Old Time Riverman
- Thread starter BigC
- Start date
Or dwarf sag in the place of the chain swords?? Or crypt Parva?
We've given him suggestions, let him decide... My dwarf sag's pretty tall in my ADA, past 2 inches already. Parva might work beautifully, but I do like the delicacy of hairgrass. He just has to go through the effort of planting it properly. I also like the contrast of haigrass with P. helferi. 
Hope he can get Vallis nana. An elegant plant.
OK Boys n Girls,
This is what I've come up with surrounding all the things you have related to me thus far. I have kept pretty much to what Liz has said with a little dwarf Hairgrass thrown in.(Ian) I know this scape is not set in stone and it can be shuffled about a bit when I find out what's working for me and what's not.
So what do you think guys.....run with this?
When the time comes this looks like a mail order job as I want to have all the plants ready for planting at the same time and I doubt very much if my LFS could make this happen.
Great news today and miracles never cease, I managed to get all the bits n pieces for the lighting, every last item. I will tackle this task tomorrow and cataloge what I have done complete with pictures. So all in all a pretty good day, even though I've still the fish to feed.
I nearly droped dead when my LFS actually stocked all the items.
Regards
C
This is what I've come up with surrounding all the things you have related to me thus far. I have kept pretty much to what Liz has said with a little dwarf Hairgrass thrown in.(Ian) I know this scape is not set in stone and it can be shuffled about a bit when I find out what's working for me and what's not.
- Vallisneria nana
- Vesicularia dubyana
- Anubias barteri var. nana
- Echinodorus tenellus
- Heteranthera zosterifolia
- Hygrophila polysperma 'Rosanervig
- Cryptocoryne wendtii "green'
- Cryptocoryne wendtii "brown'
- Pogostemon helferi
- Elocharis acicularis
So what do you think guys.....run with this?
When the time comes this looks like a mail order job as I want to have all the plants ready for planting at the same time and I doubt very much if my LFS could make this happen.
Great news today and miracles never cease, I managed to get all the bits n pieces for the lighting, every last item. I will tackle this task tomorrow and cataloge what I have done complete with pictures. So all in all a pretty good day, even though I've still the fish to feed.
I nearly droped dead when my LFS actually stocked all the items. Regards
C
It looks good apart from the Echinodorus tenellus, this doesn't make a good carpet plant IME. I currently have mature Echinodorus tenellus in my main tank and it's very tall (20cm), as a immersed plants its nice, but after its been submerged for a number of months it will change...
Hi Ian,
Other than that your happy with it then....
When I go to the LFS, they sometimes have Hairgrass and it's pretty tall, probably around 4" (maybe a different sp.) whereas the Echinodorus tenellus is small by comparison in its pot. If push comes to shove I can always change things around and swap 4 for 10.
Thanks for all the input thus far guys keep it comming.
Regards
C
Other than that your happy with it then....
When I go to the LFS, they sometimes have Hairgrass and it's pretty tall, probably around 4" (maybe a different sp.) whereas the Echinodorus tenellus is small by comparison in its pot. If push comes to shove I can always change things around and swap 4 for 10.
Thanks for all the input thus far guys keep it comming.
Regards
C
The good thing about hairgrass is, that is can be trimmed, like garden grass. I always trim mine down to an inch, it'll carry on growing and putting out new shoots.
Other than that i think it looks good.
Other than that i think it looks good.
Ah with you now M8, I forgot about the hairdressing game, now you mention it (stupid me 
) it could very well work......Hmmmmmm.
Would you trim this before you put it in on a new build or let it get established first and then get the scissors out.
Regards
C
I forgot about the hairdressing game, now you mention it (stupid me ) it could very well work......Hmmmmmm.Would you trim this before you put it in on a new build or let it get established first and then get the scissors out.
Regards
C
I normally trim it before I use it. You may want to get some long angled scissors though, C.
Yeah I've seen those along with tweezers, but I can tell you now they wont be ADA branded.
