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LOL it is the first time any of my killi's have done that and dont worry I put the killi in my 20 gal that has just finished cycling..

LF, the glosso is a bit strange but I planted it well I hope it does grow in well..And yes there is a lil bit of algae on the back but its just left over algae that is hard to get to..

If anyone has some more plant suggestions let me know and also I would like to start ferts asap so if you guys know any sites I could order from let me know. Even better would be a schedule I could follow in dosing the right amount of ferts for my tank..Thanks again!

Very nice saltnewbie,

I guess it will be time to trim soon

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

LF, I plan to replace the water sprite with a slower plant, any suggestions? I also may move the driftwood even more, or take it out and try a few rocks, not sure I am digging the open look thats all...

The picture of the glass cats is beautiful!

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Cake or death?

saltnewbie,

Beautiful

So far all seems to be going as planned. The tank got really green, and I like that. Here are some things you will have to watch out for.

- Keep an eye on the Water Sprite, it will grow really dense and take over that entire side. I predict that you will eventually replace it with a slower growing plant that is less invasive, so start thinking of what you would like to see in its place ().
- You can trim the Ludwigia simply by cutting off the upper part of the stem. Then you have 2 options (or 3): a) replant the tops and dispose of the bottoms, b) dispose the cut off tops, and c) keep both and plant the tops near the bottoms to make your group bigger. I would suggest to cut about 2/3 down so new branches will make the group appear bushier.
- Keep a keen eye on the Glosso, it seems to be doing very very well. If you followed at least through the last couple of pages of my log then you will know that I am currently fighting an overpopulation issue. Maintenance in time can help to prevent this from happening (I think).

Again, good job,

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

Thanks for the comment Wings, I guess now that you mention it the tank does have a good sense of depth!

saltnewbie,

Nice pictures! Your tank has come a long way and things have really starting filling in. I like it! You have seemed to create quite a bit of depth.

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

Update 1/23... I have noticed alot of growth since the last update so I wanted to show some pictures I just took. Enjoy..!

Heres a full tank shot (right side of tank has no background at the moment). The watersprite is growing nice and dense, very green and bushy!. Also, notice how tall the red ludwiga is on the left side of my tank. Check out my albino cory school posing for the tank...:

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c47/organja/DSCN0531.jpg


Heres the right side of the tank, the pair of crypts are a nice Red/Brown, always a cory in the pic it seems...:


http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c47/organja/DSCN0532.jpg

Heres the left side of my tank mainly showing the red ludwiga growth...:

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c47/organja/DSCN0533.jpg

Center tank shot, not the best picture, just showing how nicely the glosso lawn is growing, and whats that? Another cory...:

http://photobucket.com/albums/c47/organja/DSCN0534.jpg

The tops of a few of my red ludwiga stems are bending at the surface, how should I go about trimming this?:

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c47/organja/DSCN0535.jpg

Anddd lastly, just a cool shot of my glass cats with the light shinning through them...:

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c47/organja/DSCN0546.jpg





...Comments, suggestions, anything!?

Update 1/23... I have noticed alot of growth since the last update so I wanted to show some pictures I just took. Enjoy..!

Heres a full tank shot (right side of tank has no background at the moment). The watersprite is growing nice and dense, very green and bushy!. Also, notice how tall the red ludwiga is on the left side of my tank. Check out my albino cory school posing for the tank...:




Heres the right side of the tank, the pair of crypts are a nice Red/Brown, always a cory in the pic it seems...:





Heres the left side of my tank mainly showing the red ludwiga growth...:



Center tank shot, not the best picture, just showing how nicely the glosso lawn is growing, and whats that? Another cory...:



The tops of a few of my red ludwiga stems are bending at the surface, how should I go about trimming this?:



Anddd lastly, just a cool shot of my glass cats with the light shinning through them...:







...Comments, suggestions, anything!?

saltnewbie,

Basically this sounds good, for a well planted tank .

The part I don’t get is the Plantex. Didn’t you get a dry mix? How much do you use to create the mixture that you then want to use to add 10ml 3 x a week to the tank?

Overall I want to make sure that you know that the current quantities should serve as a starting point and might very well change during the next couple of months.

Ingo

Edit: I would like to hear your Potassium Sulfate story
In general, it is not necessary to add it when adding KNO3 and Potassium Phosphate.

