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Nowher,
Tank looks good, that Blyxa looks really healthy. Almost tempting to let a grow right across the front or have it on the left too and left as well and leave a little beach in the front after you ever decide to forget the HC.

Interesting that the Blyxa is all green with your light.
What are you currently dosing?

My Scapes

I really like the pic with the natural lighting. The colors are really nice. deep greens from the plants and the wood actually looks real as well. The plants are really coming along. As soon as the foreground fills in, I think it will be stunning. I'm definitely going to have to use some of the blyxa in my new tank.

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

Very nice Nowher. The side lighting is really great!

55G Planted tank thread
19G Container Pond
[IMG]http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y118/Wingsdlc/Ric

well what can I say: Blyxa fields forever

I'll 2nd that. It looks really good.

Cheers
TW

Thanks everyone

Considering how well it grows under these conditions it certainly is tempting to let it grow across the front, but that would change the whole dynamic. It would easily overgrow the petite nana, and may not contrast as well with the similarly shaped leaves of the NL fern. If I have one regret about how it's placed, I wish I had sloped the substrate in the back more so that some appeared higher than the others. Right now it feel a little flat, but its no big deal.

Right now I'm not dosing all that much. Excel daily, K after a water change. I used to dose a pinch of N here and there, but I've stopped recently. As you can tell by the growth, nothing has been hurt by this. The HC has filled in more since upping the Excel dosing, and the Blyxa is full and healthy looking. I imagine at this point it's pulling whatever it needs from the substrate. Once I up the stocking in this tank there'll be more N to go around. Just trying to keep things low maintenence, so far so good

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Back in the saddle!

Well just wanted to add a few pics. I know I said no fish originally, but I saw a school of these at the LFS the other day and bought a bunch. They're pretty tiny and behaviorally they seem fine in the 4G. Introducing P. simulans:

(apologies for the noise in the photo, it was dark and I needed high ISO







This one is a little blurry, but was taken after lights out with just some ambient room lighting filtering in. I think their colors are brighter with less light than with more light - you can really see how they're able to find each other in those murcky SA blackwater spots.



And for good measure, a shrimp shot:



Right now the simulans are on the shy side, they spend a lot of time on the left side of the tank, in the shading of the DW and java fern, but I see them coming out and playing around in the Blyxa field every now and then. They'll need a few days to adjust, I'm sure once they start associating "out in the open" with "food" they'll be more outgoing.

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Back in the saddle!

They don't look very green to me. Maybe it's the lighting though. Healthy looking fish, hope they work out for ya.

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

Pretty sure they're not supposed to be green They're a neon mimic, just less red than either neons or cardinals, and they stay smaller. I've seen another type of tetra called the green neon that actually was green, but that's using common names, and I don't know its scientific name.

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Back in the saddle!

Oops, I thought p. simulans was the green neon tetra. My mistake....as I said nice healthy lookin' fish

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

matty, P simulans IS called the green neon tetra, but it doesn't really make sense because they have the same turquise blue streak and a bit of red as regular neons. Just another reason to NOT rely on common names.

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Back in the saddle!

I'm so confused

I get it now, so the green ones I've seen aren't p. simulans, they're something else entirely. I gotcha

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

NowherMan6,

First of all, the tank is coming along very nicely, I like your Blyxa forest.

Otherwise, I am with Matty. A fish that is - and not - the fish that it is supposed to be, green vs. blue and what not. I also think that it is maybe the light that makes the colors appear more or less greenish. Or wasn't there something about a greenish hue to the horizontal stripe?

How many did you get and how many do you still have?

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

Well, this is a pic of P simulans from google images

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://nscontact.com/Images/Produits/G/277_1.jpg&imgrefurl=http://nscontact.com/catalogue/-nsc-es_60_52_01_277_1_Paracheirodon_simulans_Green.aspx&h=238&w=400&sz=9&hl=en&start=15&tbnid=L2wZwTuSmyOVPM:&tbnh=71&tbnw=120&prev=/images%3Fq%3DParacheirodon%2Bsimulans%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26sa%3DG

It looks just like the first fish shot I posted. Also look at the fishbase.org shot of P simulans. It's spot on. It's call the green neon but it looks just like a regular neon, with less red.

As for the number, I started with 8 but I'm left with 4 after the weekend. This is my first experience with delicate neons

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Back in the saddle!

