Remanso . . .

[Wookii]

Giant arachnid successfully removed with 12ft piece of paper!

DOOA Terra tape applied to wick up some water, and mosses tied on over the top:

No idea if it’s going to cope being open to the indoor elements or not, and equally not sure if I like the tree moss randomly stuck in to other moss bed, but as with many things with this tank it’s going to be a case of “suck it and see”!

 

[hypnogogia]

Just figure you’d like to know they can, and do climb into your nose while you’re sleeping.

That was unfortunate, as the myth that we apparently eat 8 spiders per year in our sleep is just that...a myth. Spiders do not crawl into our mouths - even into those of mouth breathers.

 

[Luciën]

Giant arachnid successfully removed with 12ft piece of paper!

DOOA Terra tape applied to wick up some water, and mosses tied on over the top:

View attachment 207387

No idea if it’s going to cope being open to the indoor elements or not, and equally not sure if I like the tree moss randomly stuck in to other moss bed, but as with many things with this tank it’s going to be a case of “suck it and see”!

If you mist it regularly it can. I have a rain system and a fogger to keep my emersed grow moist. Rain every 3hr 1min and fog every half hour 2 min but the again I also grow aquatic moss above the water line..,

 

[Wookii]

If you mist it regularly it can. I have a rain system and a fogger to keep my emersed grow moist. Rain every 3hr 1min and fog every half hour 2 min but the again I also grow aquatic moss above the water line.., //emoji.tapatalk-cdn.com/emoji849.png

I do keep misting it with some RO, and all but the Tree moss seems to be doing okay so far. The other moss is tied directly onto the Terra tape anyway which constantly wicks water beneath the moss, so that may be helping maintain some internal humidity.

I’d be interested to see how you’ve set up the rain and misting systems though, is it in one of your threads? I did think of setting up something similar myself with a little USB pump but minimising the intrusive look of it has been an obstacle so far.

On @Gill ’s recommendation I did buy a few pond type plants for the emersed planters:

From left to right; Umbrella Grass (Cyperus alternifolious), Green Creeping Jenny, Dwarf Horsetail and Marsh Marigold.

Some of these may prove to be too large for the planters (such as the Cyperus) as they can get to 1m tall apparently, but again, a bit of experimentation and easy to pull out if need be. I also split a portion of Baby tears amongst all the pots, so that may spread and burst of out the pots at some point hopefully, hiding the edges of the pots. I also added the fourth pots in, as I had so many plants.

I have the seedling of a plan in my head now of building in a mini platform along the back of the tank for the Creeping Jenny and others to spread out along and populate to try and make the entire back edge of the tank look more like the edge of the river bank, so more to follow . . .

 

[Luciën]

I’d be interested to see how you’ve set up the rain and misting systems though, is it in one of your threads? I did think of setting up something similar myself with a little USB pump but minimising the intrusive look of it has been an obstacle so far.

Don't remember if it put it in my thread, but I think the sprinkler head will be visible in one of the pictures. I tywraped the heads to the light posts and use the water from my top off resevoir.. Anyway I use Lucky Reptile Super Rain Nano for the rain an a Habistat Humidifier for the mist.

 

[Gill]

Remember most supermarkets sell Umbrella Grass in the plant section cheap hth.

Also if your thinking about a platform for plants. Have a looked at the trickle towers you can get for tanks. They are great and you can add plants to them easily. And your increasing your filtration alot.
I used one in a tank a while ago, and it worked very well.
Trickle box filter
can't find the ones I used, these are the closest ones to it.

I'd did what you are thinking of in one tank. And it looked great. Used an air line to draw water up Into it and feed the plants.

 

[Conort2]

Some of these may prove to be too large for the planters (such as the Cyperus)

This does turn into a bit of a beast, I’ve got it in my patio pond. It completely died back this winter but has grown back and must be about 70cm tall already. Last year it was near the 90cm mark.

 

[Wookii]

So the tank’s well into the ‘ugly’ phase. Planting predominantly crypts means lots of melting leaves in the usual “I’m spitting my dummy out” way that crypts do.

Some of the Buce have also shed some leaves in protest at being moved from their “happy spot” in other tanks.

Algae has made its presence known. GDA started first on the glass and substrate, followed by some diatoms on the substrate too:

That only lasted about a week before it halted and started to recede.

