Supercoley's First Planted Tank Adventure

[SuperColey1]

Riccia need >2WPG to grow, and cannot be in the shade. Your tank is 70W over 40G? about 1.75WPG therefore you would be right on the borderline.

You have bought the same plant twice.

Riccia is a floating plant, that people net to keep down or let float.

You should have said. I've just binned about 2 litres worth. got bored with the look really.

Andy

 

[Nosnibor]

Riccia need >2WPG to grow, and cannot be in the shade. Your tank is 70W over 40G? about 1.75WPG therefore you would be right on the borderline.

You have bought the same plant twice.

Riccia is a floating plant, that people net to keep down or let float.

You should have said. I've just binned about 2 litres worth. got bored with the look really.

Andy

Yeah I read up one of your posts when you said that you got bored with it, it was cheapish and I thought it would be a quick thing. What's the difference with that and Christmas Moss?

I take it you work out your maximum wattage of light and divide it by your gallons to get your Watts Per Gallon? Usually they like to us US gallons eh, so mine would be even lower than 1.75, it will be 1.45

Isn't it bad people saying that things will grow and not including the rest like you have said above - the gits

Martin

 

[SuperColey1]

It depends where it is positioned really. Directly under the centre of the light of yours and it will grow but you'll struggle to get pearling.

Riccia is a light green and is like a series of Y branches. Christmass moss is like a Christmas tree in shape. has a very thin twiggy stem with threads of leaves coming off the twig

Riccia on left and Xmas moss on the right

And this is the effect I'm looking for as my background (moss wall):

I'm sure Mike at AM won't mind me using his pic, seeing as most of my stuff comes from him. lol

Andy

 

[john starkey]

Hi andy, i cant wait to see how your moss all develops, you have given me an idea for my set once its established and going well good luck, regards john

 

[SuperColey1]

Not posted in a while and have been struggling with staghorn and thread algae quite desperately. I think in the end I have concluded (With the help of JamesC and Tom Barr) that seeing as I had a near miss with yellow in the drop checker last week and that I dose quite heavily with good plant growth that the algae was brought on by my meddling fingers moving plants around all the time and pruning too often. lol

This near miss meant that I pulled my Lily pipe up to the surface to suck oxygen in and spit it back out and remarkably this seems to have improved circulation and water clarity at the same time. I didn't turn the CO2 down and the drop checker has stayed my favourite shade of limeade ever since. Hopefully the algae will start to decline now.

Onto plants the Lilys on the right and left of my tank are developing very well (I still need to pay Will for these. lol I will Will, I will, I will)

The moss wall second attempt is such an algae magnet that if this remains as it is I will give up on the moss wall (All £46 of it) The mesh is also a fish trap and has quite literally trapped and killed several inquisitive fish. If it doesn't improve then I will transfer the moss into another small tank where it can undergo a 5 day blackout and then Excel treatment before deciding what to do with it.

I also added 3 PC Fans to the hood which I think also look quite tidy and should help ventilate the tank on hot days (The tank water temp was 30°C the other week)

You can see the full breakdown of how I did this on this thread here:
Adding Ventilation to your tank

Some pictures of my current tank

From the front

Lily Corner - I love this section and it will look great when the Repens fills out behind the slate

My algae, ermm... I mean moss covered ' tree'

A view of the Lily Pipe 'processing oxygen'

An Arty view from the left (see the new fans)

No......Thats because with the fan filters on they don't let much light out at all

Thanks for reading
Andy

 

[SuperColey1]

Well Things have to come to an end and with this being my first ever tank (planted or not) it has been a steep learning curve.

Even though I have had my fair share of algae issues with this setup, I do now have the setup I need for a high tec planted tank.

The future is rosy though. With some knowledge gained and mistakes learnt from the new scape wil hopefully benefit from my experiences and research.

FYI - For the next 2 weeks I along with my portuguese wife and our 2 kiddies will be off for our annual visit to the in-laws where she will spend 14 days lazing around in her former home near Lisbon with her family that she hasn't seen for nearly a year whle I disappear before she wakes up to explore what is becoming a very familiar part of the world to me. (Lisbon and Setubal are getting pretty boring now so I may go a little further afield this year)

Whilst I am away the tank will only be getting 0.6WPG for 12 hours a day, will receive no CO2 and will not be dosed.

Due to the way my new scape will be I have ditched the Glosso and Riccia and have removed the moss wall. The £46 Christmas moss is in a small 1Ltr glass tank within my cabinet where it will spend the next 3 days in total darkness before I let it sit on top of the tank for the 2 weeks getting nothing but natural indirect sunlight.

This will hopefully remove any algae (as well as the few ramshorns I put in there) and also keep it alive until I decide what I want to do with it.

So a chapter ends but look out in September / October for a new beginning where this tank will become an underwater forest with Lilys pads reaching for the light and creating a canopy while Crypt, Anubias and other low light plants shelter in between the stems of the Lilys.

Quotes are being obtained and all the plants (of which I already have quite a few) should be in Situ pretty quickly. The budget for this new scape has been capped at £120 including plants and substrate.

I have decided on a substrate consisting of a layer of Leonardite covered with Tropica substrate and topped off with playsand and I am planning to make the substrate much more interesting this time with more undulations.

Also in March / April I am planning a non CO2 35Ltr Nano which will be one of the new Arc Tanks with 2 ArcPods for lighting. This will probably involve similar plants to this 33USGG but with no need for a canopy due to the lower light. The budget for this tank (including the tank, lighting, filtration, heating, hardscape and plants) is £200 which so far with most thinks researched I am well within.

This Nano will be a simple show tank in my living room whereas the 33G is hidden in my study with this PC and where I slope off for long periods (in fact virtually the whole night) to play poker enjoy my tank and peruse the internet.

Just a reminder this was the tank in December beore going properly planted

Here are some parting shots of the tank although it isn't really a finished scape more of a disregarded work in progess.

Thanks for reading and lookout for my Root Feeder Special in the next month or so.

Andy

 

[chrisovington]

Your tank and this post are truly inspiring. I'm just setting up an 80gal planted tank and have found some good advice here!