# Tank taken down - Dans l'Attente High-Tech



## demosthenes (Aug 23, 2008)

This tank was started in january '08, and has evolved in SO many ways since then. i finally realized how to grow plants well, so I added in an extra light, some fertilizer ever other week, and my own DIY CO2 reactor. I just got my tank back two weeks ago (i had to give it to my friend over the summer because i was in china for a month), and now I am trying to grow it into a decent planted tank. 

Before, it just had some java moss on some driftwood, a moss ball, and one tall stem plant that was looking a little sickly. since then, i bought an amazon sword and a little plant that i dont know the name of, as well as some mondo grass.

The fish are just livebearers, a dojo loach and an oto. I have two amano shrimp and this baby crayfish (~1" long) that I got a while ago.

I am trying to get my parents to let me upgrade to a 46g tank (i'm in high school still...), but until then and even after then, i'd like to get some input on what you all think i should do with it.

here is a picture of it today (August 26):









If that image doesnt work, then here is a link to my Tank Profile:
http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/yourtanks.php?do=view&id=1010


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## James From Cali (Dec 15, 2006)

Some scaping and a finalized design plan, darker substrate, darker background, and removal of the air stone(unless that is CO2 and that would be great bubblage(lol) if it is) and it would be looking good. The only problem is the Dojo Loach as they really need larger. I know how hard it is to get the parents to allow a larger size. It took alot for my mom to let me have an itsy bitsy teeny weeny 29g.


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## demosthenes (Aug 23, 2008)

lol, my parents won't let me get a new substrate... and the background is currently a few pieces of printer paper i taped to the back of the tank. would it look better with black construction paper instead?


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## James From Cali (Dec 15, 2006)

demosthenes said:


> lol, my parents won't let me get a new substrate... and the background is currently a few pieces of printer paper i taped to the back of the tank. would it look better with black construction paper instead?


Sounds like my mom.....

I have construction paper as my background, I had attached it to thin boards so that it would be easy to keep if I decided to move it or move myself. As for the substrate, save a little money here and there and go out and buy it yourself. I could see having a problem with more tanks but.....a different substrate :eek5: lol


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## demosthenes (Aug 23, 2008)

haha i convinced my dad to give me my monthly allowance early, so i went out and bought 20lbs of eco-complete, an anubias coffeefolia, some tall dark hygro, and a wisteria plant! my tank it officially the coolest thing ever... haha, ill upload some pictures soon.


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## demosthenes (Aug 23, 2008)

I haven't really been following up on this journal, but I do keep one on my computer, so I think i'll upload it. All of the long journals on here are really cool, so i'm hoping that mine can turn out like that some day.


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## demosthenes (Aug 23, 2008)

wow. i STILL havent uploaded any pictures to this. i did on a few others, but they were attached as thumbnails instead of normally like everyone else does them. i need to figure out how to attach pictures better..... anyway, today i came back home from my thanksgiving break and made a few changes to this tank. mainly, i took out the dwarf gourami and swordtails and added one oto. i also accidentally tore some of my potamogeton gayii off of the stem and had to replant it. 

now the inhabitants are 2 otos, 4 RCS, and 2 amano shrimp. 

I am looking for more of a long-term plan for this tank. I'm hoping to have it be just a well-established tank that can look good, but also be used to separate and breed fish when needed or a shrimp tank to house my developing colony of RCS.... haha, still have some work to do with that... Im thinking of letting the gayii grow into the back right corner and make a nice bush back there, and once the corkscrew vals fill in i can put them either in front of the gayii or to the left. then i'd like to add more of a midground plant, maybe something thats 4-5" tall, but im not sure what yet. maybe HM or some medium-sized crypts to fill in. pictures will come within the next few days, whenever i have enough time to put them on shutterfly or whatever.


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## demosthenes (Aug 23, 2008)

*Finally the pictures have been uploaded!*

Here is a full summary of everything that has happened to this tank since august '08. Hopefully this tank will see some great changes in the near future, im already excited about some new things i've added. Most of them are taken on consecutive saturdays, but on a few there are a few weeks between them.


































































































the last picture is today, taken just a minute ago with my crappy cameraphone.


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## demosthenes (Aug 23, 2008)

A few plants died, a few new ones have been doing well, idk. I got some glosso and moved around some plants. Some of the stargrass from my 46g was being annoying, so i chopped it up and threw it in here. I also put in some Sunset hygros on the left. Still trying to get the neons to spawn in various ways, still no luck.

In working on making my 46g look good, this tank has gotten kind of lame. The lighting is crappy and the scape is mediocre. I would really like some advice on where to go with it. I'm hoping to have it become a densely planted higher light tank with good hiding places for fry and juvies, but i'm not sure what to put in it or where to put it. Please give me some suggestions!

here it is right now:









there is also a leaf on my amazon sword growing really weirdly. It has sharply curved on a 2 dimensional plane at the very tip, its hard to tell what is going on in the picture, but here it is:


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## demosthenes (Aug 23, 2008)

*10g rescape in progress...*

Well here it is this week. Again, not much has happened:









For christmas, i got my parents to finally agree to let me rescape it! woohooo! haha... i'm going to either make it high light and have fine leaved plants or go medium lighting and use grassy-looking plants, but i can't decide which. Which do you all think is better?

So tomorrow i'm hoping to get a new lighting fixture (the one i have now s-u-c-k-s majorly), and then i'm hoping to find some dwarf hairgrass, potamogeton gayi, HM, and then either [limno. aquaticum and rotala wallichii] or [corkscrew vals and bolbitis heudelotti], depending on what happens to the lighting.


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## demosthenes (Aug 23, 2008)

Well yesterday I went out to my LFS, planning to buy a few fish, some bamboo shrimp, and maybe a plant or two.... I ended up spending $138 on driftwood, sand, this SICK new light (1x36W PC), anubias and crypts, and some high light plants. The only animals i got were two otos and one CRS. :eek5:
my dad just about exploded when i got home!

Well luckily with all of the new stuff, I rescaped my 10g into a high tech 3.6 wpg and my nasty old 5g into a reallly cool new scape. I think i'll start a journal for the 5g later.

Now as for this tank! I got some ambulia and new moss (java moss i think, i have no idea) and I rescaped the tank a little bit. I even found a little bit of potamogeton thats actually _growing_! I only have three stems of it left, and i dont think two of them are going to make it, but its such a cool plant! Well anyway, here it is!


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## FrostyNYC (Nov 5, 2007)

I like your new slope, it adds depth to the tank. Your stargrass also looks happy--mine always turned black. Looks good. 

