Journal The Green Dream _ My Cryptocoryne infested riparium

[Walt1908]

Looks like your best friend did a good job. The lack of tinkering sometimes is the way to go

True but normally i try to twitch my tank as less as possible.
Everything goes here pretty much automatically when on holiday even feeding.
The only thing my best friend does is grab a beer, checking the system for leakage ,check if the feeding goes right and enjoying the tank 😁

He also checks out if the indoor plants have enough water in their holiday waterballs. Outside plants are taken care of automatically.

Him and and a very nice neighbouring lady are the reason we can go on our holidays every time. We are so glad they are willing to do this and we cherish them.
In exchange we take them out to dinner every year and bring them some local drinks back home and pamper them all year round what good friends do ☺️

The camera is new and gives us an extra piece of mind when there is really something going on.

 

[Walt1908]

And look what happens with my Nurii ☺️

The newest leaves are not any more green but they have the desired colouration.

Pretty happy here the big operation prior to our holiday is paying off good and is not having melting crypts troughout my tank!

 

[Sarpijk]

Nurii is a species I like because once it gets going it can create a beautiful carpet! I got mine before it was commercially available from big companies. It was sold as Cryptocoryne Nurii rose maiden 2 . Originally it didn't do anything until it took off! It also creates spathes for me once or twice a year.

 

[Walt1908]

Hi Sarpijk, thanks for the info!
This species i have was labeled Cryptocoryne Nurii var. raubensis 'Rose Maiden' and i got it in invitro.
Never heard of RM2 but you know the things with crypts, so many cultivations!

Never had any luck with the nurii but this time it seems im in luck. Probably due to my extra twinstar lightning which kept it alive and now with the iron saturated soil that gives it the colour.

 

[ianmianmianm]

Brilliant

 

[Walt1908]

Long time no see everybody!

Many things happened here on the forum last year and due to that i kinda lost the 'posting touch'.

Good to see Ukaps got everything back on track and because of that and also due to some heavy changes in my tank the itch to post is back again 😎

Lets get this journal back up and running with a picture how the tank was looking a month ago when we came back from our holiday and how things are looking as we speak 😉




See any difference? 🙂

 

[Fishfur]

What is that background you put in? Looks great.

 

[Walt1908]

What is that background you put in? Looks great.

Thanks! I made the background myself from aqua building foam, peat and roots/twigs. Ill post some building pics tonight 👍

 

[Walt1908]

So the background change.
Before this tank i had a smaller one and in this tank i also had this kind of background with mosses, ferns and all kinds of epiphytes.

Old picture of that first riparium:

So when the plans were born for my bigger tank i thought lets do something different. Inspired by a holiday to indonesia my idea was creating a riparium with more depth, mountains and waterfalls and the big riparium was a fact few months later. I loved it!

There was only one but. There was not so much room for plants on the 'hills' it didnt have a living background with moist, mosses etc.

Everytime when on holiday we would do some hiking and since we both like green and lush destinations i would encounter these type of green walls in real life and everytime i thought 'ohhh how cool would it be in the living room' and we would just at the green dripping moss walls covered with ferns and stuff...

A good example is for instance this picture from San Miguel, Azores


The biggest problem would be on how to rescape things without freaking out the inhabitants of the aquatic part. That was the reason i never go trough changing my tank. Until our holiday to Dominica this januari. The flora blew my mind and that was my trigger. I had to change my tank when i was baffled by nature like this:




Every night i would try to figure out how to rescape my tank without stressing out my fish. The only way i would do that is to work fast, silent and making sure the water was stable and clean.

My next post will be the building pics of the new background

 

[Walt1908]

Step one. Taking everything out above water.


Step two. Smearing in the glass with superfish fix n seal just to make sure the next step would bond better.


Step three. Filling up the background with superfish scaping foam. When hardened, cut out the 'style'.


Step four. Smearing the foam with the fix n seal and push in the peat. I did that with big sponges to make sure almost no peat went into the water.


Step five. Then i added the twigs and roots i had laying around to make it more natural.


