hooha

Thanks to everyone who made the trek out to Westmoreland county, and actually had to take the Turnpike.

Mackenna/"Kenna" (my daughter) had a wonderful time, on the way home she kept asking if we could have another fish meeting. I also can never win a game of tic tac toe ever again.

Here's a pic of the pre-scape tank. It was in need of a major trimming, I put it off in lieu of the meeting:



Here's a pic of the tank after the scaping, after some moron turned back on the filter:




I'll post a pic after it has (hopefully) cleared up this evening.

Little PAPAS member:


Scaping in action:

hooha

Couple of things to consider for any future scaping meetings:

If possible any substrate shaping hopefully can be done before the meeting,especially if it's something as messy as flourite. That's probably what took the longest time.

The diatom filter was a big help, definitely key for a scaping meeting.

Make sure we take pics of the finished product before turning back on the filter

hooha

Here it is after the dust cleared:

DiPpY eGgS

Wow, I can't wait for this tank to grow in!! It looks great! I think you might have to tweak it a bit as it grows in.. But this tank should be an awesome show tank!
I had a great time over there with everyone, Efren! And many, many thanks for the Joioi's (or however you spell it) Pizza!! Muchose appreciated!
It was great to taste that stuff again! YUM! Your daughter is adorable, and fun!

madmax

Cool. It turned out pretty good! Once it grows in I think it should be fantastic. I think you'll need some more rock though. Time will tell.


Later,

Tim

hooha

Here it is at 1 month out. I am still figuring out growing issues, so forgive the lack of actual aquascaping. Hopefully in the next week or two I can start on actually shaping some of the mounds.
The Utricularia seems to be growing out ok. The riccia was doing good until I did a second haircut, now it seems that alot of the riccia is floating out of the net. I might re-tie it down to the rocks. The Marsilea is growing pretty darn fast compared to previous. As you can see, most of the stem plants except the L. aromatica are having the curled growth pattern. Even the Pogostem "K" has warped leaves.



Here's a closeup of the rubin (yeah it's a really bad pic). I did notice after the meeting discussion that the new leaves are actually quite smaller than before.



Maybe it is too low macros? I didn't have a chance to check the NO3 levels today, but I already tossed in an extra 20 ml of Nitrate and Phosphate I do notice that the riccia is no longer pearling as of the last 10 days....It is strange because there is still probably only 1/2 the plant mass in the tank as before and the growth of P. stellatus and L. cuba was never stunted before. It's puzzling and frustrating that there doesn't seem to be rhyme or reason to dosing IME.

My plan from what's talked about at the meetings:
1) Cut out extra K (already done last water change).
2) Continue dosing extra Magnesium (1 teaspoon of epsom salts with water change).
3) Double my macros (20 ml of a solution of 2tbs Monopotassium phosphate and potassium nitrate in 500ml water).
4) Continue current micros/iron (10ml Flourish, 25ml Flourish iron).
5) Check the CO2 levels with measuring K and checking pH change after degassing a water sample for a day.

Any other suggestions would be appreciated.

hooha

I'll try to post another pic before the next meeting. The L. repens "rubin" is getting less curly with doubling my macros, as well as the L. "cuba" is less stunted in appearance. It's hard for me to fathom because I probably had near-double the plant mass in that tank before the re-scape and didn't get stunting with my previous dosing regimen (including "cuba).

My pH went up 1.0 after being degassed for a couple days, so I'm assuming that's enough CO2. I'm going to restart the additional potassium supplementation and see what that does.