I introduced the ‘snail battalion’ and that made short work of the last that remained.

I’ve also got a little patch of BGA that I’m keeping an eye on. That also seemed to be starting to decline gradually.

The main new invader though is some filamentous algae. It’s pretty tough stuff with solid strands, so I’m guessing at Cladophora for an ID:

Unsurprisingly it’s attaching itself to any unhealthy melting leaf - of which there are many currently - and some hardscape.

These are all startup issues in an immature tank, so I did anticipate it, but I think seeding the substrate with filter mulm, and starting with aged media in the sump filter has accelerated maturation, and reduced the length of these various startup phases a fair bit,

The Clado has tough anchors so is hard to remove manually, but the toothbrush trick gets rid of the majority. I’ve got new leaf growth coming on most plants but it is slow by design - I don’t want a fast growing tank - so it’s just going to be a matter of patience I think to see if the Clado recedes naturally as the tank matures and the plants begin to establish themselves.

 

[Tim Harrison]

Nice warts 'n' all post. It's reassuring to know we're not alone when it comes to fighting the good fight. Hope it's turning a corner.

 

[Wookii]

Nice warts 'n' all post. It's reassuring to know we're not alone when it comes to fighting the good fight. Hope it's turning a corner.

Thanks Tim, yeah I'm sure it's just a matter of time. I was expecting this to happen in any case, being such a new set-up - I usually manage to largely dodge these stages in my other tanks by using fully matured substrates and filters etc, but there was no choice than go through the pain this time with 90kg of fresh sand going in. I suspect once full growth starts to kick in, and the system stabilizes in 3 months or so, the algae will start to decline on its own.

I'm also much more relaxed about it these days. In the past at the first sight of algae I'd start panicking, changing things around, changing ferts, CO2 etc etc, but nowadays some of the algae on the sand and hardscape I welcome, as it make it look more natural and less clinical, whilst for the other's I've learnt it often best to just sit on your hands, give the tank stability, and let it mature out before intervening beyond general maintenance.

 

[Wookii]

Spent a good hour this weekend toothbrush twisting to remove as much of the hair algae as possible from plants and hardscape.

Also cut off a load of older, clearly transitioning crypt leaves that had the majority of the algae attached.

What was interesting is some of the smaller crypts like Parva and Hobbit were completely covered in a ball of fuzz, so I pulled them out of the tank to remove it. When I went to pull the algae off, it was often only attached to one or two leaves - the rest were fine!

Certainly supports the idea, and what we say on this forum, that algae typically forms on unhealthy leaves, not healthy growing ones.

 

[Wookii]

A couple of technical points to report back to the class on.

Sump Outlet:

On the pump outlet (display tank inlet) I was planning on having some elaborate chunky perspex spray bar, such that I could tailor the holes and optimise the spray pattern to suit the tank layout. I even bought the tube and glues on the end caps:

The plan was for this to sit across the full width of the tank. I stuck the couple of Random Flow Generator nozzles I had, really as a temporary measure until I had chance to get the spray bar finessed.

Long and short of it though is that the RFG nozzles are actually performing far better than I even expected, and managing to give a good level of flow to all areas of the tank, delivering good surface agitation whilst also getting flow to the bottom of the tank without issue, and even getting flow and leaf movement down in the bottom corner below them (presumably due to some deflection and back ciculation). I took a quick vid with some air bubbling into the pump inlet just to highlight the high variability of the flow pattern.:



(Please excuse the poor video quality - I filmed this on my phone at 4K60, and YouTube sees fit to compress it so much, it looks more like 144p)

CO2 delivery:

I have to admit that when I bought this JD Aquatec reactor, I didn't really have very high hopes for it. It's impossibly small for its rated volume (not my pic):

However I've been pleasantly surprised - it's reaching my target of around 15ppm on this 550 litre volume easily with less that 1.5bpm which is no mean feat. I am getting some bubbles coming out of the CO2 loop into the sump, even with the bypass fully open, so I assume I've over specified the Eheim CompactOn 1000 (I had assumed too much in losses from the loop), and need to scale back to a smaller 600lph one for even more efficient CO2 use.