They will come under accessories... a little later
I want to concentrate on the lighting tomorrow and get that fitted. Then post an update.
I'm approaching this build in a modular fashion, picking one aspect at a time and completing it and then moving forward to the next. I put the fish list and the planting plan out there to gain feedback before I actually get to those particular stages and so far that's been a pretty fruitful and successful move as I think I now have an understanding of what plants will be going where.
I'm also going to go with the Marble Hatchet-fish (Carnegiella strigata) that Liz suggested, I forgot about those, nice body shape too, and smaller than their silver cousins. I want to keep the fish numbers down as I want the plants to dominate.
I would maybe like to use a floating plant, I will manage it so as it doesnt become evasive so any suggestions on that, In the past I've always used Salvinia natans but I'm bored with that so any suggestions for something small (no duckweed please)
Waterchanging another aspect, when and how much. I normally would change a third weekly, anything wrong with this approach.
Regards
C
They will come under accessories... a little later
I want to concentrate on the lighting tomorrow and get that fitted. Then post an update.
I'm approaching this build in a modular fashion, picking one aspect at a time and completing it and then moving forward to the next. I put the fish list and the planting plan out there to gain feedback before I actually get to those particular stages and so far that's been a pretty fruitful and successful move as I think I now have an understanding of what plants will be going where.
I'm also going to go with the Marble Hatchet-fish (Carnegiella strigata) that Liz suggested, I forgot about those, nice body shape too, and smaller than their silver cousins. I want to keep the fish numbers down as I want the plants to dominate.
I would maybe like to use a floating plant, I will manage it so as it doesnt become evasive so any suggestions on that, In the past I've always used Salvinia natans but I'm bored with that so any suggestions for something small (no duckweed please
)Waterchanging another aspect, when and how much. I normally would change a third weekly, anything wrong with this approach.
Regards
C
I'm playing with Salvinia minima, at least I think it is in my scape, could be natans. How big are the leaves in your Salvinia species? Mine are at about a quarter inch or less. Azolla might be pretty. Frogbit is an option, but this can get big. If you trim the large plants and keep the small, that might be pretty, very large roots, though. Right now, I'm letting my Salvinia go everywhere since I don't have a lot, but as soon as it becomes a problem, I'll contain the growth to plastic rings I make from plastic cups. You get the benefit of floating plants and they don't get everywhere. Other floaters I think would get too big.
Waterchanges. Well, you're going to dose ferts and inject CO2, so you're looking at 50% weekly, at least. Right now, my tank is very new, so I err on caution and do a 50% multiple times a week, especially to remove decaying plant material (read crypt melt) and other items that could lead to ammonia spikes and algae production. This will be a problem in the beginning as several of the plants you've selected will probably convert from emersed to submerged growth. The emerged leaves die and it can get icky. Crypts also melt, so be prepared for that as well.
Waterchanges. Well, you're going to dose ferts and inject CO2, so you're looking at 50% weekly, at least. Right now, my tank is very new, so I err on caution and do a 50% multiple times a week, especially to remove decaying plant material (read crypt melt) and other items that could lead to ammonia spikes and algae production. This will be a problem in the beginning as several of the plants you've selected will probably convert from emersed to submerged growth. The emerged leaves die and it can get icky. Crypts also melt, so be prepared for that as well.
Hi Liz,
Salvinia natans, is a nice floating plant, it forms chains of leaves as it grows. It seems to grow better under daylight spectrum tubes. The leaf structure of natans is a lot larger than you suggest for your variety. So I may well look into that aspect alongside small frogbit plant-lets. I always have lots of S.natans around, it's roots make a great hiding place for Rivulus fry. I do throw a great lot of it away as it does propagate very quickly. If left unchallenged the strands will overgrow each other, blocking out light to lower leaves which then decay.
See images below for size comparisons. A mature natans leaf would be around 3/4 of an inch.