Some constructive criticism: Whatever it is that you have wrapped around your filter input is an eyesore. Hopefully your stargrass will grow and cover that. Also, I'd add a plant which is a little more substantial to the back left corner to cover the silicone corner edge, and make the tank seem more like a little clearing in a dense thicket of plants.


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## demosthenes (Aug 23, 2008)

thanks! that was actually exactly what i was looking for. The filter is awful. I was trying to get some baby neon and attempted a DIY sponge filter, but it just ended up looking terrible. (btw, its just a filter cartridge that i butchered a little bit, nothing too strange.)

Actually i think i might move the driftwood forward a little bit and put the sunset hygros behind the Ambulia to cover up the corner more. The back right corner also looks kind of weak, i'm hoping the myrio and p. gayi will fill in a little more.

I think some blyxa in the left front and some HM in the front/center in front of the DW would look great, too, I'm hoping to find some soon. I also love the look of dwarf hairgrass, i dont think i could fit any in my tank though. Maybe i could switch it out with the crypts... idk.


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## FrostyNYC (Nov 5, 2007)

Bah. I said back left and I meant back right. The back left looks good. Back right looks weak, as you said.

You already have two foreground plants going, I wouldnt mix in a third. One successfull foreground plant is all you need.


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## demosthenes (Aug 23, 2008)

oh yeah, the back right... haha. i was thinking of switching the myrio with the rotala eventually. see, my p. gayi is in between them, and it takes a long time to acclimate and start growing again, so once i get some strong gayi stems, then i can mess with the background plants. 

my glosso and gayi are looking kind of weak, is there anything i can do to help them a little bit? I have some flourish excel and iron, but i dont want to overdose, and im using melafix in this tank anyway, i have a sick betta and a sick dwarf neon rainbow in here.


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## FrostyNYC (Nov 5, 2007)

How to help the glosso and gayi? CO2, likely. Do you have a drop checker? I see you have a DIY CO2 setup.


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## demosthenes (Aug 23, 2008)

No, whats a drop checker? i'm a CO2 noob. I noticed that my driftwood has a big pocket in it that i've been using as a cave, so i redirected my DIY CO2 output (just an airstone) to go under there so the gas would have more time underwater before it rose to the surface. Will this help at all?

I've also added rotala wallichii (i got ~15 stems for $5!) and what i think is some kind of nesaea (is it?), so hopefully they'll grow, too. I had nesaea a while ago, but it was under crappy lights and little to no ferts, so hopefully this time around it'll be okay. The old ones actually stayed alive for a really long time, they just didn't grow any roots. I did get some new leaves though.

On another note, I bought a clown loach from petco a week ago, and as soon as i got home, i noticed that it had terrible ich. It died a few hours later, and i returned it, got my money back, and bought a new, healthy clown loach from a really reliable store, and put it in my 46g tank. So now, the three fish that are in this tank, have suddenly come up with an absolute _infestation_ of ich. So i'm battling that, which is just fantastic. My betta and swordtail just got covered by it, but the rainbow and otos are doing pretty well. (all fish are currently alive, they seem to be getting better, it was just a really bad case of ich).

FTS:








Rotala Wallichii:








Nesaea sp.:








Note on the nesaea sp: It has these weird white deposits on the lower leaves, it looks like the plant has some white powder on it or something. What are these? They don't come off.
Awful photography:








Note on the fish: She was apparently born without an eye. she was perfectly healthy when i got her, she just didn't have a left eye. She has ich now, too, but she's being a trooper and trying to survive. The medications I got are definitely helping so far.


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## demosthenes (Aug 23, 2008)

*10g High Tech 1.18-Update!*

In the past two weeks a lot has happened: I got a nice little glass CO2-diffuser, I set up one more liter of DIY CO2 yeast stuff, and now my wallichii and glosso have started to grow a little more. The Ich medication, while making the whole room smell bad and the water really cloudy for a while, saved all of my fish in the space of about two days. Now the water is less cloudy and the plants have started growing again. I also got rid of the swordtail and moved the rainbowfish to another tank. 

Current fauna: 1 female betta, 5 neons, 2 amano shrimp, and 2 otos. 

Current flora: ambulia, sunset hygros, watersprite, stargrass, moss, nesaea sp., unknown cabomba, unknown myrio, r. wallichii, r. rotundifolia, potamogeton gayi, glosso, reineckii, crypt. parva and lucens.

Top view:








FTS:








Unknown Myrio:








Unknown slow-growing Cabomba:








Potamogeton Gayi:









And now a few questions....
first of all, can anyone ID the myrio and cabomba? beyond the genus, i have no clue what they are.
second, my gayi is finally starting to grow and look cool, but its only growing brown leaves. It used to grow these huge green leaves, but now they're just little and brown. Whats up with that?
third, my LFS just got in a bunch of micranthemum umbrosum, which i've noticed Amano uses a ton of in his tanks, so I was wondering if it would be worth getting some to put in here. Do any of you guys use it? Do you like it? I think the round little leaves are kinda cool looking, I might pick some up later, but idk.

thank you for looking, any feedback is appreciated


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## ZooTycoonMaster (Jan 2, 2008)

I think the Myrio is either Mattengrossense or Aquaticum. And the Cabomba is just your normal one.

I like your tank! What kind of filter are you using? HOB right?


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## demosthenes (Aug 23, 2008)

thanks! yeah, I have an Aqueon10. It's a pretty big eyesore, but at least it works well.

The myrios look a lot like the pictures of "aquaticum" that you showed me, but each individual stem is less than in inch in diameter, and they grow realllly slowly. In the amount of time that my ambulia has grown 8", they haven't grown noticeably, and they've been in there a lot longer.

The cabomba also grows very slowly, but has a weird tint. The picture makes it looks much more green than it is. In real life, the stems are slightly wider than 1" and the leaves are very dark brown to red. Eh, probably just the ugly duckling.


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## demosthenes (Aug 23, 2008)

*another little update!*

Today I took out the tiny piece of driftwood on the far left side and put it in my 46g tank, along with some of the ambulia, too. I also added some kind of lilaeopsis (i think?), i'm not sure which species. The new ambulia and potamogeton growth have looked a little bit better, i've been messing around with my DIY yeast setup, and I finally got a 2L bottle instead of a whole bunch of little bottles! yay!

Weird or random things:
- my rotala rotundifolia is trying to carpet the right side of the tank, if you can see it in the pictures.
- my glosso is finally starting to grow a little more, just really slowly
- I'm thinking of getting rid of the reineckii and just letting the stargrass and cabomba grow in there instead.
- I still really want some HM to use on the left side instead of the parva
- I'm thinking that i should use riccia or something instead of glosso, the glosso seems to hate me. I don't know how hard my water is, and I know lilaeopsis grows in hard water and glosso in soft water, so i'll hopefully see which does better soon enough.
- Nesaeas don't grow very quickly, do they. Mine have just sorta sat there since i got them. They had a big growth spurt to start off, and then stopped. 

