Been Busy.

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I was looking at my Twenty gallon and decided it needed some attention. Looking at everybody else's nice pictures got me inspired. So I did a little plant craft project.

 

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Been busy getting Killifish ready to spawn too.

 

[FishGuest5123]

Love the aqua scraping! Great job.

 

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Love the aqua scraping! Great job.

Thank you Madame'.

 

[nycaquagal2020]

Nice work! What's the cool looking kind of stringy green stuff?

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Nice work! What's the cool looking kind of stringy green stuff?

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If you're looking at the Killifish pictures that's plain old acrylic yarn for a spawning mop. The fish lay their eggs into it instead of live plants. The aquarist can then pull the mop and collect the eggs to incubate in trays. They hatch out and then you raise them up. Killifish breed almost continuously laying 2 to 3 eggs every day as opposed to ,say an Angelfish, that lays a hundred eggs all at once periodically.

 

[PheonixKingZ]

That is a very nice piece of driftwood, where did you pick that up? Is that just Java fern glued to the wood? And that tidbit about the yarn is very interesting!

The tank looks great!

(P.S. That killfish looks AWSOME! )

 

[nycaquagal2020]

Ohhhhhh I see thanks for letting me know!

I was sure I'd never seen a "plant" like that Lol.

Fan of Killifish maybe next tank.

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[Back in the fold]

It's good to stay busy. Picked my first three eggs just a bit ago. @PheonixKingZ that's Java Fern tied to a piece of driftwood I got at PetsMart. Cost me 12 bucks so I had to do something with it. It had a lot of little poky points and sharp edges but thanks to the Dremel tool it is now smooth and fish friendly. Lot of tannin in it. Water is coloring up nice. Imported from Vietnam.

 

[Kritastrophe]

Tanks looking amazing. Love your Petrie dishes for the eggs. Ha ha!

 

[PheonixKingZ]

View attachment 95193 View attachment 95194 View attachment 95195 It's good to stay busy. Picked my first three eggs just a bit ago. @PheonixKingZ that's Java Fern tied to a piece of driftwood I got at PetsMart. Cost me 12 bucks so I had to do something with it. It had a lot of little poky points and sharp edges but thanks to the Dremel tool it is now smooth and fish friendly. Lot of tannin in it. Water is coloring up nice. Imported from Vietnam.

is that sand blasted grapevine? A fairly large piece of that stuff is only like $5 and I'm looking for a cool piece to put in my 5g betta tank

 

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I don't know what type of wood it is. The tag on it said imported from Phillipines or Vietnam. Since I had my choice I chose Vietnam. I just wonder how long it will take the Java Fern to actually root to it. I saw a place where you could buy something very similar and it was $75 bucks ! So I made my own with plants I already had and my $12 dollar piece of wood. By the way @PheonixKingZ I followed your lead and put a desk lamp over the tank and I think I will have the good results you got.

 

[Retired Viking]

I like what your doing, looks nice so far. I am new to live plants. I picked up a java fern- they are nice looking plants. I have it just sitting in my tank right now but I am thinking of attaching it to a lava rock.

 

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Hey @Retired Viking thanks for the compliment. You picked the best plant to start out with as live aquatic plants go. The ones you see in my tank are over four years old. For awhile I didn't have a tank set up and the ones in my pictures were in a quart jar on the kitchen windowsill. They are tough beyond belief. Also very slow growing. I have had it as a floating plant for awhile but took the three biggest sprigs and tied it with carpet thread to that driftwood. It will eventually root to that driftwood but that will take a long time. Your idea of sticking it to a piece of lava rock will also work very well. The nice thing about the lava rock and the driftwood is that you have a portable plant decoration. No worries about uprooting and stunting it because it isn't in the substrate. Java Fern is also very undemanding and thrives in dim light. It propagates itself by shooting out new plants from its bigger leaves. Its tough leaves get left alone by all but the big bad cichlids and you will like it.