NowherMan6,

It doesn't really matter if they are green or blue, Here Is A Link that shows them more green. But this site (in German) names them blue Neon / green Neon, so both are good.

To bad that you lost 50% over the weekend. Any signs in the dead ones? Any signs in the living ones? How did they die?

Ingo

EDIT: uh, that site linked above says they need a ph of 5.5 to 6. I hope they are wrong.

EDIT AGAIN: This site, also in German, lists the same ph requirements. Further, the first link mentiones that they are all wild caught, so no adjustment through farm breeding would have been given. The second link also mentiones their sensitivity to Nitrate.

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

Well, I never really bought into the stuff about fish needing a certain ph, as long as they're acclimated slowly enough they'll be alright. perhaps that was my problem. I used the drip method, but only for an hour and fifteen minutes. Perhaps 2-3 hrs would have been in order. I'm goign to bump up the school again, as the 4 still seem a little skittish and shy. They're feeding well and have actually colored up some since I did a water change yesterday. When I do I'll certainly acclimate them more slowly this time.

The only other strange thing that has happened is my three shrimp are MIA. Not unusual for them but usually they show themselves more than this, haven't seen them for 2 days now

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Back in the saddle!

Your shrimp might be a little skidish with the new fish swimming around.



55G Planted tank thread
19G Container Pond
[IMG]http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y118/Wingsdlc/Ric

Definetely possible, though the shrimp are nearly twice the size of the fish

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Back in the saddle!

Yeah I'm back. Had a soccer tournament near Hershey, PA and then went to Hershey and did the coasters

Speaking of shrimp I didn't feed my apistos for three days and I think they ate my CRS. They were in there for several weeks without a problem when feed daily, but when I came home I noticed some red pieces all around the tank. At first I thought they were eggs, but it looks bad.

I also noticed in my 72g the fish ate up pieces of Blyxa after not eating for 3 days.

Nice fish, I hope the other's make it. I'm not sure how this fish will do in such a young tank, but we'll see.

My Scapes

Hey tetra, good to see you again.

Sorry about those CRS. I always thought that mixing cherries with cichlids or loaches would be disastrous, only because they're so small. Amanos are big shrimp, they can hold their own, but cherries are little things. I know this sound shorrible but I laughed when I read how you phrased it - "little red things all over the tank" I can imagine coming home, seeing that and thinking "Ah, crap..."

As for the fish, yeah, we'll see if I'm able to build up a few more of them. Keep in mind the tank itself is a few months old, the filter and plants for the most part the same from before the redo, so I'm not too worried about it being too immature to handle the load. These are pretty tiny fish afterall, and the tank gets a decent WC every week. I'm more concerned with acclimating them slowly enough this time.

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Back in the saddle!

I know this sound shorrible but I laughed when I read how you phrased it - "little red things all over the tank" I can imagine coming home, seeing that and thinking "Ah, crap

No, it's not horrible of you. It kinda reminded me of the movie "War of the Worlds" and yes you did have concerns about CRS and the apistos. As I said they were fine when feed, although the crs did hide all day and come out at nite after putting in the apistos, so I'm not sure if the "red things" are both of the crs or one of them.



My Scapes

Welcome back tetratech

I thought you left the site because you saw me coming back in

Anyway, NowherMan6 - I am with you on the overrated issue of ph requirements for fishies. But, I am a little more skeptical on wild caught fish, and from that link that I provided above - this is what your fishies are, wild caught. I don't think that even a 3 hour adjustment via drippings would make a big difference when compared to generations of a low ph environment. Maybe only the strongest can handle it. Just a thought.

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

That's a good point about them being wild caught... however, aren't cardinals and neons both wild caught as well? I remember reading somewhere that since they occur in such large numbers and since they're difficult to rbeed in captivity, most are just imported wild anyway. That would explain their sensitivity as well, but does show that simulans isn't in that boat by itself.

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Back in the saddle!

Pretty sure cardinals are wild-caught, I don't think most neons are. I agree with the PH thing. I'll put that under "slooooow moves". Most things adjust over a long period of time.

I know it's probably not feasible to have a UV on your nano, but I do believe the UV "destresses" the water for sensitive fish by destroying pathogens that might infect senstive fish during acclimation, especially if the stress causes their immune systems to be compromised.

My Scapes

So yeah...CRS and Kribs doesn't seem to work....I put in about 9 or 10 to the 40G this morning and the female krib made one a snack already. I wasn't very happy!

