ShinySideUp
Fish Herder
I have been out in the garden today and I felled a few trees as over the last twelve years since we moved here we have done nothing to the treeline in the garden and a recent purchase of a new telescope has started me looking up once again. This brought to my attention that our garden was getting darker and darker as the trees were starting to form a canopy -- a couple more years and we'd have Condors and a troupe of Colobus monkeys above us. I've spent all day culling things and now there is so much space.
So, today is water-change day and as I look at my Vallisnaria plants this evening with my refreshed outlook I realise that the same canopy is growing in my aquarium. I doubt I'd get Colobus monkeys but given a few more months and I wouldn't be able to see the fish in the gloom. I have 320 watts of light above the water and had about 10 watts underneath the plants.
BIG cull. I took out more than six Vallisnaria with leaves over five feet long and it's made such a difference, my tank is bright again.
Warning: If you ever do this with Vallisnaria and you have Otocinlus catfish make sure they don't come out with the leaves. I found one of my Oto's on one of the brace bars where he'd dropped off the leaf just before it was too late. He's back in and safe but I had to check all the plants I'd already removed for more attached Oto's -- I think I'm ok.
If I can grow nothing else, I am an inadvertent master of Vallisnaria. I started with three plants and they had spread via runners to maybe ten or eleven plants.
If you're having trouble with them then they need fertiliser, I use TNC and Flourish Excel twice a week.
I'll get some smaller plants next weekend but they have to be Clown-Loach-proof which doesn't leave me many options.
That's it. End of memo.
So, today is water-change day and as I look at my Vallisnaria plants this evening with my refreshed outlook I realise that the same canopy is growing in my aquarium. I doubt I'd get Colobus monkeys but given a few more months and I wouldn't be able to see the fish in the gloom. I have 320 watts of light above the water and had about 10 watts underneath the plants.
BIG cull. I took out more than six Vallisnaria with leaves over five feet long and it's made such a difference, my tank is bright again.
Warning: If you ever do this with Vallisnaria and you have Otocinlus catfish make sure they don't come out with the leaves. I found one of my Oto's on one of the brace bars where he'd dropped off the leaf just before it was too late. He's back in and safe but I had to check all the plants I'd already removed for more attached Oto's -- I think I'm ok.
If I can grow nothing else, I am an inadvertent master of Vallisnaria. I started with three plants and they had spread via runners to maybe ten or eleven plants.
If you're having trouble with them then they need fertiliser, I use TNC and Flourish Excel twice a week.
I'll get some smaller plants next weekend but they have to be Clown-Loach-proof which doesn't leave me many options.
That's it. End of memo.
