Consistency Deficiency

[dw1305]

Hi all,

adjusted my light down from 30% to 10%. Its finally starting to look slightly dimmer in the tank. Maybe the Fluval 3.0 is more powerful than people give it credit for?

I'd be a bit worried about this, my guess is that it isn't the lamp, it is your eyes, they are very good at adjusting through several orders of magnitude of light intensity. If the light looks dimmer you probably aren't getting anywhere near the <"Light Compensation Point for photosynthesis"> for any of the plants.

Even if you have some daylight at the moment (I don't know how far N. you live) it will be <"incredibly dim"> and your eyes adjust to this.

Example below is our solar panels in the (relatively) bright and sunny S. of England, Jan 4th 2021 I'd describe the day as "bright but cloudy", we have had much greyer days.



cheers Darrel

 

[Hufsa]

I'd be a bit worried about this

I can understand your concern Darrel, and ill make sure to monitor the plants very closely. If they look to be suffering more than they are currently I can turn it right on up again. I just feel like I need to try this.

If its any comfort, the bolbitis that was placed in the shrimp holiday colony is growing and putting out lots of leaves. This is despite being lit by a dinky little IKEA desk lamp. And there we are -really- talking dimly lit mood lighting. So hopefully it will be ok. Its still fairly bright in the main tank, just not quite as much.

 

[Karmicnull]

algae is at an all time high, but previously when I had lots of algae growth, I also had (mostly) good plant growth. Or at least -better- plant growth than what im having right now.

You have no idea about how reassured that makes me feel. Also

the newbies with a tank chock full of fish, stock lighting and no CO2. They dont know the names of most of their plants, but are throwing out plants by the bucketful every trim. They are obviously doing something right.
So they have a tank full of fish that make a lot of nutrients. dont change water often and certainly not much (removing ferts), and they have weak light. Hmmmmmm.

I feel I am squarely in that category. But I also feel it's deceptive. In my low tech tank everything happens reeealllly slllooowwwllly. So It's only now, 18 weeks in, that I'm hitting my first major algae problem. Up until week 17 I had mostly happy plants and no algae. In week 18 I have looked at the tank and suddenly realised that (1) half my plants aren't doing anything (2) the other half are doing great but are covered in algae which is doing even better and (3) the overall result is my tank looks completely imbalanced. Like a bloke with a 6-month untrimmed lockdown beard wearing lycra cycling shorts. So when you look at all those noob tanks just think to yourself "wait until week 18, noob!"

Doubling macros to 20-2-20 and I adjusted my light down from 30% to 10%.

Doubling your dose given your previous experience logged earlier in this thread seems sensible, but doing it at the same time as reducing lighting to 10% will mean that if you are successful you won't know which to attribute success to 🙁. Not that I'm any better. I've just removed all my lighting fades, reduced the amount I'm feeding fishes, and switched iron chelate all at once. Hey ho.

Cheers,

Simon

 

[Hufsa]

You have no idea about how reassured that makes me feel.

Oh you are so welcome 😊 If my algae growing skills help (or comfort) just one other person, I will feel so much better about all my troubles.

Doubling your dose given your previous experience logged earlier in this thread seems sensible, but doing it at the same time as reducing lighting to 10% will mean that if you are successful you won't know which to attribute success to 🙁. Not that I'm any better. I've just removed all my lighting fades, reduced the amount I'm feeding fishes, and switched iron chelate all at once. Hey ho.

Definitely true, I should probably not tell anyone I also wanted to reduce micros, but then came slightly to my senses later and went with just the two other big changes. "Hey ho", as you say indeed!

I have read in so many places "Dont change too much at once, you wont know what fixed it and when its fixed you wont dare change anything in fear ruining your tank!"
Well the thing is, those people severely underestimate both my general stupidity and my curious tendencies 😂 Coupled with a more than healthy fondness for "SCIENCE! WOO", theres a good chance im gonna try to re-ruin things if I ever get things running good, just so I can know exactly how things work. Sometimes just the call of the void is enough. "Do the thiiiing. Ssssssee what happens" 😁

 

[Hufsa]

Posting a few things here just for the record.

Auto doser doses micros in the morning and the macros 12 hours later. Aka not alternate day dosing. Since I am intimately familiar with how iron deficiency looks, I set it up like this because I was too lazy to fiddle with the doser to get it to dose alternate days, and I figure the plants will let me know eventually if they arent getting any iron.

I also want to note down that I am feeling increased whisperings from the dark side. Yes, that dark side. Ive even looked up what a big tank of CO2 costs on a few occasions. I honestly have no doubt right now that a steady 5-10 ppm of CO2 would make my life much much easier.

The only thing keeping me from it right now is plain old stubbornness, and simply because I want to be able say that I did it without. So there, ive said it. Maybe im attempting to do things in the hardest possible way, but then so be it.



Also happy to see and read about other methods, especially with the latest postings. If I dont get anywhere with the few things I have already decided I want to try out, they give me several more options for experimentation, and Im very thankful for it. All this pondering over algae is giving me grey hairs and sore grey cells.

 

[ScareCrow]

I seem to be going through the same struggle. I didn't see the point in starting a journal of my own just so we could compete at who had the worst growth. So I've been following your journal and really enjoy reading your updates. Years ago I had a low tech tank that was really simple to maintain and grew hygrophila polysperma 'sunset' no problem at all. Not much of a boast but I think it is one of the nicest stem plants. Since moving house and in turn water supply, plants just sit there regardless of dosing or not. I keep coming back to CO² availability.

 

[Hufsa]

I didn't see the point in starting a journal of my own

I would definitely like to see a journal from you, the more the better imo especially for us low tech folks.
I think we can learn from each other, and then we might take less time overall getting a hang of things.
When I read from some of the posters on here, I find myself wishing they had a journal so I could see what their method is. They write very intriguing things, doing things differently than the norm, and I would love to see more. Maybe I should just ask them. But wouldnt want to be rude. Hm

Happy to hear you are enjoying the read. Sometimes I feel like im writing alone and for no ones benefit, but to hear that people are following along is encouraging

I wanna get my hands on some Hygrophila polysperma, it seems like a good fast grower and is smaller in width than Hygrophila difformis, I think.
I dont really like the Rosanervig variety so much, it looks just a bit off to me. So ive been keeping an eye out for the plain green version and now I have requested it specifically from my LFS. So hope to have it soon-ventually.

I think when one is having plant issues one -needs- at least one kind of fast growing plant. I dont really think it matters what kind, duckweed index is probably best with amazon frogbit, but since I cant keep any floaters alive ive resorted to stems. Not sure if my issues keeping floaters alive are due to flow, gourami predation or just my general skill at killing things. Maybe a combination.
But the fast growing plant will let you know that things are going sideways way before your slow growers do. And I think its best not to let things go so far sideways that the slow growers are badly affected. Because then there is a much longer road back.

 

[ScareCrow]

Hopefully you'll have better luck with H.polysperma than I am currently, I think it's a really nice and often overlooked 'easy' stem plant.

Happy to hear you are enjoying the read. Sometimes I feel like im writing alone and for no ones benefit, but to hear that people are following along is encouraging

Yeah, please keep going with the updates, they're informative and entertaining.
I'm also struggling with floating plants but think it's flow related. The needle leaf java fern is the fastest growing plant in the tank to give some perspective. I do have a number of emersed plants that are doing well, which makes me think it's not nutrients that are the limiting factor but instead CO². Having searched and searched (I even posted on here) for the answer, there's no reason H.polysperma shouldn't grow, it seems to be a weed for everyone else.

 

[Hufsa]

..emersed plants that are doing well

How many emersed plants do you have? I believe I read that sometimes they are so effective growers that they starve the underwater plants. Essentially outcompeting them. There is a journal on here that I think had some struggles with it, let me find it..
Toms Poco Pozo

 

[ScareCrow]

Thanks, I think I might have read it but I'll give it a(nother) read. I've gone through so many threads trying to find an answer that I've lost track.
It was one of the things I thought might be happening. I'm waiting on some batteries for my tds meter to be delivered, so I can check tds at the start and end of the week to get a rough idea of what is going on.

 

[Hufsa]

Today has been a bit of a trainwreck (again). Im kinda embarrassed to post all my mistakes here, but I think it redeems the situation just slightly if it helps someone else not do the same things.

