New Tank

I can't believe I missed this, Liam.

Very, very well done. Please enter this into the PFK Aquascaping Contest....

Gorgeous tank hey George? Nice to see something a bit different too. I see the crystal reds in that photo as well.

Sam

Truely an inspiring tank Liam Congrats, its fantastic!

hi liam as everyone has said this is a superb display and deserves a big thumbs up also what camera do you use? regards john

Thanks a lot George, I’ll see how the tank goes and maybe enter, I am looking forward to seeing the entries.

Thanks again Sam you have been very encouraging. The tank is getting even more like your description of a lace plant in a moss box .
Thanks Corin, I am sure the moss will be very happy in your tank. This is a not so great pic from today,
Cheers DevUk for the positive words.
John thanks for the thumbs up. The earlier shots are with a Fugi finepix S7000 that is on the blink now so I got a canon D400, which I am trying to learn to use.

The lace will go dormant eventually and by then the ferns should have grown and it may come out, I love it as a plant though. I put back on the extra 24 watts for a couple of hours to see if it would grow a little more compact which seems to be working the new leaves have slightly shorter stems. The leaves look more yellow in the pic than they are because of the tank lights.
The tank has been pretty okay as far as algae is concerned, the bga has disappeared, a little bba is appearing near the filter outflow on the wood, I scrub it off, low Co2 I guess but the ph is low enough as it is and I don’t want to increase the kh, unless the bba becomes a real problem. I am doing a bit more water changing to see if that helps, don’t know if it does or not.

Thanks again all I really appreciate the feedback.

Tank still looks great Liam

It was this tank that turned my thinking on moss because before I just saw scruffy patches of 'mess' looking out of place in other tanks and to be honest I prefer a nice normal plant to mosses.

Somehow in your tank it just looks so natural and 'real' which I guess is what we're all trying to achieve, most of us ending up with either with a false looking hotch potch, or an identity parade of plants.

Keep up the good work, and please enter the PFK comp as this has been my favourite tank for a couple of months now and I regularly look back at this thread to feel totally jealous whilst also feeling the urge to drive on and create my own little piece of nature (although I seem to be heading down the hotch potch route)

I suppose I'll have to see how mine matures before comparing it to a 'wonder tank' like yours

On a secondary note have you seen this moss before (you obviously know and like your mosses)

http/cgi.ebay.co.uk/Star-Moss-Live-Aquar...oQQcmdZViewItem

I don't want to buy it but was just wondering if you had seen it before or if it is a new one.

Look forward to more pics soon

Andy

Cheers Andy for the nice words, I think you might like this tank more than me, it’s a pretty basic set up, the lace plant is far bigger than I expected the biggest leaves are over a foot and a half long including stems, I think its far too dominant, much as I like it
Thanks for the link on the moss, that site is very mossy and shrimpy needless to say I like it a lot, will be doing some shopping I think, I have never seen that moss before will have to get it .
Here is another pic, I don’t like the last one I posted and this one is not a lot better, I added extra light for the photo, I managed better pics with my simpler camera. I redid the willow moss ropes at the front so they need to grow some before they look lush again. Also a pic of one of the first cherry shrimp I got. She is an old lady in shrimp years, her colour is really strong.
Also a week old crystal red on a lace leaf, its mother had something wrong with her eyes and she lost them, but her eggs hatched and she is still doing okay and seems to manage without them, she may grow them back after a couple of molts.

wow stunning, tank, definately given me some inspiration for a low maintenance set up!!

hope you don't mind me bothering you with a few question

how many wpg do you have and for how many hrs a day?

you mentioned some of the mosses prefer the cooler temps, what would you say is the maximum temp you'd keep them at?

This is a really interesting thread. I'm a huge fan of mosses, both aquatic and terrestrial so your tank is total eye-candy for me! I recently bought a load of java moss, not really set on what to do with it, but I've got lots more ideas now having seen your little tank.
I also love your shrimp! I'd love to have some shrimp in my tank, but with tiger barbs I reckon they might get a bit hassled!

Thanks for the nice words Alice, It’s one watt per gallon for eight and a half hours (the lights that came with the tank) and I have an extra 24 watts which I only have on for 2 hours now, I didn’t have it on for a month and could do without it except I wanted the lace plant to grow more compact, (not sure the extra light for a short time makes much difference). Most moss is fine at normal tropical temperatures; java moss is fine even at 30C. I only noticed the willow moss didn’t grow as well at 26C as it does at 22C which is what I keep this tank at, there could be other reasons for that though. Normal tropical temperatures are fine for most of them.

Its very low maintenance and was algae free (well virtually), there is a spot or two of bba appearing in the last few weeks. I have Co2, it just drops the ph a half point for the acid preferring shrimp. I have a five-gallon with just moss and a few small crypts its got yeast Co2 and has no noticeable algae with 11 watts of light for nine hours.

Xauto… thanks for that, moss is excellent doesn’t need much to grow and looks good. My garden is too dry to grow terrestrial ones. Large amano shrimp might be okay with tiger barbs, I have seen my blue rams trying to have a go at them but the shrimp can hold their own.

a post needs a picture; shrimp, taiwan moss and narrow java fern

Liam said:

Thanks for the nice words Alice, It’s one watt per gallon for eight and a half hours (the lights that came with the tank) and I have an extra 24 watts which I only have on for 2 hours now, I didn’t have it on for a month and could do without it except I wanted the lace plant to grow more compact, (not sure the extra light for a short time makes much difference). Most moss is fine at normal tropical temperatures; java moss is fine even at 30C. I only noticed the willow moss didn’t grow as well at 26C as it does at 22C which is what I keep this tank at, there could be other reasons for that though. Normal tropical temperatures are fine for most of them.

Its very low maintenance and was algae free (well virtually), there is a spot or two of bba appearing in the last few weeks. I have Co2, it just drops the ph a half point for the acid preferring shrimp. I have a five-gallon with just moss and a few small crypts its got yeast Co2 and has no noticeable algae with 11 watts of light for nine hours.

Click to expand...

Thanks for that Liam

I hope you take it as a compliment that I'm now planning smething similar for my little tank, got a few ideas of my own not just copying it, but mmmm moss is looking good!!

I've said it once and I'll say it again, that Lace Plant is INCREDIBLE!

That 'star moss' on ebay looked really interesting so I did a quick Google and it turns out that the moss isn't actually aquatic, so I don't know how well it would last in an aquarium in the long run. Here: http/www.fs.fed.us/database/feis/plants/...torrur/all.html

If you google a lot of mosses and fissidens they're not aquatic but most of them do work under water, and I wouldn't think AM would sell them if they wouldn't survive.

For example I bought some Fissiden Zippelianus from them and the natural place for it to grow is on the roots of trees on the banks of rivers, but after a slow start it is starting to grow nicely in my tank. If you look at the Fissidens varieties in this tank of Liams they are growing well.

Andy