I tryed to make sure they were well feed before I added the shrimp but it didn't seem to work. Hopefully most will make it.

55G Planted tank thread
19G Container Pond
[IMG]http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y118/Wingsdlc/Ric

Time for an update, it's been a couple weeks.

I really wish I had more to say about this tank but it's been so damn easy there's not much to write about. Algae is limited to 5 tiny tufts of BBA on certain parts of the DW which I could easily remove if I felt they were a big deal. That's it. No more green spot, no green thread, no brown stuff. The Amanos take care of everything.

Since the last post where I had 4 green neons, one mor ekicked the bucket. But the three remaining have been fine for weeks now so I think they're good. I haven't seen any green neons in stock at the LFS so they're going to be it for now.

One thing to say about the p. simulans is this: It is said that certain fish, types of gourami and hatchets for example, need some sort of subdued lightign to flourish. For the most part I've found that to be rubbish, I've had gourami before and they were all over the place, no matter the lighting. But these p. simulans are extremely shy with the lights on. They just hang out under plant cover, only shooting out to grab some food if I feed them. Then when the tank lights go off they come out to play. There's still lights from my bedroom on, so everything in the tank is visible, but when the brights go off they come out and swim all over. For this reason I may eventually move them to my bigger tank when that gets settled in, because the lighting over that won't be as bright and strong.

Here are a few pics:

In the first you'll notice I started removing some of the HC. It was growing fine, but not spreading as well as I hoped, and a lot of it was being forced out by the Blyxa right under the DW on the right hand side, which has become very bushy. I think I'm going to add some more petite nana to the left sidew where the HC used to be, to have the nana "crawl" down the DW onto the substrate, or to give that impression.

In addition I trimmed off many of the older leaves of the NL fern as new growth seems to be coming in quickly. That's why it seems thinned out back there. Very lovely plant, probably my favorite at the moment



And here are some shots of the simulans, I added both of these to the Profile section of FP(hence the "contributer award" ), but none of them made the cut as the main picture. Better keep trying, I guess

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Back in the saddle!

AH...feed that thing. It looks like it's starving

Tank looks good, too bad about the HC, I really liked it over there. It's a different color/shape from everything else and looked good.

I submitted my first pictures over a year ago, and never got a contributer award until I created a profile. I don't know when Adam changed that.

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

AH...feed that thing. It looks like it's starving

Yeah, it's the tetra "Fish Starve Diet"

Tank looks great, that blyxa is really beautiful.
Is the blyxa showing any other colors?

Fish pics are great as well. I want an SLR.........

My Scapes

Fish pics are great as well. I want an SLR.........

Agreed, I can't justify getting a new camera. I had a dream(nightmare?) last night that I spent $400 on something...I woke up screaming. I guess that's stretching, I did wake up rather worried though.

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

AH...feed that thing. It looks like it's starving

That's actually an optical illusion. Yes, he was small there, but a piece of HC gives the impression that he has a concave stomache and he really doesn't. Besides, I feed them every other day or so, and before they were added I used to get a ton of copepods and some planaria and now they're all gone. Fish find a way to eat things, I'm sure there's a ton of stuff in there for them to peck on.

Yeah, it's the tetra "Fish Starve Diet"

Thanks for the compliments, both. You can't tell in the pics because of the WB, but the ends of the Blyxa are getting a tiny bit reddish. Maybe some added micros would help, but I'm not gonna push things right now.

Tetra, Sony and Pentax just released new DSLRs with anti-shake mechanisms built into the camera bodies. For half the cost of a new saltwater set-up one of those babies can be yours. Canon also came out with a new offering, but on Canon SLRs IS is only available in lenses, and I knwo youre used to having it in the camera itself. Then again, Canon has the best high ISO performance decisively. Your call, but Christmas is only 100(ish) days away...

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Back in the saddle!

Here's an update for Matty, to calm his fears that I'm starving my fish:

Here's one fat SOB:



and here's another fat SOB poking around in the substrate:



Feel better now?

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Back in the saddle!

That is a fatty. Glad you're feeding them. stay off the tetra starvation diet....it's no good . Nice pics nowher.

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

Notice, though, the green/ yellow color cast that I mentioned in your log. No matter what the camera can't handle the aquarium lighting.

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Back in the saddle!