So day before yesterday I switched out the two big roots in the tank with the two new roots ive been playing with. The fish were looking a bit unhappy with how bare the tank was, and I figured they might as well start soaking, that way they wont float later on. Ive had fungus on fresh redmoor before, but it has been managable and not too bad. Not this time though.

Yesterday I woke up to cloudy water. Ok I thought, no need to panic, while I havent had much issues with cloudy water before I knew its not as dangerous as it looks and should pass in a few days once balance is restored. I made sure the skimmer was running well and the filter intake was not clogged up with anything. All the fish seemed very happy with the new decor, the boraras were swimming through the overhanging branches, the stick fish were all over the wood and the corys were enjoying all the shaded spots underneath.

Today I woke up and the water was no longer cloudy. Sweet I thought, that passed quickly. But giving it a second look, all the fish were breathing very rapidly. The otos were hanging on the glass and looking unhappy, alongside the Sturisoma. I quickly pulled out the test kit and immediately saw there was a clear reading for nitrite, 0.05. Not the kind of readings ive had issues with before, where its like, is there, is there not a reading, what color IS this exactly. But no, very clear 0.05. I didnt even wait for the required 5 minutes to pass, and just started draining the tank immediately.
They got a 80-90% water change and are breathing a bit better now. Im getting up early tomorrow morning to test again and see how things are. No food until things are settled.

I removed both roots from the tank. It may have been okay to leave them and do daily water changes for a while, but I was not feeling like risking any of my fish again, and so out they went.

I will have to figure out some other way of "cycling" them before putting them in with the fish. I think I might soak them in a big container and then maybe add one at a time once they stop being slimy and gross and the tank is healthy again, but even that feels dangerous right now. Before when ive soaked roots seperately, they have ended up grosser than normal and very stinky, maybe because of a lack of oxygen or beneficial stuff in the container or something else. And its not so tempting to add a stinky root to your tank.

I felt like the filter wasnt putting out as much water as it usually does, and I decided to crack it open as well to check on it. This was definitely the right move as the prefilter sponge was absolutely heavy with slime and really hard to clean. It seems to have taken the brunt of the impact and the rest of the sponges felt ok. It all smelled nice and earthy still, for those of us who are thinking of the smell incident from before. I left the rest of the media in peace, keeping in mind that I wouldnt want to disturb the archaea+bacteria right now.

I hope the fish will make it out of this as well, there is seemingly no end to all the trials I end up putting them through 🙁 A lot of my Rineloricaria fry has passed away throughout the day, they are very sensitive. The only little comfort I have is that I still see some Corydoras pygmaeus fry swimming about. I believe cory fry are hardier than whiptail fry, so that makes sense.
Having removed the cause of the ammonia/nitrite spike, im hopeful that the tank will get back to normal soon..

 

[Hufsa]

Early this morning nitrite measured a more vague 0.025 or less, good stuff.
The fish got another large water change either way but it seems the train is somewhat back on track.

I went out to the LFS and picked up some plants, one of them planned and some of them not so planned.
I got large stems of Myriophyllum mattogrossense, Myriophyllum tuberculatum, Proserpinaca palustris and Nesaea crassicaulis. They were really cheap so I figured id give them a try. The Proserpinaca is probably the hardest one, havent tried it before.

I got a lot of small shoots of Hygrophila polysperma green, this one I had at the top of my wishlist so very happy I got it.

Mixed in with the polysperma shoots were a bunch of little water lettuce plants, which I thought was a real bonus.
I havent tried this floater before.
My goal in life is to kill one of every kind of plant. Just kidding. But it will be nice to try it.
I also got a cup of invitro frogbit. I know I swore it off for good last time, but this time is the last time, honest
The water lettuce was meticulously inspected for pests, they didnt have many roots so that made it easier. I didnt feel like they would tolerate a chemical dip with their delicate peach fuzz hairs. After getting an all clear they were placed into protective custody in the main tank with the frogbit. This setup is hopefully gourami proof.



I also got a cup of invitro pinnatifida, all the big boys are killing this plant and I wanna get in on that action. I try to give plants I buy a good squint before buying, especially invitro cups, but I should have squinted harder at this one. I thought all the leaves were just brown colored, but as I took it out of the pot 95% of the leaves fell off the plant. They were not brown colored, they were completely wilted 😅 Oops..
Left behind were a few bits of stem and some very puny looking pink white shoots. I carefully split the pot in two and they have been gently attached to each their rock.

