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Gang,

I am hitting a motivational low with regards to the setup of my 125G.

As of today, even the last piece of equipment ordered online has arrived and a few things will still need to be picked up at local stores, like gravel, timers, and power strips. All is here, except driftwood, rocks, and plants.

The rocks I will try to get from a gardening center, I am sure I will find something suitable, like slate.

The other 2 items give me a serious headache and are the reason for my frustration.

I cannot get my hands on any decent branchy driftwood. The ones I once collected were turned down by our FP jury (rightfully so, as it was neither water locked nor has it been in the water for a long time at all). I am hoping that I will soon be able to go to a small pond near our friends’ house that might have some fallen trees in it.

Even bigger is my frustration when attempting to find a decent online plant store that fulfills the following conditions:

a) Ship so that the plants arrive on a Saturday (I am running out of vacation days)
b) Have a sufficient plant assortment
c) Actually have all the plants in stock that they claim to have (on the website). I hate comments in the shipping section of sites that basically state “If we don’t have it this week then we will ship it next week”. Well, I cannot afford (just ask the wife) to reserve various Saturdays in a row for a planting of the tank that might happen or not.
d) Has a customer service that actually can be reached.

I am sure you know the feeling of frustration that sets in when all is in place and one crucial item is missing.

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

ITKWYM, Ingo. It's taken me the longest time to finish stocking my 3rd tank (2 months running), partly because I can only go to LFS's and do major "fish jobs" on weekends. First I couldn't the plants I like anywhere locally (plant selection and quality at LFS here suck). When I try to order them online, they're either out of stock or are way too expensive. I'm still waiting for my last batch of plants I got from eBay to arrive. And to top it all off, now I can't find a good batch of cardinal tetras anywhere! ]:|

Hope things get better for you soon. Good luck!

Last edited by upikabu at 13-Sep-2005 20:34

-P

umm, maybe this will help or it may not. i just ordered some plants off a guy on ebay, really good, not to sure about ur shipping questions but here.

[link=http://stores.ebay.com/Aquarium-and-Pond-Plants]http://stores.ebay.com/Aquarium-and-Pond-Plants" style="COLOR: #FFFF00[/link]

there were some auctiions for some driftwood, try talking with him, for somethingy special that u have in mind. Please dont forget he is a wholesaler so he deals with alot of shippments, so please dont give up the first time, if the order came in wrong, like mines.

but good luck ingo.

Ingo,

I sympathise it's a tricky one. But the chances of you getting the tank just the way you want it on the first try is practically zero anyway, even if you had all your plant choices were at hand. 2 years down the road I'm still fiddling and removing/replacing plants.
It is important that the tank is fully planted at the start up. This is of course tricky if your plant selction is not readily available. As I said one trick is to fill in big sections with a cheap LFS available weed like Wisteria or Hygro. As you're preferred plant selctions you can take out the weeds (that's why I suggest cheap ones) and replace with the good un's.

As I said you'll want to change anyway, sometimes what seems like a pretty plant just doesn't fit in your scape as well as you thought. Change is almost constant.

Stick at it. This is the messy phase. Once it's up and running it takes very little effort. Plus you'll be very happy with the results and it'll be all worthwhile. Bear in mind even when you plant itll take a few weeks to look any way decent. Anything worth doing takes a bit of pain and effort, it's the final result that'll make it worthwhile. The pain will only add to the pride of the finished article

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Some days you're the pigeon and some days you're the statue.

Remember that age and treachery will always triumph over youth and ability.

Thanks guys,

upikabu – for making me see that I am not the only one being frustrated.

bettachris – for providing me with this link, although I doubt that I will use it because your comment “please dont give up the first time, if the order came in wrong, like mines.” is not too encouraging.

Bensaf – for your detailed advice on how to circumvent the current impasse. I guess part of the frustration comes from the realization that the vision I have (had) of a gorgeous tank from the get go cannot be realized, no matter what I do. Buying plants at the LFS is my last resort, as there is only one with a decent selection (although limited numbers of each). In addition, they charge a fortune for it, at least twice the online price. This is not too bad if you buy one plant, but I will need more than 100 (stems and others).

Thanks again,

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

Littlefish I forget where your from. Are there any mega aquatic stores within a reasonable distance from home.

I have one on L.I., that is about 45 minutes from home. They usually carry many hard to find items, like driftwood rocks, etc.

What was the issue with aquariumplants.com

Also if you saw my thread on corrupted eco-complete. I think your not alone in frustation. I need to tear my tank down again.

Last edited by tetratech at 14-Sep-2005 08:35

My Scapes

tetratech,

Yeah, I know about your eco-complete trouble, although it is hard for me to believe that the problem becomes visible 18 months after you set up the tank.

Where in L.I. is the store you mention (and what is it called)? I am rather frequently out in the Cold Spring Harbor area (nice fish hatchery, in case you care about this stuff). Do they carry branchy driftwood? My LFS has various pieces of African driftwood, but anything of a decent size is more like a chunk with one arm sticking out then a nice branched wood. BTW, I am in NJ.

