Lol, I stretched some tights over the intake on my internal so I shouldn't have to fish them out of that. Definitely need more shrimp and possibly some snails in there, looks a bit silly with 3 little Cherry Shrimp in a 2 foot tank haha
Ok so recieved some plants from Tanksalot (massive thanks!) and got them in earlier today and the shrimp are loving the extra cover... all 3 of them!
The basic idea is as the plan above shows, Crypts around the stones and wood, narrow leaf java fern at the back of the tank, Sag over the left side and just need some Staurogyne to carpet the big empty space now! May also add in some normal Java fern once my plantlets grow enough to be tied to a stone or wood etc.
Have to apologise for the poor pictures, the water is a bit murky from planting and the wood is leeching a bit, and I'm used to motorsport photography, and the lightings poor, dirty glass etc etc (Think thats enough excuses )
My Crypt wendtii Tropica has started to melt a little, few holey leaves which I will trim off at some point. Hoping the new ones don't throw too much of a fit either lol. Also hoping my Sag doesn't die off like the Vallis has 4 times I've tried it
Can't wait for Staurogyne now though to really finish it off, then its LED light build and more shrimp (hopefully coming this week)
I've never had a crypt melt, but I know it happens a lot...still, they will come back even if they do (looking at your main tank you can obviously grow plants, so no worries there!).
Are you in a soft water area? That can be a problem for Vallis. I don't think the dwarf sag is at all fussy though - I've messed mine around a lot with different conditions and it always bounces back
I have no clue about LED's so I shall look forward to following the build - might venture into them myself if I could ever work out what I'd need
I usually get a couple of leaves wither away but nothing major and some pruning can't keep in line.
Thats the thing that stumped me about Vallis, we have hard water in my area and it still dies lol. I planted around 30-40 plants worth in my other 125L along with root tabs and Liquid CO2/EI ferts daily and its all dead
I shall be building the system soon, will order all the bits on the weekend when I get paid but it will take a couple of weeks to sort because most of it comes from Hong Kong, I shall document my methods and post them here though for people thinking of doing it. There is a few LED light builds on here but another cant hurt can it!
Added 20 more shrimp today but they are sub-adults. Can't tell quality due to their size but they were only a few quid for the lot so I don't mind much, I just enjoy watching them more than anything
Also I spotted a few shrimplets of my own swimming around today so looks like atleast 1 of my females have given birth too!