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Post by childofiam on Jan 11, 2016 22:08:16 GMT -5
Richard, you can still mount the Anubias on the tank wall, just lower the plant so it is mostly covered. I have giant leaves growing out of the water, but they are still wet because they are under the hood. 90% of the plant is still under water. Your plant is probably still too little. I thought it was a great Idea you had attaching them to the wall of the tank. I have also been told that a Peace Lily's root will grow in water without soil. I thought about doing this with one of them so you can see all their roots and have the leaves out of the water. They are beautiful when they bloom.
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Post by coco on Jan 11, 2016 22:15:33 GMT -5
That sounds very pretty.
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Post by Carl on Jan 12, 2016 10:34:24 GMT -5
Richard, you can still mount the Anubias on the tank wall, just lower the plant so it is mostly covered. I have giant leaves growing out of the water, but they are still wet because they are under the hood. 90% of the plant is still under water. Your plant is probably still too little. I think this is the difference. The Anubias that had leaves grow out of the water were strong and well developed. As well the environment just outside the water was very humid too. Carl
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Post by kagome on Jan 13, 2016 11:35:36 GMT -5
Your tank is beautiful! My 8 year old son enjoyed the photo of your tiger barbs. He has a school of them in his 40 gallon and thought it was neat that you had them, too.
What are the African leaf fish like? They've always interested me but I have never kept them. Are they aggressive?
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Post by childofiam on Jan 13, 2016 12:16:45 GMT -5
Your tank is beautiful! My 8 year old son enjoyed the photo of your tiger barbs. He has a school of them in his 40 gallon and thought it was neat that you had them, too. What are the African leaf fish like? They've always interested me but I have never kept them. Are they aggressive? The African leaf fish is aggressive but go very well with Tiger Barbs. They don't bother any bottom dwellers, unless you are a worm coming out of the sand... if you are, you get eaten. They mainly eat live food or Blood worms but mine are spoiled with the worms. They also eat fish that will fit in their mouth I get for them at times.. The red wiggler worms I feed can survive a long time in very wet conditions and under water. I have a large population put in my pond every year and the coy dig around for them all the time. in the late fall you can dig them up by the hand full. It is cool to watch the African Leaf fish hunt, as they curl their tail and float like a leaf through the water being navigated by their two pectoral fins. When the get close enough they suck their pray into the mouth. They also hide in with the drift wood plants and at times you can't even see them until they dart out to eat. They look up a lot for food. I have been shocked many times trying to find them and have to look hard to see where they are hidden. They can also grow much darker when in dark places and get much lighter when just hanging out on the sand in the light. Richard
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Post by kagome on Jan 13, 2016 15:27:29 GMT -5
You know, I've been debating setting up my own red worm farm. I wanted to do it for composting purposes. It never even occurred to me that I could feed them to my Jack Dempsey, BRILLIANT!! That could be a selling point for the family "well you know, it would save us some on frozen bloodworms" Mawoohaha!
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Post by childofiam on Jan 14, 2016 14:56:21 GMT -5
Well... I did something, I moved my 75 gallon fish tank and desk five feet in 1.5 hours and only lost 2 degrees in H2O temp. I also replumbed my filters to take out four 90 deg turns. This speeded up my GPH and I will need to do another GPH test. I also brought in some more of my plants. My new Man Cave or as my wife, (Owner) says "My Man Corner"...
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Post by coco on Jan 14, 2016 16:20:36 GMT -5
I like the big plants on either side of the tank. Gives the tank a more natural look.
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Post by kagome on Jan 15, 2016 6:47:09 GMT -5
Oooooooo! I love that! If only more man caves were that cool
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Post by devonjohnsgard on Jan 15, 2016 12:43:44 GMT -5
Man corners take a lot of work... :/
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Post by kagome on Jan 16, 2016 1:10:08 GMT -5
I meant to mention earlier, a Peace Lily will totally grow in just water with no soil as long as the green part is out of the water. Some people will try to tell you they can grow fully submerged but eventually the leaves will yellow and rot. I grew one on top of a betta tank with the roots in the water for years. It was gorgeous and bloomed all the time. The betta loved it and would nibble on the roots.
