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Ed's Rio 180

A lot of work there ED 🙂 but we appreciate it :lol:

I thought this was going to be low maintainence? but I see glosso planted.

You can never have enough Aquasoil Ed 😉

Good idea on the slate and tied down driftwood, might use that idea myself one of these days.
 
Cheers guys.

At the minute the cobbles aren't right, but I'm not sure whether they will work once everything's grown in and the plants are breaking them up or not!

I decided on the glosso as I've never grown it and thought it'd look good. Gives me a better excuse to mess with the tank a bit too! 😉 And I'm mixing it with a hairgrass at the back so no chance of low maintenance!!!

Today I've swapped the Hygrophila lacustris and the Eleocharis vivipara around. I think this looks better as the vivipara now streams out over the Anubias grove into what was open space. Once the initial settling in has finished I think there will only be one species here in a larger group and I think the vivipara will be it! (until it starts growing all those little plantlets and looks a mess...)

I've also added a powerhead in the left corner to boost the flow. While it was fine for circulation, too much CO2 mist was going straight up IMO, but as I've never used one of these before I'm not sure whether that's normal??? Would switching this Spiro diffuser to the Rhinox 5000 I bought do a better job? At the moment at about two bubbles per second, I the drop checker is just a dark green! And I was hoping at this much CO2 I'd be overdosing it!
The current Aquaclear powerhead is not permenant as today I ordered a Hydor Koralia (and two D-D T5 reflectors). The Koralia is nice and small and turns over 1500lph but in a wide stream rather than a narrow jet. I'm going to have this on a timer to come on with the CO2 so the fish will have a quieter time of things at night! Hopefully this will keep the CO2 mist well distributed.
I've added a bag of Carbon to the filter too to help clear the tank and will probably put the floss pad in tomorrow if the water is still cloudy.

Anyway, enough words... Time for a couple of bad pictures...
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Looks nice, Ed.

If I may, the round pebbles look a bit ornamental ATM.

They'll look much better once the plants partially hide them though, of course.
 
Wow, I'm sure once it's grown in it will look amazing! I can kind of imagine, I think once the pebbles get a bit of green algae on them they will look a bit more natural. I'm sure when the wood gets colonised by the moss it will look awesome.

What fish will you keep in there?
 
Cheers George, and I agree completely! As you say hopefully they will look 'right' once it grows in a bit. Or I may need to add more to break up the line.

Thanks Lisa. I'm looking forward to the wood and moss. Took some tying! Next time I must buy a fly tyers reel that holds the cotton under tension - would make the job far easier.
Hoping for some algae on them too. Let's hope the Otos leave some once they go in.

As for fish...
The definites are Otos (I have 5 and will add 5-10 more) and a pair (or maybe more) of Pelvicachromis taeniatus 'Bipindi'.
The other fish may be either a big shoal of cardinals (I have 40ish in my 55g tank upstairs) or a shoal of a Lampeye species (probably Aplocheillichthys normani) and Pseudomugil gertrudae. I may add my group of Epiplatys dageti 'Nkwanta' GH96 too as surface fish.

Nothing will be added for at least a couple of weeks, and nothing but Otos for at least 4.
 
D-D reflectors and Hydor Koralia arrived today.

The reflectors look pretty smart! They were a bit tricky to squeeze in alongside the lighting bar, but, once in, fit fine (Thanks James for measuring yours up for me so I knew they'd go.) It might just be me, but the tank seems brighter instantly!

The Hydor pump was bigger than I pictured it. Now it's in the tank it doesn't seem so bad tucked into the top corner. It's certainly easier to tuck away than a standard powerhead. The flow from it is good, more spread out with the concentrator nozzle off and the CO2 mist is really blasted around the whole tank. The flow itself isn't too intense and I think the fish will like it. With the intake slits all the way around the pump casing it sucks in any CO2 bubbles that head straight up towards the pump.
The only problem is that there is some noise at the moment coming from the pump. It's a slight rattle/hum kind of noise and is rather annoying! I think it is almost certainly due to some air trapped in the pump still as when I turn it off and on, more bubbles come out. Hopefully once they're all out it'll be nice and quiet.

The water's still a little cloudy, but it's getting clearer. Might need to add the floss pad to the Juwel filter.
 
Day 17

Well the tank's been planted for a week and a day now and I'm amazed by the amount of growth. I've also tried adding a few pebbles to the tank to break up the visual line of the cobbles, but I haven't got them placed quite right yet.

Here's the tank.
100_2031.jpg

The moss on the branches is growing brilliantly and there are loads of bright green new shoots popping up. You can see the Hygrophila lacustris and Eleocharis vivipara in the background too. I've already had to trim some of the plantlets off the hairgrass and planted them to build up the clump. The Hygrophila is producing some lovely long submerse leaves and should be a nice foil between the grass and the cabomba.
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The glosso, Eleocharis sp.'Japan' and the E.tennellus are all already producing some runners;
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Leaves are sprouting from all the Nymphaea micrantha tubers;
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and I've tried to get a picture that actually shows the colours of the three Echinodorus 'Oriental' accurately. This is my closest result using a flash, but they look far better than this;
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Ooooooh it's looking gooood!!! Is there a green tint to the water or is it just the picture taken?

