sup42

Have a look at trade me right now , there is someone selling off a range of tank sizes with stands in bulk e.g 36 forty liter tanks with stand poly etc

Certainly Do , I'm in central Auckland. It must be the old tank hey. I like that shape.

It's early days still very much a work in progress and A learning curve for me but what I've found so far supports both your ideas. I started with ten tall plants , cut most of them into sections just long enough to get a good inch or so stem to bury in the sand. Some grew taller within a matter of days / first week. Absolutely you will get new separate plants. Some of those first cuttings when they floated up accidentally had good new root growth starting. It has been pain staking , at the start everything just grew upward , that was a bit disapointing. I re cut them quite agresively when they were tall enough to make two plants , I read that the more you cut them and the closer you plant them together the more they compact and stay low ( see the plants on the left of that photo , the new growth when planted close has smaller more compact leaves and they have much closer inter nodes too ). So maybe it is working. The idea of the thread is to test the lights with that plant specifically instead of assumung the PAR values of a $12 Lamp and $3.50 bulb are very high just because the theory says it should be.... So I will keep taking pics every couple of weeks. As for the tied down one , I read a lot of people just take those mother plants and bury the heads, seems to work so far. I envisage that the first month or two will involve lots of cutting and replanting to force the plants to carpet. If I had my time over I Would plant the first batch as closely together as physically possible and not worry about spread initially, Just have a 'bush' that I add onto over time / let the plant grow out too. In a perfect world the shop ones would be super compact when sold.

I got home from work at midnight about a month ago and someone had left a tank sitting on the footpath with stones in it.....a wee eheim box filter, a broken Heater and gold fish flakes. The eheim was still working. I filled it with water and found a small leak in one of the sump holes the previous owner had siliconed. So I re sealed it roughly and put together more of the twelve dollar clip in desk lamps from Bunnings and rigged up three with 24wt CFL tubes. Here's a diary of progress to date : The three headed monster Up and running , testing high light on Experiment on the cheap with DIY CO2 Using baby tears as the subject Two weeks of Bunnings Lights , tied down baby tears getting more compact. Cuttings thickening up into a carpet steadily too. Thanks to the random neighbor who got rid of their tank. Daltons aqua mix seems to go very good all in all...gotta say i'm thrilled with it for the price and results.

By the Way an easy to grow / fast growing stem plant would have to be Hygrophila Polysperma. Really hardy plant , great for new set ups , versatile to the max. Trimming and replanting the tops gives a really nice bushy look. Growing it along the Substrate or just letting it spread across the surface gives you the 'all in one' uses of this plant. Cuttings are easy to strike. It is a cheap plant to buy a lot of. Truly the best plant I've had any experience of in terms of quick reward for effort and a confidence builder for new plant gardeners.

Thanks Caper , I'm onto tank four now......will post some pics of the other tanks when are fully set up

In Cyber I will always be 42. In reality i will be able to mark the passing of time by my username :slfg:

Sup : Short for What is up. 42 I am 42 Nothing Esoteric about it other than perhaps it is an ethnocentric thing.

Supasi I read that thread with the inputs from 4x4 on the CFL par measurements. Very very interesting. I've been trying to grow a nice little ten gallon tank using those principles. The True measure in the case of my little experiment will be if the bunnings lamps manage to grow the HC into a carpet i painstakingly planted last week by using a combination of cutting ten long stems From Four Seasons petshop in Glenn Innes into individual cuttings and also tying some of the plants down using those plant weights to see if a tied down Mother plant out performs the cuttings

+ 1 They do a good Job and as for the visual aspect that's all in your head. If you befriend them and intentionally take a liking to the little buggers they just become a part of the natural world imo

Could be a thread starter. ' WTB breeding pair of plastic Pararubbercus "

Then you are doing better than the team of Dutch Scientists that tried to adapt it to Immersed growth and failed. :thup:

ah of course, Thanks for that, so i can stop waiting for half my Ottos to go belly up phew !

My favorite chestnut is all the Bog plants Animates sells. All in all HFF is pretty good , but they are doing a roaring trade in Alternhera Rubra, I got caught out by the spiel ' high lights and CO2 will help" They might as well be selling Lettuces as under water novelties No amount of CO2 and highlighting will keep this plant alive immersed for very long. I hope the aquarium trade stops this snake oil. I threw a pile of money down the drain on this and purple waffle and so many more blatant rip offs.

I have six otos between two tanks ( four in one an pair in the other ). Lots of Info on the net about why they die after around a month or so of being introduced to the tank. The capture method is to blame. Some fish collectors use toxins to stun them in the river including cyanide since they are so tricky to catch. My guess is that after a month they go into organ failure from the toxins , pretty rough. Most experts suggest you will have around a 50% die off rate , if they survive the 1st month you are home and hosed.