FTS:








Closer up:








Wallichii pearling! haha sweeeet!


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## demosthenes (Aug 23, 2008)

*new update - 2.8*

This week a few things have changed. First off, I added some new plants (micranthemum umbrosum, lilaeopsis sp., dwarf riccia 'tropica'). The umbrosum was looking pretty weak when i bought it, so i'll need to cut it down in a few weeks and replant the good-looking part, and then itll look a lot better. The riccia doesn't look like it's doing so well... i'll add pictures. I also chopped off the weak looking parts of the wallichii that i bought originally and i replanted only the parts that grew in my tank, so it looks a TON better now. And I took the glosso out of my 46g and added to the foreground here. Its finally starting to fill in!

FTS:








struggling riccia:









As you can probably see, my riccia isn't doing great. It was an RAOK from craigthor, and i'm not sure it survived the trip. What chance to you think it has for survival? There is a little bit of green on one of the edges, but not much.


Oh, and also, I have been thinking about making a DIY Canister filter, because my HOB filter looks horrendous. How much are the QuietOne pumps? Is that the quietest pump i can get easily? Where should i start looking for the actual container? How much should i expect to pay for it?


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## ZooTycoonMaster (Jan 2, 2008)

It looks great!!!

Where'd you get the nets to secure the riccia?


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## fishbguy1 (Feb 29, 2008)

wow...this tank looks great! Despite me used to hating it, I greatly miss my 10 gallon now...lol


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## demosthenes (Aug 23, 2008)

update:
this morning my mom told me she'd get me some new stuff for valentine's day (she had to go to petco to get a dog leash, and my LF is like a block away), so I bought a TON of hairgrass for $7 and a bunch of stuff for my 46g tank. I spent like all afternoon planting it and cleaning the tank, and i'm so excited for it to fill in! Also, most of the riccia died and rotted away.

This week i've spent a bunch of time on the swap n shop, and i'm goign to get a bunch of new plants this week (riccia, ludwigia arcuata, and lagarosiphon madagascariensis), so get pumped for another update later this week! haha...

I also spent a bunch of time this week picking up pieces for a DIY Canister Filter that i was going to build this weekend... but i couldnt wait! I built it on like thursday afternoon and set it up yesterday. So far it works pretty well. There have been a few leaks that i've found, but i've patched them up. The filter media is pieces of clay that i fired in the kiln at school (i am in an advanced ceramics course, lol) to mimic the ceramic rings in other canister filters. I also cut up some other HOB filter cartridges to catch little pieces of detritus.

FTS this morning:









FTS this afternoon:









FTS with flash... weird! haha it looks so ugly, but its a much clearer picture of the plants:









the riccia rotted away...:









The filter:

















The spraybar filter output:


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## OhNo123 (Jan 8, 2008)

Sweet tank! 

We have a lot in common, I think. I'm also trying to make my SINGLE 10g look good, but I don't have a ghetto filter, I got a Eheim 2213. 

Also assuming your chinese from your caption under your forum name? Me too..
And the parent thing... I totally agree.

But anyhow, I'm just wondering how long your tank lights are on for? Mine are only on for 5.5-6 hours a day due to my parents. I have growth, but not nearly as much as you.


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## demosthenes (Aug 23, 2008)

oh cool, thanks a lot!

haha, i wish i could get an eheim. i couldn't possibly get a filter that's name i couldnt pronounce right though. is it ee-haim, or eh-heem, or what??

well, not exactly. ethnically i'm welsch or german or something white. but i wish i was chinese. I speak a fair amount of mandarin and i went to china for three weeks this summer (to beijing, xi'an, guilin, and shanghai). and i love china... its a pretty sweet place.

you should try to start dosing, and get a timer for you lights. You can get the kind of timers that you leave on when you go away so people think youre home for like $7 at a hardware store, so your lights will turn on and off at the same time every day. if your lighting schedule is the same every day and its more like 9 or 10 hours, you should get better growth


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## CAM6467 (Feb 11, 2009)

Sweet 10 gallon! I especially liked seeing the pearling that you've got going on! I just began my 10 gallon project, and I first started out trying to build a DIY canister filter. I got it to run fine sitting on the dresser next to the tank, but it was a disaster when I set it on the ground (4.5 feet below the tank)! I bit the bullet and got an Eheim. Trust me, it's worth every cent! 

Say, what are the red colored plants you've got going on there? PM me if you don't mind. That way I'll definately get the names of these plants. Check out my tank and see if you have any advice for a newbie. 

I love the tank man! Keep up the great work.


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## OhNo123 (Jan 8, 2008)

Yeah, I have a timer and all, but its the parents... 

But the good news is, I'm still getting growth.  
I got pressurized co2... thats probably why
and I dose try fertz in a solution 

and I think its pronouced E-Hem.
I got my filter new off ebay for ~$75 shipped.


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## demosthenes (Aug 23, 2008)

well, i went to my LFS the other day and saw an Eheim for a 10g that was $42, which is about what i spent on mine, but i'm sure it works much better...... what a disappointment! i thought i was saving money! oh well. 

anyway, i got some nice new riccia this week, and the lagarosiphon madagascariensis and ludwigia arcuatas are looking great so far.

Oh, and i found out that my eleocharis is not acicularis, it's parvula. Each blade sprouts out new plants instead of growing straight up. but hey, i still think they're cool.

here are some pics, and again the green smudges are my camera lens, not algae:

FTS:
















healthy new riccia:








hairgrass shortly after its first haircut:









my potamogetons are still growing slowly, and so is the MU. Once the two of them and the riccia fill in, i think that tank will look much better. Until then though, i think i'm relatively satisfied. haha now i need to work on my other tanks, they need it!

except for one little think... i'm not so sure i like the watersprite in the background. but what can i swap it for? i was thinking maybe a rotala sp. mini or some type? idk, we'll see. Also, at some point i'd like to put some cyperus helferi in the very back left corner and replace the ambulia with a different stem plant. idk what though... maybe some myrios or MU? I also really like HM, so idk. soooo many options!.....


