Howsie

So here's some pictures so far: The Moss ball is acclimating well, still need to find some smaller stones Lots of growth in here so I think I'll thin it out and put some Alternathera in with the moss ball This ones not looking good at all but I'm not too worried as I'm focusing mainly on the other two The Flower Another shot of the flower Another little flower close to opening

I found a flower on the bacopa. I need to find the cord for the camera :cry1:

Pretty good. I got my computer back yesterday so I can finally upload some pics

I added the goldfish. they are.looking good . one has a funny shape to it so either it is skinny or it has bad genetics. the other looks perfect.both are eatinng. no worries with eating other fish as they're aren't quite big enough. the keyholee gaave one a bit of a nip when it kept getting too clpse to the food tablet. sof far so good ( sorry bout the spelling . this was done on my fone as i recently broke my laptop)

Thank you for the quick reply. ill get to moving them in.

Hi everyone. I have got two goldfish in need of savingfrom there small pond /trough while we get our big pond dug in. These fish i am not proud to say aren't in an appropriate environment so i was wondering couldi put them in my tropical tank temporarily while we work on there big pond. the tannk is at 23~24 degrees but could possibly drop it down further if need be. the tank is 215l and is stocked with a keyhole cichlid 11 lemon tetra6 sterbai corys and a bristlenose. the tank is planted. i do 30~40% water changes every week which can be upped if needed. the gold fishh themselves are about 10cm long. One is a commet annd the ootheer ithink is a common or atleast has shorter fins This of course would not be long term and the environment would be mor consistent than there current tank. Thanks

awesome! Make sure to post some pictures when you do

It might be a while before i upload any pics as i just dropped my laptop and cracked the screen pretty bad. but i can stilk use my phne so I'm not completely cut off. while I'm here how fast would a crypt grow emersed excluding acclimating time. i have a few small crypts that could look alright in the new wabi but obviously i want it to eventually grow to a decent size. i know they are slow geowers in the tank but are they any faster out water? Thhanks sirry about the typos they're a pain to fix on this phone and sometimes new ones pop up when i try to fix them

nice variety however I think you have an unfair advantage . is that indian fern in the back of the last pic? Ive got some of that growin at the moment and it looks really different emersed. looks good and let me know how the hair grass goes would like to try some

http://www.flickr.com/photos/aidsax/ <---this is where im getting some ideas

yeah the stones were just chucked in to keep a gap between the glass and the ball also to some extent to keep the ball from disintegrating in the water.I will do something nicer but for now im more focussed on plant growth

If you have one you should post a picture of then. I might be able to steal your ideas. Just finished making a ball and adding moss. This ball is approximately 1 part compost: 1 part flourite sand: 3 parts daltons aquatic mix and seems to be holding up alright. Im thinking about adding the alternathera to it or maybe try a crypt thats in the tank at the moment but for now I want to get the moss growing well and I might add something else down the road.

look what I got: Im going to try and make a proper moss ball type wabi kusa tomorrow if I have enough time an moss Dont know if this will be enough My fancy hanging light system

A small update with some pics. cup number 1 went without watering for a few days and the alternathera on accident but after a mini flood its back to growing again. The bacopa is growing out of control it seemed to slow down but after the flood it has nearly doubled in size. the unidentified plant is growing ok and the indian fern is growing pretty well to but I forgot to get a good shot of that. Im going to be on the look out for a container for a new one to possibly replace the smaller container. But anyway here is the pictures

I wanted to do some thing closer to that but didn't have any suitable containers and think it would take a bit more effort to make one of those balls. I would like to try one as soon as i find a nice glass bowl or something though. When making one of those balls I would try using mostly clay with sand (might need to test that combo cause its more of a guess than anything) to keep it a ball and not mud. It could take some experimentation to get the right consistency. Something I didnt expect was that it would work so well. The plants are growing really quickly and took suprisingly little time to acclimate to emersed conditions. some of the plants I used however were more suited to emersed growth i think. One more thing which is probably pretty simple but for some reason didnt occur to me is choose a container that will allow the plants to grow without being restricted. Some of the leaves of the Alternathera are pressed up against the glass and the babytear/bacopa stuff is now growing out of the cup. Might have to transplant. Hope atleast some of this helps. Ill post some updated pics tomorrow

So DennisP did you get your pencils ok?

I think the ones at hff will be N mortenthaleri the coral red pencil and the ones at wonderworld and pet planet etc will be some possibly mature or just a particularly red bunch of N. beckfordi, gold pencil. I didn't think the price was too bad but they told me there was only like 4 left and shipping was almost as much as the fish so I wouldn't buy them. Also because I don't have much experience with pencils and didn't want to be the one who killed some of the only coral red pencils in nz. How much are the ones you are getting DennisP ?

They told me they were $6.70 each

How hard is it to keep/find A. hongsloi? there is a female at the lfs thats been there forever and I kinda want to buy it but would like to keep it with a male

Cool. I assume that's from wonderworld?

emailed HFF and was told they had N. Mortenthaleri but not sure about wonderworld. Anyone know?

Have seen these on a few pet/fish shop websites (HFF and wonderworld petshop). Are these Nannostomus Mortenthaleri or some sort of colour morph of a N. beckfordi or somthing?

As you may have read in the title I am wanting to have a go at keeping Apistogrammas. I have been reading about them online for a while but would like to get some info from you guys. I have a 215L lowtech planted tank in the making(still adding more plants) with 11 lemon tetras, 6 sterbai cories, a bristlenose and a keyhole cichlid (am willing to change). The tank has a large piece of driftwood with a couple hidey holes but more can and probably will be added. The tank will eventually be fairly heavily planted and may add some floating cover if needed. The water has a pH of 7.5 and a hardness of about 8dGH from memory which may restrict my choice of species. Other parameters are NH3 at 0.0ppm, NO2 at 0.0ppm and NO3 at about 0.10ppm (hence why I'm still adding plants). I will not be intentionally be breeding these fish but would be cool if it happened. Basically I would like to know what species do you think would live happily and healthily in my tank and how many should I get? What do i need to add or remove from my tank? Where is the best place to aquire these fish? Thanks

Im not sure if it really is Alternathera Reineckii, I got it as "assorted stem plant". I assume it is but could be something different like you say. It could be my tank but it didn't grow at all underwater and I know there are some Alternathera that only grow emmersed so could be one of them? Once it grows more its true identity may be easier to see.

Hello again. I thought I should update the project. I have got some new growth and have put some more moss in the second glass. I also found a couple more glasses like the second one which I might use but at the moment Ill just keep them from being chucked. Any way here's some pics: As you can see I added the moss as well as another piece of Alternathera reineckii The anubias or java fern hasn't done much and am considering moving on to something else. Maybe a crypt??? Here you can see the Bacopa reaching right out of the glass. I have taken the plastic off this one so I don't damage the plant and so it can continue to grow on. I'm wondering if I should move it to another glass to see if it will carpet. Does that stuff even Carpet?? Here is some awesome root growth. This is right under the reineckii so i assume that's what its from. Bit of a strange shot but you can see the indian fern has put out a new leaf. I would like to try a crypt surrounded by some sort of carpet plant if i did a good looking one. What species of carpets would work. Do we have any small Hydrocotyle? Also would some thing like this work with a lower humidity when established? Thanks