Last edited by LITTLE_FISH at 22-Jan-2006 06:12

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

Got my ferts in tonight! Going to start my dosing schedule tomorow after work.. My red ludwiga has touched the surface of my tank and the tip of a few stems are even taller than the tank so they are bending on the surface. MEGA GROWTH.. My glosso is filling in nicely it seems and is very green and staying low which are all good signs. I added 3 more ottos because I love how cute and helpful they are. My java ferns, watersprite, anubias, hell all of my plants are 10 x cleaner since I added these lil buggers. One problem I may run into is since I have 8 albino cories, I feed 4 to 6 floating wafers every night or so and when I drop the wafers they land in the glosso lawn and my cories are somewhat uprooting a few glosso plantlets when they feed, once the glosso becomes a full carpet I will have even more problems so I am going to have a small island where there are no plants so my cories can eat w/out disrupting anything. Heres my dosing schedule... sound good to you?..:

50% water change
1/2 tsp. KNO3 3x/week
1/8 tsp. KH2PO4 3x/week
And for my CSM+B plantex I should dose 10 ml 3x/week right? (that seems like alot of plantex though, almost a tablespoon 3x/week!)..Please if anything doesnt sound right, let me know what I should change..

P.S: I know I am not adding any K2SO4, long story

I have a Coolpix 4500 at the start of taking tank photos it was difficult.

Those cameras are fool proof.
The secret is set it on Auto that is what it is there for. Use the Macro setting when ever possible. Be patient, sit down and relax think about what you want to photograph, be prepared to keep about 10% of your photos to start off with.

I did several camera courses and it was regually stated "The camera makers spend millions trying to perfect the ""Auto"" setting so use it.

Also it was stressed a good computer like Adobe Photoshop will do most of the adjustments you require.

Have a look in my Photo Bucket for some of my photos.

Have a look in [link=My Profile]http://
www.fishprofiles.com/interactive/forums/profile.asp?userid=6741" style="COLOR: #00FF00[/link] for my tank info

[link=Betta 11Gal Desktop & Placidity 5ft Community Tanks]http://photobucket.com/albums/b209/keithgh/Betta%20desktop%20tank/" style="COLOR: #00FF00[/link]

Keith

Near enough is not good enough, therefore good enough is not near enough, and only your best will do.
I VOTE DO YOU if not WHY NOT?
VOTE NOW VOTE NOW

I plan to fill in the left/middle side but I dont know what plants to do that with right now, I am open to any suggestions tho! I am just waiting for everything to fill in..

A few of my red ludwiga stems are already touching the surface by the way!

Last edited by saltnewbie at 20-Jan-2006 17:49

PS: Good job on the reading, but skipping pages doesn’t count

Indeed. We fully expect you to know the entire FP Brady Bunch by the end of the weekend


p.s. haven't said much (or anything really), LF has been doing too good of a job keeping up, but I have been following along. You're doing a great job - any ideas for filling in the middle left empty section, or is that by design?

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Back in the saddle!

saltnewbie,

All kinds of things helped me to get rid of the algae, well most of it anyway.

I am not saying that this is how it has to be done though, neither am I saying that the success I had in the past guarantees permanent success, I might have won one or the other battle but I am still at war :

- I used Maracyn to kill the BGA
- I used a one week Excel treatment (twice by now) to kill BBA and / or Brush Algae
- I adjusted my dosages of macros and micros
- I switched micros from Plantex to TMG

And that about does it

Ingo

PS: Good job on the reading, but skipping pages doesn’t count

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

saltnewbie, love the buddha statue in the greenery, it adds depth to the tank the way it is barely visible. What a great tank and you being so young to be bitten by the 'scape bug!
Way to Go!

"If you're afraid you'll make a mistake, you won't make anything."
-Family Circus

I read through most of your log, now I am caught up. Seems you had a preety bad algae problem earlier, how did you fix the algae problem you had? I must of past the page where you explained how you got rid of it...

saltnewbie,

Well, then it is about time that you catch up with my log

Once you are through then there will be only 2 to 3 new pages each additional week.



Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

Yeah that second pic is so green, its nice to watch it at night.. I will check out your glosso pics, I am just a lil scared to browse through the log since its over 45 pages long!

saltnewbie,

I like the second picture, all looks very nice and green.

The Glosso will take a while to spread, but then you can’t stop it anymore from doing so .
Look at the first pages of my log and you will see that I started off with way less than you did, and eventually it filled the whole foreground, and more.

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

Thanks for the replies, I will slowly up the schools, but I am not sure if I want to get rid of the guppies since I took out all the mean fish just for them plus they are my fav. fish (so preety and peaceful), maybe I will get rid of the 4 minnows and 2 hatchets and up the guppies and maybe some wood shrimp and a dozen ghost shrimp because I am cool like that..