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## ZooTycoonMaster (Jan 2, 2008)

Aaaw please don't tell me you're tearing the tank down:icon_cry:


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## demosthenes (Aug 23, 2008)

haha no way! i'm just tired of the ambulia, and i want to get some rotala mac.s and HM! i'm hoping to put cyperus helferi in the back left corner and then r. mac. 'green' between the cyperus and the driftwood. And also the MU's are starting to bug me. they don't look very good and they grow really slowly. i'll probably put most of them next to the mac.'s and DW and fill in that part of the tank with hairgrass and HM. idk, theres a lot thats possible.

except my "dwarf haigrass" is actually eleocharis parvula, not acicularis, so it grows insanely fast and tall, and i have to trim it down every few days. it's annoying, but i kind of like the look.


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## danakin (Jun 8, 2007)

The tank looks amazing. The wallichii pearling is one of the coolest pics I've seen so far.


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## demosthenes (Aug 23, 2008)

whew, it's been a while since i've updated this thread. a few weeks ago, i bought some new plants and a bunch of new neon tetras, and the tank was *perfect*. I looked at it, and I actually thought to myself "wow, i think i am more proud of this right now than i ever have been of anything in my life." I thought a little bit later, "The CO2 system on this tank is terrible, the plants would all keep growing and look even better if i set up more bottles of yeast."

So i did. I got out two more airstones from my fish-cabinet under my big tank, and drilled into two more 1L smartwater bottles, and set up my tank again, with 4 bottles of yeast and 3 airstones (before i had 3 bottles and 1 airstone). I proceeded to change two of the bottles at once.

The next morning (monday), i woke up to a sudden exploding noise and then the sound of a LOT of rushing water. Right now you're probably thinking that it is obvious about the CO2 because i just went into extreme detail about it, but when I have a sketchy canister filter and a lot of DIY things in my tank and i have JUST woken up and sprinted over from my bed, i just about needed to change my pants.

Anyway, one of my airstones wasn't hooked up right, so no air could get out of the bottle, and enough pressure built up that the airline tubing connect to the bottle came off of the airstone and a LOT of the sugar/water/yeast/ALCOHOL bubbled up and out of the bottle and into my tank. I quickly made sure everything was safe enough for the time being (i have a wooden desk, there can't be any moisture on it or anything or my mom will beat me) (not really but she'll be pissed!), and proceeded to go to school. When i got home around 5, I came home to an almost completely opaque tank (the water was _that_ weird) with 2 dead amano shrimp, 6 dead neon tetras, 1 dead clown loach, and 4 neons floating at the top, barely clinging on to life.

I immediately did 4, 90% WC's, taking out all of the dead fish and relocating the "living" neons to my (what was then still a) shrimp tank. The tank looked okay to me, so I left it, and after a few days, the whole tank was covered in this gross, sticky, white gunk all over EVERYTHING. The wallichii, umbrosum, lagarao. madagascars, rotala mac 'green's and hairgrass are still pretty nasty.

A week later, i thought it would be okay to put the 4 live tetras back (who actually made quite a comeback in the shrimp tank, and even left my few shrimp alone), so i did. They died immediately upon entry to the water. I thought it was okay for a minute because neons always act weird when you relocate them, but they were certainly not. I did another 4, 90% WC's that weekend, and waited another week. Then I completely took out all of the plants, rinsed them off, scrubbed down the glass and everything, and put in a swordtail from my big tank.

The swordtail is still in there, and he seems to be doing okay, except now my filter doesn't work, so that's a pain. I have to keep pumping water back into it and turning on for 2-5 minutes before i have to turn it off and pump water back in. There is still a lot of grey sticky gunk in the tank, but not on all of the plants anymore. Hopefully the tank will regain it's former glimpse of glory someday..... AGH i just realized i haven't eaten dinner yet! DAMN! (it's 10:37PM here.) ARGHH!!!! i gotta start eating more. 


Well ANYWAY... here are some pics! Finally the tank is starting to recover a little bit, so i don't have to be so embarrassed anymore. Here we go:
Whole tank on my desk:








FTS:








Here is a nice little corner of the tank the i recently redid where I added some brand new HM and HC, except my glosso is growing straight up for some reason:








New rocks that I added riccia to, mostly because i had to trim my other rocks (you can really tell because the trimmed ones looks terrible and the new ones look newly tied on):








Nice new growth on the umbrosum:








Some of the remaining nasty grey gunk:
























I don't like to end on a bad note, so here is a funny picture of my tank from Sept. 07, 2008:








My old dojo loach is smiling at you on the right side on the very bottom. He was a cute little guy 
[Edit: Also, that same anubia that is on the dw in the center of that shot can be seen as it is today, as the centerpiece in the foreground on the larger piece of dw in my 46g low-tech tank. It's just kinda cool to see how different things become, and how much they grow over time. Hows that for a little piece of mind after reading that whole novel of a post i just made you sit through? lol]


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## sewingalot (Oct 12, 2008)

Wilson, this is an amazing transformation! Great job. I should have you help me aquascape.


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## ZooTycoonMaster (Jan 2, 2008)

Aaaaw sorry to hear about the yeast But at least the plants are ok!

You know what I think your tank is alot better than mine atm


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## demosthenes (Aug 23, 2008)

so... cool stuff lately! I went away for spring break (to the Bitter End Yacht Club in the British Virgin Islands, i would highly recommend it to all of you, its a really amazing and beautiful place!), and when i got back, all of my tanks were incredibly overgrown. Here is a picture of exactly how this tank looked when i got home last night:









So i scraped all of the extreme amounts of GSA off of the glass, and i was happy to see how much growth the actual plants had had:









Although I still wasn't too happy with the tank, because it was WAY overgrown. Soooo I did a huge trim of all of the plants, and I think it looks pretty damn good right now. I am honestly really proud of myself for this, although it did take literally all day today. Here it is:









Afterwards of course I had to trim my 46g tank (but i like this one more, so I had to trim this first), so i threw in a two-leafed Anubias barteri in between the HM and HC, and then a small aponogeton ulvaceous bulb that hasn't been doing so well in my big tank between the MU and the riccia rocks in the foreground. So if you can picture that at all, that is what the tank looks like right now. Oh and also, the ulvaceous is only in here until it can make a little comeback so i can put it in the big tank and have it actually grow. So hopefully it will only be in here for two or three weeks.

If you are interested in buying any of my little trimmings, then here is a link to the Swap n Shop thread. Please buy everything! lol 

Your thoughts, comments, questions, concerns etc. (especially suggestions!) are all very welcome and appreciated. I haven't had all that much feedback on this tank considering how long this thread has been around, so i'd love to hear your thoughts about it. thank you very much!


