gjcarew
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Posts posted by gjcarew
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I've only gotten very healthy fish from Dan's Fish. I bet your puffer will be fine without QT
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Gonna try to limit growth by lowering macros:
7.2 ppm NO3/ 3.33 g
2.8 ppm PO4/ 1.5 g
15.2 ppm K2SO4/ 5.19 g
This is almost halving the nitrate content added per week, so hopefully I'll also see some better reds.
The tank was also way overgrown so I removed the lobelia cardinalis and the vallisneria spiralis "Tiger". I want to sign up for the local club home show and I've never done so with a Dutch tank, so the plan for the next few months is to get it looking good for that.
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Tank is looking jungly this week! It needs a big trim.
The aponogeton crispus is flowering with a 3+ foot stalk.
What's that piece of styrofoam? I didn't want to tell anyone until I knew they would survive, but that's the fry from a batch of Chilatherina fasciata "Kali Biru" eggs I got from Gary Lange at the last meeting. I've been feeeding them golden pearls and changing their water twice a day since they are in a fully-sealed half quart container, but other than a few failed hatches they seem to be doing well. I need to get them a real fry container though!
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It's an amazing price for regulator with the capability for multiple manifolds.
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No big changes this week, I didn't get any plants from the GSAS auction so there's just a hole in the scape right now. All I have are some dirty-glass plant and fish pics to share.
Myriophyllum mattogrossense "Golden" with a fishy photobomb
Ludwigia natans. I've grown a few of the "super red" Ludwigias and this might be my favorite. It is almost as red as Ludwigia palustris, but has a slightly slower growth rate and grows vertically rather than all over the place like palustris. It's very hard to make a "neat" bush with Ludwigia palustris.
Ludwigia inclinata 'Pantanal', you can see where I had it in the 75, then it moved to the pond outside (small leaves) then the new growth now that it's back inside.
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On 9/14/2022 at 5:00 AM, Mmiller2001 said:
I'm going back to daily dosing, reducing plant load to improve overall flow through the tank and dropping light intensity. My moss wall is pretty over grown as well. I will pull it out and start it over.
Moss sucks out CO2 like nobody's business. Watch your fish to make sure they aren't CO2 stressed after you take the moss out!
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Well it took about two weeks to get wildly overgrown.
I cleared out a some plants for the GSAS auction tomorrow, and added some more substrate as it has gradually dwindled as I pull out plants. I'm trying out some Monterey Sand as a cheaper alternative to Peace River gravel, and so far I really like it. It's less red so the red plants really pop against it.
This was taken post-rescape and pre-water change, hence the cloudy water. I felt really rushed to finish the tank for the AGA competition and now I'm really happy to be able to try out some new plants and new arrangements!
I also brought in the rhadinocentrus ornatus from outside and they are looking great. The males have really colored up with a red tail and bright blue sparkly scales. Unfortunately I still suck at fish photos 😔
I found out the hard way that the existing inhabitants are unkind to rhad fry so I'm cycling another tank right now to grow them out over the winter. More on that later 😁
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On 9/12/2022 at 2:30 PM, Mmiller2001 said:
Alright, problems problems problems. I didn't even deserve to be in the AGA, and now I'm kinda glad I messed up and decided not to enter.
Self-criticism can be an important tool for growth, but there's a different between being fairly critical of your own work and being unkind to yourself about about it. @Odd Duck is right, you have some fabulous tanks there. I'd challenge you to look at some pictures from when you started. You've gotten so much better at composition, trimming, and general maintenance.
Timing is always the hard part. Now you have an entire year to really nail down your best work! I'm excited to see what you do next
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On 9/3/2022 at 12:59 AM, CJs Aquatics said:
Ok I’ll bite, I have a question… I’m redoing a tank for dojo loaches in the next few days, it’s a long overdue project. The way I’m going to set it up is with an undergravel filter, and a deeper sand bed with nutrient layers. Other applications of this have caused my plants to thrive. I’m going to attempt to try some different things to get these mature fish to breed. My question regarding the scape is, what should I plant in it? Lol I think I want this tank to be a single plant tank, possibly runners or rhizome to get a carpet effect of some sort. I’m to lazy to do more stems. They loved hornwort and liked to lay in it so the plant needs to get kind of tall for them to hide in/ play with and must be hardy bc they aren’t very gentle with plants. My initial thoughts are a pink flamingo forest, or perhaps lutea or parva carpet but I don’t think that will reach the height I need. I don’t want to do Val bc I have tanks with that effect but if it’s the winner I will do that, perhaps crypt spiralis instead, maybe red melon or red flame swords or yolo a bunch of tiger lotus or aquarium lilys lol Or if anyone knows something native to dojo loaches in the trade that might work too. Sorry for rambling let me dumb it down:
- what single plant is hardy, perhaps from Asia, sends runners or spreads fast, gets pretty tall, and would make an awesome standalone aquarium jungle style aquascape that my loaches will love?
