Remove Pots And Manky Sponge ?

[Alverez]

ok so , ive been and got my self a few foreground plants , my question is , would it be wise to remove the pots they are currently in, seeing as the sponge is black with gunk and , i dare say some vital nutrients for the plant , seeing as they have all been growing a while and are well established ?

i can see an advantage to both removing the pot, and keeping it ?


what shall i do ?

 

[iankent]

ok so , ive been and got my self a few foreground plants , my question is , would it be wise to remove the pots they are currently in, seeing as the sponge is black with gunk and , i dare say some vital nutrients for the plant , seeing as they have all been growing a while and are well established ?

i can see an advantage to both removing the pot, and keeping it ?


what shall i do ?

personally i took all of my plants out of the pots, removed the foam, and probably destroyed half the roots in the process - regardless, they're all growing fine, and a few of them have grown a few inches since thursday!! (put them in about 2 weeks ago)

 

[Alverez]

thats good news , for us both ! im just about to add some pix of these plants , have a look ....

i have got some plant food, and everything looks good for plants so im gonna jump in and go for it

thanks...

ill be checking for snails too after a closer look at the last piccy !!

 

[stormy78]

I was advised to remove the pot and packing foam and then trim the roots back to about an inch or so long to encourage new growth. all my plants seem to be growing like mad!

 

[iankent]

thats good news , for us both ! im just about to add some pix of these plants , have a look ...

i have all of those they look great! they grow fast too... will probably need trimming back within a few weeks lol! they should be fine if you take off the sponges - as I said, my roots got a bit damaged in the process and they're all still fine now (the roots of one had spread half way across the tank when I emptied it out earlier)

 

[Alverez]

well i have made some changes to my tank this week, ive removed all the pots stripped back the roots 1-2 cm , lets see how it all goes....2 plants are tied into pots for the sake of not having floaters, lol

and im not using a co2 system so fingers crossed my lighting and water conditions allow the plants to thrive .


opinions plz ................

 

[iankent]

well i have made some changes to my tank this week, ive removed all the pots stripped back the roots 1-2 cm , lets see how it all goes....2 plants are tied into pots for the sake of not having floaters, lol

and im not using a co2 system so fingers crossed my lighting and water conditions allow the plants to thrive .


opinions plz ................

thats cool! you should get some closeups of the neons! love the background too

 

[Alverez]

the neons are camera shy hehe , ive tried , have a look....

 

[iankent]

the neons are camera shy hehe , ive tried , have a look....

chase them around the tank with the camera or tempt them with food lol!

actually, here's a couple of tips for anyone wanting to take photos - from my experience the last few weeks:
- if you have manual focus, use that (especially if the autofocus on your camera is a bit slow), or if your camera supports it, a constantly updating focus mode, e.g. sport mode)
- if your using the flash, try and get as close to the glass as you can with the camera lens, and try to make sure the reflection of the flash isn't in the photo at all (if it is, part of the photo will be missing and the rest will be overexposed)
- if your aquarium light is bright enough, the best time to take photos is when the room is dark but the tank is well lit (you'll get less reflection that way) - try and take the photos from a distance and zoom in, but only use optical zoom (digital zoom is a waste of time - you might as well crop the photo using photoshop!). if you try to get too close with a standard camera lens (or a point and shoot camera), it probably cant focus on anything closer than about 8 inches (maybe as far as 1ft)
- if you can, take the flash off the camera (but still connected!), and position it to the side of the tank or above it (at roughly a 90 degree angle from the camera) - avoids the reflections and overexposures entirely!
- if your camera supports it, increase the ISO (i.e., lower the quality of the image - I used ISO400 for some of my aquarium photos), and decrease the shutter speed (you dont want anything slower than 1/100th second, or you'll get blurry photos - the fish move too quickly!)

edit: just noticed I contradict myself with the "get as close as you can" and "take the photo as far away as possible" - what I meant to say is, if your camera is having trouble focusing that close to the glass, move further away and zoom in a bit, but beware of the flash!

another edit: if your zooming in from a distance, you'll need a faster shutter speed and better lighting conditions in response! because your zoomed in, any vibrations in the camera will be magnified, so to avoid motion blur from the vibrations you need a faster shutter speed!

 

[Alverez]

i dont use the flash , lol

handy tips tho , cheers

 

[iankent]

np

if you dont use a flash, you could try using a bright desk lamp pointing into the tank from above! you might need to adjust the white balance on your camera, or use something like photoshop to change the colour slightly (desk lamps tend to be a bit yellower than aquarium lights or camera flashes!)

saying that, in the first few photos your aquarium light is definately bright enough just need to close those curtains

 

[Alverez]

i dont have curtains, lmao

 

[iankent]

i dont have curtains, lmao

... lol

 

[tenohfive]

A cheap and cheerful tripod does wonders, can zoom in as much as you want then. If you have the option to adjust shutterspeed, do-you can get away with shutterspeeds of 1/60 etc for slow moving/stationary fish. My danio's are a bugger to catch though.

And manual focus is a must for any close shots.

 

[iankent]

A cheap and cheerful tripod does wonders, can zoom in as much as you want then. If you have the option to adjust shutterspeed, do-you can get away with shutterspeeds of 1/60 etc for slow moving/stationary fish. My danio's are a bugger to catch though.

And manual focus is a must for any close shots.

excellent advice - although I have to say I find my tripod nothing but trouble, and wherever possible try to just use a faster shutter speed. invaluable at times though!

something else worth mentioning is the crap depth of field you get photographing an aquarium - if your trying to get a photo of your fish, you probably wont get more than one or two in focus at a time - depending on your camera settings, you're only likely to have a depth of field of a few centimeters at the most! (Anyway, having a blurry background against a sharply focused fish looks great!)