Luke's Planted Tank Journal

[Squirrelbuddies]

Looking good, Luke! Nice piece of wood - it will look great in your setup!

 

[Luke_e]

Ta Squirrel! Cant wait for new plants to arive.
My 4 leaf clover is growing by the minute, its runners are spreding across and it looks ace! I might get a pic of it tomorrow to see its progress.

 

[lljdma06]

That is a nice looking piece of wood there! Can't wait to see the finished result.

 

[Luke_e]

Big update: 16/5/06

My Glosso, Riccia, Dwarf Hair Grass and Java Fern arived today.



I spent most of my time preping the tank. I removed all the plants from my tank, and plonked the bogwood in and put it in three positions.
1)
2)
3)

In the end, i decided to go for the first position, as it showed off the angles and shape of the bogwood, and it seems it was intended to be in that position in an aquarium .

I then took my java moss of the two pieces of slate i had it on. I was going to have my bogwood covered in java moss and this is what it looked like after i attempted this:


Looks bad huh? Well when i plonked it in the tank, it all started coming off and i thought oh hell, so i took it off and i'm glad i did as imo it looks better. Obviously if i would of given the moss time to grow it may of looked great but i think i need a lot more moss..

I am now left with this amount of java moss:


Here is a pic of my dwarf leaf clover which i got a few week back, and its trippled in length of runners. I'm letting it take its own course in the tank, i'll see what it gets up too lol:


Heres my riccia: I'm going to float it in a net (hopefully my mom is buying me one as we speak) to let it multiply before i put it on a piece of slate with a hair net.

Glosso: Waitin for tweasers to plant it, plus i need to figure out which bit i plant to get the carpet effect:


Tank so far:



Next update probably this evening once my riccia is floating. And if i get my tweasers (well probably even if i dont get the tweasers) i'll plant my glosso.

 

[lljdma06]

Isn't it great to finally plant your tank? It looks very good. Can't wait to see the glosso planted. Your pictures are very good and great job with your CO2, I'm seeing a lot of bubbles from the pictures you posted. I'm sure you definitely have the target amount.

Great job!

llj

 

[JArtiles305]

Looking good, can't wait to see it filled in.

 

[Luke_e]

Isn't it great to finally plant your tank? It looks very good. Can't wait to see the glosso planted. Your pictures are very good and great job with your CO2, I'm seeing a lot of bubbles from the pictures you posted. I'm sure you definitely have the target amount.

Great job!

llj

Thank llj, much appreciated.

It looks like you've buried your java fern a little too deep. Just bury the roots and keep the rhizome above the gravel. If there's not enough roots to keep it from floating, put a lead(?) weight on the plant. Or tie the fern onto a small rock, then bury the rock in the substrate (if you don't want to see the rock, that is).

Lotsa luck with the tweezers!!! Don't pinch too much or you'll squeeze the plant dead

Cheers mate, i'll sort it in the morning, i've got a sore back from bending over into the tank all afternoon lol . I think the reason i planted it so deep was because it floated, so i'll use some lead weights to keep it down but not to cover the rhizome. Thanks for the reply, other wise i would of probably ended up with dead java fern as i didnt realise (after your reply i remembered reading it before) it can kill the plant.
Would it grow if i planted it in between some cracks in the bogwood, or is this another plant i'm thinking of?

Looking good, can't wait to see it filled in.

Cheers mate, i'm looking forward to seeing it progress..


Update:
My riccia will be put on one of these slates here to form a 'hedge/carpet'


This is the java moss i took from the slate, to put on the bogwood which i took off. Not sure what i'm going to do with it yet.


Was having a bit of a problem with my co2. The yeast mix kept leaking into the tank and over flowing into it. So, i made myself a 'top off' system which allows any overflowing yeast sollution to go into a bottle rather than the tank, yet still allows co2 into the tank. I sealed it with superglue.



Heres to show it working:


Heres my glosso after i spent over an hour sorting it into little clumps:


This the glosso planted day 1:


This is the amount of riccia i have at the moment. Will use this pic to compare how much i have in a week or so time as its currently floating so i can get it to multiply:

 

[Themuleous]

looking good! Am liking the plants and thigns, its great when you finally get a tank up and running hey? I take it you're gonna do EI?

 

[Luke_e]

Cheers Sam. I dont actually know what EI is to be honest. If its the adding of ferts then yea, i'll be ordering my ferts (the aqua essential trace mix and then dosing as directed) on friday.

 

[Themuleous]

Oh right but you're not doing the whole adding NO3 and PO4 thou? Just the trace? Thats cool, I'll be doing the same when I get the money together for it

 

[Luke_e]

Yea just the trace. I might go down the EI route once i've become more experienced. At the moment i dont know much so maybe in months to come i'll start up a new tank using the EI method, but for now the trace mix, co2, laterite and upgraded lighting is my limit .
Can anyone comment on my glosso planting? Not sure if i've done it 'correctly' but its in little bundles so it helps it spread.

 

[Themuleous]

i nearly mentioned this earlier! You get best results when you plant each individual stem, but actually (although Ive not grow it myself) I think want you've done should be fine. I wouldn't want bigger clumps but the pic of it in the tank looks good.

BTW what WPG you running now if you've upgrade your lighting?

 

[Luke_e]

Ah, i just read a few places that its best to plant clumps with gaps to get better coverage.
I would of had 1wpg with standard lighting. I upgraded and i now have 2wpg. I'll be getting 2 reflectors in 2 week friday so it will improve the light intensity.

 

[Luke_e]

Ok guys, quite a lots happened since.. mainly new additions to the tank
I now have 9 Cardinal Tetras, 4 amano shrimp (from my main tank), 2 otosynclus (from my main tank), 4 rummy nose tetra, 10 chery shrimp (they are soooo tiny so he only charged me for 7, plus i got some babies that are no more than 1mm big.. you can see one in the pics
Uploaded the pics to photobucket to make it easier rather than uploading one at a time on imageshack here they are:
http/smg.photobucket.com/albums/v97/LEli...070%20Aquarium/
NOTE: The pics are in reverse order of what i took them in, and uploaded them in. So start from the bottom to see the shrimp acclimatising. I got the cardinals and rummy noses' on saturday but didnt get any pics then so i took some yesturday instead. Enjoy.
Also, the riccia may seem dodgy, but it hasnt covered the hair net yet (which is brown, but it makes some of the riccia look brown).

 

[robjack]

Looking good - have you thought of adding a black background to the tank? I kept getting distracted by the socket behind the tank

Otherwise, a very nice tank.

Rob.