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I am pleased to announce that my planted tank is doing well. Currently I have mostly AMAZON SWORDS! I bought one, it sprouted six, clipped it, two weeks later another 5 poped up, there packed in tight, and there growing I had to move some of them to the other 90. I have vals that are growing to the top of the tank, and a couple of stem plants and some other plants thatt are on some wood... as for aquascaping, I dont know what to doi am baffled by the sucess of this one happy amazon from walmart.... anyone need nice sized amazons? the parent has one baby that is almost as big as it.. the rest are much smaller

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mrwizerd,

Looking very nice there and I am glad to hear that your sword is having babies. Remember though that all these babies (even when transplanted into the 90) will become adults and rather large. Make sure to thin out the crowd before they start to fill the entire tank (and root like mad).

Do you have any plans to add more plants of a different species to the tank? Not that it doesn't look very nice, but it may look even better with more stuff.

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

Looks like your tank is off to a good start. Your plants look very healthy.

What are you doing for ferts, light, substrate?

Maybe add some more val to the background and some moss on the rocks. Best wishes!

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

I have some bronze wendtii... there is a red melon sword in there that is recovering from a rather large infestation of black brush so i trimmed it down and its comming back. The vals will all prolly make it to the back, and the main problem with the amazon is that though I have all these babies and know they will over run my tank very soon, I don't have anywhere to put them well at least that many there to large for most of my tanks. I will have to start shipping them out to people who want them... so If anyone wants one lemmi know and I will send it to you. right now though I must go discipline my electric yellow he is picking on my female albino BN.

I would call your LFS and see if you can sell the sword babies to them for credit or trade.

I was wondering what the cichlid was in your tank. No problems with digging?



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

Oh, I also didn't tell you info on my tech spec.

The lights are 6500k 65w X4 in an Odyssea fixture Extremely affordable.
The Substrate is Fluorite from Seachem 50%
And Medium Grit Sand from Lowe's 50% Approximately if anything there is more Fluorite than anything.
For ferts I am using Flourish Iron and Flourits Micro Ferts although I am out now and am using a KENT Freshwater plant with 1% iron or some such. I will be buying more flourish on the third.

There are two non south american cichlids in the tank, The Keyhole and the Electric Yellow, and the Electric yellow doesn't dig really, when it was just a sand substrate but not that bad. He doesn't push the Fluorite though.

The lights are 6500k 65w X4 in an Odyssea fixture Extremely affordable.

What size tank? 90 gallon? If so then you have 2.89WPG. Thats pretty good.

With the amount of light you have on this tank I would start using some Flourish Excel. It is a great carbon source if you don't want to run CO2.

The store that I work at sells a lot of Odyssea stuff. I personaly like some of the other brands better because the bugs seem to be work out but Odyssea is really good about taking care of our store so we can take care of the cusomers if the product flakes out.

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

Yeah, I have been getting them on aquatraders for 1/3 what I would get a similar fixture in the store. Yeah it is a 90g. I forgot to mention the green tube on the right is the CO2 diffuser powered by a Rio 50. I have mixed RO/DI water with my tap water to get a ph of 7.0 then reduced it to 6.5 with CO2. This is actually one of two 90's that will be planted the other tank is out getting filled so i can finish the setup. I don't have any fish in it yet, and its on the floor waiting. I am still in the process of getting the fish room built. It will house 18 60g tanks or there equivalent in custom built tanks a 300w and at least one 90 possibly 3, they will be the show tanks for the fish room, and then 3 shows in the house thats why I call it Michael's Aquatic Wonder world.

Sounds like you are quite the fish geek. I would spend some more time reading tetra and LF's logs. Much to be learned there. Keep us posted on how the tank changes and such!

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

your swords look really healthy. Must be all of that lighting.

Yes, your swords do look very healthy.

I have a sword of my own that I have had about a month now.

Is there a best way to trim an Amazon Sword? The roots seem to have gotten fairly bulky and ugly at the base.

I don't really know, I have not had to trim them back yet. Today i removed fish from a 29 and a 20 and put them into the two 90's and moved the larger fish out of the show 90 and put them into the other 90 and now I have mostly panda melini cory and apistos and rams in the tank with 6 sae's and about 8 ottos

SchanTheMan,
If you have enough deep enough gravel bed you shouldn't have a problem. 3-4 inches is normally best for plants.

If you need to trim the leaves(dead,damaged,or emmersed growth) just take some scissors and cut close to the base.

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

Yeah, and if your gravel is a little low you can add flourite... assuming you have none now... How big is yours at this point?