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## demosthenes (Aug 23, 2008)

now that three weeks have gone by, fair amount has happened. I trimmed and re-tied the riccia rocks, added some anubias nana, mayaca fluviatilis, and filigree myrios. I've also started growing clado algae, it's infesting my HC... i'll try to get it out whenever i have the time to. So i realized that trimming doesn't imply uprooting the entire plant, cutting off the bottoms, and then replanting the entire thing, and instead i can save myself an entire afternoon every weekend by just chopping off the tops, so now my tank looks a fair amount more groomed. Oh, and the potamogeton gayi and cyperus helferi have finally acclimated and are starting to grow well.

As for fauna, i got rid of the swordtail and added two GBR's, but then they hated it and went nuts, so i added 5 celebes rainbows, which have been doing great so far! they look terribly ugly in every picture i've ever seen of them, but in person, they are actually pretty stunning. I also threw in 6 or 7 RCS, so together with my 6 amanos, i shouldnt have too much of an algae problem. 

enough with the chit-chat now, here it is...
whole tank on my desk*:








*note: don't ever put a tank on a wooden surface, its a huge PITA...

FTS (lighter and bluer than it actually is):









FTS (a little greener than it actually is):









sorry about my camera, its not that great, and the regular settings make my tank look really grey and dull colored, but the 'foliage' setting makes everything look like your on LSD. or at least, what i would imagine that would be like. except not really. but sort of.


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## ZooTycoonMaster (Jan 2, 2008)

It looks better than mine


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## demosthenes (Aug 23, 2008)

*weekend update with amy poehler and wilson taylor*

Not too much has happened with this tank lately... i did a little rescape, and i'm thinking big for this fall. Over the summer this tank will be with my friend, but when i get back, i'm hoping to get some more rare plants to grow so i can sell them on the SnS. Its always more fun to buy stuff like Lagarosiphons and DHG and downoi and elatines than it is to buy like... rotala rotundifolia, or ludwigia repens. Or even HM is kinda boring. I mean its beautiful, but pretty common. Actually to be honest, i was pretty against HC when i first got into plants just because EVERYONE has HC. But then i realized how sweet it really is and bought some anyway. Oh! and i also added an oto. Here are the pictures...

from afar:









FTS:









the lagarosiphong madascariensis and cabomba furcata:









the first clear(ish) picture i've ever taken of a fish... haha my camera skills need a LOT of work.









close up of the flame moss, DHG, and HC in the front/right:









And one more thing - i have 6 RCS (3 males, 3 females, i believe), and i can't get them to breed. I never test this tank (test kits are so expensive!), so i dont know gh or kh (or ph, for that matter...) so idk what could possibly be wrong. My amano shrimp used to have babies all the time! I mean, amanos cant breed in freshwater, so they didnt grow up or anything, but they'd at least be berried a lot. Whats the deal with the RCS?


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## demosthenes (Aug 23, 2008)

i kind of need a title for this tank. can anyone think of something good? i'll send some RAOK plants to whoever gives me the best one i guess, lol.


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## demonbreedr16 (Jan 10, 2008)

The Other Side of a Rainbow? LOL, I always make funny names for my tanks. My first 29 was called "The Dark Depths of Brightness".


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## Vladdy (May 6, 2008)

That's a beastly tank! At my LFS, there are barely any aquarium plants. And we hardly have any private fish stores, and they sell the same stuff as in Petsmart or Petco. My dad sometimes gets mad at me for my aquarium obbsession too.


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## malaybiswas (Nov 2, 2008)

this is a very beautiful dutch looking tank I've seen in a looong time. You controlled the algea pretty well too. impressive


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## nickcamp12345 (May 2, 2009)

it sucks being in high school while being completely obsessed with the hobby. every day im thinking of something new for the tank, i get all hyped up, and then of course i realize i don't have a car to go anywhere and my dad is just way too lazy. =[ oh well.


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## ZooTycoonMaster (Jan 2, 2008)

Looks great! You seem to like rescaping


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## demosthenes (Aug 23, 2008)

everyone thanks for the comments!

@nickcamp12345 - haha i feel you, man. i have a car (or at least my dad's car and a license...), i just dont have any money! i spend all of my money on my fish and stuff, and i actually owe a bunch of my friends for spotting me when we go out to lunch or the movies or something. i'm out of buying things for my tanks for a while!

i still think something is missing from the scape. I rescape WAY too often, i get bored of the old and always have to find something new. I'm looking for some downoi or maybe lilaeopsis (i've got rock hard water.) for the foreground to replace the riccia rocks and glosso and then some elatine americana to replace the potamogeton gayi. But then if i get the elatines, they look too much like L. arcuata, so i'd have to replace that, too, and then it alllllll becomes complicated. damn you, plants!


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## biggdadyapisto (May 30, 2009)

you could name it "the ever changing scape" lol.


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## monkeyruler90 (Apr 13, 2008)

wow, nice tank, sometimes it doesn't even look like a 10g, i like the different terraces you make, and the good definition between foreground midground and background definitely give the tank better dimensions!

great tank!


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## demosthenes (Aug 23, 2008)

*final update before august!*

So on monday i got a bunch of new equipment! haha check it out:
new eheim filter and my backpack with my name on it!








new drop checker:








An in-line diffuser that i made... i later switched this out for a better idea that i came up with that uses t-joints instead of a gatorade bottle, but its the same basic idea:









before the new equipment:








after setting up all the new gear (the airline tubing on the right side is no longer there.) :









regular FTS:








new foreground:









So basically, here is what happened:
- the obvious trimming
- added the cardinal tetras from my 46g, which has been taken down for the summer (one of the four didn't do well in the transition, and died this afternoon, but the other three seem to be doing well so far.)
- added a small piece of driftwood with flame moss
- replaced the riccia with downoi and reorganized the glosso to grow better and sell later.
- obviously i also changed the filter and CO2 diffusion method, and added the drop checker.

This will be the last update until August. I'll be in michigan over the summer, and my friend will be taking care of the tanks. So please be nice to him and help him with anything he might need! haha.

Edit: i gave my friend the username and password for this account, so until August, demosthenes will be a different person.

i have to say, its been great being on this site, and thank you all very much for helping me along with this tank! i think that in the fall, this will likely turn into a nano-reef tank, but i'll still be lurking around this site with my 5g moss tank (will probably be a tiny grow-out tank) and my 46g low-tech tank, which will be sort of the same, but different. see that thread if youre interested in where it is going, the link is in my sig.


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## ZooTycoonMaster (Jan 2, 2008)

demosthenes said:


> new drop checker:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Hmmm that diffuser looks strangely like a drop checker:hihi:


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## demosthenes (Aug 23, 2008)

haha thanks ztm, i'll fix it...

edit: we're good!


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## monkeyruler90 (Apr 13, 2008)

lol, congrats on getting the new equipment.


