Afroturfs 25g Tank

[Dave Spencer]

Hi Afro,

Sorry to hear about the lack of progress. I suspect you are paying the price of planting your final set up, rather than starting with fast growing algae busters. Why don`t you try floating Hydrocotyle Leucocephala for a while. I have some that grows like mad that I will use on my 60l, and you don`t have to plant it and ruin the scape.

I have no experience with staghorn, but I believe upping the CO2 and cleaning the substrate might help. Maybe persisting with Flourish Excel will get it eventually.

My 120l jungle tank will get a major overhaul tomorrow, provided the new stems arrive on time.

Dave.

 

[thefirethief]

Lovely tank man! What genus (?) are those Scarlet Badis? They look like killis but Ive not found much information. Nice wee fish by the looks of it!

 

[Themuleous]

I love Pseudomugil gertrudae, just a shame I cant seem to find them very much in the trade. A great fish for smaller tanks, the males are quite stunning when in full display mode.

Sam

 

[afroturf]

Dave, I think it may be due to co2 fluctuation that the algae is persisting I'm not very happy with the hydor system i'm running, mainly due to how often the bottles need replacing and the last bottle in the last few days of it life was still producing gas but the plants stopped pearling?

I've also just placed a order for a load of stemed plants hopefully these will out compete the algae, dave i was looking at your 120 lido http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=180008&hl= and was wondering what are the stem plants on the right and in the centre? I'm also planning on starting EI fertilising this should also give more me more control on the neutrient levels.

thefirethief they were sold as Dario Dario, theres some info on them here http/www.aquahobby.com/gallery/e_Dario_dario.php

 

[Dave Spencer]

Afro,

The stems on the right are Ludwigia Arcuata, plus a couple of rogue Bacopa Monnieri. The Ludwigia is a superb looking plant that turns orangey at its top three or four pairs of leafs, but it does seem to want to grow horizontal at times.

In the centre is Rotala Rotundifolia, which is ideal for smaller tanks due to its small leaf. These turn a nice shade of red at the top.

My back is killing me because I have just spent the last four hours getting rid of the Hygrophilia, cutting the Rotala back to half length (it was at the water`s surface and looking amazing) and planting the lopped heads plus 100 new Rotala stems where the Hygro was. I haven`t tried many plants out, what with being a newbie, but Rotala is a fantastic plant.

Oh yeah, I added 50 stems of very sorry looking Didiplis Diandra.

Cheers, Dave.

 

[afroturf]

My order arrived today, i ordered 8 bunches of rotala routundifolia green, 2 bunches stems of rotala wallichii, 3 bunches stem of indicia and 2 bunches stems of of ludwigia brevipes all from www.aquarium-gardening.com. This is what arrived.

Ludwigia brevipes on the left, rotala rotundifolia green? centre, rotala wallichii right.


rotundifolia green left, Rotala wallichii centre, rotala indicia right.


I think any one can tell that the rotundifolia green isn't rotuntifolia green. the bags that they can packed were labled as it. it looks like bacopa australis, but after looking at their web site it seens to be lindernia rotundifolia. I rang them to see why this mistake had happened and they said they were busy tring to get them set out before the weekend.

I'm not that happy with any of the plants other than the brevipes. The wallichii looks like emersed form so in time it will revert to the submersed form, the indicia is a completely different coulour to that advertised. I was offered a replacement for the Lindernia but what i want to replace it with is rotala rotundifolia green with they don't have in stock. I could just sell them all and buy some quality plants that i know what i'm getting from tropica.

Anyone interested in any of the plants pictured above? other than the brevipes.

 

[lljdma06]

The problem with many rotala species is that they 1. look really different between emersed and submersed growth and 2. Plants in these nurseries are often grown under very intense growing conditions that will frequently change the colors. I experience this problem with H. difformis from companies as well, they often send me emersed growth. It takes forever for the growth to change, but it does. I have a patient nature, so my inclination would be just to plant what you have and wait. But if the plants are completely unhealthy, you would most certainly have an issue. From what I can see, however, the plants look good to me and you have a lot of new stemplants to stabilize your system. Use them for now, get your tank perameters and any algae issues that spring up under control, and when you want a change or want tropica plants, bin these and get what you want.

llj

 

[Dave Spencer]

Afro,

My Rotala Rotundifolia from Greenline arrives a very dark red with a thick stem and stubby fat leaves. Within two days of planting it is sprouting needle thin stems with slender green leaves. After two weeks it as at the surface with the upper inch showing a nice orangey red colour.