I love the new pebbles and they do break up the line... I would like to see the big pebble line be a bit shuftied around so they aren't in such a defined line.

Just one more question, in the centre just behind the main line of pebbles will there be some plant added in front of the apongeneton (????) plant?
 
Looking good Ed, some nice unusual plants and the proposals for fish are interesting too.

Lisa_Perry75 said:
Just one more question, in the centre just behind the main line of pebbles will there be some plant added in front of the apongeneton (????) plant?
Click to expand...
I was wondering about that too - will the Crinum calamistratum fill out much or bud off more plants? They have lovely leaves (and lovely flowers too) but at the moment the orderly row of them behind the row of cobbles reminds me of a row of leaks in a vegetable garden - which may not be the look you'd like to achieve?! I'd be tempted to grow some kind of ground cover or lower plant around them? Of course, given time your E. Tenellus and Glosso may push back into that area...? Or possibly annubias along the cobbles to break up the line and spread back some - they would grow easily under the CC.
 
The hope is that they will bush out and produce lots of offsets, apparently they will when happy, but I was myself thinking of some groundcover. The line was intentional - but not for the vegetable effect!!! :lol: Once they get huge I'm hoping all the leaves and clumps will be so intertwined that they will be one long mass rather than separate plants, but I don't want to plant them too close at the start.
Another option is to stretch the clump of Rotala sp.'Pearl' along in front of them as that grows. It could take some time though...
I may just try letting the glosso spread up there as it's growing like crazy already!
Some Anubias would look good too and I'd never thought of that. That might be the answer actually.

I tried to take a photo of the cobbles from the angle I usually look at the tank as you can't really tell they're in a line, but I can't get the angle right. The colour is also down to my rubbish photography skills! It it slightly cloudy still but there is no real tanin colouring in the water.
 
Themuleous said:
Nice Ed, sorry Ive not had time to read in tall, but the piccy's look great 🙂

Sam
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Cheers Sam.

The Eleocharis vivpara is already at the surface! When I got home tonight it was tangled up with the Ludwigia helminthorrhiza! Took about 10 minutes to untangle it!
It's going to get a big trim Saturday and the bits with roots will get tucked into the clump to thicken it up some more.

The glosso is really spreading well and runners are coming from the Eleocharis sp.'Japan' and Echinodorus tennellus already and all the mosses are really growing rapidly, even the Flame moss. The E.sp.'Japan' is growing nicely with lovely down curved leaves and looks like it won't need too much trimming (I may well have to eat my words in a few weeks though! 😉 ) I've planted some glosso in the Aquasoil in front of the Crinums too to try and sort out that out!

Snails have started appearing and seem fine, but the Nitrite readings are still way too high to add fish so the catfish are staying in the quarantine tank for a while longer!

I'll take some piccies when I do the trim and water change on Saturday.
 
Day 23

Well I' think I've managed to get the best picture yet of what the tank really looks like!
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In the end I trimmed the Eleocharis vivipara yesterday as I had a spare bit of time before going to the pub! I've trimmed it right back to about 3 inches. You can see the gap where it used to be below on the right!
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The Anubias are all growing rapidly (for Anubias! 😉 ) and sending out new leaves and roots. The two rhizomes I took the growing tips off are sending out loads of side shoots.
On this close up you can hopefully just make out the Flame moss starting to get going a little better too. (Sorry about the rubbish picture)
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The Weeping and Spiky mosses are growing brilliantly too. In fact the mosses and the carpeting plants are the best bits so far. (Sorry the spiky moss on the bottom branch is a little out of focus 😳 )
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The Eleocharis sp.'Japan' is really coming on too. The new leaves are curved over to form a flatter effect than the usual dwarf hairgrass I believe.
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I tried to take a close up of the runners against the front glass too.
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The glosso is filling in well and I've moved some trimming up around the Crinums.
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And finally the Echinodorus tennellus are already sending out runners too.
100_2054.jpg

Of the other plants, the Hygrophila lacustris is doing ok, as is the Cabomba 'piauhyensis', but the Hygrophila sp.'Pantanal', Rotala sp.'Pearl' and the Nymphaea micrantha aren't growing too much yet. They're sending up some new leaves and growing, just not very fast. They all look healthy though.

I've got plenty of snails in there at the moment, but the Nitrite readings mean I'm erring on the side of caution before adding Otos. I am going to try adding Cherry shrimps in here too I think, but am unsure whether they'll be ok as the snails are growing and breeding well? Knowing how they don't like ammonia and nitrite levels I'm thinking to leave them until levels have dropped a bit. I'll test again later today and see what the readings are then and probably do another water change to lower readings.
 
George Farmer said:
Coming along nicely.

I like the Eleocharis. Where did you get it from?
Click to expand...

Cheers George.

The new plants all came from Aquaspot world. That was only 1 portion and cost me the grand total of $2.99! A couple of new leaves are going more vertically but with an almost spiral twist to them. I'm going to let this hairgrass and the glosso fill in around into the Aquasoil and overgrow some of the cobbles to help break them up some more and once the Nymphaea gets going it should help too.
 
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