One problem with aquariumplants.com is that their website sucks .
I have never seen a page load so slow then theirs, plus various sections of their site don’t even work (like their Order Status feature). Furthermore, have you tried to click the “BBB Online” (Better Business Bureau) link on their site? In addition, I once called them up with a question about the CO2 system and the person on the phone was rather unfriendly. In addition, it took them 12 days from placing my order until the shipment of the CO2 system (small box) arrived. I ordered online stuff from 6 different stores; aquariumplants.com was the first order placed and the last to arrive. I am not sure how much I can trust them to ship plants on time. They also don’t have shipping days mentioned on their site, so I don’t know if they ship on Fridays (overnight). I guess I would have to talk to that “nice” person then again.

Thanks,

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

In addition, they charge a fortune for it, at least twice the online price. This is not too bad if you buy one plant, but I will need more than 100 (stems and others).

Get your butt over to Jakarta. I'll take you to the aquatic markets where you can fill a 125 gal tank with plants, driftood and rocks for $10. That's not an exageration. Huge bunches of Rotala Macrandra with colors you wouldn't believe for $0.20. Driftwood piled 6' high (pick the piece on the bottom, it's a blast to see that poor guys face
). I'll provide accomadation, first beer's on you
The price of the air ticket is probably cheaper then buying plants in the US

I have something that might be of interest. I'll drop you a PM.

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Some days you're the pigeon and some days you're the statue.

Remember that age and treachery will always triumph over youth and ability.

The store I'm talking about is Aquarium Adventure. It is an 11,000 square foot store of only fish. Not to far from CSH. They have a reading room in the back so bring a cup of coffee and take a deep breadth. Here is a link to their locations:

http://www.aquariumadventure.com/locations.htm

They sell alot of plants, but I would find out delivery schedules, etc.

Yeah, I know about your eco-complete trouble, although it is hard for me to believe that the problem becomes visible 18 months after you set up the tank.

I only recently started testing po4 levels in my tank and I really haven't been doing the planted tank thing that long. It obviously didn't affect my fish that much, because I had a school of cardinals for well over a year without a loss. I do right now have two fish with a very tough form of ick or it actually looks like velvet which I am treating with coppersafe and so far after 5 days it hasn't done anything. One is a rummynose and the other a bn. My other fish right now (bolivian ram, otos, bns are all fine



Last edited by tetratech at 14-Sep-2005 09:25

My Scapes

Bensaf -

Get your butt over to Jakarta.

I would really like to do that, although I would have to bring the wife and kids.

I'll provide accommodation, first beer's on you

I will pay for all the beer you can handle

tetratech -

That is a super link. This store is basically around the corner from my mother-in-law’s house. Well, not really, but this is what I will tell the wife when we drive there .

Both of you, thanks a lot,

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

LF there's no real need to get the plants exactly where you want them on the day they arrive at your house. As long as the shipment can be recieved (maybe delivered to work?) and put in random placees in the tank that night, you can fiddle with it all the next day or something.

I also agree with Bensaf - just get it up and going and make some changes here and there. It's much less of a headache than trying to get it perfect the first time. It's been exactly 257 days since I set up my tank, and I just picked out some plants to replace my hygro with. This tank will be an ongoing project and there will always be room for improvement (which keeps it fun). Just try to keep an open mind about plant/driftwood/rock selection - you never know, something might grow on you that you hadn't intended to keep.


Edit: Oh hey! I've been to that store in Cleveland - it's pretty good (not nearly as good as The Fish Place, but nobody is anyway). They did have a MASSIVE amount of tanks for sale like in that picture.

Last edited by mattyboombatty at 14-Sep-2005 11:32

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

Yes, I believe the company is headquartered in OHIO and the stores there are corporate stores.

The store on L.I. does have a decent plant selection. They have the plants setup with those marineland plant tanks, but I've noticed some of their plants do not stay in good condition so it's best to go after they have gotten a shipment.




My Scapes

tetratech,

I was at the Aquarium Adventure store on L.I. yesterday. Unfortunately, they didn’t have a large selection as the guy who orders the plants was on vacation the day he should have put in the order. So mostly they had java fern and cabomba. I saw one anubias and it looked pretty bad. Most of the plants also had quite a bit of algae on them.

Nevertheless, I had a nice chat with one of their sales people and he suggested to give them a call on a Wednesday to ask what they intend to order and also to throw in one or the other “custom” wish, given the quantity would be large enough.

Also, they didn’t have any feasible driftwood. I was told that, for an unknown reason (was it you?), all the large pieces have been sold out. I tried to convince him to sell me one that they have in their show tanks, but he didn’t go for it.

Overall, it was a nice trip but I didn’t even have time to look at their fish as my wife and kids “made me leave the store”.

Thanks for the tip; I am sure I will go back there,

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

Sorry it didn't work out for you at AA. As I said you have to hit it right after they get their plants.

As far as the driftwood, don't know about their inventory of branch-type pieces, but usually I've found a large seletion of big pieces either on the shelves or in the tanks they have for sale in the back.

I know what you mean about the wife/kids it's tough to really relax and see everything.



My Scapes

Things are looking up a bit as I changed my design plans after finding some other options.

You can read about it [link=Here]http://www.fishprofiles.com/files/forums/Aquascaping/64353.html?08151667" style="COLOR: #ff6633[/link].

Thanks,

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club