It has been more than 8 months since I move my aquariums to a new location. This was how the tanks look like after the move ->Picture
and this is how they look like now :
1. 1ft and 1.5ft tank, taken with flash.
The left tank has Taiwan Moss at the back, Christmas Moss on the left and some Liliaeopsis sp in front. I put in 5 Crystal shrimps 3 months back and now I have about 20 baby CRS !
2. Same tanks taken without flash.
3. Closeup of shrimp tank
There are I think 5 Boraras urophthalmoides in this tank.
3a. CRS
4. 2ft and 1ft nana petite tanks
5. 2ft tank
This tank was overgrown with Giant Taiwan moss and Weeping moss before it was rescaped recently. Plants in the tank include Giant Taiwan moss, Weeping Moss, Nanas, Mini Pellia and Fissidens sp. Mini Pellia seems to be doing extremely well in this tank.
As for fish, there are about 20+ Pseudomugil gertrudae and 3 Grey banded loach.
6. Mini Pellia ball
I love how your tank matured. Especially the tank with Anubias and Mini Pellia. Hopefully the Echinodorus plant would sprout new leaves to replace the old leaves that's turning brown.
Congratulation breeding those Crystal Red Shrimp, they sure look awesome!
Randall,
The nice thing about low maintenance tank is once you have set them up, you can just sit back and watch the tank mature and everything fall into places nicely. Of course it helps that these tanks are in air condition room so the temp is always around 24~25C.
CRS are actually as easy to breed as Cherry shrimp as long as you can keep the water below 25C.
The Enchinodorus leaves are turning brown at the edge because the air at the new place is very dry.I am not sure what I can do to get them back into shape. Maybe I should try applying some leaf wax ?
Lovely tanks, Gan. You're lucky your boss does not mind so many tanks in the office.
Recently, I've been re-organising my tanks such that in each one, there's only one species of moss. This is so I know what moss is in which tank. Since you have more tanks than me, I would suggest you consider doing something similar. What say you?
Loh K L
Your nana's petite tank looks awesome. Its really an eye-opener to see a small tank planted with such depth. :P May I ask what are those floating things used for and how come there seems to be 1 semi-floating nana near the top left area ??
Cal Goh
Kwek Leong,
Yes, I am lucky. As long as the tanks are well maintained and look nice, I should be fine.
I agree with you that it is very easy to mix up the mosses if we keep many species in a tank. However, instead of keeping just one species in each tank, why don't you try keeping 2 different genera - one Taxiphyllum (T) and one Vesicularia (V). These 2 genera are quite distinct and can be easily ID visually.
I have given up trying to maintain all different species of mosses as they take up too much space and many are easily available in LFS anyway.
Now I maintain only the following 4 species in two low maintaince tanks and keep them in pairs (T+V).
In the 2 ft tank I keep Giant Taiwan Moss and Weeping Moss.
In my 1 ft shrimp tank I keep Christmas Moss and Taiwan Moss.
- Giant Taiwan Moss : They look really nice as moss wall in big tank and are very easy to grow.
- Weeping Moss : Complements Giant Taiwan Moss when grown together.
- Christmas Moss - I am keeping this population which has been IDed by prof Tan as the true Christmas Moss is a rarity now a days.
- Taiwan Moss - I am keeping this one just to show the differences between Giant Taiwan Moss and Taiwan Moss.
How's your Giant Taiwan Moss doing ?
Wow, Mr Gan your tanks really inspires me. Currently, I only have a 1 feet planted tank. Fauna are cherry shrimps, 3 live endlers , a Harlequin rasbora and some snails.
Now I'm thinking of rescaping it with a taiwan moss covered driftwood, spiky moss and Anubias barteri var nana 'Petite' tank with two moss balls.
Since I will be taking out some fast growing plants like Echinodorus tenellus and Vallisneria americana, will it cause any algae bloom? What kind of precaution should I take? My tank is only 5 months old.
Jason Wong
The Giant is fine, Gan. Thanks for giving me a few fronds. But I'm still sceptical that this so-called Giant Taiwan Moss is different from the ordinary Taiwan that we know. Anyway, I've tied the moss to a piece of driftwood and it is in a tank all by itself without any other species of moss. After a couple of weeks, I should be able to tell if the moss grows differently from Taiwan Moss.Originally Posted by GanCW
Cal, I think the floating items in the tank are small glass containers which Gan uses to hold certain species of bryophytes like the Mini-Pellia. As for the semi-floating nana in the tank, it's actually a rhizome that has branched out from the main bunch of stems.
Jason, if you're not going to have CO2 injection, I don't think you need to take any special precautions. Somehow or other, a combination of very cold water and a light fish load seems to keep algae in check.
Loh K L
Thanks for your reply, Mr Loh. Yes, my current tank non CO2 and the tank temperature hovers between 27 to 26C thanks to my two hardworking AC fans. My lighting is a 15W PL light and I'm using Onyx sand as substrate together with Aquarium Pharmaceutical Inc. base fertilizer.
At first I started my planted tank with the low light plants just like Mr Gan's. However, the tank was infested with algae despite my best effort to maintain it. I only managed solve the problem after introducing some fast growing plants which I mentioned earlier together with Ceratophyllum demersum, Hydrilla verticillata and Spirodela polyrhiza. These plants have done a great job to help keep my tank algae free. Recently, I removed C demersum and H verticillata, so far no visible algae after 2 weeks.
My only concern is that reintroduction of low light plants may cause algae blooming again. Is it better to rescape the tank in stages, meaning introducing the new plants bit by bit?
Calamari,
Sorry i missed your question. Kwek leong was correct. The floating items are plastic container I use for propagating mini pellia. Mini Pellia will grow from a few tiny fronds to a ball in 2~3 months under this condition.
The semi floating nana (coffeefolia) is there because I left it there for it to recover and for the shrimps to remove the algae. Nanas seem to do well in low maint tank and low light.
As for the nana petite tank, I turn off the light most of the time so the only light they get is from the ceiling light. They look best when grown under low light.
Kwek Leong,
Prof Tan has already examined the Giant Taiwan Moss and confirmed it is a different species. However he can't ID the species name as we don't know the origin of this moss. This moss grows very fast so you should be able to see the frond shape within a month. I'l like to see how it looks like in your tank.
wks,
As mentioned, you should not have algae problem as your bioload is not high. As a precaution, you can put in some floting plants to adsorb any excess nitrates.
Mr Loh and Mr Gan .
Thanks for clearing my doubts,
Regarding Nanas I found that visible root growth seems almost non existent (thought they do throw up a few leaves to make me happy once in a while). Thats probably why the first thing that came to my mind when i saw that was like some special overhanging technique to create long straight roots that grow downwards, haha.
Sorry for sidetracking a bit, how should i go about to get a picture posted ?
Regards
Cal Goh
Yes, I'm aware of that, Gan. And the professor is probably right. The common name, Giant Taiwan Moss, however, is rather misleading. It does not look like Taiwan Moss but more like Java Moss. And it isn't so huge as to be called a "Giant Moss".
The problem with such common names that are circulating around - we aren't sure what moss they refer to and the mosses are often not well-established enough in the aquaria scene for hobbyists to know the difference. Before, it was okay to christen the mosses with various names like Christmas or Erect because then, there were not so many species around. Now, things are different. There are many bryophytes in the aquaria scene. Some have been identified but most are still unknown. I kind of suspect there is more than one moss out there with more than one common name. The Spiky Moss is a good example. As far as I know, many still refer to it as Peacock Moss. I've also heard of a "Green Socks Moss" but for the life of me, I don't know what that is.
I don't know what we can do to try and help solve the problem. But then again, maybe it isn't a problem after all. As long as it's a beautiful moss, I usually won't mind keeping it in my tanks even if I don't know what it is.
Loh K L
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