The Black Lagoon- Se Asian 'biotope'

[OohFeeshy]

Got a reply from Plants Alive, they reckon it's better to buy the crypts per 5 or 25, so 25 it is. Order will therefore be

2 x Nymphaea stellata
25 x C. balansae
1x java moss

Possibly a couple more 'C. parva', depending how coverage looks when I rescape.

Rescape will be *similar* to how it looked in this picture-

In terms of wood arrangement. But instead of the hygro it will be C. balansae, with a lilly each side of the wood and crypts arranged round it with the parva at the front. And more moss on the wood.

 

[DAlmond123]

Cos of the big salty watery thing in the way?

Sorry didn't know you lived overseas.

 

[lljdma06]

Cos of the big salty watery thing in the way?

Oh, that has never stopped me! I get mosses from Singapore and my ferts from the UK, and I live the US. Baby.

I am looking forward to the new journal.

 

[OohFeeshy]

Apparently my wood for the other tank and liquid carbon has arrived, good times.

Home on Saturday so hopefully there'll be another nice green 'black lagoon' picture and maybe a 'look, I've cleaned the glass!' one too. Although I did decrease the photoperiod by another few hours so hopefully it won't be as bad.

I'll start dosing when I clean the tank properly which will be... at some point.

I'll order the plants fairly soon after I get back, barbs will be moved once I've done the first overhaul of the 4ft (mahoosive water change, hardscape change), fish shopping as soon as the barbs are tatty byes. Once I've sorted out all of my general stuff (coming back from uni so there's tonnes of stuff that needs to be found a home), I'll try and set up a breeding tank for the spiketails

 

[OohFeeshy]

Not quite as bad as I thought. Still a fair amount of BGA near the substrate (I should probably try angling the flow towards the front more), lots more spot algae than last time which is a pain to clean off, but oh well. I'm thinking I'll leave it until I've got a completely free day, strip everything out and 'start again', otherwise there's no way it's going to be properly clean. Seems to smell a bit too... All fish present and correct, barbs looking incredibly shiny. Lilly massive again, more submerged leaves but I'll keep cutting off the floaters until it's a bit bigger.

Edit- oh, and I'll probably start a thread about the 4ft when I've been rock an PVC pipe shopping. Wood very spangly indeed.

 

[OohFeeshy]

Done the water change and sorty outyness. Photo tomorrow, still lots of floaty bits in the water so I'll leave it to settle overnight. Not 100% happy with the altered layout but we shall see. Obviously I'm lacking the balansae so it's not finished. I've decided against more lillies, the root system on it was absolutely ridiculous and any more will just take over the tank entirely. Front's looking a bit sparse, although the 'parva' did have a few plantlets so it's starting to fill out.

 

[lljdma06]

Done the water change and sorty outyness. Photo tomorrow, still lots of floaty bits in the water so I'll leave it to settle overnight. Not 100% happy with the altered layout but we shall see. Obviously I'm lacking the balansae so it's not finished. I've decided against more lillies, the root system on it was absolutely ridiculous and any more will just take over the tank entirely. Front's looking a bit sparse, although the 'parva' did have a few plantlets so it's starting to fill out.

Yeah, the lilies have quite the root system. So do aponogetons. When I dismantled my 20g, the aponogeton had roots in the opposite end of the tank. Over 2ft of roots!

 

[OohFeeshy]

Here we go, eventually

I appreciate there's loads of bleh at the front, but I couldn't get rid of everything in the first big clean.

Definitely need to do a P@H trip, for a background and probably another pot of crypts- they grow quite well but I need a few more for the back right hand corner.

I don't know if it's the liquid carbon or something else, but the BGA on the moss which was absolutely horrendous has simply vanished, like an old oak table. Looks a tonne better.

I think I'll need to get some more C. parva, or possibly another species since these don't seem to be very keen on spreading. There are new leaves but it's horribly slow even by crypt standards.

 

[lljdma06]

This looks very good! I like the potential layout and can project what it will look like with the background and the extra crypts. Give it time, they'll fill out. Crypts just seem to be on their own time clock.

 

[OohFeeshy]

Liquid carbon = jolly good stuff. Algae on the crypt leaves nearly gone.

Ordered the plants. 15 balansae (I thought 25 would be too many for the smaller area), 5 parva, moss. The stuff on the wood needs a trim but I'll leave that for a bit.

Hoping to have moved the barbs by next Saturday because that's when I would quite like to go fish shopping. One got overly excited at food and jumped out... Luckily it landed on the condensation cover and I was standing there at the time, but still.

 

[OohFeeshy]

Plants arrived, I think I'll have to redo the planting though because where I had to take the wood out to moss it, it didn't go back in quite the same position and therefore looks pretty bleh.

Are crypts/lillies sensitive to liquid carbon? I've noticed a few yellow leaves on both types of crypt and holes in the lilly leaves, which weren't there before. I'm not really sure what to do about it.

 

[lljdma06]

Some species are sensitive to liquid carbon. I know my A. reineckii suffered when I dosed liquid carbon and others here have complained about it effecting their plants. Don't know about crypts and lilies specifically.

You know, I realy ought to make a database on that. Perhaps a thread maybe? Certainly enough people use it. Something to add to my "to-do" list.

llj

 

[ian]

My lilies love easycarbo! You shouldn't have any probs with them.

 

[OohFeeshy]

Yeah, I don't see why they should be, just seems a bit odd is all. There are plenty of other factors, maybe I'll cut back the dose slightly and just keep an eye on them.

 

[OohFeeshy]

They're *finally* gone. Having a bit of a sulk, as are the cats in the other tank, but they should settle in quickly enough and have a much nicer time.

It's looking... empty. And algae'd. The BGA is returning around the substrate- since it's not on the moss at all, I suspect it's flow so I'll stick in my spare Elite Mini which won't be terribly attractive but it packs a fair punch.

I'm hoping to have enough time/inclination to do one more 'rip out, clean, put back in' tomorrow so I can go shopping in the afternoon. A school is a fo' sho', as to what it depends what they have in and how much it costs (the shop I use stocks loads of lovely little rasbora species and the like), labyrinths, I'd like it if they had anything, but their stock changes all the time so I have no idea. Oh, possibly some kuhlis/other loaches.

Edit- hehe. Greedy barbs + greedy catfish + sinking food = much hilarity.