and is now producing a new leaf every couple of days which are 30mm wide and over a metre long. I'm going to try and remove it tomorrow during maintenance and may well have to sever the leaves just below the top of the substrate as I fear pulling it up will destroy the integrity of the substrate.
My aquarium is 900 x 550 x 530mm:
Cheers!
 

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