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## ZooTycoonMaster (Jan 2, 2008)

You sure the Eheim tubing will fit that thing? It doesn't looks that big

Are you using DIY CO2?


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## demosthenes (Aug 23, 2008)

yeah, i have four 1L bottles of DIY CO2. theyre now hooked up to a t-joint with an airstone jammed in there pretty well so it bubbles up into the flow of the output of the filter, so the bubbles are forced to be in the water for longer, and when they are eventually spit out into the tank, they are pushed down underwater, so i'd guess they spend 3 or 4 times as much time in the water than they would just bubbling up from an airstone on the bottom of the tank.


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## ZooTycoonMaster (Jan 2, 2008)

How's the tank? You haven't updated in a month


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## ZooTycoonMaster (Jan 2, 2008)

*knock knock* Is the tank still alive?


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## CAM6467 (Feb 11, 2009)

I know it's been over a month now, but the drop checker is awefully blue in those pics. Up that CO2 my friend!! Hope your summer was fun...now get back to work!:wink:

Can't wait to see those updated pics!roud:

Charlie


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## sewingalot (Oct 12, 2008)

Ditto. Where are the pictures? I am looking forward to updates.


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## demosthenes (Aug 23, 2008)

haha thanks guys, i'll get them on the way. i'm on "vacation" still (not at home, but still have to work and go to football practice), so i havent seen this tank in over two months, i was just to ZTM about it. hopefully everything is okay!

my summer tank (20g, all native sp.) is going alright, i've learned a lot about stuff, but the mineralized topsoil is just frustrating and certain species of fish are WAY too picky with things. its been fun though, i'll try to post some pictures next week.


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## talontsiawd (Oct 19, 2008)

Wow, this really wants me to start changing my 10 gallon around a bit. I just let it grow and keep it simple, that's really the point of my 10 gallon but I think I may actually go buy some plants for it now, instead of just taking trimmings from my 29 gallon.

I know you said you haven't seen it but the progression you did show was great.


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## lljdma06 (Oct 16, 2006)

I just read through your thread. A very pretty tank. It has definitely changed a lot and I like the Dutch look to it. 

llj


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## demosthenes (Aug 23, 2008)

*finally revived after summer!*

well, this tank is finally up and running after this summer. The Eheim 2213 is still running, albeit slowly, the Coralife light is still pretty bright, and only a few fish died. Actually most of the shrimp died, but only a few fish. Right now, I only have 3 celebes rainbows, 2 cardinal tetras, and maybe 2 or 3 amano shrimp left. All of the RCS died. When I got back, All of my plants were WAY overgrown and mostly covered in BBA because my friend got tired of the DIY CO2 thing, so he just got rid of it. So i left it for about a week, and I finally got around to trimming it and fixing everything up yesterday. I'm planning on going pressurized in the next couple of days, I have my solenoid/regulator/needle valve/bubble counter/diffuser, but i'm just waiting on my cylinder. Here's what it looks like:

FTS:








Cabomba furcata with lots of BBA... theres a lot more of it than there used to be though:








Left side of the tank thats obstructed by overgrown DHG. Behind the DHG there is L. arcuata and Lagarosiphon madagascariensis hiding:









This next picture needs a little more of an introduction... Here are all of the potted plants in my room (except a giant pot with a little tiny bamboo plant in it). I'll refer to them as 1-7 in order from left to right:
*1.* a little cactus, idk the name (store-bought pot)
*2. *fairy castle cactus in a glass that my sister made (she blows glass)
*3.* a jade plant that i've had for a few years
*4.* my brand new picotope. The plants in the front are Eleocharis acicularis that i found growing wild in michigan, and the ones in back are these large rushes that i also found growing wild. Theres also duckweed growing in there. (glass bowl made by my sister)
*5.* a bog plant i found growing amongst wild duckweed in MI and brought home for fun. I'm hoping that the duckweed will fill up the surface of the water and the bog plant gets bigger, I think that would look pretty swell. (glass bowl also made by my sister)
*6. *my sister's lucky bamboo plant that her boyfriend gave her like 4 years ago that she left at home, so now i'm taking care of it.
*7.* my mom doesn't want me flushing plant clippings down the toilet, so I started an aquatic compost. I made the pot on a wheel out of white clay, with glaze that i made from scratch and laced with chromium dioxide and cobalt carbonate. haha i kinda thought itd be cool to share:


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## demosthenes (Aug 23, 2008)

yay! i finally got around to installing my brand new pressurized CO2 unit! :hihi:

Although now i'm having a few other issues involving the scape and the drop checker... first of all, i dont have and 3 dKH water to use, and neither does my LFS, so I'm using tank water for it, and it doesn't change at all ever, and i dont want to turn up the bubble count too much, i dont want to gas my fish.

no as for the scape, i dont like it. and i'm not sure what to so. I think i'm going to go for a more amano look by using like four different layers of background plants, and i'll spread out my flame moss more. but the eleocharis acicularis i think is just too big of a plant to use in my foreground. I think i'll sell it and only keep a few nodes to add a little spice every here and there in the tank. Then for the background plants, i think i'm going to buy some Rotala wallichii, and maybe Micranthemum umbrosum. idk well see. any suggestions would be appreciated. thanks guys!


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## problemman (Aug 19, 2005)

im just waiting for another picture this tank looks huge i love it!!!!!


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## demosthenes (Aug 23, 2008)

yep, my drop checker sucks. it really just sits and does nothing, and idk what to do with it. on the bright side, the plants have been doing great! i've gotten a TON of new plants in this incredible package from *monkeyruler90* and a few other members here. They've been growing really well (a little too well :/ it got way overgrown quickly!) so far. Here is my stock list:

Fauna:
5 Featherfin rainbows (switched with my celebes rainbows in my 46g)
2 cardinal tetras
3 amano shrimp
2 little kuhli loaches (so cool!)
oh and pond snails, microramshorn snails, more pond snails, regular ramshorn snails, and one or two MTS. hoping for some assassins soon! 

Flora:
Cyperus helferi
Limnophila aromatica
Rotala macrandra
Rotala sp. 'Vietnam'
Ludwigia araguaia
Rotala macrandra sp. 'green'
Ludwigia arcuata
Micranthemum umbrosum (unsure about this, it looks a lot different than MU i've had before)
flame moss
Cabomba piauhyensis
Hygrophila balsamica
Riccia Fluitans
Elatine triandra
Mayaca fluviatilis
Lindernia sp. 'variegated'
Limnophila sp. 'mini'
Ludwigia senegalensis
Hemianthus micranthemoides
Microsorium pteropus sp. 'narrow leaf'
Glossostigma elatinoides
Marsilea sp.
Hemianthis callictroides
Eleocharis montevidensis
Eleocharis acicularis
Blyxa japonica
Cladophora sp.