The way I figure it, this is a win win situation.
If I do get this to survive and grow, I will immediately take position as the alpha of the pinnatifida growers, and everyone will look to me on how to grow this plant.
And if it dies, which it probably will, no one will think anything of it, as I had such poor odds



I got an invitro cup of Blyxa japonica, think this is part of Tropicas recent limited edition run. The shrimp used to love it, and Ive been missing it ever since I killed it off so..
One more try. Im trying out a new thing, which is planting into pots. Ive ordered some in glass, but for now plastic will do.
I have a bad habit of moving stuff around a lot, which bothers all my rooted plants.
So maybe this will make it easier on them? We shall see.
I gave them some slightly coarser sand as well, for oxygenation.
I can bury the pots in the sand later, but for now they are just sat ontop of the sand. I plan to plant the stems this way too.



Also got a loose portion of supposed susswassertang, that looks really weird to me.
It has a lot of little bits growing out of it, it may be trying to turn back into a fern? Idk, I need to read up on it a bit more.

Im really glad Im running quarantine on everything now, including plants (but excluding invitro), as I found honest to god ****ing leeches in the susswassertang.
Not planaria, not rhabdocoela but sideways wriggling gross leeches.
Now ive had quite enough of "Hufsa TM unpleasant surprises", so I dont need this kind of negativity in my life.
I like detritus worms and little flea things, I tolerate rhabdocoela purely on the basis that they are not planaria but also hard to get rid of, but leeches?
No.

I performed my very first potassium permanganate dip on the four bunches of stems mentioned above. I didnt like it much. The recipe I found was very vague and didnt say how much to add. Just "dark pink". That could mean anything. So im not sure if I did it right, I may have overdosed. Usually I realise im doing something stupid AFTER ive already done it, but this time I managed in a moment of uncharacteristic clarity to start having doubts about half way through. I decided not to dip the rest of the plants until ive done some more reading. The nuked stems are resting in a bucket with clean water and a lot of Prime, and I figure if they are going to die on me then its better they do it in the bucket than in the tank.

Just because it cheers me up, a picture of a little corydoras pygmaeus fry.


Ill finish off with one of the grey fishsticks. Hes mad at me for removing all the wood, and also the caves.
I just want them to stop breeding for one gosh dang second while I take care of all the other stuff.

He has buried himself in protest.

 

[Hufsa]

Todays nitrite reading is either 0 or the closest one to it. Fish are breathing like normal and no fish on the glass

The nuked stems seem to have survived overnight, with minor damages. It has been hardest on the Proserpinaca.
I found some more recipes for the PP dip, these with actual mg per liter, and I reckon my dip was off by a few magnitudes in the strong direction
So if the plants survive this it must be a pretty gentle dip. At least as far as chemical dips go.

I looked over the stems for snail eggs, as I found some gel lumps that may be or have previously been egg clusters.
After that I rinsed them a few more times and bunched them up with filter floss and ceramic rings, and plonked them in the tank.
Two of the species are classified as medium or difficult to grow, the Proserpinaca and the red myrio, but ill give them a shot.
There was a limited selection in all the stores, and I was mostly thinking I wanted some sort of growing tips to take up nutrients from the spike.
Right now I feel like my plant selection looks like it has a mild case of collectoritis, but I dont need to keep all of these species long term.
I wanna see what I can grow, what I like the look of and what I have room for in the end.

My tank looks like a disaster, with no hardscape, a bunch of epiphytes fastened to pebbles with plant wire and general disarray.
As long as the water quality is good I dont mind.
The fish are still not getting fed, and you would think I was also starving my SO.
He and the fish inquire regularly about when the feeding will resume. Im thinking a few crumbs tomorrow.

There has been no increase in algae so far after doubling macros. Possibly less algae. Its early days so too early to conclude anything. I think light intensity has been the most meaningful change, the macro increase were mostly to see if I could get the Hygrophila difformis growing a bit faster and bigger again.
The Hydrocotyle tripartita was planted in the sand a few days ago to make it less confused, since the floating plant ball tumbled around the tank a lot and the plant had to figure out which way was up on a continually changing daily basis. It is looking greener all over than before and I think its putting out new leaves.
Ill snap some pictures tomorrow but now the lights are off.