You might enjoy Nymphoides hydrophylla "Taiwan".
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On 9/8/2022 at 7:26 AM, Tanked said:
Italian Vallisneria my background plants, have all migrated to the front of the aquarium, leaving the back of the aquarium empty. The Aquarium is evenly lit for 7+ hours..
Is 1 hour of natural sunlight that much more beneficial than the artificial light they were already getting?
Almost certainly yes. Sunlight has PAR levels around 900-1500, a cheap aquarium light generally has PAR from 15-30. Your plants will naturally grow towards stronger light.
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Welp, this is about the best I can get it in the current timeframe. One of the things that makes Dutch-style tanks so tricky is that everything has to be perfect at the same time, and I didn't quite nail it here. But I'm pretty happy with this given what the tank looked like a month ago. I'm gonna give it a final spruce-up and take some pictures with the fancy camera tomorrow evening.
I'm excited to bring in all my rhads that have been growing and breeding outside for the past year. I'm also excited to stuff this tank with as many plants as can possibly fit 😈
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On 8/30/2022 at 7:40 AM, Minanora said:
Anyway! I forgot to add that your tank is looking great! I love the Lily. Which one is that again? A dwarf red?
Thank you! I think this one is the tiger lotus.
Funnily enough, in this case I don't really want a really red rotala. I'm looking for more green so it will stand out against the yellow myriophyllum and not compete visually with the lotus right next to it. For whatever reason there is just a lack of mature plants available around here right now.-
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I finally found some Ludwigia Natans 'Super Red'.
I don't really care for the H'ra in the back right, but I'm unsure what to plant there instead. It's a bit late to try anything new.
There is overall too much back wall showing, but it is too late to do much about it at this point. I'm just doing some minor adjustments making sure the trimming is on point. At this point every snip of the scissors is consequential so I don't want to mess it up
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The Amazon Sword is back! I'm also trying some rotala h'ra in the back right. I did a trim today so everything needs time to settle in.
Everywhere I've been has been out of Ludwigia Super Red which is pretty frustrating. If I can't find any this weekend I'll have to use the Pantanal between the pogo erectus and the hygrophila difformis, which unfortunately is the same leaf shape as the pogo erectus.
Still not feeling confident in this one, but I'm going to do my best to get it done.
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On 8/21/2022 at 10:58 PM, Mmiller2001 said:
I was wondering if you were going to bust out the the 20 gallon and cram a bunch of 75 plants in there! But I really want to see what you will do with the 75. Are you sure it's the 12th? The 3rd keeps popping up in my head.
I sold the 20 gallon unfortunately, so all the plants I want to keep have been going in the outdoor ponds. I do have a 7 gallon cube I'm going to have to set up soon to grow out all my rhadinocentrus ornatus fry.
Good thing you mentioned the date. I just checked and the submission deadline is the 10th.
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I'm going to try to have something presentable by September 12 for the AGA Aquascaping Contest deadline which means I will have to make some changes. Mainly, I need much more plant mass and I need it ASAP so it has a couple weeks to adjust to my tank conditions. I love the Pantanal, but I can't get more of it and I'm not going to be able to grow it out in time. It will have to go into a pond for storage for a while.
I'm breaking out the Echinodorus bleheri that has been living outside with my Rainbow Shiners. It has a hefty portion of algae on it, but I'm hitting it with the ol' reverse respiration technique to clean it off.
This thing is huge, I had to curl it up to get it to fit into this pitcher.
I don't think the barclaya longifolia is big enough, or is going to get big enough in the next three weeks. I'll have to move that as well and probably get something easy like Ludwigia palustris to add some red in there.
I really like that gold myrio, but it is also not growing super fast. So I think that will have to be a midground bush where the pearlweed currently is, and then I'll have to get something big and bushy for the background. Maybe heteranthera zosterifolia if I can find it.
The blyxa is not really adding anything, so I'm probably just going to axe it and have a section of bare substrate.
The good news is now all of the nymphaea are popping off at once, so that focal point is at least looking good. I'm happy with the rest of the plants as well.