Heres just an updated pic of my tank, there is some growth and the water sprite is showing some nice green leaves growing over the old brown ones which is really cool!..:

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c47/organja/DSCN0511.jpg

Heres what my tank looks like around 11 at night before lights out (only the 65 watt is on)..:

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c47/organja/DSCN0493.jpg

My glosso carpet, does it look okay? When should it start spreading and growing etc.?..:

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c47/organja/DSCN0512.jpg

saltnewbie,

What a difference a day makes .

I think it looks soooooo much better already (even when NOT considering the advancements you made in handling your camera).

One quick question: Is there any particular reason your filter intake is so short? I would imagine that a lot of gunk collects at the bottom of your tank as the water flow there should be rather limited.

Ingo

LITTLE_FISH attached this image:

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

Heres a rough drawing of what I may try to plan when I get my c02 and lighting set up.. I want riccia in the front as the main carpet.. and Dwarf hairgrass maybe on both sides..Then move the driftwood to the left so the tank isnt too centered and then pic some more tall background plants because all I am using now is water sprite and red ludwiga soo any ideas on some plants I could try?..Comments welcome because I want to do this right!...:

http://photobucket.com/albums/c47/organja/?action=view&current=editt.jpg

What you guys think..Not much thought has been put into this new aquascpae as it is just a rough sketch and its also late and I need to go to bed so I will do more research tomorow..Just want to get you guys thoughts on what my new aquascape should be..( plants and hardscape ideas)


Last edited by saltnewbie at 04-Jan-2006 21:49

Oh,

And I almost forgot:

I get my dry macro ferts from [link=Here]http://www.gregwatson.com/" style="COLOR: #ff6633[/link], namely KNO3, potassium sulfate, and potassium phosphate.

My micro ferts are of recently the Tropica Master Grow (TMG) that I ordered from Big Al's.

Hope this helps,

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

going to change most of or my entire plant slection once the c02 and ferts and lighting gets set up

But I hope that you have a good plant load before you add whatnot CO2 and whatnot ferts, right?

What plants do you envision anyways ?

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

Hehe, well right now I am just using some SeaChem liquid fert but I am going to order some better ferts hopefully preety soon I heard they are preety cheap too right?..Anyone have a link to the ferts you would reccomend??..

I am not going to be aquascaping anything too much right now because I am prolly going to change most of or my entire plant slection once the c02 and ferts and lighting gets set up (some time next week when it all gets here)

Ok,

Lights are coming -
CO2 Unit is on the way -

Time to talk about Fertilization

What do you know about this "topic"?

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

Salt,
If you use the 110w and the new 65w you will have about 3.6wpg. With that power comes alot of responsiblity. Are you really for that?

BTW - The focal is too much on that javafern. You should get rid of the most unsightly leaves and plant along the length of the driftwood pieces. Right now it looks like a java shrine. You already have a budda :88)

My Scapes

well, I am going to put the 24 inch hood on my glass lid like in front of the canopy..and I will sttempt to disassemble the mounting legs so it lays flat..also, I ordered it so I can have a total of 175 watts which is like over 3 WPG so Glosso here I come..gtg tho teacher is coming lol

saltnewbie,

I cannot get the first link to work. How about describing the product and the parts that it comes with?

The light, not my favorite to be honest with you. Here are some thoughts:

- The unit is 24” long. How long is your 46G bowfront?
- The legs are most likely useless, unless you have an open top tank. These kinds of legs cannot lock into the frame if you have a glass top as the inner part would have to go through the glass.
- The light comes with a 50/50 bulb. Did you order a freshwater bulb as well? Actinic light is completely useless in freshwater tanks.
- It seems that the moon lights are not included.
- 65W gives you less than 2wpg. Did you order 2? Or are you planning on using it with your existing light? If so, why – you already have 110W – and how would you set it up?

Eagerly awaiting your reply,

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

Just ordered the semi-automatic pressurized c02 system from Dr.Fostersmith! its on sale for 107$!!..Heres the link if your interested..

http://www.drsfostersmith.com/Produc...&N=2004+113779

So exciting I finally took the plunge!..I also ordered some new lighting.. a single 65 watt compact flouresent hood w/ bulb for just 40$..Great price IMO even if it is made in sweat shops.. Heres the link to the lights I oredered if your interested..

http://www.aquatraders.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=132

The intake is an aquaclear 200 and the filter on the right is a penguin bio-wheel..I'm not entirely sure why the intake is so short so I always try to collect as much of the gunk as I can that colllects on the bottum..Thanks for the reply LF, I'm glad you like the diff. in both photos.

Poor pencil! Do the killis go after your pencils often, or is this the first time it's happened?

______________
Cake or death?

Thanks for the help I appreciate it!..Heres an updated pic of the tank..I cleaned all the algae off the glass and spreaded the water sprite so it covers more than just the right side and I also took out the smaller middle piece of driftwood and bunched the java fern closer together and I like the overall look better than the last pics I took so thats good.. I am ordering 1 6700 K bulb right now to mix with my already used 9000 K bulb and I think it will give the tank a better overall color..I am also going to start DIY c02 most likely tomrow or sometime this week when I get around to it..Tell me what you guys think of the tank!..:

http://photobucket.com/albums/c47/organja/?action=view&current=1-02-06fish004.jpg

Heres a really neat shot of my female golden wonder killi turning to me..:

http://photobucket.com/albums/c47/organja/?action=view&current=1-02-06fish005.jpg

And another shot of my male killi (top fish) and a smaller female killi (bellow the male)..:

http://photobucket.com/albums/c47/organja/?action=view&current=1-02-06fish006.jpg

Heres my lighting set up so you guys can see what I am using (2 straightpinned 55 watt compact flourescent).. I think somewhere in the 9600 K. range and I am going to change one of the bulbs with a 6700 K. bulb ( you think that would look good??)..

http://photobucket.com/albums/c47/organja/?action=view&current=dscn0242.jpg

Awesome thanks for all the tips jeeze lemme get a pen..I took your advice and did a good 40 percent water change and took the wood thats on the right of the tank out and spread the 2 remaining peices of wood out a little more..Then I moved a few of the wisteria ( I think its accualy water sprite now..) behind the wood and I re arranged the java fern a little bit and moved the rocks around and took some out because like you said theres a little too much 'clutter' in the tank!..So now I am just waiting for it to clear up and I will post pics later tonight..I am going to order new bulbs tonight tho because I really want a diff. tint to the tank so I am thinking of going with the 2 6700 K. lights.. I also cleaned all the algae off the front and sides and back of the tank so thats done.. Thanks for all those tips and I am glad you like the buddah statue on the right I also agree that he looks good there..

2 things I want to ask.. I have a penguin 150 bio wheel filter on the tank and I am adding flourish excel ferts and I was wondering if the carbon in the filter cleans all the ferts (impurities) out of the tank or not.. Because I would hate to know that all the ferts I have been using so far were a waste..

And also, I think I am going to start DIY yeast c02 tonight because I have a Hagen bubble ladder and tubing and an empty Juice bottle and I was wondering if I should take out the bio-wheel or take out the whole filter when I start injecting c02 because I heard that bio-wheels are bad for tanks with c02..?

Salt,

I believe your fixture is an AGA 110w that comes with 9325k bulbs "super daylight" If that's the case you are not low-light your mid-light especially with that size tank.

First thing I would do is scrape the glass clean, clean anything with ugly algae on it, do a gravel wash and remove 50 to 60% of the water, clean the filter and see if your water still has a yellowish tint to it. If yes, than if you think the bulbs are old you need ones with a straight pin arrangement.

With or without co2 you could grow more plants under that light. There's too much wood in the center. Looks like you have dark wood and light (It's too much to take in) Remove some of it and keep same type. The java fern is a tough plant to have as a focal behind the wood, because those leaves get damaged and they just stay that way. Cut back alot of the damaged leaves and arrange the javafern mid tank and get some taller thicker stem plants for the back.

My 2.5 cents for what it's worth.

BTW - The budda actually works in front of the wisteria/water sprite area.

Last edited by tetratech at 02-Jan-2006 15:46

My Scapes

Just edited the post above.. They work now...

saltnewbie,

Unfortunately neither of your links works, at least not for me.

But in any case, make sure the socket fits your fixture (square vs. straight pin, for example).

Just tell us about the two linked entities if you can't show them.

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

Hey guys, my tank has a sorta yellowish tint im guessing since the bulbs are getting old so im thinking of ordering 2 new bulbs..Any suggestions on which bulbs to get..I was thinking about getting 2 of these...

http://www.aquatraders.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=67

Or.. getting 2 of these...

http://lightbulbsdirect.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=001&Product_Code=F55BX-AR-FS

Or.. getting one of each.. I want a cleaner, brighter look like some of you guys have acheived in your tanks.. Thanks in advance!..


Last edited by saltnewbie at 02-Jan-2006 12:58

Haha, great replies guys..I will sit down and mess with the auto settings on my camera so hopefully my next picture will be better.lots better!..And LF, The tank is preety yellow and I am not entirely sure what color temperture the bulbs are because they came with the hood set up and I have yet to replace them..I am going to order 2 6700 K. bulbs today tho!..The forground plants are an assortment of some hairgrass type plant, all my java fern runners, one anubias, a few unknown swords on the left..I know I know really crappy foreground lol..I will start focusing on the forground once I let all the plants grow in a bit. Thanks for the replies guys..