Ive reduced the velocity of water from the spray bar some, and the fish look more comfortable.
The cory pygmaeus continue laying a few eggs each day.

 

[Hufsa]

As promised a picture of the tank from today.

The "Floating Plant Containment Facility" was moved to the back wall just to be -slightly- less intrusive.
This morning I discovered a breach in containment, of the unexpected sort.
Somehow, one of the Boraras had gotten in there!?
It must have jumped in, I cant see any other way. Little houdinis they are.
Maybe my SO was right to insist the skimmer be covered from aerial entry..
I forgot to take a picture of the little burglar before fishing him out, my apologies.

Apologies for the cloudly water in the photo, I had just added some No Planaria.
I managed to introduce limpets into my tank again with one of the batches of rhizome plants from a while ago.
Up until then I had been looking over plants manually for snails and eggs, but when I discovered the java fern disease I think I forgot about the snails, and thats how they must have got in.
Ive tried to talk myself into keeping them but they look too much like zits and crawl on the glass a lot, so I want to get rid of them 😉
Flubendazole is supposed to kill all snails but three straight weeks of the stuff hasnt seemed to bother these guys.
Ive used No Planaria to kill these little buggers before but I remember they were the absolute last ones to die and it was a struggle.
I dont remember if I had to overdose or not, and that time I didnt have fish in the tank either. So will need to be very careful about how I do this.
Theres not a huge lot of them yet, but ive prepared some water change water and will be monitoring daily to make sure any die-off doesnt cause a spike.
Lord knows theres been enough of that.

Back when I moved the shrimp out to the holiday colony, I also started another "secret" project..
Culturing detritus worms 😅

Back then I was just about to start the treatment with the chitin inhibitor, and I couldnt stand the thought of not having any detritus worms or little fleas left after.
I didnt know if the treatment would affect them or not, so to be on the safe side I got a sample of critters from the bottom of my filter bucket, and have been feeding their colony ever since. As it turns out Diflubenzuron doesnt kill my species of detritus worm, but I had no way to know that at the time.

Theres a ton of them in there now, not just the detritus worms and the upside down mickey mouse looking fleas either, I discovered I had rhabdocoela in my assembly as well. Initially I was not so pleased as I thought they were planaria, but I have microscope photos confirming the ID of "not planaria".
My knee jerk reaction to them were of course "lets get rid of em", but with these guys I have managed to talk sense into myself.
They have obviously been a part of the critter fauna all along, and it seems like maybe some of the fish eat them or they are competed down to a minimal level, since I never saw them before. So I reckon once they go back in the main tank they will return to non bothersome levels. And if the fish eat them they are a valuable food source.
Secondly, it also seems like they are hard to kill so its not for certain I would be able to get rid of them even if I wanted to. Check-mate said the little things 😛

My plan is to eventually add all these critters to the leaf litter in the new 250 liter tank. Ive been toying with the idea of running the 250 liter tank for a little bit before moving over the fish, just so the critters have time to make it down into the leaf litter / sand and hide away a bit. A lot of them will probably be eaten at first, but im hoping enough of them can squirrel away to be able to sustain a population there. I think it would be a really good food source for my fry.

I was gonna write about something else but cant remember what it was, so this will do for today

 

[Hufsa]

A part of my cheeky potted plant plan is trying out some Tropica soil in the bottom of the pots. That should give root feeders a boost, and I figure it is worth trying out, as one 3 liter bag of Tropica soil powder is cheaper than continually replacing plants I manage to kill or put in a coma.
I dont think it will be a miracle fix but if it contributes to survival then worth a shot?
I read that even the Tropica soil can put out some ammonia at first, so I have a portion of it sitting in a bucket of water, and I am changing the water daily.

I almost felt like I couldnt call myself a simple peasant any more, as I was carrying the fancy bag of magical black spheres home from the store.
But based on how bad I am at handling soil, I dont have to worry about my standing. This stuff is dirty and dusty and I dont even know.
How does anyone manage to deal with this nasty uncooperative stuff? I have to resist the urge to treat it like really dirty gravel and wash the heck out of it, I think it may be dissolving more the more I disturb it. This is my first experience with soil if it wasnt very obvious.
Just emptying and carefully(ish) refilling the soaking bucket seems to offend the black spheres. I hope some of it will be left by the end of the week.
The glass jars from Ikea are due to arrive around then, and I plan to carefully persuade the soil into the pots, cap them with some sand/gravel and more permanently plant the stems that are currently held in place by filter wool and ceramic rings.


