Ishar's 20GH Planted tank

[BrotherlyFun]

Love how you have the bare spots (for feeding) gives it a natural look.

[ishar]

Thanks guys

-BrotherlyFun- sorry to disappoint you, but my goal is to cover every inch of gravel I possibly can lol. My feeding area will be on the moss and glosso .

Well yesterday I fed my fish a shrimp pellet for the first time in a LONG time... well.. they loved it! They went nuts! They finished the first one pretty quickly, so I dropped another one in and snapped some pics and shot two videos (my batteries died halfway through one of them :P). Here you are.

Videos- check out on the full one the colourign of the guppy fry- you can see the black bodies and the yellow tails . They are a mix of a blonde cobra male and a blue neon (she is sort of half black but the black is like purple) mother .
>Video where batteries die :P
>Full video- watch the fry

Pictures


Full tank shots I grabbed

[ishar]

Ok everybody... I did another overhaul........ lol I know what you are thinking hahaha. I went and bought a big piece of driftwood and added it in. I had to rescape because of this, so this time I drew a plan and tried to follow it. I am glad I got such a big piece- it looks good IMO and it made for a much deeper gravel bed LOL. Here is the plan:


I followed it pretty closely actually, but with some differences, which is to be expected obviously. I like this as it puts together some Dutch with a bit of Amano's technique for covering the driftwood. I am also glad the half and half look of the moss and glosso is gone too. All of the plants but the bacopa get lots of light so that should help me propagate and fill my tank in. This Thursday my LFS is hoping to get a shipment of dwarf hairgrass in, so hopefully I will be able to put some in at that point. If I do that then I will be taking out the moss I think... but I don't know :P. I sort of like where it is right now.

I also added a simple black bristol board background. I think for a buck it looks pretty darn good hahaha.

So without any more delay, my tank lol. Hopefully it stays this way for a while hahaha.

Videos:
>Full tank scan
>Here is a good one of my bi-coloured fry


Pictures: I am going to try something new here...
>Left side lower part- anubias, glosso, rotala
>Left side high angle shot- anubias, rotala, vals
>Left side on angle- anubias, glosso, rotala, vals
>Left side upper part- rotala
>Right side straight- windelov, moss, bacopa

Full Tank Shots


I really want to know what you guys think here- any criticism welcome, and I would love to know if you like this better than the way it was last.

[ishar]

Well when I did my water change today I took out the bacopa. I kept any new shoots that were there but took out the four big stalks.. they were ugly with tonnes of bad leaves and it wasn't growing at all. So I threw them out and kept the babies. We'll see how they grow.

[ishar]

Well I have had this idea for a long time but never had string or enough moss or wood to do it. Well now I had all three of those things, so I did it.

My idea was to attach Java moss in a single layer on some wood and have it grow right on the wood in a thing thin thin layer. I did a sort of criss cross pattern and then tied it the heck down :P. It is sort of in a poor spot, but it is trial run I guess you could call it- this way if it doesn't work out well it is in the back and won't be so obvious :P. But really the main reason was I didn't want to pull out my big piece :P. So anyways, we'll see how it goes.

-->Out of tank 1
-->Out of tank 2
-->In tank 1
-->In tank 2

[Kissyboots]

Interesting idea. Hope it works out!

[ishar]

I GOT IT!!! FINALLY I GOT IT!!!

ahem...

Thanks Kissyboots . I did it to three other bare wood spots too so we'll see how it all turns out. I have pretty high hopes for it .

Now. What did I get you might ask? Dwarf hairgrass!!!! I have wanted this for how long? Well I finally got it. Now mixed with my glosso my foreground is complete. Interesting note for anyone considering growing glosso: it is a PITA to try to get to plant and root where you put it in Flourite. The gravel size is too big for the tiny glosso roots, and I have found that the glosso easily gets pulled out by my fish- which are just guppies. I think sand would be really good for it but it needs nutrients, so I guess something like flourite sand, or ADA sand or something. The hairgrass, on the other hand, was AMAZINGLY simple with tweezers. Oh my goodness. I could and did plant small groups of 3 leaves in one hole- three leaves is miniscule. It was great! I wish I would have spent more time and thinned it out even more than I did to get a good carpet faster. Maybe I will after spring break.

