1.2m - Planted Biotope

I've got a small piece of echinodorus tennelus that you can have when I get back from Germany

 

thanks alot whipme, i will gladly accept. We'll organise a swop then.

@rudi, lol. Go figure. I couldnt understand why so many example amazon tanks had plants in them from asia etc. Fine, ill ask a mod to rename the thread so i dont constrain myself to a biotope anymore. Ferryman's 4ft Planted Project

started my fert regime today. Used fertilator to calc teaspoon dosages, then added a third of the chems shown to the sump return chamber, will see over the month how the results turn out. Hopefully ill get test kits this week then i can gauge the uptake, currently dosing by average gestimations from diff sources

 

Sjoe people, its like I fell of the map these last two years. Cant believe I was once so active on here and that my tank really looked so lively.

These last two years have been cruel, Im now trying to regain a semblance of the tank I once had.

The tank was almost completely cleaned up when this pic was whatsapped to a mate. Now its clean, and has a few Anubia something or other, and some giant vallis and some remnants of the old plants that once grew in there. I'm trying to restock the plants first, then I'll get to fishies.

Presently, the tank hosts two three spot gouramis, a few cardinals, some silvertips, black tetra, and harlequin rasboras if i remember correctly and a yoyo loach, three ramshorn survivors and a host of unseen but ever present trumpet snail pests. Oh, and my favourite little Otto is still hanging in there, sadly the two mates have passed away.

The substrate is still the same pfp, and flourite, though the fluorite layer is now thicker as i added the decommissioned 3ft's to this tank.

I'm looking for any plant bits and pieces that PTA folk may have spare, if its expensive stuff i'll buy too. This morning I quickly got a pump from Zambezi Builders as my old Aqualife had seen its end (been running since I started up this tank, and was originally a gifted extra from the friend I bought the tank from. Now the filter is running again, thank goodness. Also popped into that LPS on Zambesi and took a few plants from the sparse selection remaining after their usual Friday sale.

The tank at least has some foliage again, the gouramis are hiding every nook they can squeeze into, the loach too. But I'll turn things around.

Next weekend I'll go scout some more plants at PetStop if they got some, (and that place on Lynnwood road, hopefully I don't inherit snail eggs though)

I'm planning to add some ottos from PetStop, and then I'll see what I'm gonna do with the tank from there.
Id like to add one or two bigger fish (gourami sized) and the usual tertas or maybe danios or something. The only truly visible colours at present are from the rasboras, black and orange

 

I know the water looks milky but its actually clear, just the Tablet's grainy pic due to low light environment and taken against the canopy's light

Will post a proper pic in a while, just flashing ICS to my tablet (which also acts as my pc modem, lol)

 

The plants in the pots are temporary, its the leftover survivors of the tank's dark ages.

I placed the bits in the rockwool that I got the new plants in, and put the rockwooled bits in these pots I had around so they could go back in the tank and hopefully grow a tiny bit so I can replant them.

At some stage this year or end last I started getting an outbreak of algae blooms and imbalanced water chem levels (no dosing, just haywire chems from neglect and no time made to look after my tank the proper way. I was then blessed with what I think was the blanket type algae, the thin whispy wirey kind... then the thougher green spot algae, and the inhabitants that I just cant get rid of and of which small tufts remain... Black Brush/Beard Algae.

I had started taking out plants that had been so badly covered you couldnt save them, which probably worsend the imbalance, and then started removing rocks, and wood and just about everything eventually got removed after getting COVERED in BBA and GSA and freakin wiry blanket weedish crap etc. the back and sides of the tank were in a horrible state of green black crud, the front I tried to control but even that was a horrible mess in truth.

This winter was a long and horrible wait so I could get back to restoring my tank and this weekend finally kick started it off. Got to work with a gentle pot scourer, and a glass cleaning razor blade usually used with the glass top stove... and ALOT of elbow grease, water changes, gravel vacs, and eventually the tank looked spotless again.

