'under The Forest Canopy' Journal

[SuperColey1]

An update on my 'move' plans really.

The other day whilst doing a thorough water change (pipes, hoses CO2 Equip etc) I caught the daylight HOT5 on he rim of the glass and unfortunately it ended up half submerged.

It wasn't turned on so no fatalities but the light will not work now (with it being a ballast within the reflector its not just a case of drying out i'm afraid)

Therefore I have my fav 18W Arcadia Freshwater back in the hood. The electronic ballast is screwed to the back of the hood. So we are in effect now at 48W which gives me (by the rule I hate) approx 1.5WPG (This does not take into account the higher efficiency of the T5HO that remains.

I will be moving house in January (yet again) and am planning quite a few changes.

The Lily pipes and diffusor will be moved into the same position as George's two 125ltr tanks. Call me a copycat but consider if you see something that works with the same equipment that you have would you not do the same?

I will move onto TPN+ on its own as the fertilizer eventually but not until I have finished all the dry ferts I still have using JamesC's PMDD+PO4 recipe from his site (which is the best recipe I have used yet.)

The hardscape (Sorry George) will remain the same although I do have a small spindley knarled piece of wood which I will be adding.

I have decided with much regret that the Nuphar will not be returning as it is just too succesful. Also The Nymphea numbers will be reduced as it is just too prolific in my tank so I will be sticking with the 2 Zenkeri and removing all the Rubra (Zenkeri/Tiger Lotus has a much more striking pattena on the leaves).
(The Nuphar will live on though as Themuleous has requested one quarter of the plant. There will be three more quarters to get rid of, or maybe for me to sell on ebay. lol)

The Crypts which were scattered will be moved to a more traditional layout with the taller ones like Undulata to the back and Wendtiis towards the front.

The Phillipine Java Fern (although smaller) is starting to look like George's wonderful specimens being a lovely 'clean' grass green as are the needle leafs and Anubias.

The White background will be removed totally leaving a plain glass back (The walls in my new house will be an ivory colour once painted)

Fishwise - The current larger Ram has chased the other to death. It has been confirmed as a female much to my surprise as when I bought them this one was ID'd by bolivian experts as a Male on the Cichlid Forum but now fully fattened up the same experts have decided he is a she!!. Therefore I shall be getting a new Male mature example and hope they pair up.

I am also going to return the cardinals to their original numbers (20) now there is no moss wall (which was a death trap).

After I have laid out the new 'scape' I shall probably get some weeds in to fill the gaps for a while until the crypts fill out properly (I am anticipating a lot of crypt rot)

Until then I think the current scape will remain pretty similar so I won't do the next update until 'we' are settled in.

Thanks for reading

Andy

 

[rabbut]

Sounds like this will remain a good scape Andy. Good luck with the move, I hope you don't loose anything in the process

Rabbut

 

[SuperColey1]

This will be the third move in under 2 years and have yet to lose a fish. All my casualties have been because:

deathtraps I have put into the tank like hairnets and a mesh moss wall. The latter which claimed 4 cardinals and 3 Otos!!

One aggressive female Ram which chased a smaller undernourished male until he got caught by the filter intake (was too weak to fight the flow)

The well publicised CO2 massacre which claimed all the fish and shrimps yet the MTS survived

I find that as long as the house is up to temperature, then I can leave the fish in a container (I use a black 15 litre paint tub with lid) for up to 24 hours with a few blankets around it. This allows plenty of time to get the tank ready, replanted all setup properly so that once you return the fish they can be left alone for a day or so with no disturbance.

Andy

 

[backtotropical]

Tank looks really good Andy. Good luck with the move.

I'm trying to grow a Nurphar with not much luck. The leaves grow but then fall off and never get past about 2 inches. Any tips?

Cheers and keep up the good work.

BTT

 

[SuperColey1]

Not really any tips but....

When I got the plant it had about 4 x 6" leaves on it. I trimmed the core into a squarish wedge shape pointing towards the bottom.

Then I pushed the wedge into the san up to where the stems come out. Weighed it down with a couple of pebbles and left it.

When I transferred it to this scape it was about double the size (30cm wide) and with roots of about 1ft long. trimmed them to 1" long and replanted.

Now it gets to 80cm long every fortnight or so (and I should think without glass propping it up would be even more)

I prune it back to approx 50cm only for a new leaf to appear every week.

This was a pic of when I first added it on 16/08/07. Its hiding just in front of the slate on the right

This was a pic when I transferred it on 20/09/07 (No pruning)

As you can see from the pics in my previous posts after pruning it has grown huge in the 3 months its been in this scape. The core is approx 6cm in circumference!!!

I'll add you to the list when I quarter it. Maybe you got one that has a rotton core (This is quite common with this plant apparently)

Andy

 

[backtotropical]

Thanks Andy, thats much appreciated.

 

[SuperColey1]

Now go to bed its 3 in the morning. lol

Andy

 

[Biulu]

Oh Sam

You haven't read. The scape was supposed to have nothing in the mid water as it has the forest floor and forest canopy. However some of these crypts are developing into the mid height range and so it may end up 'layered' as per everyone elses idea of an aquascape without me trying. lol

Andy

What about a storm gap with some nice natural regeneration? Once a forest matures, this is what happens when you get light in the canopy. Might give a nice effect, and will still fit your theme perfectly.

