'under The Forest Canopy' Journal

[garuf]

An endless improvement!
Brilliant

 

[aaronnorth]

I like this better than old scape, that lotus looks brill.

 

[SuperColey1]

I take it you mean the Zenkeri 'Red' on the left!! There is a Zenkeri 'Green' on the right.

Many thanks. In 1 week (since the needle wheel CO2 diffusor went in) this tank has grown like mad. Will take piccies for you before the weekend to show you what I mean (remember everything in this tank is low light slow growing!!!)

Andy

 

[aaronnorth]

I take it you mean the Zenkeri 'Red' on the left!! There is a Zenkeri 'Green' on the right.

Many thanks. In 1 week (since the needle wheel CO2 diffusor went in) this tank has grown like mad. Will take piccies for you before the weekend to show you what I mean (remember everything in this tank is low light slow growing!!!)

Andy

Yep

Maybe thats why it looks better than others i have seen , is it easy to grow, does it need any requirements etc?

 

[garuf]

Wanna make me a needle wheel andy?
Nah, not really I'm glad its working for you! I'm going to get one when my bank balance allows and do the mod, can't wait.

 

[SuperColey1]

Zenkeri and most other Nympheae are easy IMO/IME.

You get the bulb, bury half under the substrate with the side the stems came out of (they normally come as just a bulb but you will know which side once you look closely! the side with the holes is normally the side the plants came from.)

Then wait a week or so and you can see the plant growing from the bulb.

With Nympheae Rubra after the plant is rooted you can seperate it from the bulb and then position the bulb somewhere else and have another plant. Nympheae Zenkeri (Tiger Lotus) has a different type of bulb and I haven't tried to use this method yet.

It doesn't matter too much ifyou bury most of the bulb (contrary to the guidelines.) Some of mine are totally submerged due to digging plecs and Rams + current and you can see how they have grown.

In the next couple of days, I will be taking the pics of the tank 1 week after needle wheel added and I will also take some pics of the Zenkeri leaves.

Andy

 

[Biulu]

Looks really nice. The lotus is a hit!

 

[Liam]

It looks excellent, the blyxia looks very good, must grow some some time. Can you show your 'needle wheel', I don't get what it is and I dont like cleaning diffusers so I'm interested

 

[garuf]

They're a reef design, you take a power head and drill out holes into it which when you run the co2 into it slice the large bubbles up into a superfine mist, reefers use them in their skimmers, turns out they're perfect for our cause too.

 

[SuperColey1]

This is the maxijet MP400 I bought from aquatics online for £15ish for my 125Ltr. I would suggest that it shouldn't be used on tanks any smaller than this as it is very powerful even with the diminished flow rate caused by the holes. It will probably work for anything up to 300Ltr

This is a pic of the pump

A pic of the impellor which I have since widened the holes to 1.5mm with a normal cordless drill. This pic has some .8mm holes I made in it.

A pic of the CO2 line fed through the intake housing

And a pic of the pump hidden behind the red lotus

You can just see it in the reflection on the left hand side

CO2 needs to be lowered when using this because with a disc you get backward pressure reducing the bubble rate. With this method there is no backward rate and I found that the bubble rate increased. Also as it seems to work much better the ppm is reached earlier.

As a guide I went from 60-75bpm down to 28-30bpm to still reach green in the DC

Andy

 

[Liam]

Thanks for the explanation Garuf and Andy, seems like an excellent alternative to the diffusers.

Cheers

 

[SuperColey1]

12 days on from inserting the needle wheel and I have some pictures for you, although like a fool I did a little pruning first to remove some damaged leaves that are still in there from my redecorating the house time where I lapsed my routine quite a lot.

This first pic is of the tank as it stands tonight/morning

This next pic shows the tank from an angle

And this one is from the armchair I sit in to watch TV (which you can just see a bit of top left of pic on the wall)

This pic is of the Zenkeri 'Red' leave to show the markings you get on a true Tiger Lotus.

And this pic of the Zenkeri 'Green' shows the markings much better

The Nympheae Rubra and other variants which are often called Tiger Lotus are much plainer leaved and don't display the flecs as you see in these pics, rather a more 'patchy' change of colour usually froom red to yellow.

As you can see the scape is growing in quite well and is now in its 6th month. Who knows how much longer it will take to get to its final look but I am in no hurry hence why I reduced lighting and planted so many slow growers. This will after all be a working scap in that it will be kept as it is for an indefinate period (hopefully many years) rather than be a temporary scape to be dismantled.

Thanks for reading
Andy

 

[jimbooo]

Hi Andy, looking good mate. love the diffuser idea. i have the same pump so you have got me thinking. unfortunately i use it for water changes (pump out from tank and then in from sink). so unless i could get a spare one i dont really want to drill it. also did it come with the suckers for attachment to the glass? i inherited mine from a mate and just have the pump not the mounting bracket thingy. any idea where i could get one separately as i want to use it for extra flow in the tank (with the addition of co2 now i have read this). at the moment all i can do is dangle it in from it's power cord however as you know it is powerful, turn it on and it 's like one of those toy planes hanging on a string lol. it blows around in rather fast circles. not great for the calming ambiance i am aiming for with a planted tank!

your layout is much better IMO. thumbs up from me.

 

[SuperColey1]

I bought mine from aquatics-online. I guess you could ask Jackie if they have a spare bracket too.

Andy

 

[ICEEGRL]

It looks really good. I like it much better this way. This is going to be beautiful when it grows some more.
It makes me want to play around with mine some more...
I really like the pump idea for the co2. I may have to try that when/if I get some money. I will have to learn a little about the pumps though so I will know what I am buying. I am clueless about them. I really don't even know what they are for. Do they come with everything you need... or do you have to order some parts separately?