Full Tank Shot Dec 18

The floaters are some lobelia cardinalas that I bought but decided not to plant.  Was a whim buy and after looking it up I shouldn’t have gotten it.  I don’t think its the small form.  I’m going to just let it float for a while to see if it survives but I don’t think I want it in the tank based on what I’ve read about it.

Here’s the view I have from my desk.

Angle shot Dec 18

A photo of the right foreground which will eventually be a parva lawn.  The 2nd round of parva are almost fully grown.  Compared to the parva I planted on the left side these ones look fully grown.

Crypt parva lawn

It will be interesting to see which side fills in more quickly.  The left side is planted more densely but the plants are very small where the right side is fully grown but not planted as thick.

This is all that was left of a 12-14 large crypt wendtii ‘red’ (as well as some diatom algae from starting up) and all that’s left of about the same number of crypt cordata

Melted wendtii 'red'

With the tank fully planted and some of the plants having about a month in the tank I figured it was pretty safe to start introducing fish.  I previously had bought 6 otos to keep the startup algae at bay and they all died.  It’s likely that the tank wasn’t entirely cycled and some other stress reactions all worked against them.  I jumped the gun a bit on getting them, maybe I was too paranoid about a bit algae infested startup.

The last time I started up a bigger planted tank I didn’t introduce any of the “show” fish until after the cleaning crew had been in for a few weeks.  I plan on doing the same thing this time.  I’ll build up the cleaning staff over the next couple weeks and then will get the rest of the fish in.

So far, I’m pretty happy with what I’ve found in stock at the fish stores around town.  Introduced into the tank this weekend were:

6 otos, 1 albino bristlenose pleco, 2 clown plecos, 2 rubbernose plecos, 9 panda corys and 120 ghost shrimp.  Here’s a few shots of some of the new tenants:

Albino bristlenose pleco

Rubbernose pleco

Rubbernose pleco

Clown pleco

Ghost shrimp

Panda corys

After the first day I haven’t seen the clown plecos around.  It also looks like one of the rubbernose plecos has some ich.  Hopefully it’s alright and doesn’t spread to the other fish.  Also, about a dozen of the ghost shrimp have bitten the dust.  Fairly expected considering I bought 10 dozen.  After the first day I haven’t seen any more carcasses lying in the gravel so I think the rest have acclimated well. It’s pretty cool to say about 100 ghost shrimp cruising around and doing their thing.  Makes the tank seem very active with almost no fish in it at all.  They are constantly eating something and it’s noticeable that they are cleaning things up after only a couple days.

As far as the tank setup goes I’m pretty much finished.  I have a couple small odds and ends to complete and then build the cabinet to finish it off.  That will be the last major job and then the only work left will be maintenance.  Not all the way there yet but it’s feeling much closer than it did 2 months ago.  There will be one more planting left for the tank, I just need to find the right species.  I need to get some anubias nana var petite it pretty large quantity to fill in the two sections of the driftwood (mostly on the left side) and I’d like a mid sized anubias strain for the left side as well.  I’m going to try and order some of them through another LFS and see how it goes.  Right now it’s just wait for the crypts to come back and the ferns and anubias to starting spreading out.

Scaffolding

I cleaned out most of the crypts at the best LFS in town.  There are a bunch of ones in here:  anubias bartera, java fern (normal), crypt parva, crypt poderfolia, crypt wendtii (red and green), crypt retrospiralis, crypt balansae, crypt abilda and apongeton crispus.  A few of the crypts aren’t in the greatest shape but they were reasonably priced so I figured I would give them a shot.  Before putting them in the tank I soaked them in a very, very mild peroxide and water solution to try and at least hurt some of the algae that may be on them.  Here’s the plants before going in the tank:

Plants soaking in water and peroxide solution

Planting a 3 feet deep tank while you are standing 3 feet in the air is not the most comfortable scenario.  Luckily I have 12″ tweezers to help and very long arms.  This is the shot during my first break to give my back a rest:

Parva and balansae planted

I had to finish up the planting before I got everything in.  I ran out of super glue for attaching the ferns and anubias so there are a few of them that still need to go in.  Here’s a bunch of shots of different areas:

Full tank shot after planting

The start of the parva lawn, about 1/4 of the way there after planting 10 pots worth:

Parva lawn started

Balansae and ponderfolia sections:

Balansae and ponderfolia sections

Apongeton crispus and more balansae

Apongeton and balansae

More balansae, retrospiralis and abilda.  The retrospiralis and abilda are on light support a bit so you can’t see them very well.

Balanse, retrospiralis and abilda

A section of wendtii green:

Wendtii green

and after refilling the tank:

Left side shot

Center shot

Right side shot

After this planting session and getting the tank refilled I was hurting.  Sore back and tired but worth it.  The green really pops against the wood and brown soil and dark background.    After a night of planting I would have to say that the Netlea substrate is very nice to work with.  It is easy to plant in, doesn’t make a big mess when disturbed.  Areas that were underwater were an absolute breeze to plant in.  All the planting that is shown was finished in about an hour and a half.  Once you get the hang of using 12″ tweezers they are an absolute necessity for planting in a tank this deep.  Overall I’m very happy with the progress.  Lots of plants left to go but a good start.  I figure this will be about 1/4 to 1/3 of the total plant biomass that I’ll plant in here.  The general theme will be the same though.  Slow growers, crpyts, anubias, ferns etc.  Don’t want a high maintenance tank.  I feel like I may go with one select stem species behind the anubias barteri but I will have to wait until I can get some shipped in the spring time for that.  The Canadian winters aren’t to friendly to plant shipments.

Part of the school

A bit closer...

A nice aqua-blue line when they are at the right angle

I’m getting a bit better with the camera now that I have the tripod.  I’m hoping to get a little bit clearer shots next time.  Stay tuned.

Update:  A couple pics taken with the tripod and after a bit of playing with the manual focus.

Learning how to focus...

Another attempted closeup

Clearly I haven’t quite got the camera settings right or the lighting.  The shrimp are coming out searching for food now more after the hangover of bloodworms and brine shrimp has worn off.  Hopefully I will be able to get a better shot soon.  I think I have a few techniques to get better close up shots now.  We shall see.

8 out of 9 in my harlequin rasbora school

Here’s a close up of a few, testing the full zoom!

Ready for their closeup