Aaaaaaaand here we go again

plants growing so nicely!

 

The whole tank got a huge haircut night before last too! Whatever it is I'm doing, some of it must be right. I'm suspecting my substrate of leaching phosphate though.

 

you just need to optimise your plant layout now

 

Yes, but probably not in the way you mean. I really like the haphazard effect it created as I just planted frags wherever there was an open spot, but the barbs need swimming room. So I have to make alleys and such.

The rotala green doesn't grow vertically nearly as much as I'd hoped, it just makes a dense tangle of snakes - but I think it could make a very nice ground cover if you stay on top of it.

 

for example, the ludwigia rubin you have in the front, looks better from about the top half of the plant upwards, so you want to hide the bottom half of the plant, this makes it a more of a mid to background plant. then you can plant something in front of it that is a bit of a lower grower like staurogyne or something similar, this will hide the bare stems and the ugliest part of the plant, then you plant your carpet in front of that, like steps going up backwards, and ideally if you can, you want the sides to be a little taller than the middle, so the scape looks like it is reaching out its arms to hug you and welcome you in..

 

It's L. natans "Super red mini" - I've a whim to keep it low and dense. Or just shove it in everywhere to do whatever. I'm still deciding, or might not decide at all. The idea with the rotala green on the sides was precisely to get a kind of val-style arching over the middle - but it's doing its own thing in spite of what I want.

Dutch style is my least favourite style. Or rather - most disliked formal style. Spongebob pineapples and neon gravel and plastic tat and all that notwithstanding. My original scape idea was going to be very much inspired by this, but without the face:



Spikes and slabs of slate with only red and orangish plants - if I can find any of the latter.

I still plan to do it some day, but I think a 90P would work better. The idea kinda fell flat when I was presented with the almost cube-like dimensions of the ADA.

 

nice, looks just like what we used to call rubin, the names change so fast..

there is also an alternanthera red mini, and some dark brown reddish buces that would add to your idea

 

I hate it when that happens. Like, who in their right mind prefers Icthyobodo necator over Costia?????

 

do you like nature style or jungle style? how about the relatively new brazilian style? (this could sound very dirty out of context)

 

Seriously though... it's neat and colourful but it's like it doesn't know what it wants to be. It's not a landscape in microscale, it's not a pure Chelsea-flower-show-style exposition of the plants... it's like it gets lost between the two extremes in the realm of insipidity - but that's perhaps an extreme way of putting it. It's a matter of taste after all. Some would describe my wasteland scape as kitsch - or iwagumi as kitsch for that matter.

 

Mine is turning into a Brazilian, i.e starts off as a iwagumi and then you keep on adding plants until it starts resembling a Dutch style.

 

That'll learn ya to give me the duckweed. Just desserts! I'm sure they will take (mostly).

I can totally relate. It's a job for a dry start and St. Paissance.

 

Same

 

i think it just wants to be beautiful

that's the nice thing about knowing all the rules sometimes, is that you also know when to break them..

 

No ammonia spike this morning - in fact it's flat zero and looks better than yesterday morning's test, which was ever-so-slightly-not-yellow.

I am not seeing a direct improvement in the tetras yet - but there is no worsening either so that is very encouraging. Yesterday morning compared to the night before that was night and day - the number of spots quadrupled, pentupled, hell, sexagintanovupled. That seems to have been stopped in its tracks and the Paraguard is clearly klapping something. I'm extremely grateful.

 

Don't we all!

 

Definite and massive improvement across the board. Only a few tiny trophonts visible on a fin here and there, and none on the bodies as far as I can tell. I was going to increase the dosage to 4 caps per day if I didn't see any visible improvement by this evening, but I'm very happy that the Seachem is doing what it says on the tin and that the dosage seems sufficient. Thank you, everyone!

I am concerned about my plants though - the rotala and crypts are throwing off a lot of leaves and in particular the colorata is looking pale. The high water temperature and the low lighting are the obvious suspects, but they will have to hang in there for a while longer. Meanwhile, I have duckweed and am left hovering over the tank with a pair of tweezers for an hour every day picking out dead leaves like Mr. Miyagi catching supafly.

 

duckweed takes patience and dedication to remove, i hate the stuff

glad everything else is turning around!

 

I deliberately got some from @Jakes - and he did warn me! I need something for phosphate export without constant WCs and figured I'd cross the eradication bridge when I got to it. I have some fragments of his water lettuce too and I like them. The duckweed is very cute though with their little trailing roots.

As for the fish, well, just after I typed up my earlier post, I happened to notice a poorly tetra - the largest of the lot and the worst affected - hanging at the surface with rapid breathing. Not critical looking - it was rejoining the gang when they swam by but it would eventually drift back up to the surface. Ammonia is fine but nitrate test came up between 40 to 80ppm and so this forces my hand. I switched on the main light to get the plants going and oxygen into the water - but turned off the airstone at the same time - I could smell that formalinish smell of the paraguard whenever I walk past the tank and I don't want to be gassing out any of the good stuff. I also turned down the heater a notch.

It's now an hour later and the surface surfing has stopped and it's permanently down with its buddies and it accepted food. It's still not lekker, but I feel it was a good call. The plants also badly needed it. The tetras don't seem to be bothered at all by the light - the barbs are a bit annoyed with it though and need to adapt again.