Adding Tropica Plant Substrate To My Mature Gravel Bed Tank

[Fillet 'O' Fish]

End of week 2 of EI dosing and things are really picking up !!!

Fitted an Aquamas reactor for my Co2 today and took out the Dennerle ladder. Seems to be working fine, and hidden away in the cupboard under the tank, (nice and tidy )

I know the plants are looking like they are taking over and those scapers amongst you would be dying for a prune , but I still want the plants to really take hold before having a good prune. I learnt the hard way before, - prune too early and suffer the Algae beast
When you think my tank is 750mm high, it gives you the scale of those amazon sword leaves - some knocking on 20" long !!
Take a look at the earlier pics in this post and see how mad they have gone.
That Tropica substrate is great stuff.

 

[Dave Spencer]

I cut my jungle back to soon and paid the price a little bit with algae. Just make sure certain plants don`t start to get too overshadowed.

I am trying to order an Aquamas reactor, but seem to be having problems paying through Paypal.

Dave.

 

[Fillet 'O' Fish]

I cut my jungle back to soon and paid the price a little bit with algae. Just make sure certain plants don`t start to get too overshadowed.

I am trying to order an Aquamas reactor, but seem to be having problems paying through Paypal.

Dave.

Dave
I had the same problem, the link from the Aquamas site to paypal is broken, and you cant get around that.
What I did in the end was to manually send the money on Paypal. Log in and then just click on send money, enter the sellers e-mail address and the Ebay item 'sold' reference in the paypal ref box. I then used my 'contact seller' function on ebay to let them know I had sent the money. Dont forget it comes with 16mm hose fittings, so let them know you want 12mm.
Regards
Brian

 

[Fillet 'O' Fish]

Well Tropica is surely a top substrate, I had a real jungle going on in the tank, and decided on a good prune.

Tank yesterday before prune:

My attempt at getting some order in there.....(think triangles he says to himself)

Any suggestions on re-structuring the plant layout guys?
Do you think I should get some more low level ground cover for the front area? If so any suggestions on plant type?

 

[nry]

I like it how it is, the wood and substrate look good, and the overall planting seems to taper down to the bottom left of the tank. I'm not personally a fan of this whole 'cover all the substrate' stuff, it can look good, but substrate can (in my opinion!) look very good in itself.

 

[Themuleous]

Quality tank mate think this is the first tank Ive really seen with the tropica substrate, certainly an excellent advert for using it.

Re the scape I think the left side works really well, but the swords dominate the right side to much.

Sam

 

[RadaR]

It looks lovely.
As Sam has said, the sword is a bit too dominating. I think some glosso growing around the roots on the left hand side would be nice.
Keep up the good work.

 

[planter]

The Tropica substrate certainly is good stuff ive been using it in my Aquaqube for a while now! Loveley tank love the lush green of those swords!

 

[Fillet 'O' Fish]

Thanks for the comments Guys.

I think your right Sam, the Swords are very dominating. Im not sure what to do no though. It seems a shame to waste them as they are so strong and vibrant in colour. I think I may need to thin them out though.

Regards

Brian

 

[Themuleous]

Yeah thin out and perhaps intersperse with a red coloured stem? R.Indica perhaps?

Sam

 

[iamwhoiam]

How many of the fish survived afterwards though?

 

[cheesy feet]

I would trim a few leaves of the sword and feed them to some fish if i were you.I have plenty of hungry vegetarians.

 

[Castellop123]

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[Amunet]

Wow.. I'm gonna have to show fiance this thread and get some of that plant fert substrate! Amazing. Our tank looks so empty and scraggly now.. I would love to have a lush looking tank like yours!
Question.. what's the plant on the right side (well.. left side when looking at the pics)... it has reddish? leaves.