Thank goodness for the sump filled with bacteria hosting material and lava rock and spunges and whathaveyou otherwise if this was the 3ft, I'd probably have had to do a complete re-cycle.

The 3ft suffered the same fate btw, which is why it was eventually drained, the fishes given away and the plants chucked. It stood by a window (glass sliding door to be exact) and got algae over all the panes from the sunlight. So sadly "Ferryman's 3ft Construction" is no longer operational.

Neglect and very little time for supporting a hobby is a horrible thing. Even my bonsai have nearly been wiped out from being dried out (or attacked by a drunken gardener who got hooked on some thorns and took revenge while I was at the coast by cutting ALL my tree's branches off....) So yeah... Summer of 2012 is time to rebuild.

 

Hey @Ferryman. Good luck with the re stock and shape of the tank. Sounds like you have gone through a bad spot. Enjoy.

 

Seems the pics went missing. I'll do a proper upload this weekend and host from photobucket like my previous photos in other threads, the above were hosted somehow through tapatalk.

Anyway. The gouramis are a little more out n about. If I just sit in my viewing chair (which had been occupied with DocuWarehouse boxes full of files and papers the last months/year...) and pretend im reading on my tab, they start swimming mid tank. The moment the smaller one notices me watching it darts back into the corner behind the round black pot. The larger one does a bit more exploring when I'm around but also eventually goes back to hiding till I "leave"

The loach is always hiding unless its feeding time, when it goes sniffing for sinking pellets, munches, then darts off again.
Only the tetras couldnt be less bothered if I were scrubbing tank sides or waving BBA tufts about, they go about, business as usual. The cories too, even the oto just moves up or down a bit without budging much.

I'm anxiously waitin on @cheddar254 to let me know if I can buy off all his plants, it will help fill out this dreary tank. Sadly our WAP pressure hose is at the beach house, else I could get to work this weekend cleaning all the driftwood and old rock formations to put back in the tank. No way I'm using those till all the BBA tufts and greenspot et al are gone.

 

Well welcome back. I thought I saw a old face around here.

Congrats on getting back into the swing of things. Let the tank settle again, and the bonsais grow back.
If you need any vallis/java moss or amazon swords, let me know and I can get you some.

 

So here's the Progress pics, I luckily dont have any pics of the tank in its dirty state

My Yoyo hiding, nose pointing out



Off in the distance, my Oto


The Gouramis


Bare tank... Commenced cleanup... All algae gone from the sides now


Getting some more greenery



More greenery

 

Coming along nicely, well done.

 

Ferryman, those Anubias isn't suposed to be burried all the way with the rizome underneath the Flouride. Its going to rot and die. Rather attach it to a piece of rock and let it grow like that, above the gravel

 

Thanks Morris, I am luckily familiar with attaching the stolons to wood or rock, however have none available that I'd put back in the tank at present. They're still covered in dried out, purpled bba.

So I keep the plants and animals anchored in the fluorite. However the cap is loose and the anubias can be easily lifted out once I can anchor them again on wood and rocks

Sent from my iClone Galaxy S2

 

Back to dosing again, plants seem to be settling well, have an anubias nana something that's been floating around the tank forever, alwqys 1 or 2 leaves on it. The stolon has all of a sudden startednsending out LOTS of new white roots, ready to be rooted

Will do some closeups on plants as they start showing proper growth

Sent via Techno Stone Slab 10.1

 

Welcome back, it's been a long time.
I might have some plants for you, depends what you're looking for.

 

Green and growy. I actually don't have much preference, its probably a question of what will fit.
Thanks for the return welcome . What might you have available?

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Hydrocotyle Leucocephala
Hydrocotyle Vulgaris
Java fern (normal and needle leaf)
Riccia
Stringy moss
HM

 

Egads it happened again. Work took over life.

Luckily, I interviewed today and got a new job... yay

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