Nice fish pictures NowherMan6,

So I see that this thread is also infested with camera talk . I don't know, but mine does balance the color rather well, I usually never correct colors before posting the pictures. I find that the only time I have a greenish tint is when my 5000K lights are on.

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

Just a little touch up for color balance:



Attached Image:

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

Looks good Matty.

I know how to perform color cast removal in photoshop, that's not the issue. My personal issue is, I think a DSLR should be able to handle white balance right out of the camera as well as its competition does... and at least as well as a P&S

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Back in the saddle!

You use the manual white balance settings?

Really I think it's just a minor yelow tint. Not one that jusmps out at you, like those glosso shots I took while the cameraa was still in the mode for my salt tank . It's probably because the lights are yellow. Most 6500K bulbs are. I think the fact I use one 6500K and one 10000K helps a bit.

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

Well, it's been about a month or so, just wanted to post an update shot. The only major change that has happened is I've suffered a bit of a BBA outbreak on the hardscape. You can see it in patches on both DW pieces. It hasn't moved to plants at all, but I'm keeping a close eye out. I think I need to be mroe consistent with the excel dosing, I've been on and off with it lately.

Anyway, these were taken after a decent trimming of old NL fern leaves. Man does that plant grow fast for a fern! And that's to say nothing of the blyxa field. Enjoy...



p.s. extra credit to anyone who finds the one green neon in the picture

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Back in the saddle!

Looks really good. I wish my Blyxa looked like that. I guess the really intense lighting helps and the aquasoil doesn't hurt either.

BBA is really the one algae that is tough to completely eliminate. Even in the cleanest tanks there is still a buildup of organics in the substrate, filter when compared to when the tank was started, probably enough to let some of this stuff develop.

I found one amano shrimp in the pic, but not the neon.

BTW where did you order the aquasoil from (ADG?)




My Scapes

I think it looks very nice, Some BBA on some wood is not a problem in my eyes, you could take the tweezers and pick it off (that's what I do sometimes).

Ah, and for the blind people, that was easy:

Attached Image:

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

Thanks guys

Interesting thing about the Blyxa, for the past few weeks I've only been running 13 Watts on this tank, as one of the bulbs burned out. Growth has slowed down, but the Blyxa has retained its full appearance.

Interestingly, the BBA started when the bulb burned out. Could it have been the resulting CO2 fluctuation that caused the BBA growth spurt? Less light = slowed plant growth = less nutrient absorbtion = change in level of CO2 in WC.

Yes, the aquasoil is from ADG, as is the powersand special beneath it.


Good eye as always, LF. Those guys blend in well from above, just that little speck of green showing...

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Back in the saddle!

That looks great nowherman. I'm still trying not to catch the nano (or pico in tetratechs case) bug. You guys sure make it hard. They sure look to be a lot of fun. I'll just try and get the tank I have under control for now .

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

I'm still trying not to catch the nano (or pico in tetratechs case) bug. You guys sure make it hard.

Gladly, whenever I bring up the topic of a new nano tank to my wife I get:



Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

Thanks Matty,

When I say this tank is just about zero work, I mean that. Topping off water, little water changes every two weeks or so. Excel every day or so, ferts at water changes, or whenever I feel like it. Picking out shrimp shells when you see them and pruning once a month or so. Cleaning the filter every month. Takes up maybe two hours per month, and that's being generous. No work whatsoever.

Although to be honest I'm going to have to prune that Blyxa soon, the leaves are pressing up against the front glass pretty badly now. But even that's not a lot of work for the on estem plant in there.

So in short... Join us... join us... join us...


LF, I can't believe your wife lets you have a 125, a 40 and two 20's... but no little 4G for the bedroom?? That's not fair!

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Back in the saddle!

Oh I've thought about it Nowherman .

And I think LF's wife is quite generous....but yeah, what's another 4 gallons? Might be the straw that broke the camel's back.

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

Although to be honest I'm going to have to prune that Blyxa soon, the leaves are pressing up against the front glass pretty badly now.

Any chance of taking a blxya group out and doing a Glosso or HC foreground. Probably not since your enjoying your almost maintenance free tank.



My Scapes

Space is at such a premium in this tank, the glosso or HC would get squeezed out. Remember, I started this tank out with an HC foreground, but it grew into the blyxa too much and vice versa, it looked too cluttered.