Your plants may look a little scabby, but it is quite satisfying watching them turn in to perfect, healthy specimens. Chin up, old boy!

Dave.

 

[afroturf]

I know, i should be more patient the plants i did recieve were ok and he did say he'd replace the lindernia for what i wanted and i don't even need to send the unwanted plants back. So i'll wait for the rotala green to come back in to stock and in the meen time i'll plant these and watch them grow.

One more thing to make my day all the more frustrating this morning the blyxa and alot of the downoi had suffered sever melting i don't what could have caused this all the parameter are ok and i haven't dosed any excel for a few days know so it can't be dur to a excel overdose. Just hope i can salvage some.

 

[thefirethief]

Man I love this tank, any new pictures? How did you get on with your Blue Eye fry? Ive stocked my planted 24G with 13 Female and 5 Males in the hope they will spawn. I cant find very specific breeding information on them so I guess its a case of leaving them to it!


Mark

 

[SuperColey1]

Ive read that Rotala Rotundifolia Red is quite often called Indica and to me yours does look like Roala Rotundifolia.

If I were you I'd just put it in let it grow. It seems to be quite a hardy plant and my does it look great in some of the 'pro' tanks

andy

 

[afroturf]

Mark, the tanks been a real pain in the behind over the past month and there hasn’t been any progress if anything it gone backwards. . And its not been easy to rectify any problems as I’ve been at uni and I’m not in work. There has been just one problem after another.

1st problem is the algae the excel hardly touched the stuff so I ended up removing most by hand and as it was entwined in the HC it resulted in most of that also being removed

2nd I carried out a routine water change and the next morning the downoi and Blyxa had very bad melt as a result they have all now disappeared.

3rd I ordered some stem plants to replace the vallis and I received different plants to one I specified. I’ve got to wait a few weeks for the correct ones (rotundifolia green) to be sent.

4th also the Hydor co2 system decided to fail on me so I’ve not had any co2 for a while, it has been a blessing in disguise in a way as I’ve now got a Aquamas system on order which will save me money in the long run form spending money on the stupid little hydor refills, The aquamas sytem was sent to my uni address rather than my home one to.

In terms of the blue eyes fry the two that I have are still alive have grown steadily they are about 7mm long now twice the size they were when I found them. All the info I found said that they are hard to breed but I haven’t found this to bee true and with the mix you have I think it wont be too long till you have a few babies of you own.

Now that I’ve lost most of the foreground I’m thinking of using different plants rather than replacing it with HC again possibly Echinodorus tenellus and eleocharis

 

[nry]

I had staghorn algae for a while. It seemed to favour the top of the tank and slower/older leaves on plants with wide/large leaves. It never touched my cabomba but swamped my vallis and part of my rotala macranda. In the end I stripped out all the vallis, cut back the r.m. heavily, reduced the lighting period slightly and added loads more cabomba. So far it has not re-appeared....probably tempting fate by saying that! I used to use Flourish Excel (and did so all the way through the staghorn) but have moved to using a Nutrafin CO2 kit now.

You have absolutely loads of light in that tank, way beyond my current 1wpg....if algae persists is there the option of either reducing the lighting hours or reducing the light level? I have this thing that there is a balance between plant growth, algae and lighting levels/periods. If I went much above a single 7 hour period algae would take a hold. Gaps etc made no difference at all....for now a 7 hour period gives me decent plant growth and minimal algae...it'll stay like that for a while as I am upping my 15w T8 to a 36w power compact T5. Time will tell if algae comes back!

 

[Castellop123]

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[mlawson]

Great tank, I love it, amazing for a first attempt. Update?

I noticed you keep C. pygmaeus and C. Habrosus, which do you think is the best in terms of colour and movement? I was thinking of getting a group of either of the 2 or C. hastatus. Now I'm thinking of getting a group of all 3.