To ensure I'm around the 15ppm mark, I just mixed the pre-mixed indicator solution I had (which was set up at 4dKH solution) 50:50 with some DI water, essentially making it 2dKH and ensuring it turned green at 15ppm instead of 30ppm:

 

[Atragene]

I should be very careful what you say. Some lady might find a lot of other things you could do with your skills and time !!
With crypts why not fish from the area to match?
Very lucky plants and fish mine feel their accommodation is rather down market!
.

 

[Wookii]

I should be very careful what you say. Some lady might find a lot of other things you could do with your skills and time !!

Oh don’t worry, between “the” lady, the the three kids, I seem to get allocated more than my fair share of things to do!

With crypts why not fish from the area to match?

Nah, can’t limit myself on fish like that. Most of the fish I like are South American, but then I love crypts too - so why choose! 🤷🏻‍♂️

Very lucky plants and fish mine feel their accommodation is rather down market!
.

We all try and create our own little slice of aquatic paradise!

 

[FrozenShivers]

Post Deleted.

Wrong thread!

 

[Wookii]

Wrong thread @FrozenShivers ?

 

[FrozenShivers]

Wrong thread @FrozenShivers ?

Oops! Lemme delete and move it

 

[Wookii]

Livestock update . . .

Just remembered I’ve not added any update on the livestock additions so far - the most exciting bit!

So a few weeks ago I added a group of 40 Tangerine Tigers. They were obviously lost in this tank size, and I didn’t see any of them for about a week and feared the worst, but gradually I’m seeing more and more of them out and about as they’ve gained confidence. I swear the other day I also saw a baby which would be a good sign!

A little under two weeks ago I decided I wanted to add some Neo’s too, but having had Bloody Mary’s for several years, I decided I go for a strain with more subtle and muted colours, so bought a batch of 100 Black Rose’s off a local breeder. They’re doing well and growing quickly, so I’m hoping to see some babies soon:

I have also gradually been trying to catch the Oto’s from my other tanks and move them over - easier said than done!

To add to the shoal, I also wanted to source some Zebra Oto’s (Cocama) (@Hufsa ’s fault!) So I ordered the remaining stock (8 fish) available from Abyss - the only place I could find them, along with some Anchor Catfish that I couldn’t resist.

Sadly disaster stuck - they ended up shipping 7 Oto’s, then two were DOA in the bag. After 5 hours of drip acclimation, I then added them to the tank, and a further 4 died the first few hours.

Obviously I complained, and Abyss were honest and admitted that they investigated, and discovered that there had been an ‘incident’ with a broken heater in the Oto tank three days before I ordered them, and the poor things had basically been cooked - they’d lost several in their tank in the intervening days. They did give me a full credit note but still such a shame for such beautiful fish 😢

As it is, I have one remaining healthy fish, that is very active and feeding, so I’m hoping she survives until I get get more of them.

I was originally planning to add the Anchor Cats to my QT tank, but they were so small (think the size of an average tadpole), and there were so many worms in the tank, including some naturally deposited blood worms, I decided to add them to the main tank. They are super cute, but very shy and mostly nocturnal (hence hard to get a pic of):

Finally I dropped into out local P@H on a whim while getting Son No1 some new trainers next door, and they had a collection of the most gargantuan female Amanos I’ve seen for a long time, so I grabbed some in the hope they may help curb the algal growth I’ve been seeing:

That’s it stockwise for now, I’m fighting temptations to buy more fish, as I really want the shrimp to start breeding en-mass first.

The mystery of the missing shrimp . . .

One funny issue that I’ve had to sort in the last couple of days though, is despite all these shrimp added, I start to gradually see less and less of them out and about.

Obviously I panicked a bit assuming I’d been losing shrimp and not seeing corpses. Then I happened by chance to look into the fleece roller compartment:

There must have been 40-50 shrimp in there! They’d found their way in through the overflow teeth, that I’d forgotten to fit with mesh, and took the ‘fun-slide’ down into the promised land of the detritus filled fleece roller!

50 shrimp caught into a bucket and repatriated into the tank:

Then preventative mesh applied to the inside of the overflow weir:

All in all the tank is doing well. Some of the previously mentioned hair algae is still growing, but much more slowly, and in a much thinner and weaker form, so I suspect it’s on its way out.

