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New studio tank

Well, they did eat the algae, it was almost entirely gone within one night. Today some shoaling fish should be arriving, 10 Pseudomugil Gertrudae, they look lovely in pictures and I've never kept rainbows before.

After a trim today...

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A long overdue update....in transition.

Put some wood back in and moved the rocks around enabling me to make a terrace behind wood of deeper Flora base. Plants need to be looked at and moved around slightly but for the moment are in and growing quickly. I have a floating matt of ever expanding Riccia that next week, if time permits, I will tie to mesh and make a lawn (I never got on with the HC). Fauna wise, a shoal of 20 Silvertip Tetras went in a couple of months ago alongside the Gertrudae, they were so small they were almost invisible in the big tank, great for Nanos though. Also about 15-20 shrimps joined the five Amano shrimps that were in there. Hopefully, one day, I'll get the planting into some kind of order so that it is more 'zoned'.

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I like the clearing its looking good mate.:)
 
So, thought I'd try a riccia carpet, did one triangle which took a week or so to matt together nicely and has been trimmed once, just started the other side with the intention of keeping a winding path through it, and eventually the full width. Really want my stems to be nice and bushy, especially in the rear corners but struggling here a bit.

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Looking good, I tried and failed many times with riccia, I still have a tuft of it hanging on in there. You have a lot of patience that's for Sure. :)
 
Cheers Kirk, I'm not sure about that, I think it's like gardens, some plants work well, some don't. It's about learning which ones suit the tank and its parameters. Just wish I didn't have to go through so many that don't before I find some that do. ;)

I must borrow someone's decent camera here in the studio because my iPhone doesn't do it justice.
 
My tanks a mess again,its chasing shrimp around:) I can picture yours having a nice picnic on that riccia lawn.:)
 
two weeks and the left side of the 'lawn' has knitted together, more wire mesh squares arrived so I've made some new lawn and planted the rest of the substrate. Hopefully, in another two weeks I'll have a very green looking, lush lawn the entire width of the tank.

Did a water change the other day, I always go a degree or so colder and feed well after a change with nice quality food and occasionally see spawning. It used to work lovely for my Apistos. On Thursday the silvertips were going mental, chasing each other through the plants and shimmying against each other, plump and full of colour.

On Friday I came into the studio to find seven of them floating around. Not sure if it was a CO2 poisoning thing (I immediately switched it off and did another 50% change) or whether the spawning had exhausted them. The rest were fine and nothing affected the shrimp, snails or Ottos. Down to a shoal of nine now, not sure if I'll see a few babies in the future or not though.

Still want nice bushy tall plants for the bg though. I had just trimmed the left BG down before pic was taken to try and get the plants to bush out a bit. It's the one thing I'm not happy with.

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Oh and there's a filter bag hanging on the right hand side full of Pelia I have no use for. Will let it grow over christmas and someone can have it in the new year.
 
Well, the lawn is going far easier than I expected, have to trim it at least twice a week or it becomes too buoyant. As I was away from the studio for two weeks over christmas I wasn't sure what to expect. This whole tank came about because of a powercut to the old apisto tank last christmas, so didn't know if the same would happen, or because of no ferts it would all melt, turn into a green sludge pond, be covered in BBA, etc etc.

In actual fact I came in to a crystal clear tank with (fairly) healthy looking fish and plants. The lawn was the only problem, it had grown so much that it was either floating, lifting, or the nearest to the mesh was light starved and going brown. Half hour trimming and re-tying a few squares put it right.

I have tons of riccia now so will put some in the for sale section along with the pelia if anyone is interested.

Also decided to buy myself a EI starter kit over christmas which arrived yesterday. I'm sure the reason my stems never look so lush is a lack of ferts so hopefully this will do the trick. If I can get my supposedly fairly easy to grow stems looking good, I will try ones I prefer the look of.

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Hi mate, firstly can i just say that the tank looks really lush and healthy :clap:
The riccia carpet looks nice , something i'm trying to do in mine,which leads me on to my other point , could i have first dibs on the pelia and riccia that you are going to sell, PM me to sort out

Cheers
Martin
 
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