Plus I think I'd have to set up a sort of boundary bewteen the two groups, the HC and the blyxa... and with so little floorspace it would be very difficult to pull off. For now I'm just going to cut back on the blyxa.

And as you said, I'm very much enjoying the maintainence free part of this tank!

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Back in the saddle!

what's another 4 gallons? Might be the straw that broke the camel's back

Pretty much so, but I don't know who you are calling a camel, my wife or me?

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

Well, I promised an update and here it is. In keeping with the spirit of showing our tanks with all their blemishes, here's my formerly healthy, vibrant 4G.


This is the tank as recently as late January. Still pretty thick with java fern and blyxa. The blyxa had gone through an excel melt but came back well enough. BBA was running wild at this point:




Now this is the tank last night. At some point in the past few weeks the blyxa just exploded into about a hundred baby plants, which floated up to the surface. I guess this is just the way the plant reproduces, but it's not very good for maintaining a scape. I also trimmed out the fern a lot, but BBA is still a major issue - notice the shag carpeting on the DW. All inhabitants are still alive and well, so I'm doing something right.



As you can see, it's in need of a MAJOR overhaul. I personally feel that with this much BBA on the DW, it's not worth the scrubbing and bleaching it would take to get it all off. I've been soaking a better piece of DW for some time now, and it's ready for action. I've also been growing out HC. In the new version I'm not going to use the javas - I'll hold onto them to use in the 65 where they'll fit in better, they're much too large for this tank. I also won't be using blyxa japonica in the new set-up.

The anubias will be used, along with an HC carpet and probably some rotala with maybe a bit of pearlgrass as well. Sticking to small or fine leaves. DIY CO2 will also be added, as I'm finding CO2 to be a necessity for growing HC.

And finally, I don't think I posted this anywhere, but this is a shot of one of the amanos I took with a used macro lens I picked up for my new DSLR... Oh yeah, by they way, I joined LF, tetra and matty on the Canon side of things. For the past few months I've been replacing all the Minolta equipment I sold off, so I was pretty immersed in that world for a bit.



So that's it, any comments welcome... and hopefully this will be a good start getting me back into the flow.

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Back in the saddle!

I should pull a wings and say "thanks for showing pictures."

However I'd like to ask what you were dosing, how much, and what you thought the reason for the major BBA outbreak was. Hopefully you can nail it this time around. It was a beautiful scape even in jan. when the BBA was taking over. I agree that it needs a bit of work now though, and sometime overhauls can be the easiest way to do that.

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

So the Blyxa melted from too much excel, probably in an attempt to rid the tank of the dreaded BBA. I think with high light and no co2 it's even harder to control BBA once the tank matures and the organic level continues to grow. I'm wondering if Seachem's Purigen would help in your situation since it's suppose to remove organics from the WC. In a co2 based tank, supposely steady and high levels of co2 will help control it and you won't get plant melting. How long are you lights on? I have personally found that reducing the light period is a tremendous help with controlling BBA. On my 72g when I started having some BBA issues I reduced the overall light to 9 hours and my burst to 3.5 hours (previously 10 hours and 5 hours) and I honestly don't see much BBA anymore.

I would personally clean the wood with a stiff brush, like a bathroom brush, add purigen to the filter and reduce your lights and see what happens.

I've gotten alot of feedback on Blyxa from many advanced planted folk and they say it's a funny plant. Some it grows like a weed for others can't get it to do much. My tank has high light, co2, etc, etc. and it barely grows and is completely green. When the plant was going gangbusters in your tank it must have had an immense root system. Is that all gone from the melt. I know your not dosing much with the AS in there, it's too soon for the AS to loose its nutrients isn't it, although it is recommended to increase ferts with the stuff as the tank ages.

Nice shrimp shot Canon

My Scapes

However I'd like to ask what you were dosing, how much, and what you thought the reason for the major BBA outbreak was. Hopefully you can nail it this time around.

Because of the lack of CO2 dosing was not heavy at all. I would change the water about every 3 weeks, and when I did I added equilibrium, KNO3, K2SO4 and a tiny bit of excel. That's about it.

So the Blyxa melted from too much excel, probably in an attempt to rid the tank of the dreaded BBA. I think with high light and no co2 it's even harder to control BBA once the tank matures and the organic level continues to grow. In a co2 based tank, supposely steady and high levels of co2 will help control it and you won't get plant melting. How long are you lights on? I have personally found that reducing the light period is a tremendous help with controlling BBA. On my 72g when I started having some BBA issues I reduced the overall light to 9 hours and my burst to 3.5 hours (previously 10 hours and 5 hours) and I honestly don't see much BBA anymore.