I may just forego the moss wall this time around since it is not recovering well. Forgive the glare in this shot, I took it midday:
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On 8/12/2022 at 1:50 PM, Mmiller2001 said:
I will be removing all the current plants and replace them with the above list and a few others I'm looking at. If I can convince my wife to let me swap the substrate back to sand, it will be a complete redo.
Which tank are you doing this in?
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Thanks y'all, just to clarify I'm not giving up. But I have a pretty good idea of what growth I can get in three weeks and it doesn't look promising at this point.
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Updates! I've been doing some rearranging to try and work in some more color. I moved the myriophyllum back to the left hand side as it was just a little too dark for they corner on the right. I really like the contrast with the hygrophila difformis. The val got moved behind the water wisteria to fill in that blank wall section. The Barclaya longifolia is starting to put out some really nice red leaves. I moved the pogo erectus behind it for contrast.
On the other side of the tank, I found some unique plants at the lfs that I'm trying out. The first is Myriophyllum mattogrossense "Golden" and the second is Ludwigia "pantanal." I've grown Pantanal before and it's a stunner, but it grows almost as fast as myrio roraima and is prone to stunting. We'll see if I can keep it happy! Between that, the lily, and the barclaya there may be too much red but I won't know until it grows out more.
Almost forgot, I got an aponogeton on the right hand side. I can't recall the species now, but I think it's crispus.
The entire tank has been suffering from neglect. I have been doing a bootcamp-style coding program that has kept me busy and average of 70 hrs/week since the start of July, and I've been missing water changes and feet dosing. I just made up some mineralized topsoil and osmocote root tabs to hopefully keep the plants happy in future periods of neglect. I almost completely lost the moss wall as well, after taking a closer look 90% of it is dead. At least the fish seem happy!
It's looking more and more doubtful that I'll have anything ready to submit to the AGA contest this year. Having a really nice Dutch-style tank is easier than most people think but it still requires 3-4 hours of work a week which is more than I have to give right now. I'm going to continue with the goal though, since I like the path the tank is on right now!
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On 8/10/2022 at 11:41 PM, modified lung said:
Sure but all natural waters also have a suspended bacterial and viral ecosystem that is important for life. Even rain droplets aren't sterile.
Tap water isn't sterile either. I'm not sure there is a significant difference.
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On 8/10/2022 at 8:29 PM, modified lung said:
Well, not really. Rivers don't have their water drained every few days and replaced with sterilized or treated water. The new water from upstream brings it's entire ecosystem of micro and macro organisms with it. That kind of stuff is important to fish. Maybe less important to plants? You know way more about plants than i do.
A lot of rivers do have very clean water since they are usually rain or snowmelt fed. Most of the microscopic life in rivers is concentrated in aufwuchs communities.
That said, it also depends on the quality of the water one has available for water changes. Here in the PNW we generally have soft water, so I would do smaller water changes for hard-water fish like livebearers.
On 8/10/2022 at 5:23 PM, modified lung said:It's true to a degree. Big, frequent water changes and over filtration can under develop the immune system. That doesn't necessarily mean they're lifespan will be shortened. But it does mean they'll be more susceptible to disease especially when exposed to other stressors. In which case their life span can technically be shortened. Cory actually mentioned a little about this in the live stream after Germany. Basically, a lot of breeders and wholesalers operate in a way that creates fragile fish for their customers.
Cory has an interesting theory here, but I don't know if I buy it. Wild-caught fish can be significantly more fragile and prone to sickness than farm-raised fish. To the degree that there is weakness in farmed stock, I would be willing to bet that inbreeding is a much bigger issue than well-filtered water.
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On 8/5/2022 at 7:56 AM, Minanora said:
How warm did your tank get? My 75 has been hanging out at 83-84 with our heat this week. My ground water is way warm out of the tap as well. 75-76. My ro is closer to 82.
Your pond looks great! So does the 75!
My thermometer conked out but I would guess upper 80's. I ended up turning off the CO2 for a few days because dissolved oxygen was clearly low.
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On 8/4/2022 at 12:39 PM, Patrick_G said:
It still looks pretty lush to me, or is this the before pic?
That was from Friday. Apparently it started to decline over the weekend. This is what it looks like now
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It'll come back. Not all of it is dead
On 8/4/2022 at 11:32 AM, Beardedbillygoat1975 said:@gjcarewdo you think it will come back or are you rethinking the wall?
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Sorry to hear that. I had that happen once after accidentally bumping the needle valve on my regulator and it's the worst feeling. For what it's worth I would love to know what brand it was that broke, so I know not to use it.