Step six. On the top of the background you could noticed some space. In that space i placed a tube coming from my tetratec pump for the waterfalls. Once installed i covered it with the sealant and peat.


That was basically reconstructing the background in a nutshell 😉

 

[Valeriy Aqyar]

the background now adds more natural look and depth to the whole scape!
its surface is great for further covering with mosses, creeping and epiphyte plants.
I'm looking impatiently for the next development of your riparium 😉

 

[Walt1908]

the background now adds more natural look and depth to the whole scape!
its surface is great for further covering with mosses, creeping and epiphyte plants.
I'm looking impatiently for the next development of your riparium 😉

Thanks! And you are most def correct. Im sure in the future the background will be more covered. Next week ill start adding different types of moss on it. After that more epiphytes like orchids and ferns.

 

[Walt1908]

As you might know i love crypts so much but i had to remove a bunch due to spacing issues... Jeez. How come?

The emphasis is now on crypts with long and thin leaves. Last weekend i added 7 extra C. Balansae plus a very special version!



Doing good so far 🙂

 

[Walt1908]

Fruit of my labour.
Restrepia Trichoglossa flowering this morning 🙂

 

[Walt1908]

Today im going to install and change some stuff. Currently i am having difficulties keeping my water on at least a ph7 because of some factors here.

First. The water here is pretty hard. KH12

Second. My new background is obviously degassing my co2 like crazy so i cannot lower my ph enough on a safe level.

Third. There is too much silicate in the water here causing my light sand turning light brown.

So i bought some new toys that i am installing today 🙂



Going to add a second osmose unit with boosterpump to add fresh osmose water to the tank to lower the KH. But before it flows to my tank it goes trough a silicate filter.
The idea is, ofcourse, to lower my KH buffer so i can lower my PH more efficiently.

To be continued.

 

[Courtneybst]

This is really impressive! Also the fact that you did this with the tank already flooded is even more so!

 

[Walt1908]

@Courtneybst Thanks so much and indeed that was a real challenge 🙂

So everything is installed in a closet next to our livingroom. The space is tight and also our heater hangs there and also some shelves with dry foods etc.

But as you can see everything fits hahaha



Left from the heater is my old osmosefilter with a capacity of 570L/day. This one drips in the container below this filter and now my rainsystem and my dosingpump always have a fresh watersupply and i dont have to worry about my tanks i used to have in our bedroom.

Right below the heater is my new osmose filter. Also with a capacity with 570l a day.
This setup is used only for filling up my riparium. It needs to have more power so i installed a boosterpump right of the heater. After it passed the filter it goes trough an standalone silicate filter.

So pump>osmose>silicate>tank.

After the first cleansing period i removed aprox 30l from the tank and filled it up with osmose in aprox 45 minutes.
After 2 hours i checked the ph and it dropped 0.2 to 7.3.

Tomorrow morning ill check the gh/kh and ph again and exchange again 30l.

So far so good!

 

[Walt1908]

So... The results are in.

Gh 8 (-5)
Kh 8 (-2)
Ph 7.3 (-0.2)

Think i'll do nothing today for the fish to adjust to the new parameters except adding some more wood on the background and adding some more ferns that are waiting here.

Think ill aim for the following gh/kh 5 and ph 7/7.1.

Over the next week ill add more osmose in steps to these levels. If minerals are needed ill have them fast since there are a couple good lfs around here.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

...... Think ill aim for the following gh/kh 5 and ph 7.

If you have that much alkalinity (carbonate hardness, dKH) the pH will be higher than pH 7. This is due to the carbonate - CO2 - pH equilibrium.

I've not kept Indostomus, and I don't know their hardness requirement, but if they come soft water you can reduce the dKH addition

Cheers Darrel

 

[Walt1908]

True. Thats the problem. My kh buffer is to high from the tap. Normally i could keep my ph around 7/6.9 with normal co2 injection and eveything would flourish. But with my massive wet background my co2 dissolves like ceazy obviously. Thats why i want to lower my hardness plus the other benefits.

I do not have indostomus but my fish are good around my target values.