Thanks again Jennifer I will institute the routine with due diligence. I have sorted out the flow in the tank to get and even gentle breeze sway all around. How long would you wait after adjusting the ferts till you increase the photo period from 6hrs ?

Edit: I can See why people who run high tech tanks eventually convert to Slower more balanced set ups

Tanks for the Advice Jenifer. I've read all your posts and worked out it is a learning curve, One of the most important ingredients I think is patience. So I'm running a 6 hour photo period now. First thing i noticed is the return of the algae is slowed if not stopped ( won't know for sure yet , but enough time has passed for regrowth based on the two to three day scrubbing the glass previously ) I agree with the Bio Mass suggestion and you will be pleased to know I put in large Hygro Polysperma as a temporary stem plant additive till my preffered Cambomba Carolina replaces it. Now I feel more confident with doing the ferts. The Phosphate product i was talked into is Aqua Vitro Potassium & Phosphate , I have a phosphate test kit , what level should i aim for ? it is an API one My Nitrates are always around 0.25ppm by weeks end ( I've read this means i don't need to add Nitrogen since the Biomass in th tank is never burning it up to 0.ppm ( even though E.I. recommends higher values ? ) The Iron I WIll inject into the substrate once a week under the Swords and Alternhera Rosifolia ( sorry spelling ) As for leaching, you are probably right even though 100 % Flourite on the Seachem site says leaching is not possible. The Blue green Algae as i understand it might be an indication of low 02 Any way I have a smaller high tech tank on an eight hour photo period which is doing brilliantly. and then there is the direct sunlight ( diffused through a window ) which is also pearling etc with minimal Algae. That's all given me a bit of confidence that i can sought this thing out !

Well Some event has happened in your tank and you clearly have good reason to be Mystified , because from what i've read of your efforts there is no answer to the spike unless some totally random event has happened that you are totally unaware of ( e.g something like a snail population has died in your substrate after a inadvertent copper introduction.....totally random i know ) Or someone in the Family has dropped something in their e.g too much food without telling you etc etc ( probably not ) But for me that's not the issue if all your systems are online you might as well deal with it aggressively and once resolved expect no repeats. Introducing more bacteria is a simple numbers game for mine. Clearly the bacteria in the spiking tank is being overwhelmed , send in reinforcements. A highish dose of prime will convert the Ammonia without removing it , making it safer for fish and available to conversion for the bacteria in your tank as i understand it. Very useful for avoiding false readings and getting a true resolution. I've swapped compatible filters between tanks when one tank is playing up ( but then I run two filters in my Most stable biggest tank to allow this luxury)

Get a good cup full of your other tanks media and put it in your ammonia situation. I've Cycled Four tanks this year doing it that way has helped greatly. Provided the temperature between both tanks is not too different the bacteria should boost the numbers a fair bit. Be interesting to see what your nitrates are doing. Water change first....too much Ammonia is toxic to the bacteria aye

A month after switching to LEDs Seachem Iron , FLourish , Excel , Comprehensive , pressurised CO2 I have every Algae and Cyno Bacteria known to man kind in my high tech tank. Did a Three day and twelve hours blackout , the only Algae that died out was the GSA. Removed all affected plants and soaked them in high contration bath of Excel. Cut off all affected leaves ( there are some minor spots here and there too hard to get too the lot ). 70 % Water change after scrubbing the walls with a plastic card. Removed a piece of driftwood completely. Tank looks like a pale bare waste land. Cut back on Photoperiod to six hours Not sure when to re fert the tank as I'm a bit lost on where to go next. I was following the regime on here before the Algae explosion , now my photo periods cut I'm not sure about dosing....spose i could just follow Seachems rates. The Iron is a real cop out , there is no recommended frequency on Seachems product , I suspect the Algae was a combo after Iron boosting was started. Probably should have let the Flourite do its t hing and waited for the swords / red plants to show shortage ?

Great Fish Dr. Can't wait to get out and have a crack at it. Tanks a week away from being ready I would say.

I'm going to have a go at the Same one day when I've run out of space to put tanks. There are a tonne of Good articles on the net on this very subject , Google Aquaponics. They grow vegetables on this very principle....to clean / reuse water from tanks.

I'm currently cycling a tank with my kids that is intended for Shrimp keeping....Like you I will have to get out there and find somewhere in Auckland that holds these wonderful little guys. Did you net during the Day or Night time ? Anyone had any joy netting them during the day ? Will a Cheap largish Butterfly net work ? Sorry to Hijack the thread but there is so little info out there on Native Shrimp.

Love the set up , very nice. Fish Colours and Plants / Black substrate just looks Amazing