90l Dwarf Puffer Jungle

[BigTom]

As explained in a previous thread, I had someone else look after my old South American community setup for 18 months, by the time I got it back there was nothing left except a few corys and two common plecs which he had added, and the whole thing looked a bit sad and sorry for itself.

So, time for something a bit different! The plecs and corys have been rehomed and the tank is now home to six miniature terrors and a mixture of cherry and tiger shrimp (thanks pippoodle!). I have CO2 and ferts arriving tomorrow and am in the middle of replanting after getting sucked in by the plant sale at my LFS


Tank:

ViaAqua AR620 (90 litres)
Built in filter and lighting (2x 20w T8)
Plain sand substrate
Livestock: 6 Dps, about a dozen mixed shrimp (pippoodle sent me 20 but the babies were instant puffer snacks, don't tell her! )
Plants: Previously just swords, java fern, java moss and anubias nana, but will be planting with new stuff today.

Heres how it looked when I first got it home after 18 months of zero maintenance except water changes. Could have been worse, but there was a lot fo algae and some pretty emaciated looking plants:

Will update this later this evening once I've got all the new plants in.

Cheers!

 

[BigTom]

ARGH!

RICCIA EVERYWHERE!

Just found some in my hair, lmao

 

[BigTom]

OK, planting done. Will post pics tomorrow, everything's looking much better, the puffers are inspecting every last inch of the new plants and look massively annoyed that absolutely none of it is deemed edible

 

[three-fingers]

Nice tank, looking forward to more pics .
Riccia is a pain .

 

[iSnail]

It looks nice DPs has to be the fish of the season

Can't wait to see your six "miniature terrors"

 

[BigTom]

Right, here's how it looked after planting last night. Not too bad all in all, but I hate the stupid rectangle of riccia, so I'm going down to the beach to get some pebbles instead, will get that and the HC planted properly this afternoon. I've deliberately left a couple of small planting holes that hopefully red tiger lotus bulbs will be growing into. Ignore the white pot, thats just carrying the escaped riccia from yesterday.

Annoyingly the CO2 and ferts havent arrived, the first lot were dispatched on Monday but got lost in the post, and no sign of the second shipment yet

 

[bagu]

looks great!

my puffer would love it there

If you dont mind me asking, how much did all that riccia cost?

i got mine of ebay for £5.oo and its half dead, its brown and just starting to show new green shoots =(

 

[BigTom]

looks great!

my puffer would love it there

If you dont mind me asking, how much did all that riccia cost?

i got mine of ebay for £5.oo and its half dead, its brown and just starting to show new green shoots =(

That much riccia cost me £6 plus I think £2.50 postage from ebay, the seller still has some advertised but seems to have put his prices up! You do get a very generous portion though, and mine arrived in very good condition form the UK, no browning. He also doesn't treat it with pesticides.

http/cgi.ebay.co.uk/Riccia-Tropical-Fish...93%3A1|294%3A50

 

[bagu]

looks great!

my puffer would love it there

If you dont mind me asking, how much did all that riccia cost?

i got mine of ebay for £5.oo and its half dead, its brown and just starting to show new green shoots =(

That much riccia cost me £6 plus I think £2.50 postage from ebay, the seller still has some advertised but seems to have put his prices up! You do get a very generous portion though, and mine arrived in very good condition form the UK, no browning. He also doesn't treat it with pesticides.

[URL="http/cgi.ebay.co.uk/Riccia-Tropical-Fish...93%3A1|294%3A50"]http/cgi.ebay.co.uk/Riccia-Tropical-Fish...93%3A1|294%3A50[/URL]

hoyl cow thats amazing!

i only got about 3"x3" =(

 

[BigTom]

Yeah I wasn't really planning on getting riccia but it looked like a good deal. Far better than the tiny 3cm pot of HC Cuba from jjcaquatics on ebay that cost almost as much.

Just been down to the beach (love living in Cornwall!) to get some nice rounded quartz pebbles, they're currently boiling away happily.

 

[BigTom]

Riccia all redone, looks way better on the rocks, much happier with everything now. Will post pics once its all settled.

Almost through out one of my Dps though! Little bugger slipped into the net when I was scooping off the surface riccia, only just spotted him, he looked just like little dead leaf! Hopefully he'll be ok, will have to keep an eye on him.

 

[iSnail]

Almost through out one of my Dps though! Little bugger slipped into the net when I was scooping off the surface riccia, only just spotted him, he looked just like little dead leaf! Hopefully he'll be ok, will have to keep an eye on him.

They are nosey little rascals

 

[BigTom]

Hehe yeah, he seems fine now, ate a few bloodworm and joined in with taking it in turns to chase each other around the tank.

Here's how it's looking, the stones have given everything a really nice sense of depth (look better in the flesh due to the funny things my super wideangle lens does to the perspective):

Still have some left over riccia, will buy some more hairnets and cover a few of the smaller stones too I think. Hopefully the HC will grow out, I just couldn't be arsed planting it in anything other than clumps after spending two days battling riccia

 

[iSnail]

I like the look of riccia but hate the high maintenance. Still got some bits of dwarf riccia floating around two years after removing it. The round stones look much nicer than the flat lawn

 

[oliesminis]

Nice tank, how many dps?