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Saturday 23 November 2013

64 Litre "Forest Edge" Tank - Plants Pearling

Managed to record a video of the plants pearling during the daily photoperiod...


Flow was switched off temporarily for the purpose of the video, this makes it easier to capture the pearling effect, otherwise the released oxygen bubbles would tend to be swirled about by the current.

Pearling usually starts a few minutes after the lights are on, mostly from the background stem plants. Blyxa Japonica also pearls but starts abit later. Even the Eleocharis sp. 'Mini' and Anubias sp. 'Petite' also pearl too, but at a much lower rate, their bubbles tend to slowly accumulate until a larger size before releasing to the surface.

I've recently received a few queries about my setup, so here are some of my latest equipment settings for reference (some have been adjusted since i started the tank in my earlier post):

Lighting: Up Aqua Z-Series Pro LED Z-20 (1 set / Old version / 180 x 0.06W LED)
Light Duration: 8 hours (10am-6pm)
Pressurized Co2: ANS Co2 System + ISTA Inline Reactor / 1bps / ~30ppm
Co2 Duration: 7 hours (9.30am-4.30pm)
Carbon Supplement: Seachem Excel / 2ml daily
Fertilizer: Tropica Plant Growth Premium Fertilizer / 1ml daily
Fan/Chiller: None

Temperature: 29-30°C (Day) / 27-28°C (Night)

Water Change Regimen: 20% Twice Weekly

Friday 22 November 2013

64 Litre "Forest Edge" Tank - Week 16-17 Update

More updates...

Week 16

Background plants grew surprisingly fast, expected them to take 2 weeks to recover, but instead within just a week they grew back with a vengeance!



Looks abit messy and wild with the uneven growth of the background stem plants, need to trim some more to shape it.


Week 17

Did some additional fine trimming over the week, looks much better now.... keeps the tank looking brighter too.



All the plants are growing fast and very healthy... the Blyxa Japonica is starting to grow very dense so i'll need to trim them soon too.

Eleocharis sp. 'Mini'  has now fully covered the front section of the tank and creating a nice carpet, very well behaved and grows to only 2-3cm height (haven't even needed to trim it so far).

Green fuzzy algae on the wood seems to be pretty much the same, it looks like the combination of Neocaridina Heteropoda and Crossocheilus Siamensis are helping to keep it in check.

Thursday 7 November 2013

64 Litre "Forest Edge" Tank - Week 14-15 Update

Some quick updates...

Week 14

Rotala sp. 'Rotundifolia' and Micranthemum Micranthemoides getting overgrown again!



Week 15

Decided to chop the background plants all the way down...


Tank looks much brighter now... hopefully this will give me another 2-3 weeks of rest from plant maintenance. :)

Wednesday 6 November 2013

64 Litre "Forest Edge" Tank - Clithon Corona

Transferred a Clithon Corona (aka Horned Nerite Snail) over from one of my other tanks, it has actually been shifted around various tanks for more than 6+ months now and its still chugging along grazing on algae, so i guess this is one tough little chap...


I've had annoying issues previously with female nerite snails laying lots of unsightly white eggs everywhere in my tanks... but i think this particular one is male (hopefully!), as i've not seen any eggs laid in any of the other tanks it has been in so far. :)

Just one lone (and tiny) snail isn't going to make much difference in algae management, but its got a nice shell pattern, so i'll just consider it as one of the tank's more "decorative" residents for now.