(Picture courtesy of Ikea)

The glasses from Ikea are 6 cm tall and I reckon this should be a good size to plant in. I contemplated covering the outside of them in aquarium silicone and then rolling them in sand, but I think I wont bother with this right now. I dont even know if this will work long term. If it doesnt, I guess I will have no shortage of little glasses to put marmalade in at breakfast.


Ive had more issues with my Ultramax 2000 filter again, and was fast approaching a point where I wanted to throw it out the window. Conveniently for the filter, around that time it stopped the worst of the misbehaving and now only gurgles disobediently every now and then. Given the critical nature of the filter I really dont want to have any doubts about its reliability. I think it has given me a case of Ultramax Stockholm syndrome, as every time I look at other filters I keep comparing it to the LPH, filter volume and normally* ease of use of the Ultramax. But if its gonna need an hour of fiddling to get going (and struggle with air for two days) after every maintenance session, then not even its nice specs will save it.

To complicate things, I hear that my old favorite the Eheim filters are no longer what they used to be, and so I am looking around for used older models that may be able to fill the void in my heart. Or I would have to take a chance on one of the newer series. I really dont know what to do..

 

[Hufsa]

As I was out driving today I couldnt resist stopping by my two favorite LFS' and getting just a few more plants.
Just as a disclaimer I had a mask on and observed all the local rules as I normally do 🙂
Having a decent sized plantmass with some more fast growers feels very much like a safety net.
Where I will find room for all these plants in my new "scape" is a problem for future me and not something present me is overly concerned with.

One of my LFS rarely has plants but when they do they tend to have rarer species and the plants are always very cheap.
When you buy plants you tend to get everything else in the shop along as a hitchhiker, both good and bad.
The second one is my main plant source and gets plants from Tropica every week. They have decent prices as well and less "critters" in their plant tanks.

From the first I got another bunch of green Myriophyllum and some Salvinia, LFS said maybe sp minima.
A very big portion of strange looking "Limnophila", I asked for sessiliflora but this is the strangest sessiliflora I have ever seen.
There may have been some misunderstanding, maybe I got Limnophila aquatica instead.
Its green and looks like a vigorous grower so I will give it a try anyway.
It looked like it was -thriving- in the plant tank of the LFS, which I have never really seen any plant do
Most plants suffer a slow death in plant holding tanks. The plant fills me with respect and awe.. Maybe I have brought a monster home..

From the second LFS a pot of Ludwigia Super Red and some actual L. sessiliflora.
Ive stunted so many bunches of Super Red, I feel bad for them 😕 There was that one time I actually got it growing kinda nicely..
If I hadnt documented it with a picture in this journal I probably never would have believed it myself. I havent felt very skilled lately.
Unfortunately for this poor species its one of the few red plants I really like so im gonna keep trying to grow it.
At least the plant growers at Tropica will be able to feed their families for a while longer.

The shop informed me they are finally getting some Hemianthus micranthemoides in on thursday, a plant I have been pestering them about.
Depending on who you ask it is either the easiest plant to grow ever or impossible to keep alive. Intriguing 🤔
Since I kill every "easy" rotala I look at but had pretty good luck with more difficult Pogostemon helferi, I wanna give it a go to see.

All these plants need to be dipped in PP first, so wont be added to the tank for a little bit still.
There was a huge amount of critters living in the Limnophila from shop 1, some I definitely dont want but a few interesting things.
Mainly some little round greenish flea things that I cant say I have seen in my own tank before.
Being kinda weird as I am, I got a pipette and carefully extracted the ones I could find.
They are slightly bigger than the (I assume) copepod species I have in my culture, and I thought they looked like they would make a tasty addition to my assembly of little things. They are currently living in a little plastic cup along with some wormy things, while I try to find out what they are and if they will be granted asylum.