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Post by childofiam on Jan 18, 2016 23:06:32 GMT -5
I had moved my tank this past week 5 foot as I stated in another thread. I should have posted it here in my tank thread. Here is the picture I took then. I made some changes today as I needed to clean the inside glass. The left side was still sparkling clean and the right side was getting a lot of scum and black algae growth. I love to move things around because I just get bored with the scene after several weeks. With the original setup the plants where planted in dirt below a layer of gravel. This didn't let me move everything around as I can now with a sand substrate and low light plants. I want to collect a lot of the Nubia and Java species. I placed my little Mac next to the tank so I can learn more about this hobby of mine through Carl's articles on FW Aquarium. I have purchased a RO system from AAP and will be setting up a water station to fill five gal jugs with RO water and then remineralize it. I use to use RO water I purchased at Aqua Systems water co. but stopped because... well because I didn't know what I was doing. This is when I started to search the internet about RO water use in Aquariums because in the summer our water supply is not very good with all the chemicals they treat it with. We always know when they start treating because our dogs will stop drinking it and want outside to drink from the pond. This said... I became very frustrated because, as you know... everyone is an expert... but I just seem to get the wrong info or get contradicting info from several people and then they would start arguing with each other on my thread and the next thing I know... their off on a tangent and Im in the dark. I need to stop ranting because Im in a good place here at AAP form. So... I moved stuff around in my tank today and took the opportunity to run my fingers through the sand to make sure there isn't any trapped gasses underneath. I have about one and a half inches of sand level across the tank floor but flat landscaping isn't normal in most rivers where my fish come from. When the rains come in nature and river overflow, every thing has been moved including the fish into a new scenery for the fish... so if it works for nature as God intended then its ok in a closed environment for my baby's. After I do these kind of changes I can see them swimming around checking everything out. I made lots of sand hills and caves under the drift wood. I sat down this afternoon to just watch the activity and too my surprise there was only a few Cory's swimming around. After looking I found them all in the new caves just chilled out. I also turn the return water spout to the far right that creates a river effect with swift water on the back glass and then turns after hitting the end glass creating a Eddy type circulation on the far right. When they are not trying to swim upstream they move with the flow to the far left where it is calm waters. Thats all for now because I can't up load any more pics into this thread. Tomorrow I will show you what I did with a Peace Lilly I split off a much larger Peace Lilly I have had for 5 years. I needed to repot the plant because of over growth in the pot. I gave all of the new potted Peace Lilly's to friends as gifts. Soon I will be blogging on AAP's Blog about Red Wiggler Worm farming. My fish love fresh live worms to eat. Instead of spending about $40.00 a month purchasing frozen blood worms... I grow them! Think about this... One worm will produce one worm egg a week. In one worm egg there will be 5 or 6 baby worms. A lot of people start out with 1000 worms in their farm so that means 1000 worm eggs will produce 5 to 6 thousand worms a week. In other words it is a renewable source of free live fish food. There is so much more to share on the benefits of a worm farm... you will just have to go to the Blog when it is up in going. Richard
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Post by childofiam on Jan 19, 2016 10:18:33 GMT -5
I planted a Peace Lilly in my Tank buy using a method coco suggested. I used a suction cup from a old heater and carefully place the clip over the rhizome and stuck it to the glass next to the water return. The roots kinda hide it. Richard
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Post by Carl on Jan 19, 2016 12:27:39 GMT -5
Your peace lily and aquarium in general looks great! I often also directed the current with power heads or filter returns in ways that would cause some eddies and strong current in one area, but calm areas in other aquarium locations. Thanks as always for the positive shout outs and purchases! Carl
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Post by devonjohnsgard on Jan 19, 2016 16:59:48 GMT -5
Seem like I switch up flow like every 3-6 months... Peace Lily looks good coming out of the tank. I have a couple plants coming out too I'd think you'd need no more than 50% RO... maybe even like 25% would be better, but you will know from your parameters. A good read, if you haven't seen it yet... www.aquarium-pond-answers.com/2006/12/how-do-fish-drink.html
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Post by coco on Jan 19, 2016 17:40:46 GMT -5
Richard, I have a question about your sand substrate. My 55 gallon has 1/3 sand and the other 2/3 gravel. I have a gravel devider I made with aquarium silicone and gravel. When I clean my tank, there is never any poop on the sand. I assume it blows with the current onto the gravel side and settles in until I siphon it up. I always have lots of gunk I siphon from the gravel. So, when you have all sand, does it just pile up in the corner until you clean it? I am assuming it is too large to fall between the sand pebbles. My corys and siamese algae eaters all hang out on the sand side. They love it. They only go to the gravel side when I put the food in the tank. I am thinking about eventually changing to all sand. Of course I just changed this gravel a couple years ago. Seems like a waste of money to do that already. But, I think they would like all sand. I don't know if all my plants will. Some seem to do better in gravel then sand.
