JorgeO

Round 2

Yep! That seems like it. That one was originally a trim from a friend that just asked for "easy plants" at the LFS.

Another thing you can do is ask the LFS whether they've been medicated/dewormed and such. If so, you could just take the leap and add them straight away...

Absolutely. Particularly if the tank is well planted and matured, I've actually left a six Oto's and some livebearers alone in an 90l for a month and they were sleek and fat still upon returning. Water had dropped, sure, but otherwise fine.

Oh. Limnobium Laevigatum. Regular Frogbit.

The one by the little Apistos? I honestly aren't sure. It's a local aquatic moss (local being Paraná Basin, Argentina, in the Delta). Here's a picture of where it was originally. I'll be back on a kayak one of these days.

Thanks! Here's an update.

The leaves are a mix. There might be some maple, some planetree, a handful of Taxodium Distichum leaves, Jacaranda mimosifolia pods, and a few others. As for the plants, I believe the "fern" you speak of would be Java Moss. There was a clump there, which I removed, and a single strand adhered to the rock, growing in a fernlike pattern. The rest are vallisneria spiralis or something similar (bought at a chain petstore, they didn't have a clue and would have most likely lied if I asked), some native Fissidens moss, Echinodorus, Limnobium Laevigatum, and a couple of unidentified others I got from fellow aquarists or from the river.

Not really new, haven't really kept up here. Or talked. But here's the setup, and how things are going. This is a 90-liter. Three Apisto Trisfasciatas, four Nannostomus Marginatus (I know, I need two more minimum, working on it) bunch o' native paloeomonetes argentinus shrimp, six Oto's, and about twenty long apisto fry. And a truckload of MTS, ramshorns, one native unidentifiable snail which is awesome, and a new Anentome Helena that is unresponsive for some reason, albeit alive. And a bunch of freshwater worms, tubifex most likely, that I added so that they'd move the substrate around and occasionally provide a snack. Once I saw free swimming fry, I turned off the tiny filter I kept mostly for water movement, cleaned the sponge thoroughly to avoid the bacteria dying and spiking the ammonia levels, bumped up the photoperiod, started adding minimal ferts and let algae grow so that the fry can munch on more critters. Excuse the dirty glass pane, it's on purpose.

Thank you! Livebearers. One-sided livebearers, part of the Anablepidae... thingy. Genus. Whatever.

So here it is, the two-week-old Walstad, all native plants but for some Vallisnerias I got. It has a small pump moving a bit of water, pointed at some lava rock I had as filter media. I dumped the filter contents in a hidden corner and aimed the pump to keep some of the bacteria alive, at least while the plants gather momentum. The light is a cheap LED 10watt floodlight. Also, a heater. The fish do not need it, but the plants appreciate it, I think. Substrate: backyard topsoil, capped with medium gravel. Given a year or so of maturing. Sprinkled pond mud for inoculation of bacteria and diversity of aquatic organisms. Hardscape: regular yellowish rocks from a construction yard Quebracho wood pieces from old train tracks. Really old. Mystery snail shells collected from a couple of different sources. The fish are Jenynsia Lineata, called overitos here in Argentina, and the shrimp are I believe Paleomonetes argentinensis. There might be a Macrobrachium Borelli, but it's too small to tell yet. There are too many males vs females, I noticed recently. I will dump some males in the river and net some females, to avoid the stress. A tentative plant species list would be: Alternanthera (reineckii? perhaps) Echinodorus cordifolius/urugaiensis Hydrocotyle bonaerensis Lilaeopsis brasiliensis Vallisneria spiralis Peace lilies (the roots) Ludwigia peploides Then there are other, unidentified species. I did what I could identifying them, only got me so far, they all look similar. The Ludwigia should eventually reach the surface and become a sort of "floating plant". I definitely do not want duckweed here, but I might stop by the river and get some Pistia Stratiotes one of these days. I cannot remove the spoiler thingy. Sorry, not sorry. This tank has been running with no fish or plants for a year, just the substrate. Before that, it looked like this, but I had a trip and then I moved and had to neglect it. This time around it's better, I think. If a couple of new natives I found grow properly, I'll replace the foreign Vallisneria with them.