Duckweed Frogbit Index fully applied, and the floaters appear to be in rude health - currently farming a couple of litres of them off the surface each week:

 

[Conort2]

Livestock update . . .

Just remembered I’ve not added any update on the livestock additions so far - the most exciting bit!

So a few weeks ago I added a group of 40 Tangerine Tigers. They were obviously lost in this tank size, and I didn’t see any of them for about a week and feared the worst, but gradually I’m seeing more and more of them out and about as they’ve gained confidence. I swear the other day I also saw a baby which would be a good sign!

View attachment 208166

A little under two weeks ago I decided I wanted to add some Neo’s too, but having had Bloody Mary’s for several years, I decided I go for a strain with more subtle and muted colours, so bought a batch of 100 Black Rose’s off a local breeder. They’re doing well and growing quickly, so I’m hoping to see some babies soon:

View attachment 208167

View attachment 208168

I have also gradually been trying to catch the Oto’s from my other tanks and move them over - easier said than done!

To add to the shoal, I also wanted to source some Zebra Oto’s (Cocama) (@Hufsa ’s fault!) So I ordered the remaining stock (8 fish) available from Abyss - the only place I could find them, along with some Anchor Catfish that I couldn’t resist.

Sadly disaster stuck - they ended up shipping 7 Oto’s, then two were DOA in the bag. After 5 hours of drip acclimation, I then added them to the tank, and a further 4 died the first few hours.

Obviously I complained, and Abyss were honest and admitted that they investigated, and discovered that there had been an ‘incident’ with a broken heater in the Oto tank three days before I ordered them, and the poor things had basically been cooked - they’d lost several in their tank in the intervening days. They did give me a full credit note but still such a shame for such beautiful fish 😢

As it is, I have one remaining healthy fish, that is very active and feeding, so I’m hoping she survives until I get get more of them.

View attachment 208169

I was originally planning to add the Anchor Cats to my QT tank, but they were so small (think the size of an average tadpole), and there were so many worms in the tank, including some naturally deposited blood worms, I decided to add them to the main tank. They are super cute, but very shy and mostly nocturnal (hence hard to get a pic of):

View attachment 208170

Finally I dropped into out local P@H on a whim while getting Son No1 some new trainers next door, and they had a collection of the most gargantuan female Amanos I’ve seen for a long time, so I grabbed some in the hope they may help curb the algal growth I’ve been seeing:

View attachment 208171

That’s it stockwise for now, I’m fighting temptations to buy more fish, as I really want the shrimp to start breeding en-mass first.

The mystery of the missing shrimp . . .

One funny issue that I’ve had to sort in the last couple of days though, is despite all these shrimp added, I start to gradually see less and less of them out and about.

Obviously I panicked a bit assuming I’d been losing shrimp and not seeing corpses. Then I happened by chance to look into the fleece roller compartment:

View attachment 208174

There must have been 40-50 shrimp in there! They’d found their way in through the overflow teeth, that I’d forgotten to fit with mesh, and took the ‘fun-slide’ down into the promised land of the detritus filled fleece roller!

50 shrimp caught into a bucket and repatriated into the tank:

View attachment 208175

Then preventative mesh applied to the inside of the overflow weir:

View attachment 208176

All in all the tank is doing well. Some of the previously mentioned hair algae is still growing, but much more slowly, and in a much thinner and weaker form, so I suspect it’s on its way out.

Duckweed Frogbit Index fully applied, and the floaters appear to be in rude health - currently farming a couple of litres of them off the surface each week:

View attachment 208177

Livestock updates on this tank, I never thought I’d see the day!

Looking very good mate, this will be a cracker once it settles down.

Have you checked with pier aquatics? I’m sure they have otocinclus cocama in stock at the moment.

Cheers

 

[hydrophyte]

On @Gill ’s recommendation I did buy a few pond type plants for the emersed planters:

View attachment 207444

From left to right; Umbrella Grass (Cyperus alternifolious), Green Creeping Jenny, Dwarf Horsetail and Marsh Marigold.

Cool plant choices! I'll be interested to hear how the Marsh Marigold does. I've grown a couple of different Cyperus like this emergent in riparium planters and they did very well. They do however need vertical space to reach up. They tend to grow twice as tall under artificial lighting in comparison with natural sunlight outdoors.