Double Total Rescape

[ellena]

So my tanks are looking very sorry I had 2 awesome scapes with live plants but they only looked good straight after planting, they've been going steadily downhill since then.

I could cry actually, I'd forgotten how good they looked
Anyway, time for a complete clear out and change. I have lotus in the tall hex tank since I swapped them over. I have some white plants I'm going to try and get more of, so I'll put them with the white cave and shells into the hex with black sparkley gravel. Future plans, maybe add some shrimp.
In peacock's tank, I think I'm going to try honeythorn's compost method (thread coming your way about that honeythorn!) Use dark grey sand, live plants and some sort of cave/feature, not sure what yet.
With them both having tail biting/fin rot issues I'm not enjoying them much and I hope rescaping will perk me up a bit

 

[Night61]

good luck, i do that on occasion myself when i am feeling down, i go and mess with my fishes homes. not they appreciate my work but it makes me feel better to do something constructive.

 

[Lacuna]

I think the white cave and shells will look good on the black gravel. If the compost thing doesn't work there are substrates especially for growing plants, but they can be expensive. Some people also recommend cat litter topped with sand. I have just bought some eco-complete but it was very expensive, don't know yet whether it was worth it.

Having new scapes might help with the tail biting as well, you never know. Post pics when you've done them

 

[Shred]

What is the white cave thing Ellena?

 

[silverrabbit]

Good luck hope it turns out nicely for you

 

[woodstock]

ellena, the second picture looks so gorgeous, I'd accuse it of being photoshopped, lol. But yeah, what IS that white thing? I must have it. Lol. And the first is just adorable. Are those real plants? Would you mind telling me the plants you chose? (Either real or fake is fine)~

 

[ellena]

You're not helping guys, telling me how good they looked
lacuna, these have the cat litter un der the sand. You have to add nutrition though, the litter just holds onto it and lets them absorb it through their roots. I was adding TPN+ and easy carbo daily, but I found it a drag and I still didn't think the plants looked that great. Obviously a lot better than they do now!
In the hex tank the plants are cabomba at the back, ludwigia on the left and amazon sword on the right.
In the square tank, the white thing is a christmas bauble with a hole cut in where the hanger would go. The handyman at work did it for me, with a file I think. Doesn't seem to have affected the water at all. Plants in there are amazon sword back right, twisted vallis back left, water sprite the ferny one behind the cave and pennywort the waterlily shaped one.
The white sand doesn't look great, gets loads of algae. People said it would but I thought the sand in the other tank is pale, and that's fine. Maybe there's just more algae in this tank. So, black it is. A kind of black and white theme, Hmmm, we'll see!

 

[woodstock]

How did he get it to file down? I really want to try that sometime. And thanks for the tips, I'm definitely inspired now lol.
How's your rescaping going though? Any plans at all?

 

[woodstock]

Rescaping ALWAYS helps me. I love rescaping... even though I haven't done a huge one in a while. But soon will be my first as I'm planning to add plants! Real plants! *squeals*

*ahem* anyway, lol.
i have some questions with your plants. For the ludwigia - I'm going to assume its a needle-leaf? How long did it take that color to come out?? I really...want that color. Haha. Not sure on my lighting, but I have a 10W compact fluorescent in a 5 gallon, cycled. Will that help with the color at all?

And the pennywort - brazilian pennywort, yes? How well did it grow for you? I'm also planning on adding MAYBE a crypt wendtii or something... and i will add one or two anubias var. nana, in case you ever had any experience with that.

but also - what made it go downhill? like, whats exactly wrong with it? (dying, rotting, algae?)

A bit off topic, I'm sorry!

And about your tailbiting - I have one too! It's a stinker, isn't it?

 

[ellena]

I'll ask him about the cave for you, I've no idea myeslf!
The ludwigia looked like that when I bought it and died off very quickly.
When I was adding daily TPN+ and easy carbo, the pennywort was very happy, reaching the top of the water in no time. I always had trouble getting it to stay in the sand though.
All the plants didn't do so great from the start off, so I started with the TPN+ and easycarbo, on advice from here. I found it a real faff though and I didn't feel that the plants were looking all that fabulous for all the effort I was putting in. I was stil having to trim off handfuls of dead bits every week.
It was rotting mainly. The water sprite would look awesome and then whole stems would just rot away. The ends of the vallis, which is supposed to be a very easy to grow plant, would just go brown and slimy and the rot would progress down the whole leaf. The amazon sword and pennywort did OK on that regime though.
I have algae problems in there too, loads of the diatom brown stuff which is supposed to be caused by ammonia but the tank is fully cycled and I've never got an ammonia reading from it. It makes the sand all manky so I hoover up quite a lot every water change.
I stopped dosing a few weeks ago and you can really tell the difference, but I really don't want to have to be dosing every day. That's why I'm going for a low/no maintenance idea with the compost and fingers crossed.

 

[woodstock]

So if I went after ludwigia, anubias nana, and pennywort (and maybe a crypt wendtii), what would you suggest I do? because honestly, I don't wanna do much either, hehehe : )

and I'd actually prefer not to change the substrate at all.

 

[Honeythorn]

If you don't want to change your substrate you'd probably have to look at higher lighting and possibly CO2 addition or fertilisers . Which really defeats the point of not doing too much maintenece.

 

[woodstock]

Yup I figured. But for fertilizers, isn't some in liquid form that I just pour in? (With measurements, of course). Fromt what I've read and ONLY from what I read, fertilizers seem easy to use?

 

[Inchworm]

Hi ellena

Just a suggestion, but if you would like us to move this thread to the Planted Tanks section we would be happy to do it for you. The folks who post there might have some helpful ideas. If so, just click on the report button and let us know.

 

[ellena]

Thanks Inchworm, maybe I'll start another thread over there when I come to do it
I asked about the cave woodstock. He 'carefully' drilled around the hole where the hangger was with one of these kind of drill bits

then filed the edges smooth. You can get liquid ferts, I just found it was more work than I was prepared to do, that's all.