A grand total of 26 species of plants, 3 species of fish, 1 species of shrimp, and 4 species of snails. roud:

take a look:









sorry, thats my only picture for now. i don't have access to my good camera atm, and i dont have the patience to keep using my phone's camera. This afternoon i trimmed all of the plants and neatened up the entire tank, so it looks much less disgustingly overgrown now. hopefully this week i'll have time to take some more pictures and do a better update with more pictures.
thanks!


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## ZooTycoonMaster (Jan 2, 2008)

26 species of plants in a 10 gallon tank?!?!?!?!?!!?:eek5:


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## problemman (Aug 19, 2005)

i know right i love it though it looks so nice


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## accordztech (Dec 6, 2004)

i thought that your not supposed to use tank watter in those drop checkers at all?


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## demosthenes (Aug 23, 2008)

yeah, i know, but if i use tap water then there will be chlorine, and i dont have any other water...... but on second thought, could i just use some bottled water? like ice mountain or something? i mean, it can't be any worse than using tank water.


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## legomaniac89 (Mar 16, 2008)

26 species in 10 gallons of water...Yup, that's definitely collectoritis . I once had 56 species in a 20 long before I rescaped it


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## demosthenes (Aug 23, 2008)

haha yeah, i'm already trying to rethink it. 

I found a 1 Liter cube that my mom had flowers in years ago, and i'm hoping she'll let me use it for a picotope. My LFS also recently got in a few boraras brigittae..... :biggrin:

I think i'm going to take out the lagarosiphon madagascariensis, hygro balsamica, and maybe marsilea, so put in either the pico or my 10g.

So for this pico i'm dreaming about... I'm thinking that it'll have two boraras, maybe three, one amano shrimp, pellia as a substrate, fissidens in the back left corner, and lagarosiphon in the back right. for fertilizers, i think i know what would work*. then to keep the fish nice and healthy, i'd do a water change every day with a turkey baster that i've already stolen from my kitchen to clean out the picos that i have set up as pots for bog plants. (see a previous post, the glass bowls with eleocharis and the spearheaded plant)

*as for ferts, I currently have a big gatorade bottle that i've measured out the right amount of dry ferts for each day if i dose three eye-droppers-full of the solution every day into my 10g. So if i use this solution and instead of three whole eye-droppers-full, i'll just add like 4 drops.


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## demosthenes (Aug 23, 2008)

Recently i've actually done a lot with this tank... and I think this past week it looked better than it ever has. since that last picture i took out a few plants and added a few others (right now my species count is 22  ), and it looks a lot better. unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture before i ripped out my foreground... after only about two weeks i got sick of the elatines (theyre for sale right now). they look so good! but they just grow way too fast to keep in a 10g. If there was a plants 30g i think they'd be perfect, i'll have to keep them in mind. 

Now instead of having elatines take up my entire foreground, I moved them over to the far right side and i'm going to wait for my marsilea to fill in the whole foreground. In the meantime, i'll let the glosso take up the rest of the foreground. And also, i have some Lilaeopsis brasiliensis that i added to the front left side, and i'm really happy with it so far.

Although aren't glosso and lilaeopsis not supposed to both be able to survive under the exact same conditions (in the same tank i mean)? mine both seem to be doing well (knock on wood...).

All of my fish seem to still be doing well, i've been trying to feed them frozen foods more often. I added 6 ASSASSIN SNAILS! to finally rid me of my pond snail and microramshorn infestation. 

At this point, I am really happy with everything about the tank except one little thing... i have elatine tri, MU, HM, glosso, and Lindernia sp. all relatively near each other, and to the untrained eye (ie, the parental units and my friends) they all look exactly the same (same color, similar height, similar shape). I don't mind having the elatines and HM next to each other, but i'd like to take out the lindernias and put in something a little different. *any ideas?*

Pictures soon to come!


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## Chrisinator (Jun 5, 2008)

Wow! Collectoritis!

Sweet looking tank! Do you still have the Celebes Rainbows? How sensitive are they?


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## demosthenes (Aug 23, 2008)

yes, i still have them, but they are in my 46g tank. They are really fragile, SO sensitive to any changes... theyre kind of a hit-or-miss thing from your LFS, a lot of them probably won't fully adapt to your tank and die. If you can get a good deal for them, buy a bunch. If they do successfully acclimate (as in, if they dont die), then they do really well, and will eat anything you put in there.


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## seds (Jan 30, 2009)

AMPHOROS








Looks pretty cool demosthenes.

I could use some assassin snails...


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## problemman (Aug 19, 2005)

*cough* i *cough* hate *cough* you lol jk looks great


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## demosthenes (Aug 23, 2008)

haha thanks! actually without even moving the tank around or putting my hands in it at all, i can see three dead assassin snails' shells, so i doubt the other three are still alive... COME ON! i have so many pond snails and nasty weird snails and things, and i cant find a way to get rid of them. should i just get a ton more assassin snails?

also, is it possible that my kuhli loaches killed the assassin snails? that hadnt really occurred to me until recently.


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## demosthenes (Aug 23, 2008)

here are the pictures, as promised!

a few notable things i should mention:
- i've noticed a lot of planaria, not sure what to do
- still being overrun by pond snails and microramshorns
- assassin snails died of unknown cause
- other fish seem to be doing fine, plants growing really fast!
- I added some new driftwood, just in small chunks.
- newish foreground, hoping to eventually phase out of glosso and use only lilaeopsis and marsilea
- now selling weekly packages of trimmed plants for $12-15, just ask if you want some!

from afar:








FTS: 








view from above, kinda cool looking cabomba:








midground of blyxa and lindernia surrounded by HM to the right, L arcuata to the left, and flame moss in front:








New growth on the R. 'vietnam', a little closed up for the night, but finally looking like R. 'vietnam' should:








bad picture of a picotope i set up... it has some H. balsamica and Lindernia growing out of a glass cup that my sister blew, with a substrate of red clay under topsoil under sand:









Hopefully more picotope pictures to come, I have several set up, and definitely more pictures of the 10g to come!


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## ZooTycoonMaster (Jan 2, 2008)

I heard that bigger fish such as Platies will eat Planaria...you may want to try getting 1 or 2 of those


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## justin182 (Aug 19, 2009)

haha, it's me!!!

one of the best 10g tanks i've seen, mate. Very inspirational on my 10g. Man, it's a pain to wait for another week....... i'll try though............