They had a lot of planaria with them, which I disposed of with great prejudice.
I dont want to accidentally introduce planaria or leeches to my critter culture, so they will have to be quarantined 😅
Ill ask my SO if he cant take some handheld microscope pictures of them tomorrow, maybe I can get a proper ID.

 

[Hufsa]

I didnt get around to asking for any microscope pictures yet, but from some googling im fairly sure the new mystery fleas are ostracods.
Im not sure if ill add these to my culture, seems like they dont make great food for fish because of their hard outer shell.

Today saw the final additions to my plant shopping spree.
Two pots of very emersed grown Hemianthus micranthemoides, or as I have recently learned, its actually Hemianthus glomeratus.
According to the flowgrow database, micranthemoides is a misapplied name from a species that is likely extinct.
Im hoping they will take off and do well, those who get it to grow nicely get these super dense thickets of it, and I think my shrimp would absolutely love it.



I bought five purple apple/mystery snails today, just for fun really. They are not the best algae eaters but are cool pets and very decorative. Ive had them before. The seller gave me two with shell damage, which im kinda miffed about. Hopefully they will heal eventually, but they will always have the scar.
They of course had to go in the holiday colony tank, as the main tank is currently not very hospitable to snails.
I hope they behave themselves like they've done for me in the past, and dont eat my plants. I will be monitoring



A few days ago I got a starter population of malaysian trumpet snails, as I have planned for my future leaf litter. Also in the holiday tank.
One of them is a really beautiful brown chunk, I think it may be a species of Thiara. Im hoping it gets lots of babies ☺️ The standard MTS have not had the best life, some of them have very transparent shells. But their children should have better living conditions with me.


The filter shrimp are really enjoying life and the two gabon shrimp have started coming out more and more.


Back in the main tank the Rineloricaria are still angry at me for lack of driftwood, and skulk about demonstratively all day.


The pitiful Pinnatifida is showing some very faint green shoots. It may survive actually, color me surprised


Hygrophila difformis still looking kinda strange but growing. Maybe it needs some time to pick up speed, like a steam locomotive.


Hiding among the roots, a weird green sprig of what I think is maybe some sort of Urticularia?
Ive found a few of these sprigs in amongst the new stems and they are not wanted. I pulled it out right after this picture.


It was about time to get all the plants I had sitting in buckets dipped and put in the tank. I had been procrastinating a bit.
Second last plant to plant, the Salvinia minima came from a tank chock full of riccia.
I read about Zeus' recent adventures with this pest, and decided I didnt want to introduce it to mine.
The plants first got their dip and then I had to dunk them in a series of buckets to dislodge all the tiny riccia pieces, for each individual floater.
It was even more tedious than it sounds.
I was fast running out of f- err.. cares to give, and then I remembered I still had the monstrous Limnophila thing to plant.
I impatiently wrangled up some of the ends of it, and shoved them into a plastic cup filled with gravel. After adding a good amount I walked satisfied over to the tank with the pot and plopped it in. The accursed Limnophila species stayed in the pot for about 2 seconds before rocketing out of the cup, and I could have sworn the stems were giving me the middle finger on their way up through the water column. "Great!, the stems are extremely buoyant...." I said, "cheerfully".
Having just about had enough of this plant at this point, I angrily shoved the stems into the sand in the back of the tank and dared them to come loose.
It can stay there until it learns to behave. Half my mind wishes this plant doesnt make it. The other half is willing to entertain the first halfs idea.
This must be Limnophila aquatica or something else. Not sessiliflora. It doesnt look right at all. And it even smells different, this one smells weirdly of cucumbers.
As mentioned its buoyant as all get out, and it also seems to have a purple hue at the tips.

Having run totally out of cares to give for today, I then put on my favorite slippers, finally sat down in a chair with a cool drink, and looked forward to watching people argue about Zinc on a forum

 

[Karmicnull]

and I could have sworn the stems were giving me the middle finger on their way up through the water column

That made me laugh out loud! When I checked my tank today only two stems were floating about in the current. Much better than usual! I'm negotiating with the family to carve out time for a major prune this weekend so next week I'm expecting it will be carnage in the water column .