-Nicole.
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Post by childofiam on Jan 19, 2016 18:34:25 GMT -5
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Post by childofiam on Jan 20, 2016 0:23:02 GMT -5
Richard, I have a question about your sand substrate. My 55 gallon has 1/3 sand and the other 2/3 gravel. I have a gravel devider I made with aquarium silicone and gravel. When I clean my tank, there is never any poop on the sand. I assume it blows with the current onto the gravel side and settles in until I siphon it up. I always have lots of gunk I siphon from the gravel. So, when you have all sand, does it just pile up in the corner until you clean it? I am assuming it is too large to fall between the sand pebbles. My corys and siamese algae eaters all hang out on the sand side. They love it. They only go to the gravel side when I put the food in the tank. I am thinking about eventually changing to all sand. Of course I just changed this gravel a couple years ago. Seems like a waste of money to do that already. But, I think they would like all sand. I don't know if all my plants will. Some seem to do better in gravel then sand. -Nicole. I do have gunk that ends up at one end of the sand and it does gather around and under the drift wood. I placed my drift wood up on smooth granite rocks out of the Rio Grand river a friend brought me. I did boil them to sterilize. Anyway the gunk does gather under the last drift wood piece because of the water current flowing across the bottom, I did this on purpose so there would be little to stop any waste and make it easer to clean without moving too much around. I use a power head, I put together with a fine mesh bag and a 3/4 in tube to suck up the gunk when it starts to build up, pictured here. Or I will blow the gunk out from under things with the power head and then the sponge on the canister filter suction tube collects this dirt. Every week I remove the foam sponge by allowing a thin cloth gather around the sponge as it is still on and sucks the cloth around the whole thing before removing it from the spout. This keeps the dirt from leaving the sponge when the suction is gone. Otherwise, when you take the sponge off dirt will come off and dirty your water with floating gunk. As far as plants, I went with the Anubia and Java species because they don't need substrate for there roots, but on the other hand I have a tubular Pond Lilly that is a heavy root feeder and seems to be very suited with the sand. I place a Flourish Tab under its roots in the sand every three months. It has been doing great putting off leaves when the other ones start to melt. On the down side... the plant requires direct sunlight for 6 to 8 hours a day in order to send leaves to the surface and then bloom. I have placed two new bulb lilies in the sand, they seem to send out roots into the water from the stems that emerge from the bulb. I have never seen this kind of Lilly before with its arrow shaped leaves. I do know that my Cory families love the sand. Richard
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Post by coco on Jan 20, 2016 9:05:42 GMT -5
Thanks for the info Richard. I think I will eventually switch it over.
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Post by childofiam on Jan 22, 2016 15:21:59 GMT -5
Thanks for the info Richard. I think I will eventually switch it over. Look for swimming pool filter sand or Play sand. This Sand is white and has been sterilized. the play sand is cheaper but you have to really wash it good to get all of the dust out of the fine grains of sand. When you do this it won't cloud up your water when you stir the bottom up to release any gasses that may form. It helps to not put anymore that one and one half inch of sand as your substrate. I have deep areas and also thin area's of sand that my cory's will dig to the bottom of the glass. The only problem I have had is when drift wood touches the sand it leaves a dark grey spot on the sand. All I do is mix up the sand and spread it out and in about a day its gone. This is probably where the wood has began to decompose. I can only think.... A 50 # bag of Play sand is about 4 dollars, it took most of it for my 75 gal 48" x 18" tank Richard
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