Ohoh, I've overheard a staff from petsmart talking to another customer about a fish that they have will suck the snail out of its shell and eat it... I don't remember what the fish is or how big the snail could be to be eaten. One of the other members would probably know. Anyway, good luck!!!


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## niptek (Nov 9, 2008)

hey, im looking for some glosso to buy pm me if you have any to sell.

planaria problem. I use dog de-wormer to kill the planaria in my tank its fish and shrimp safe just dont over dose.


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## demosthenes (Aug 23, 2008)

i've heard planaria will go away if their food source goes away, so stop overfeeding and they'll die.... so i guess i'll just start feeding a lot less, i didnt realize i fed that much too much.

*niptek* - i should have a lot of glosso to send you in a few days, if you are willing to wait. i may not have time to trim, but i could absolutely get them to you by next monday.


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## Tex Gal (Mar 28, 2008)

Reminds me a little of my 10g CPD tank. I love the thick jungle look!


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## demosthenes (Aug 23, 2008)

thanks, *tex!* i've actually been meaning to add some boraras brigittae to this tank, but i don't know what to do with my featherfins and cardinals instead. i love the look of those cute little guys!

this tank really sucks... i mean i love whats inside the tank, but the tank itself, like the glass and plastic and silicone is really cheap and ugly. i should really look into a new one. would that be a HUGE pain to do, or just a little bit?

*niptek* - i've got a bunch of glosso now if you want some.


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## Heartnet (Sep 13, 2009)

Just read through your entire thread (great read by the way :thumbsup. Your tank's progression from its earlier stages until now is *fantastic*. Beautiful job. 

By the way, what kind of 20'' lighting fixture are you using? No matter how much I look anywhere, online and LFS, they don't have anything that fits a 10 gallon tank with at least 30+ wattage. How many watts does your lighting fixture have?

P.S. Your sister's glass blowing skills are amazing. I only seen it once, but it was literally amazing to watch glass-work being formed like that.


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## demosthenes (Aug 23, 2008)

*new name! ...Dans l'Attente*

thanks, *Heartnet*! i'm using a Finnex 36W PC fixture that i got for $65 i think. I've seen a few 2x24W T5 fixtures (hoping for one for christmas! lol), and someone on plantedtank has a 96W fixture over their 10g, but i forget who or what type of fixture. my sister is an incredible artist, shes mostly into painting, but shes also got mad sketching skills. In glass blowing, she says shes kind of a noob, but i think a lot of the stuff shes done is pretty cool. Personally, I'm more into sculpting and growing my art. I'm way into ceramics, and i used to be into plaster-molding sculptures, but i haven't done that in a few years. Right now my main art form is my tanks :hihi:

So i know this is wayyyy cliched by now, but i thought i needed a better name than "amorphous" because that just sounds way too amateur. Today i christened this tank "Dans l'Attente" because it seems like i'm ALWAYS waiting for it to fill in because i move things around way too much. It's just a better, more articulate way of saying that i'm impatient :icon_wink Mostly inspired by CL's and UG's french-named tanks.

...

This next part is mostly for me to help keep track of my tank, but might also be interesting for you guys... haha probably don't waste your time reading it.

whats been going on lately:
- i stopped adding ferts for a while because i had a massive bacteria bloom and the tank got all cloudy.
- now i'm back on ferts, but going really easy so it doesnt cloud up the water with iron again.
- I got a massive shipment from Drs. Foster and Smith on Tuesday that had an Aponogeton henkelianus bulb (with 4 crowns!), a pot of HC, and like 20 two-foot-tall stems of Saururus cernuus to put in this tank, but of course i only needed a little.
- *Legomaniac* sent me some Ammania bonsai and Hydrocotyle sibthorpoides that i added to the back of the tank, so hopefully those will grow in quickly. thanks bud!
- algae has started to go away because of my new Amano slimp!
- snail problem has gone away a little bit because of the Yoyo Loach i bought last weekend
- Planaria problem is still existent, but going away because I've been trying to cut down on the feeding.
- biweekly WC's, so every weekend i change ONE tank, and the next weekend i change the other tank.
- updated my avatar to something that looks a fair amount cooler than the terrible picture that i used to have.

Plants in general:
- mosses have been growing in nicely, lizard's tail has already had some submersed growth come in, and the Ludwigia 'Guinea' has been looking nicer lately.
- the Rotala sp. Vietnam has finally started growing well
- the marsilea sp. and lilaeopsis sp. have both started filling in nicely.

Looking forward:
- hoping to get my first solid foreground ever to fill in
- once the Ammania bonsai and saururus cernuus fill in i won't be adding any more plants for a long time
- once the Madagascar lace plant gets bigger, i'll be putting it on the right side of the tank between the Fissidens, HM, and Limnos
- stop buying so many plants!

:icon_excl*pictures to come very soon*, hopefully either tonight or this afternoon.


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## demosthenes (Aug 23, 2008)

*finally today's pictures*

foreground of emersed HC and Marsilea sp.:









fissidens on my DW:









new Saururus cernuus:
note - i realize its not a fully aquatic plant, but i've heard that it grows really well underwater for a while. either way, it seems to me like no one uses it anymore, so i'm going to try it out and see how it goes. if it goes well, maybe i can bring it back into style! :biggrin:









my tiny Madagascar lace bulb:









FTS with flash on... weird lookin!









FTS:









Full:









Can some of you please help me out with my camera? I'm really sick of seeing these pictures look _terrible_ like this. What kind of camera will take better pictures? I know virtually nothing about cameras beyond how to point and shoot my mom's old digital camera, so anything that you could contribute would be extremely helpful. Thanks!

thanks for checking my tank out! :icon_smil


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## demosthenes (Aug 23, 2008)

i did a major rescape today... it looks terrible in the pictures, but i think in person it loks pretty good. once it fills in some more, I think it could be the best scape yet. I just have to remember to leave it alone and stop changing things!

The water is all murky and gross because i added some red clay beneath the substrate to try to get my R. Vietnam, Ludwigia senegalensis, and L. arcuata some more iron in their nutrient base, and as i was uprooting some today, a bunch of it came out.

FTS:








right side background:









also, do yoyo loaches tend to jump? I had one in here, and he was the greatest little fish, eating snails like CONSTANTLY and he seemed so happy, but i havent seen him in a few days, and in my giant rescape today I still haven't seen him...


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## legomaniac89 (Mar 16, 2008)

Lookin good! I had a Burmese Loach for quite a while until one day he just was gone. I found him a few days later under the tank. So, yes, loaches are really good jumpers


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## ZooTycoonMaster (Jan 2, 2008)

Wow...how many rescapes have you done in total of this tank?


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