 

[Hufsa]

Little glass pots from Ikea arrived today, the package had been banged up a bit but ironically only a plastic storage container I had ordered at the same time was broken, all the glass was fine 😅

Tank got a 75% water change to clear out the No Planaria, sad to say after 3 days of first day dosing levels limpets are still perfectly fine. I dont know how much of this palm extract stuff the fish can tolerate, nor do I want to experiment to find out, so will try a new slightly meaner approach. Got some Esha Gastropex, and plan to dose it in a few days once the Prime has deactivated in my water. Im not thrilled to dose a copper based remedy, but based on what I read online fish are absolutely fine with it and some people dose it with shrimp as well. I would remove my shrimp before treatment if they werent already out, but thats just me.

Some people report fish deaths or tank wipes from it, but I think those people do not understand what hundreds of rotting snail corpses does to a tank. And id suspect most people use this remedy after they already have a large amount of snails. So its not the remedy killing things its the huge ammonia/nitrite spike caused by all the dead snails. Since I have just a few small limpets to get rid of, and will do some substrate hoovering once its done, I reckon ill be fine. The limpets are still at such low levels that I had trouble knowing if the No Planaria had worked or not, as I couldnt find any. But finally saw one yesterday.

Spent a good part of the afternoon planting some of the plants into the pots, the water in the bucket of soil tested absolutely zero for ammonia so it was all clear and ready to go. The many little shoots of Hygrophila polysperma I got had until now been floating around in the tank, and formed some sort of flotilla with the floaters. I wanted to get them planted asap as I find curly stems super annoying to work with and they were getting curlier by the day.

Next up was the Hemianthus glomeratus / Pearlweed, this plant had already straightened out and reoriented itself from its temporary placement in the sand yesterday, which I found impressive. We might have a future winner here

The Hydrocotyle tripartita also got potted because they were taking up a lot of room in the sand and it will be nice to have them all gathered up and easy to move.

Then I did one pot of Ludwigia palustris Super Red and transferred one batch of Blyxa from a plastic cup with gravel to a glass cup with soil and gravel cap.
The Blyxa already looked like it had been spreading its leaves a bit and it had made some new roots, I was very encouraged by this.
I was a bit sad to disturb it again so soon when it was growing, but I want to see what the difference will be with one pot of Blyxa with soil and one without.
Ideally I would have had the glass pots and soil ready before I got all the plants, but things arent normally that well planned out when I do it so thats how it ended up.

All the pots were placed back in the tank, it suddenly turned very into a pot-scape and not biotope style at all like im planning towards, but I think the pots are a good thing for the time being.
Im trying to nail down this plant growing business, and I do move rooted plants around too much. At least I have done that so far because I dont know where I want things.
With the upcoming tank move it also makes perfect sense to have them in easily moved pots. Eventually I figure I can wean myself off the pots

Battleplan right now:
Step 1: Grow plants well.
This step seems to be well underway. Floaters look happy, Najas is growing a lot (this was my duckweed index before I bought floaters again).
Most new plants seem to be sending out roots and growing a bit too.
Step 2: Grow plants well in pots without soil.
Soil is considered extra faffing and I want a low level of faffing in my tank.
I want to do this step without killing off any plants, as I dont like having to buy new plants all the time. Trying to be environmentally friendly and all.
So might need to split up groups of plants, so if the moved group die I have a backup.
Step 3: Grow plants well without pots in sand.
Preferably without moving them around every week. Planning and impulse control? How do you spell that?

Somewhere in there is Step B: Grow algae poorly.
We will see about this one. Will probably be the hardest one.
Throwing copious amounts of ferts into a tank and changing water isnt exactly rocket science (ie grow plants well *ish).
Finding some sort of balance where algae isnt also super happy is the tricky part I suspect.

I took some pictures of my plants and pots after planting, but when I got on the computer I saw they were all super blurry.. Tired after planting I guess 😄
So will try to get some better ones for you all tomorrow. Still have some stems left to plant, planning to do that tomorrow as well. Then everything should be set for a while, and I can wait for things to grow and then see what I can adjust.

 

[Hufsa]

Just caught an apple snail quite happily chowing down on some Salvina, despite them getting an extra large breakfast this morning.
I knew this was a risk and I guess it didnt work out this time around. Not mad at the little guy, its in his nature after all.
Posted them up for free at a local site so they can get a new home with less plants. Unfortunately I need all of mine 😅
Shame but thats life sometimes 😉



The MTS will hopefully stay off the plants