In my case I think it was the maturation of the tank (organic build up) plus the low water level, which led to the loss of whatever CO2 was in the water to begin with. The BBA grows thickest right at the mouth of the filter outflow, I think it likes the current. The high light and ~10hr per day light duration, plus low, variable CO2 combined to create a 'perfect storm' of sorts for BBA growth.

When the plant was going gangbusters in your tank it must have had an immense root system. Is that all gone from the melt.

It did have a huge root system, but now, as you can see in the picture, most of the stems are hanging on by a thread, so I assume it is mostly gone. When I redo everything I'll dig around some more and see exactly what happened.

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Back in the saddle!

In my case I think it was the maturation of the tank (organic build up) plus the low water level, which led to the loss of whatever CO2 was in the water to begin with. The BBA grows thickest right at the mouth of the filter outflow, I think it likes the current. The high light and ~10hr per day light duration, plus low, variable CO2 combined to create a 'perfect storm' of sorts for BBA growth.

That's one issue with these nanos, is that one usually doesn't have a light that has two separate bulbs. Personally I think a 7hr lighting schedule is good for all things involved, but obviously you have the tank to look at so it would depend on your "lifestyle". If one could run the lights for 9 to 10, but do the typical "burst" for just a few hours that would probably give you the best of both, but you'd have to have a light that would allow you to do that, but also look good.

BTW - Where you happy with the AS? Will you use it again?


My Scapes

That's one issue with these nanos, is that one usually doesn't have a light that has two separate bulbs. Personally I think a 7hr lighting schedule is good for all things involved, but obviously you have the tank to look at so it would depend on your "lifestyle". If one could run the lights for 9 to 10, but do the typical "burst" for just a few hours that would probably give you the best of both, but you'd have to have a light that would allow you to do that, but also look good.

I'm definitely going to try to cut back on the lighting. A 7hr burst from the PC bulbs, plus whatever sunlight filters through the room before and after should work.


As for the AS: absolutely, 100% yes, I will use it again. What I'd do differently, however, is use less Power Sand. It's very peat-y, has lots of organics in it - and when you pull anything up, all that gets released into the WC. I made the mistake of using a thin layer over the entire bottom - I really think you need only a small section of the middle maybe, or none at all for such a small tank. But as for the AS itself, not only did the Blyxa thrive in it, but the anubias and java ferns have very large root complexes growing in it as well.

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Back in the saddle!

As for the AS: absolutely, 100% yes, I will use it again. What I'd do differently, however, is use less Power Sand. It's very peat-y, has lots of organics in it - and when you pull anything up, all that gets released into the WC. I made the mistake of using a thin layer over the entire bottom - I really think you need only a small section of the middle maybe, or none at all for such a small tank. But as for the AS itself, not only did the Blyxa thrive in it, but the anubias and java ferns have very large root complexes growing in it as well.

Yeah, I'll give it a try. I'm debating on whether I should bother with a powersand and the tourmaline. I was thinking of just dusting the bottom with some peat and mulm.


My Scapes

I'd go for the tourmaline, I'm going to try it in the 65 anyway. I'm a big believer in the power of the placebo - even if it's bunk, as long as I BELIEVE it's legit, I'll see the effects of it

Bacter100 and that clear super stuff are worth it as well, IMO. The Power Sand special includes both of them. For a larger tank, I think Power Sand special with tourmaline is a good combo - for a smaller tank, skip the PS.

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Back in the saddle!

See NowherMan6,

If you would have been at the club meetings you would have heard that current causes BBA and that Power Sand should be used in minimal quantities

Today is another meeting, BTW.

Otherwise, your tank shows the challenges of a small tank over time, and you were the only one of us (besides Bensaf) who had a small tank for a while (tetratech changes his small ones all the time, ). I doub't that there was much you could have done differently, I guess these sized tanks are a lot of trial and error.

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

If you would have been at the club meetings you would have heard that current causes BBA and that Power Sand should be used in minimal quantities

With a name like Nowher you can't expect to be at all the meetings or even one. Any further info on the current causes BBA thing? I haven't found anything really consistent with that.

My Scapes