The Angel Isles: Planted Community Tank

[Alm0stAwesome]

Ouch! My bank balance is hurting. So much for the no hardscape plan, I've just bought two pieces of redmoor for the tank, 4 pots of vallisneria gigantea rubra, an XL microsorium pteropus and another red tiger lotus. My last lotus died but I love the plant so much I want to have another go at it.



 

 

[Alm0stAwesome]

Here's a few random photos I took on my phone. I realise I haven't posted a tank photo in ages, partly because it's so unimpressive lol. But now that I've bought the vallis and java fern, which have previously done well in my tanks I'm hoping that will change!

From above:


And the front - there's an internal heater there because one of my hydor's has stopped working and I'm waiting for it's replacement to be sent out. In defence of Hydor I think it may have been my fault it stopped working as I've since learned that running it at an angle instead of vertically may have broken it. 

 



As always I'm very pleased with the plants I got from AquaEssentials. I ordered an XL Java fern and they delivered, this puppy is rather large! The vallis is a good size as well. Plants are just plonked in until I get a chance to plant them.



My second attempt at a red tiger lotus is also here, fingers crossed!



My new redmoor pieces have arrived, I don't have a picture of the smaller piece because I've already put it in the bath to soak but they both look great and here's the big piece along with a curious cat 

I opened the filters for the first time since setting the tank up. One of them hasn't been cleaned since before I set the tank up so..I dunno at least 10 months? Both filters were still running really well. The bottom tray of the older one was pretty clogged up but otherwise looking good. I'm thinking I'll do 6 month cleanings from here on out.

I also added 250ml of purigen in these stupidly expensive Seachem bags lol



photobucket really does kill the quality of photos, these are phone pictures but actually look much nicer than this lol 

 

[Alm0stAwesome]

Well after just saying the other day that I thought it strange my angels haven't spawned in this tank - we have movement!

One of my young female angels seems hell bent on laying eggs today but doesn't know what she's doing lol. She flying around beating up the other angels and cleaning multiple surfaces. Her breeding tube is fully out like she's ready to lay now but doesn't know where she's going to put them 

She has of course paired with my dominant male who has spawned with one of my other angels before (I split them up but they didn't re-pair when he was added back to the tank) so he knows what he's doing but isn't actually acting very interested. He's not really taking part in the cleaning (typical!) and his breeding tube isn't showing so maybe it will be a while before anything happens. None of the other males are showing their breeding tubes either so I hope they get their act together because I have been waiting for a spawn so I could confirm my suspicions on the gender of these fish 

I'm also really surprised that this is the female that is looking like laying eggs. I was 100% sure that another fish would end up dominant female and pair with my gold male - they tricked me! She is usually swimming around like she owns the place but is hiding away even more than the others are at the moment to avoid the amorous pair.

Female:


Male:


This is the one I thought would pair with the male:


Either way a nice mix though.

Sorry if the photo grid thingies are lame, but it enables me to post several pictures without cluttering up the thread 

 

 

[Ch4rlie]

Great pics!
 
Hope these eggs gets laid soon 

 

[hobby5]

I don't see a breeding tube?

 

[Alm0stAwesome]

These are old pictures just to show the fish I'm talking about 

 

[Ninjouzata]

Oooh how'd you get them like that? Just adjusting the sizes so they fit that way? I think it looks great.
 
Hope to see some eggs soon

 

[Alm0stAwesome]

I used an app called PhotoGrid on my phone, then uploaded them to photobucket
 
Well no eggs yet!  I was sure she would lay yesterday and saw her doing some "dry runs" on a java fern leaf.

 

[Alm0stAwesome]

 

 
I planted the vallis today and one of the plants is already floating

  I had to shift my male BN plec's cave to plant a couple of the plants and he has responded by digging in the sand next to the cave and dislodging it lol. The wood is still soaking but the colour is fantastic, I can't wait to get it in the tank. I'll plant the java fern when the wood goes in. 
 

 

[Alm0stAwesome]

The vallis and tiger lotus are growing well, yay! After all of the plant trouble I've been having it's so nice to see bright healthy leaves growing in my tank Another bonus is that my old tiger lotus bulb, which I never removed from the tank after it's leaves died, has been rolled out of some dark corner with leaves on it! I imagine my Bolivian Rams were doing some housekeeping and scooted it out from under a plant somewhere - so now I have two tiger lotus plants 

 

 
Also the wood I've bought for this tank is finally waterlogged (3 weeks later) so I plan to add it this weekend. I think it'll give a whole new look to the tank so I'm looking forward to that. 
 
In other news ANOTHER of my female angels (the koi) is ready to spawn but the dominant male is confused as to who he wants his mate to be. It's like an episode of The Bachelor in my tank lol 
 
Unfortunately, illness has struck my sterbai cory population and I've lost two so far. It started about 2.5 weeks ago and the guess is that it's columnaris. They were all moved to a hospital tank and I'm expecting to lose at least another two before it's all said and done The unavailability of antibiotics in the UK has really limited my options in curing this and the stuff I've ordered off the internet won't be here in time by the looks of it. Ah well, it's part of the hobby and we can only do for them what seems best at the time 

 Thanks so much to WILDER, DoubleDutch and snazy for their help with my thread in the Emergencies section. 

 

[Blondielovesfish]

Sorry to hear about the columnaris Has it got any better?
 
What phone do you have? The pictures are amazing!
I quite like the effect of the grid photos....it's quite neat

 

[Alm0stAwesome]

I did lose one more last night but in a way it's a relief because I knew it wouldn't recover. The other two might be showing signs of improvement but I don't know if that's me just being optimistic! 
 
I have an HTC One. Some of the pictures are from my standard digital camera which is  Fuji FinePix F300EXR. Yes I like the grids too I often can't decide which pictures to post but I think, "It's a bit excessive to post 4 pictures of the same fish, I'm the only one who probably cares that much" haha. So the grid is a good way around it 

 

[Alm0stAwesome]

Woo! New wood is in! I spent ages messing around with the planting and I'm pretty pleased with the result
 
Pictures once the dust settles 

 

[Alm0stAwesome]

Here we are! Pardon the bubbles, I didn't feel like cleaning them off

The background needs to be fiddled with but we're redecorating soon so I'll fix it when I pull the tank out to paint. 
 

 

 

 

 
This guy is certainly happy about the addition of some decent wood!