Journal of my 4 years old planted tank

[uklau]

Hi Fellow Hobbyist,

When I first started this tank back in year 2005, I never thought of putting it up in AQ. When I give it a second thought, I think I should. If it is not because of this tank, I wouldn't have known why my plants weren't doing well despite expensive fertilizers & equipments , I wouldn't have learned the scientific names of plants & lastly I wouldn't have met with so many great people in AQ . So I decided to put up a journal for my first tank in this wonderful hobby.

The tank looked like this 4 years back when I started up (after lots of reading on the internet). Note that the tank was full of giant plants, which are not suitable for a 2 feet tank . Pardon me for the lousy photos.



Few months down the road, the plants picked up drastically after I started to feed them on Wonder-Gro Root+. However, the tank was very badly colonised by the planaria worms (I guess it came with the plants I bought from the farm). I did not bother to get rid of it back then. Surprisingly, none of my Tetras was interested with the worm .



Throughout the years, some of the plants flowered . Among them are:

Blyxa Japonica



Barclaya Longifolia





I converted the tank to shrimp (Sakura, Cherry, Green, Orange, Yamato, Malayan) only tank last year & they bred like rabbits. One late night, I managed to take a photo of my favorite piece. I was using the full series Wonder-Gro fertilizers & it did not impact the reproduction of the shrimps.



Due to hectic work schedule & family commitment recently, I did not change water for 3 weeks. The entire shrimp population was wiped out ! However, the planaria worms population remain untouched !

Knowing that tearing the entire tank down is going to take away lots of my precious time (& incurrred additional cost too), I threw in 3 pieces of young female guppies. Guess what? In 2 days time, there wasn't any trace of planaria worm . I won the last battle !.

That gave me motivation to rescape the 4 years tank . I spent 1 whole afternoon on the recent weekend & came out with the following scape:



The foreground is made up of loose for of US Fissiden, taken from another tank (all uprooted by my one & only Puntius Denisonii). At first I was just temporarily putting it there. Now, I think they look good floating just above the gravel. The new batch of Sakura shrimps are having fun playing hide & seek . Hope to see some shrimplet soon.

What do you guys think about leaving the Fissiden floating, instead of having them tied to something?

[uklau]

Sakura shrimps caught performing stunt.

[aqua]

love ur plants. they look so healthy and lush.

[Jervis]

Nice rescape... you still retain your lotus as a trademark

[fishking]

Very nice uklau...so....guppies eat planaria eh?...hmmm..must put 1 guppy in my office tank and try...hehehe

[CK Yeo]

What happened to all the Echinodorus? Need more?

ck

[uklau]

@ Aqua,
Thanks. I can only keep easy/hardy plants . Still a beginner farmer. Still far away to be called aquascaper .

@ Jervis,
Nothing compared to what you have. I always admire your tanks. The Tiger Lotus had been there since day one. Time flies!

@ Fishking,
If your guppies is not keen to snack on those, I'll give you mine . Those Planaria worms are huge! More than 1 cm long! Too bad I did not take any shot of it. It was like there were few thousand (visible ones) in the tank at anytime I view the tank. I also have a juvenile platy together with those guppies. Guess all of them were doing a great job! All the worms vanished in 2-3 days time. No trace, not even in the canister filter.

@ CK,
I smell poison .

Most Echinodorus are in my big tank. Only have E.Tropica in this tank. If you have any Echinodurus that fits will in this 2 feet tank, let me know. Kena poison already

BTW, I killed the giant E. Rose when I attempted to grew it emersed . It grew too big in my tank & block all the lights.