Sorry, but that's what happens if you start talking forest to a forester....

 

[SuperColey1]

I think its gonna be more of a forest in its first years with just 2 trees. lol

I may have to change the title.

Andy

 

[SuperColey1]

I've moved house and relocated the tank. At the same time I have done my rescape and the tank looks quite bare at the moment.

I will post some updated piccies later. Reason being that the Nuphars root system was over 2 ft long (and there were hundreds of 2-3mm wide roots!!!! and of course there was no way even though i spent 1 hour individually pulling each root to minimise disturbance of the substrate!!! Therefore some of the clayish Tropica was pulled through the sand.

This is what I have done:

Turned the house temperature up to 26º (to help keep the fish in their containers at a decent temperature as I estimated a long time out of the tank (was about 15 hours in the end)

I removed all the water (apart from that in the fish containers) to reduce the amount in the water and then refilled to a third of the tank height.

Then in went my hardscape.

Next the plants were laid out on some newspaper and I arranged them according to their height and style (trimmin the roots to ½inch and removing any unhealthy/damaged leaves.

Then I did my planting.

In went the filter pipes, DC, thermometer and diffusor.

Filled to 4/5ths with water.

Turned on the CO2, filter, heater, UV and let the water get closer to the previous parameters (i.e. CO2ppm, Temperature, Ph reduction from CO2 etc)

Went to bed at 7am.

Awoke at 3pm and floated the fish containers in the tank (mixing tank water into the containers every 10 minutes)

Released the fish at 4-30pm.

Sat and watched as they all investigated their 'new home'

They all look pretty unscathed by the move although there is the usual flicking that I often see after large water changes (I do use dechlor)

Will let the filter continue its work in removing the cloudy particles before doing a full clean of the media tomorrow. After which I will take some piccies for you to critique tomorrow.

Andy

 

[aaronnorth]

I've moved house and relocated the tank. At the same time I have done my rescape and the tank looks quite bare at the moment.

I will post some updated piccies later. Reason being that the Nuphars root system was over 2 ft long (and there were hundreds of 2-3mm wide roots!!!! and of course there was no way even though i spent 1 hour individually pulling each root to minimise disturbance of the substrate!!! Therefore some of the clayish Tropica was pulled through the sand.

This is what I have done:

Turned the house temperature up to 26º (to help keep the fish in their containers at a decent temperature as I estimated a long time out of the tank (was about 15 hours in the end)

I removed all the water (apart from that in the fish containers) to reduce the amount in the water and then refilled to a third of the tank height.

Then in went my hardscape.

Next the plants were laid out on some newspaper and I arranged them according to their height and style (trimmin the roots to ½inch and removing any unhealthy/damaged leaves.

Then I did my planting.

In went the filter pipes, DC, thermometer and diffusor.

Filled to 4/5ths with water.

Turned on the CO2, filter, heater, UV and let the water get closer to the previous parameters (i.e. CO2ppm, Temperature, Ph reduction from CO2 etc)

Went to bed at 7am.

Awoke at 3pm and floated the fish containers in the tank (mixing tank water into the containers every 10 minutes)

Released the fish at 4-30pm.

Sat and watched as they all investigated their 'new home'

They all look pretty unscathed by the move although there is the usual flicking that I often see after large water changes (I do use dechlor)

Will let the filter continue its work in removing the cloudy particles before doing a full clean of the media tomorrow. After which I will take some piccies for you to critique tomorrow.

Andy

can't wait!

 

[TammyLiz]

I'm guessing this didn't turn out well or there would have been an update?

I think I have a Nuphar japonica or at least something similar that I picked up last month. I'm really hoping mine will do well and that I don't kill it! It wasn't cheap. How is yours doing?

Tammy

 

[SuperColey1]

Its going OK although there is quite a lot of BBA growing in there due to me having to relocate the tank from old house to lounge to kitchen to lounge during the redecorating.

I will update when Ive finished the redecorating but not much time to take piccies at the mo.

The Nuphar is no more. I ripped it out and posted it to 3ndler and Themuleous. Didn't really fit in with this scape as it was too overpowering. Wasn't expensive though. It was £4 inc shipping off ebay in Juneish last year.

Andy

 

[TammyLiz]

Ugh, moving tanks is a pain.

I paid $10 for my nuphar at a semi-local FS.

 

[SuperColey1]

At last an update with pictures.

As a quick recap, this tank was moved to my new house in early January and immediately rescaped (meaning I moved things around).

It did of course suffer a little due to being down my list of priorities as I have been redecorating since then.

At the moment it looks a little bare as I had to get in there and tackle a huge algae attack and with my tactics this always inviolves scissors and the greenwaste bin so please bear this in mind.

In the end I have left the slate where is was but slanted it in a much more prominent position. The tree has moved from centre to right and the Mopani Cave has moved from Right to left. The pipes have moved to the right in a blatent attempt to copy George's tank seeing as we have the same pipes.

On the CO2 front I am using a maxijet MP400 with a DIY needle hole impellor which I will see how well this method works. If it does it may stay. If not I shall reinsert the Rhinox and bring the darned bleach back to the front of the domestic cupboard.

I have also planted the Blyxia Japonica (Grows great under .9WPG with 2 hours at 1.5WPG) and C Balansae that I got from George.

Here is the tank as it stood tonight

Comments welcome

Andy