I think my midground is near completion as well with the anubias plants on the wood, all of that Windelov on that big piece of wood and then with the addition of the moss tied onto the wood in single layers. I am running out of room there anyways, so it better be done lol. As of right now it is a sort of big jump down from the background on the left and middle to the midground in that area. I have to work something out there, but I am not sure what to do- I am realizing that a 20G doesn't give you very much space.

The background is shaping up now too. I got three bunches of Val. Spiralis 'Leopard' (4 bucks, why not try another type of val? I'll be holding off on the Excel until it gets itself established so I don't melt it.) so if they grow in then I have what I wanted in the background- good thick rotala, the jungle vals and then mixed with some finer, thinner vals. I trimmed the tallest rotala stems by cutting off the top... taboo, I know, but it made my bunch much thicker and healthier looking, I figure by the time it gets full height no one will even know :P. The jungle vals were growing too but they have now stalled I think. The bacopa may grow out to be big enough for a background plant, but I am not sure- right now they are a little midground bunch to get light :P.

With the jungle val growth stalling on me I upped the ferts and have watched them, but with all the BBA and other algaes I think I am low on C02 and am considering setting up a second CO2 bottle... That's after this week (spring break ).

I have been noticing lately that my fish are all at the surface at night. I realize this means no O2 for them as the plants are taking it all so I bought a Tetra Whisper air pump rated for 20G, with a 4" long airstone. This airstone gives me some big bubbles... I don't know if they all do but when my bubbles reach the surface there is enough force on them to like spatter my glass cover and some comes out of the tank... I don't want to turn the valve down too much as it says not to restrict the flow... I will tinker with it and see how it goes.

So, without further ado, I bring you the yet again redone tank lol.

Videos
>Bubbler
>Full tank sweep

Pictures
>Looking down on Hairgrass
>Looking down on Hairgrass #2
>Close-up of Hairgrass
>Center of tank
>Bubbler
>Rotala and Anubias
>Windelov and Vals

Full tank shots:


Please, by all means, give any and all thoughts and criticisms you have to me- no matter how harsh lol. I want to know how it is shaping up through other peoples' eyes as well as my own .

Oh yeah- I also got a hitchhiker plant. It was in with the hairgrass, and I have no idea what it is lol. The LFS told me they got a shipment of Echinodorus tenellus at the same time, so perhaps it is some of that? I planted it so hopefully in a month we'll have a good enough sized specimen to ID. You can see it in the "Center of tank" picture posted above.

[ishar]

Well I had the bubbler on last night but the fish were still at the surface . Especially the fry (made it easier to see just how overstocked I am :P). It could have been from the water change though, as my water supply now has chloramine in it and thus I have a bit of ammonia that is going into my tank each water change. It disappears in a day or two though when the plants soak it up, so I am not worried about it. So I will have to maybe attention after reading week an see what happens.

Over reading week I will not be tending my tank at all, and since the break is only one week in length I am not training anyone to do so either. This means no ferts, my new vals might die off and litter the tank, a possible loss of CO2, the camellanus may take hold during that week (I doubt it. The meds are working like a charm ), and since this pump is new I don't trust it yet. This means I will be leaving the pump unplugged and giving a double dose of ferts today. It won't even come close to making up for what I am not putting in, but I figure it will be good and useful to see how they grow without the full fert dose, so I can judge it. With any luck nothing will go wrong while I am away .

[Kissyboots]

Nice. The right side looks a little crowded but it's not bad. Hehe. Nice job.

[ishar]

I see what you mean, but it should only be temporary. Once the rotala gets taller and the glosso fills in and the jungle vals grow again it *should* even out for me. *Should*. :P