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Channelling my inner Filipe - Christmas Corys

Looking great 😀
Plants look in good health and your shrimp population is booming.....surprised those rams haven’t been ‘chucking them on the Barbie’
Shame about the gourami 🙁
Anyway, scape is looking sharp and those stems should come back even better after the trim and hold the shape, look forward to seeing it in a few weeks.
Cheerio,
 
Coming along so nicely and those plants are looking good and healthy. I really like the post-trim look, the branches hit the spot for me.

Can't believe how many shrimp you have, must be a happy home you've created!
 
Ady34 said:
Looking great 😀
Plants look in good health and your shrimp population is booming.....surprised those rams haven’t been ‘chucking them on the Barbie’
Shame about the gourami 🙁
Anyway, scape is looking sharp and those stems should come back even better after the trim and hold the shape, look forward to seeing it in a few weeks.
Cheerio,
Click to expand...

cbaum86 said:
Coming along so nicely and those plants are looking good and healthy. I really like the post-trim look, the branches hit the spot for me.

Can't believe how many shrimp you have, must be a happy home you've created!
Click to expand...

Thanks guys! I'm really looking forward to the next couple of weeks. Been concentrating on trying to grow fairly healthy rotala before i begin to start shaping the background. I really like seeing more of the wood so from now on going to try keep the rotala trimmed, will also help with the h'ra as it gets shadowed easily by faster growers.

I'm surprised at how well the shrimp are doing, there's got to be atleast 100 now. I think the mass of rotala is a perfect breeding ground and creates a lot of dark areas to chill out. I do feed with bacter AE and sometimes some shrimp king complete if i see a few of them chilling in the back corners together.

My rams have been more interested in the shrimp, but don't seem to hunt them. They do try eat the smaller ones but only if they are close to them, but 99% of the time they fail. I have seen my male ram eat one small shrimp, but not sure if it was dead or not, but have to assume it was alive. But generally the rams are slow to react and the shrimp are too fast so seems to be working well so far.
 
Steve Buce said:
Really nice tank, those red nose fish are nice, did you get just males
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Thanks! I assume most, if not all are male now that everyone has properly coloured up. There could be a few females that are a lot paler and dull, but then again they could be less dominant males.
 
Quick update.....

The rotala is growing back well, definitely more colourful than before now that i have been dosing EDDHA FE for a month. Before the new growth was pale and white, now new growth is a lot more yellow. I definitely have enough EDDHA FE in the water as the pink tinge remains at the end of the week.

Seeing as my plants are still not achieving the right colouration i will be increasing my micros next time i make up a batch so MN is increased. I definitely have enough MG and have tried doubling up too with little effect, so i will also lower that a little to 6ppm and see if that helps.

Any input is much appreciated!
IMG_20200506_185330__01.jpg
 
CooKieS said:
Adding more micros won’t help unfortunately.

‘you’ll need more light and low no3.

what rotala sp is that?

here’s some reading from a plant master ;
https://www.advancedplantedtank.com/blogs/freshwater-aquarium-plants-guide/how-to-grow-red-plants
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I'm pretty sure my rotala get plenty of light as my substrate is banked up very high at the back and sides, nearly reaches halfway up the tank at the highest point.

I am lowering my nitrate dosing, it's down to 10ppm per week in this months mix. Next month i plan to cut it out completely and rely on my tap water nitrates to see if it helps colouration.

I'm not too concerned about the red and orange rotala at the moment as they have some colour, which is better than before. I'm concentrating more on the rotala sp green right in the middle, trying to use it as a indicator plant. It's is growing better and greener, but new growth is is still pale and yellow rather than white as before.

Thanks.
 
Hi Sammy
Nice scape....check your local municipal water supplier for Nitrate levels!
I will be surprised if its not around 40ppm to 50ppm😉
hoggie
 
hogan53 said:
Hi Sammy
Nice scape....check your local municipal water supplier for Nitrate levels!
I will be surprised if its not around 40ppm to 50ppm😉
hoggie
Click to expand...

Thanks i realised earlier that it was mainly a FE deficiency as i've been lowering my NO3 monthly, but can't go back and put in an edit because it was a stupid statement!

I have also realised that adding a little extra PO4 has helped, i assume this would be because my EDTA FE dose is useless and none would be used by the plant so it would take out some of the phosphates and whatever else.
 
LondonDragon said:
You even got a like by Filipe himself, awesome 😉 hows the tank going?
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Really? That's awesome! 🙂Tanks ticking along nicely, will post an update soon, coming up to 6.5 month mark.

Starting to have problems with the S.repens but i think that may have been due to the temp fluctuations in the last month as i've changed nothing else. 🙄
 
Hey everyone, hope all is well.

Sorry I haven't updated this journal in quite a while but I had a surge of work halfway through lockdown so just happy to keep busy.

Don't worry i haven't failed and my tank isn't a algae mess!😉 Still doing weekly maintenance sessions which i haven't missed and things are chugging along nicely and everything must be fairly balanced. The only thing i have failed with is my main monte-carlo carpet and my secondary carpet which i hoped would grow around the beach/gravel area. I have swapped this out for dwarf hair grass and it's doing alright. I have bought more monte-carlo to plant around the edge of the beach area but my shrimp literally uproot everything a couple hours after planting even when i completely cover it, so kind of gave up after a while 😂

All the plants are growing well, but i have a lot of trouble with my s.repens and nothing seems to sort it out. It either grows leggy, or has gsa/gda on it, sometimes seems pale and when trimming sometimes they completely melt which is annoying seeing as everything else is doing well.

Live stock are all good, i absolutely love the gouramis! So glad i bought them, they are so chilled out and add another dynamic to the tank. My rams are doing great, my male is a beast now and the tables have turned as hes now king of the tank. They have also started hunting my shrimp, so I don't see many in the beach area anymore. But i know there is a massive colony left as i fed atleast 100 the other night when the fish were sleeping.

All in all happy days, especially now everythings balanced i rarely have to think about it and can just enjoy it rather than panicking and worrying trying to figure out if something is wrong!

I will update soon with some photos once i've planted the monte-carlo and had a little trim. Thanks for reading 👍

IMG_20200907_185520__01.jpg
 
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