Waterchanging. As much as 50% eh! That does surprise me somewhat as I would have been under the impression of trying to keep as much ferts and nutrients in the water as much as possible, but I do suppose that given time these may super saturate and lead to problems. So I can see where you are comming from there by performing larger changes. Will I need to perform multiple large changes when starting up?
Cryptocoryne melt. I am aware off and is well catalogued, I have had first hand experience of this in the past. So I will be expecting a certain amount of die off in the initial stages of planting this genre of aquatic plant sp.
Again thanks to everyone for involving themselves in this venture I cant express enough how grateful I am for your time and trouble in helping out.
Right....I'm off to get this lighting sorted out....back shortly
Regards
C
Salvinia natans, is a nice floating plant, it forms chains of leaves as it grows. It seems to grow better under daylight spectrum tubes. The leaf structure of natans is a lot larger than you suggest for your variety. So I may well look into that aspect alongside small frogbit plant-lets. I always have lots of S.natans around, it's roots make a great hiding place for Rivulus fry. I do throw a great lot of it away as it does propagate very quickly. If left unchallenged the strands will overgrow each other, blocking out light to lower leaves which then decay.
See images below for size comparisons. A mature natans leaf would be around 3/4 of an inch.
A small chain of S. natans alongside a daughter plant to seed new growth.
Waterchanging. As much as 50% eh! That does surprise me somewhat as I would have been under the impression of trying to keep as much ferts and nutrients in the water as much as possible, but I do suppose that given time these may super saturate and lead to problems. So I can see where you are comming from there by performing larger changes. Will I need to perform multiple large changes when starting up?
Cryptocoryne melt. I am aware off and is well catalogued, I have had first hand experience of this in the past. So I will be expecting a certain amount of die off in the initial stages of planting this genre of aquatic plant sp.
Again thanks to everyone for involving themselves in this venture I cant express enough how grateful I am for your time and trouble in helping out.
Right....I'm off to get this lighting sorted out....back shortly
Regards
C
The water change thing is very important in a high tec planted tank as the plants will release organic waste in themselves. Also we tend to OD ferts in a high tech tank, to ensure the plants get what they need. This in itself needs clearing every week, so we can start a fresh. Personally i favour two 20% water changes a week. This seems to keep my tank in check.
Cheers Ian,
So again, essentially pretty large water water-changes either staggered or all at once. Possibly depending on what suits a certain individual and his/her specific aquarium needs.
Observation as to what's going on and take note of water readings
Regards
C
So again, essentially pretty large water water-changes either staggered or all at once. Possibly depending on what suits a certain individual and his/her specific aquarium needs.
Observation as to what's going on and take note of water readings
Regards
C
Hi, Thanks, C, for posting those photos of your S. natans. I suspected that I had S. minima, but google image searches for both species yield images of both species that are not to scale, so id'ing becomes kind of tough. Coupled with the fact that minima is indeed found in FL and that the plants appeared in my 36g coincidently after my time in the convention. I stored some dwarf sag I got in the auction in that tank. I'll get a picture up of my Salvinia for comparison tonight. Right now, I should be doing syllabi for work, so I won't be on much today.
Yes, waterchanges are important, I tend to just do mine all at once, but it depends on my schedule. You can definitely stagger as Ian does. My point is that when the tank is new, you have to be on top of things big time. You can't slide, especially if you are going high tech. Your initial planting is going to be dense, which is great, and you are sorting out all the details before you actually plant the tank, whch is, again, great. Most don't don't follow these steps, and it ends up being damage control. When I go Marine, expect my first journal to be just as detail-oriented. Bleh... back to work...
Liz
Yes, waterchanges are important, I tend to just do mine all at once, but it depends on my schedule. You can definitely stagger as Ian does. My point is that when the tank is new, you have to be on top of things big time. You can't slide, especially if you are going high tech. Your initial planting is going to be dense, which is great, and you are sorting out all the details before you actually plant the tank, whch is, again, great. Most don't don't follow these steps, and it ends up being damage control. When I go Marine, expect my first journal to be just as detail-oriented. Bleh... back to work...
Liz
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