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[Konrad Michalski]

Is your feather duster staying algae free? Mine grows well but for some reason extremely prone to algae.

 

[CooKieS]

Is your feather duster staying algae free? Mine grows well but for some reason extremely prone to algae.

Hi, well it can take some time to adapt first and the leaves are of course near the light so it’s prone to algae when the tank isn’t balanced.

But once it really starts to spread you should not have algae, mine was algae free after the first month or so.

 

[CooKieS]

So basically at this stage, feather duster was making shade to other light loving stems like rotala Florida or bacopa salzmanii, at this moment I started to think about replacing the mini S size by an 30cm cube which would give me much more depth…

Fertilisation is from masterline , golden, 1ml per day.

Light was nearly at 100% power for 7hours a day at this moment.

To ce continued, cheers

 

[Little]

I love this tank so much. Its my favourite on the site. The blend of colour and texture with the unique structural shape is awesome. It’s so whimsical.

 

[Konrad Michalski]

Hi, well it can take some time to adapt first and the leaves are of course near the light so it’s prone to algae when the tank isn’t balanced.

But once it really starts to spread you should not have algae, mine was algae free after the first month or so.

Cheers mate. I’ve asked as mine grows between eleocharis montavidensis and eleocharis vivipara and when I see few strands covered with algae it always happens to be feather duster. On your photo is it just one plant or few?

 

[CooKieS]

I love this tank so much. Its my favourite on the site. The blend of colour and texture with the unique structural shape is awesome. It’s so whimsical.

Oh thanks a lot! I just enjoy to play with these nano tanks

Cheers mate. I’ve asked as mine grows between eleocharis montavidensis and eleocharis vivipara and when I see few strands covered with algae it always happens to be feather duster. On your photo is it just one plant or few?

Interested, it may be because new leaves grow a bit strangely (from the middle of older leaves sometimes) so when this happens, the older leave might be more exposed to algae ? What kind of algae do you have on it?

I started with 2/3 plantlets from a friend, and this is how it ended up after approx 6 months :

After separation of the rhizomes and ready to replant:

The root system is super impressive, you just can’t uproot these without taking all the scape and soil appart!
Cheers

 

[Courtneybst]

The colour palette is awesome!

 

[Konrad Michalski]

Interested, it may be because new leaves grow a bit strangely (from the middle of older leaves sometimes) so when this happens, the older leave might be more exposed to algae ? What kind of algae do you have on it?

It was bba. Getting a bit better now so I pulled the plants out, separated them and replanted to give them fresh start.
You’ve had some very impressive growth there in 6 months.

 

[richardcunliffe]

This is lush! Nice work, top quality!

 

[Gerald Buswell]

I have just got some Bacopa salzmanii which arrived as a tissue culture from the Indian ADA affiliated farm, Still Water Aquatics.
Just wondering what form they are growing, your salzmanii isn’t perhaps from there?

 

[CooKieS]

The colour palette is awesome!

Thanks bro

It was bba. Getting a bit better now so I pulled the plants out, separated them and replanted to give them fresh start.
You’ve had some very impressive growth there in 6 months.

No surprise, bba loves to grow on strong flow area and on slow growing plants/old leaves or hardscape. We are often tempted to put the flow outlet on these grassy plants but it’s an mistake with this one as it will catch bba easily. Easy solution: try to rearrange the Flow outlet in other area, and this erio can be treated easily during waterchange: spray h2o2 3% on it and let it works for 2 minutes then flood again, this will burn the existing algae and won’t harm the plant.

This is lush! Nice work, top quality!

Thanks a lot!

I have just got some Bacopa salzmanii which arrived as a tissue culture from the Indian ADA affiliated farm, Still Water Aquatics.
Just wondering what form they are growing, your salzmanii isn’t perhaps from there?

I have 2, one that a friend gave me last year and now another one in vitro from Aqua art, they both looks like this when mature:

 

[Konrad Michalski]

No surprise, bba loves to grow on strong flow area and on slow growing plants/old leaves or hardscape. We are often tempted to put the flow outlet on these grassy plants but it’s an mistake with this one as it will catch bba easily. Easy solution: try to rearrange the Flow outlet in other area, and this erio can be treated easily during waterchange: spray h2o2 3% on it and let it works for 2 minutes then flood again, this will burn the existing algae and won’t harm the plant.

Thanks for the tip. I use h2o2 on wood and hardscape and some hardy plants like anubias. I thought this one would just melt.

 

[CooKieS]

Thanks for the tip. I use h2o2 on wood and hardscape and some hardy plants like anubias. I thought this one would just melt.

You’re welcome, it’s an tough plant but I would not recommend using something higher than 3% h2o2, just to be safe .

So to continue the journal, just before Christmas a local shop decided to close and sold all his stock at -50% so I grabbed and optiwhite 30cm cube for 30€.

Next step was easy, removing the whole hardscape from the Viv mini S and just put it in the cube…this was shot the day after the mess:

 

[CooKieS]

I wasn’t happy with the initial result so I messed a bit with the wood placement, instead of using eriocaulon in the back, I used only red stems like rotala blood sg, Florida and bacopa salzmanii this time (in order to sell these later).

Fertilizer from Ada on this one, brighty K and brighty mineral, 2ml each daily, very costly for what it is (basically diluted stuff lol), but my plants are red easily then because it’s so lean. (No macros apart K)

Will switch to masterline once the ridiculously small 180ml bottles are gone.

I added 4 sundadanio axelrodi which are amazing looking and don’t eat shrimplets until they’re swimming near their mouths, will look for more once my lfs has some again (which happens once per year only…unfortunately rare fishes now)

Cheers!

 

[si walker]

Great work again!
Inspirational.
I had 6 axelrodi and they were sold to me too early from the shop I personally think.
I lost 4. They were so small and would not feed.
The 2 that I have are male and female. They are like bloody bouncers in the tank. They bully any fish that enters their zone! It's hilarious.
I've noticed that my other rasbora get revenge from time to time!

 

[CooKieS]

Thanks!

I heard they were sensitive during shipping and acclimatation, like otocinclus for example, luckily I didn’t have any accident, I feed mine with bassleer bio fish food , the small ones and they love it. Interesting fact; they only eat when the food is in the middle of the tank, barely at the surface and never at the bottom!

Back to the tank, let’s talk about price;

Optiwhite 30cm cube: 30€
Dennerle scapers flow (second hand): 20€
Ledstar led unit: 75€
Co2 kit: 120€
Diffuser from neo: 10€
Masterline ferts: around 30€

Proves that once again you don’t need all these overpriced fancy stuff to run nice aquascapes. 🙂✌🏻

Cheers

 

[CooKieS]

Hi folks!

So this is basically how the fancy plant farm is looking atm, it became an neocaridina blue velvet breeding tank too as the population exploded quickly. I still have some caridina panda in there but for some reason the population isn’t increasing as quickly.

I’ve considered adding a led backlight from chihiros but I don’t like to spend money on non Necessary stuff.

Cheers,
Thierry

 

[Deano3]

Wow @CooKieS this is a stunner, just checking In and glad I clicked on this jurnal, stunning colours and love a nano at the moment as that's all I can currently have, was looking at no tech then low tech then see something like this 🙈 changing my mind again but I need something soon. Also loved the first pic with the betta.

Thanks dean

 

[CooKieS]

Thanks a lot @Deano3 , it’s nothing too fancy or complicated regarding my previous scapes, but the main goal was to cultivate plants so I guess it’s ok! The betta has moved in a 30liters cube as the mini s was too small for him and in the actual scape he would eat all the shrimplets!

 

[CooKieS]

Nano tanks appreciation for today: