My Humble Low Tech Setup

Cool. I've noticed in my fish when I give them frozen Brine Shrimp they colour up very nicely as to say "thank you"!

 

So I did a small rescape on my tank, I removed a piece of driftwood and moss and moved the piece of driftwood with the Anubai Nana and Dwarf Java Fern a bit forward. Now I have a big "hole" in the back that I want to fill with a lowtech tall growing plant. I was thinking Vallis any suggestions?

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What about some bacopa monnieri? Even I can grow that stuff!

 

@HeinrichLourens: Good suggestion it needs to grow tall, and maybe a bit thick for extra hiding spots for the fish.

 

I bought mine at about 16-18cm and my tallest ones have grown a few centimeters. It also seems to give of little 'plantlets" occaisionally which are real buggers to plant.

 

Thanks, I am leaning towards Vallis as it will grow nice and tall and break the surface.

 

Give Ludwigia repens a try. At the moment the repens is growing nicely in my sump, aka low tech. So it should grow nicely. Maybe you should also try the rotalas and hygros.

 

I am a bit miffed at the moment, whatever the cleaning lady used to clean the tank and killed my fish has affected my Anubia. Some of the leaves are slowly dying on the edges and turning yellow, so I had to trim a lot hopefully it bounces back:

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And for some odd reason it did not affect the other plants, my guess is because the plant was so close to the surface it got the brunt of the chemicals....

Also seems that the Dwarf Swords have decided to stay stuck in the gravel has been a week since replanting some of them:

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Turning yellow is either a Potassium deficiency, or a nitrogen deficiency, or possibly a Co2 deficiency as well. If it was chemicals, it would have affected some of the other, more sensitive plants in your tank first.

 

@Sean J : I believe it is neither, it manifested itself within a few days strait after the incident and not all the leaves were affected only those close to the waters surface. If it was a potassium deficiency, or a nitrogen deficiency I believe my crypts would have showed it first. But all of my other plants are doing fine.

Apparently the cleaner contains Aminomethyl Propanol (ph adjuster) and Octylphosphonic Acid which would eat away at the leaves edges explaining why it looks burned around the edges.

 

Wouldn't the chemicals have spread throughout your tank in minutes instead of lingering on the surface, given the amount of filtration you have running?

 

@MattLamm: I think it was the filtration that saved me hence I did not lose all of my fish. I had to skim the surface of the tanks water when I did the emergency water change because it had a strange smelling soapy film on it. *shrugs* who knows damage has been done.

[Edit] Also all my Vallis died and melted away as well.

 

Have you added activated carbon to your filtration system after the incident? If there is any water soluble chemical left that should also help get rid of them. Should have mentioned this earlier... but not sure if you have already done this.

 

@GavinD: Did a 50% water change and added a big bag of carbon when it happend.

 

Well some good news at least, will be picking up the Vallis I ordered from BLA Aquatics on Friday afternoon so I can finish modifying my current scape.

 

Update time:

Finally got my hand on some Vallis again and planted it in the spot were a piece of my hardscape use to be hope it fills out nicely:

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My microsword is actually growing (slowly) I am impressed lol!

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My little DIY method for killing green algae that is growing in-front of the gravel, 4 days of this and it is gone:

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So to make the water less river like for the fighting fish I had to raise my DIY slipway a bit to slow the water down. Made a hole in the middle front attached some gut and attached it to the HOB and it works like a dream:

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Busy cleaning my Purigen before cleaning my tank on Sunday:

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Rescued this little fellow from being dump in a outside pond with goldfish today, wife heard about it at work so I drove 60km to go pick him up. Stunning fish, think I will call him "Snowy":

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LOVE your new betta!:bigsmile:

 

@nemo: Thanks. Yeah don't know his age though the people I saved him from seemed pretty ignorant. But he is stunning looks like he was red and then someone painted a thin coat of white over him that started to flake.

 

Yes, that colour over the body is what I like! Beautiful.

 

Looking very good!!!