so before you ask Apsolem is the blue delta tail betta i got when i went shopping with a friend, orignally i was suppose to be window shopping but i liked the colours on this guy and couldnt resist. so tank specs... standard Daro 12inch about 20L Via Aqua filter heater substrate; crushed tigers eye. (eek!! it sparkles) plants Anubias nana various mosses bacopa sp hm hairgrass of some sort but different to the one i have at home. decor grey granite 'mountain' with amathyst crystal live stock 1x male betta 6x white cloud minnows so it was pure agony waiting for this thing to cycle and to get everything together and when i saw the gravel i just had to have it! lucky me i got the last 2 bags hehe and then i saw the crystal clusters and that was me. if its shiny i usually have to have it and i love crystals. i'm going to try use natural light in this tank and see how we go. it gets indirect light all day and a wee bit from my bedside lamp. i'm dosing once a week with 2ml of sera ferts and every second day 0.2ml of Excel. unfortunately i didnt go with the skull cave idea i decided it would take to long so i went with my usual 2 tiered mountain and added a waterfall instead . it breaks the current nicely as the water only trickles out of a small gap and the goal is to have it densely planted with marshy type plants. at the moment im trying a primitive fern sp but if that doesnt work i'm thinking of using peace in the home and i have some terrestrial mosses that i dug up from the driveway inbetween some of the rocks on the way down. at present the waterfall is a very unsteady construction and i'm using some cut up sosatie sticks to hold it up...... anyone got other suggestions? its too heavy to stay up if its attched to the mountain. so what you guys think? please feel free to comment btw sorry the glass is so dirty forgot to clean it before i took the pics:wondering:
Very nice Windfire and great idee. Do one get like a dwarf watter lilly? Might be cool at one end. Or that brazillain pennyworth I think, not sure what it is but know how it looks The hair grass looks like emersed growth. Ok one of my crazy ideas just thrown in. Small water lilly, quite a few pebbles overgrown with Flame moss and the betta would be in heaven. The heater is a bit distracting. O and nice betta.
thanks @Vis yeah i know the heater is abit in your face but not sure what to do about it short of building a mini sump, i'm hoping once the hm and bacopa grow in in the back it wont be so noticable. most of the plants i brought in from my other tanks and i only bought the hairgrass and an extra anubias which i split in 2. i think you do get a mini water lillie sp and i will have to research it though i find even our pond aquatic plant selection here dismal at best in most nurseries. would you put it in the right front corner? there is a bit of a gap there or possibly the back right if i shuffle a few thing around, i'm just worried the leaves cause too much shade for the other plants. i do have abit of hornwort in there for him though. the problem is the mountain turned out bigger than i thought it would and there is'nt much room for much more where plants are concerned. a marimo ball would look awesome in here though but i may look into the pebble thing if i remember to ask my folks to bring me back the bigger pebbles i picked up on the beach over december. so does that mean the hairgrass will get shorter? if so i may move it to the front for a carpet and will then have more space in the back to work with. and thank you isnt he just? i am hoping his tail will grow in abit more though.
Lilly wont realy work...HEAVY feeder + very high light requirements........ Can try a Pixy lily bulb,but mine spread to completely cover a 2.4 x 80cm surface of the tank it was in....maybe trim its floating leaves as it gets big... How do the emersed plants get light though? Natural from the window?
jup i was worried that the pennywort or water lily would cause to much shade. @azurekoi all the light in this tank is natural and it gets maybe 3hours of light from my bedside lamp which has a normal 100w globe. because of the waterfall it would be difficult to put a lid on and it being at the commune i need to be able to drain it and pack it up to take home during the holidays so the simpler the better in this case. it gets fairly strong natural light without it being direct sunlight which i'm glad about as i have yet to have an algae problem. the hm is going exceptionally well so its obviously getting enough light as is the hairgrass. its already spreading. i'll take some new pics tomorrow with the new terrestrial moss i found at the botanical garden, its got a star like growth form which i find quite attractive
@windfire.... My terrestrial moss in my paludarium is doing o.k - much better since I spray it every day.... Just dont get it to wet or in contact with the water...those die... Think you are gonna have a lot of fun with this! What I've learnt from my paludarium is to give things time - terrestrial stuff take a while to get used to their new growing conditions...give them time and dont change to mush on what you do....sorta like finding what works and what doesnt.... 3 days ago introduced some "Hen and Chickens" to my paludarium - cant wait to see how it does.... PS:Salivating for the new pics....he,he(dont you just LOVE how a paludarium changes everyday?)
hmmm then i may have to move it lol, as you say its all trial and error but its alot of fun. i'm always fiddling, and i'm already thinking of ways to add more terrestrial planting space lol i'm looking at those plastic drip trays with a some sort of holder engineered with sosatie sticks. dont knock em they really useful lol, i even use em to plant things in awkward places. lol i'll take em after my first class tomorrow lol. and maybe a few tonight before bed with the lamp on. apsolem has torn his fins last night the silly twit i dont know what he was flaring at but he really over did it.
DONT move it.... 1st 2 weeks of my palu's life I kept changing EVERYTHING - didnt work - leaving stuff as they are and working with those limitations seems to be the key....
lol....just add Gnomes(and I WOULD!!!!) - love this kind of thing,just scared where my warped mind would go with it....
i'd love to do a recreation of like a witches cottage from terry pratchets disc world series. i dont know if you've read those but they deliciously sarcastic and really funny. or like a mountain scene would be cool as well, ooooo now i've given myself an idea lol
Hey Miss B@windfire - the only problem with that scenario would be : 1st: Be Balancing one of our palu's on the back of a Giant turtle....lolo!!!! - Noteven mee or you 'cud do this.....YET?!!!!! 2nd - Mr."CMA" Dibbler,would steal our idea,and have a stall set up even be4 we get there....lol
"sure what to do about it short of building a mini sump" - hmmm - what about a small HOB that is modified (i.e. drilled and extended to create a larger water volume outside of the tank) if one contemplates this enough you should be able to fit the heater and some extra media in that. Later Ferdie
@azurekoi lol i'm a fan of anything nac mac feegle related lol and nanny ogg. and dibbler will fail in his venture by the time we've finished working the kinks out of ours lol. so new pics are here lol. @f-fish i'm not a fan of hobs as they have a nasty habit of running dry on you if theres a power outage and as i'm away for the weekend if it happens while i'm away i'm screwed. i was thinking of using some sort of tub but i'll have to think it over as the goal is to keep this setup as simple as possible. ok so pics 1) side view left 2) front view right half 3) front view left half 4)side view right (what i see from my bed hehe) and then a top view of Apsolem
wow guys sorry just realised the pics didnt post, the blondeness strikes again lol. anyway so i got back from joburg today to a tank covered in algea who knew the stuff could grow that fast ( 2 days), i got that bluey green one, the brown one and some green spot. i cleaned most of it off and am chalking it down to it being a new tank thats just being established. oh and the fact that my hairgrass is dieing down and making a horrible mess with brown decaying leaves that i end up having to fish out. i have now trimed it down and hope it'll help. anyway enjoy :bigsmile:
