Newbie 1st attempt..

[Bieffe]

Mrs why like that ah? I'm sure if we touch them instead of touching fish also cannot one lah. Now still having a AIO tank. So canisters all cannot put. Just don't fell complete without an open 2ft with the lots. She say open got smell Wor.

[Cyberkinetic]

Trimmed the foreground stems and figured if they are growing so well, I replanted the cuttings back just in front of the bamboo plants. So that they can continue and grow much taller before the need to cut again(promoting them from foreground to midground) haha...

Those tall green plants in the background(i think similar or/is vallineria spiralis) and batch 3 of the staurogyne all withered away as well as most of my original staurogyne which were there from Day 1 of the tank. I'm suspecting water quality, however with my current test kits, I can only confirm PH is low(probably 6 or below), ammonia/nitrite/nitrate are ok. I cleared most of the rotten and partially rotten(since i doubt they will recover).

Got MORE plants, some tall grass-like ones for the background and I "hope" they can last longer. Although each stalk is not that expensive but the sums add up. Ouch.

Did another 30-40% water change and I think the water is starting to clear up. The previous murkiness I suspect is due to the large amount of rotting plant material in the water. Had to wash the filter sponge every 2-3 days for the past 2 weeks. I am beginning to doubt if the filter sponge can be reuse that often since it's not easy/possible to remove the fine particles trapped in the wool.

Anyway, not going to be too worried about this due to impending filter change to canister one which hopefully can do this coming weekend.

Before/after of my tank after weekend's maintenance:
29July Before After.jpg

[Cyberkinetic]

Finally swapped my filter(it was a surprise on the ease of setting up contrary to what I've been reading about priming issues). The filter becomes the joke of those who've seen it... haha.. they are saying it's almost like a power generator sitting beside my tank.

Prior to that, added some yamato shrimps and platys. Platys are doing alright, in fact after I introduced the platys, my rosy tetras are starting to appear more often instead of in hiding. However can't say much for the yamatos. Found 2 dead on the 3rd day and since then, occasionally seen 1-2 during feeding time. Not sure if the others are dead behind the thick plants since there's no way to see through.

The remaining few stalks of staurogyne are almost completely gone. The only growing plants in my tank seemed to be the stems only. I think those that I've planted in the middle of the tank had almost doubled in length. Those in the front have sprouted new leaves as well.

Now trying to look for some malayan shrimps to add into the mix. Anyone knows where I can find them? Thanks.

2012-08-08 18.13.54.jpg2012-08-08 19.13.49.jpg

[Cyberkinetic]

Happy news.. my platys gave birth to a couple of babies... haha.. all hiding in/near the 2 bunches of ceramic rings dangling near the light! Too small to capture on my handphone's camera(problem focusing it seemed).

[felix_fx2]

Congrats!!!

Welcome to the platy breed like hamsters club :P

If their small, your Malayan larvae stage is way smaller.

[Cyberkinetic]

Haha.. Actually I suspect that I've seen the larvae but can't be sure.. Are they super tiny black dots which moves in short fast bursts in the water? Even tinier than the seed shrimps which occupied my tank in the early days.. Again they are finding sanctuary on my CR tubes..
Took my son and wife (reluctantly but agreed to go as my son kept repeating "fish shop, fish shop, fish shop" to her for the past few days ) to Seaview yesterday and came home with another fifty malayan.. Haha.. Distributed them 70/30 between my two tanks. But this time, they looker smaller and no females(at least not berried) like the first batch.
Those plants which I replaced the dead crypts are also growing runners and spurting out new leaves.. Am going to give out the cuttings from my stems next week as well as there's absolutely no space to replant into the ground...The water changes certainly kick started the life in the tank..

Congrats!!!

Welcome to the platy breed like hamsters club :P

If their small, your Malayan larvae stage is way smaller.

[felix_fx2]

Haha.. Actually I suspect that I've seen the larvae but can't be sure.. Are they super tiny black dots which moves in short fast bursts in the water? Even tinier than the seed shrimps which occupied my tank in the early days.. Again they are finding sanctuary on my CR tubes..
Took my son and wife (reluctantly but agreed to go as my son kept repeating "fish shop, fish shop, fish shop" to her for the past few days ) to Seaview yesterday and came home with another fifty malayan.. Haha.. Distributed them 70/30 between my two tanks. But this time, they looker smaller and no females(at least not berried) like the first batch.
Those plants which I replaced the dead crypts are also growing runners and spurting out new leaves.. Am going to give out the cuttings from my stems next week as well as there's absolutely no space to replant into the ground...The water changes certainly kick started the life in the tank..

Actually when they give birth, it's really alot. Only after day 2 then they molt to the stage where their smaller then seed shrimp and visible enough to observe without focusing.
If your filter not covered with fine sponge, you actually already experience 30-50% loss.

Your CR may have saved some (for me it is my DW and filter intake having the air filter sponge to lessen the death ratio.).
but more to come if you have fish and even better juvernile fish....YUMMY

Anyway, if you drive.. go mainland with your son feed koi. he will likely love it

When you have too much growth, can give them away to friends in here.

[Loudness]

i think you should move the plant in the front, those are background plant, they will just cover the whole view

[Cyberkinetic]

Bro Felix_Fx2,

I do have this DIY filter sponge on my inlet pipe, but I think it's not fine enough. Also sadly enough, can't find any of the baby platies already.. I suspect kenna makan if not by their parents, then it's the rosy tetras... Anyway, after the addition of the new batch of Malayan shrimps, the tank seemed to be swarmed with them.. hahaha.. they are EVERYWHERE! On the plants, the rocks, the CRs everywhere. I hope I didn't overcrowd the tank with them.. monitored past few nights seemed to be ok, no signs of oxygen deprivation yet.. My gravel is so clean there's hardly any trace of fish food/shit/anything around, wondering if I should feed more, else would they start jumping out of the water without food.

Bro Loudness,

Thanks for advice, I think I'm stuck with them for now. Everything in the tank seemed stable, so I don't want to go about disturbing the "peace" and also can see they have grown roots all the way down to the bottom of the tank. Just have to be diligent and trim every two weeks. Will give them out as they seemed to be really sturdy. I tried putting other low maintenance cheap plants in my other tank and they are dying one after another. But since last trimming when I put the cuttings in there, they are growing although looks quite green and not as much of the reddish tint. Well, at least they don't die. I think good for other beginners to try out planting in their tanks.

Also they serve as good cover for the fishes as my son likes to go up close to the tank and do his "counting" of the fishes and shrimps... at least with these growing a few inches tall, they serve as a filter screen else everything will be hiding at the back of the tank instead.

[Cyberkinetic]

Time for another trim soon, I suppose can do it this weekend, but probably just hang on another week so it'll grow more.

Will be posting on forum to give the cuttings away.

Those plants on the front-left part of the tank are growing runners and it took them quite a few weeks to settle down. Initially all started to grow yellow and rotted away but the batch I replaced a few weeks back managed to survive probably with my now regular(almost daily) WC... and hopefully start to flourish from now. Not too sure if I should cut the link to the main plant once the new section starts to grow more leaves and roots or just leave it and let it be? The same species of plant where i'd also put behind the stems and on the right side are also sprouting runners, seemingly at the same time.

[Cyberkinetic]

Just when I thought all the baby platys were gone.. I found one today..

And it's grown a lot!

[tongyang]

the protein layer comes from new soil. An LFS advised me that it can be removed using newspaper sheets, by laying them on the surface and removing them. I've been doing this, until I saw ADA's solution, which you can check out: ADA view_vol.255: http://youtu.be/2B_cyu_-jXY (6:37)

[Cyberkinetic]

Hi tongyang, thanks for the video! Mine's a small tank.. So the "plastic cup scooping" method still works.. As I water change ever other day, I did not experience a heavy build up of the layer anymore like before.
Interesting to see in the video that they scoop up the old soil and replenish with new one.. Doubt I can do the same for mine since it's sand on top of soil... Haha..

[Cyberkinetic]

[Cyberkinetic]

Have been busy the last two weeks.. So other than the regular water changes , I've not done much maintenance work.
The tank has sort of turned into one wild jungle! Going to trim those stems this week, but what's bothering me are those plants on the left corner and behind the stems on the right. These are the ones which grows runners and they're now like sprouting out from all over the tank! Sort of like going under the substrate and suddenly dive up out of nowhere and start growing. Also the size of the leaves had doubled or more in size.. Think they are scarier than the stems .. Soon they will be taking over the whole tank I think... haha.. Unlike the stems which I just trim away.. How do I manage the growth of this plant? The left side of my tank is now one pile of messy growth of it... Headache..

[Cyberkinetic]

Have been neglecting my tank for the past couple of weeks.. only doing daily feeds and even water change from once every two days to probably once a week and finally last two weeks without any... Thankfully no deaths as I can see but only one super jungle taking over the tank.

It's atrocious I know... Finally managed to spend the afternoon giving it one heck of a trim... Under-statement... It was a back breaking exercise lasting almost three hours. Everything was intertwined and I had to trim it one stem at a time...my wife joked that I was acting like trying to diffuse a bomb..which wire to cut?
Eventually restored some sanity to the tank... And got a shock from what greeted me... From original batch of 6 platys, I probably have close to 30 now... Excluding a couple I had taken out ages ago during the second batch of spawning...

Can't find much Malayan shrimps .... Supposed mostly dead during there insecticide fiasco I had... The sakuras still around and I found one heavily berried female ... Fingers crossed that it will deliver safely...
Ended up with two pails of trimmings which I'll be posting to give away..surprisingly, with the overgrown jungle, my issue with black beard algae was mostly eliminated.. My water onion leaves are no longer infested ...supposed the overgrown vegetation starved off the algae? Anyway, next task is to get those platys out of the tank to give away as well... the tank's terribly overstocked now...

[diazman]

looking good bro. That jungle really poison la! Can off load some of the stem plants to me?

[Cyberkinetic]

Diazman,

it's a jungle and messy and all.. but kindda missed it after the trimming... somehow it looked more "natural" in the messy state... although the plants on the bottom really suffered due to the lack of light coming through.

Think it will be a while before I can give out the cuttings cos the stem plants looked pretty "weak" now... lol... I usually replant those that I cut and replace the existing ones. But really too tired during the last cutting and actually those at the top which I trimmed off are the "healthier" looking ones with bigger leaves and reddish tint. Now left with those sickly looking ones at the bottom, hopefully they can recover soon. Most of them are growing new leaves from the ends of the cutting though, which is an encouragement.

I tried over the weekend to net out some of the platies, zero success. those little buggers just hide in the depth of the plants and no way my net can reach them. Driving me nuts... they have been gobbling up the algae pellets which I had put in for the shrimps... pecking away almost immediately... nothing left by the end of the day when I am back home. Wonder if my shrimps are starved to death instead? hmm...

[diazman]

Diazman,

it's a jungle and messy and all.. but kindda missed it after the trimming... somehow it looked more "natural" in the messy state... although the plants on the bottom really suffered due to the lack of light coming through.

Think it will be a while before I can give out the cuttings cos the stem plants looked pretty "weak" now... lol... I usually replant those that I cut and replace the existing ones. But really too tired during the last cutting and actually those at the top which I trimmed off are the "healthier" looking ones with bigger leaves and reddish tint. Now left with those sickly looking ones at the bottom, hopefully they can recover soon. Most of them are growing new leaves from the ends of the cutting though, which is an encouragement.

I tried over the weekend to net out some of the platies, zero success. those little buggers just hide in the depth of the plants and no way my net can reach them. Driving me nuts... they have been gobbling up the algae pellets which I had put in for the shrimps... pecking away almost immediately... nothing left by the end of the day when I am back home. Wonder if my shrimps are starved to death instead? hmm...

haha, i also trying to turn my tank into a messy jungle, simply just love the wild look to it.

if you need cherries, feel free to ask me. I got too many in my tank now, even my celestial danios are hiding somewhere in the tank. and my yamato is almost the same size of an average cockroach

[Cyberkinetic]

Thanks for the offer mate, I gotta find the platies a new home first.. Felt it's already overloaded...

haha, i also trying to turn my tank into a messy jungle, simply just love the wild look to it.

if you need cherries, feel free to ask me. I got too many in my tank now, even my celestial danios are hiding somewhere in the tank. and my yamato is almost the same size of an average cockroach