Unfortunately on my most recent move to Rhode Island, all my fish died and I had to abandon my hardscape, so that means I get to have a complete fresh start!
I have gone almost exclusively wood in my scapes and I am thinking that I would like to venture into the world of stone. There is a ton of rock (glacial till) in the woods around my house so I think I may incorporate that. I am thinking the traditional cliffs with the path between them kind of scape.
I am going to go low maintenance on this version, mostly anubias, HM and java fern. Maybe some crypts...not sure yet. But I want it to be dramatic but simple.
I think I will do fire red shrimp and a single small schooling fish like black neons...or harlequin raspboras.
I am probably going rock hunting this afternoon, will post the results!
Sorry to hear about what happened. I just started playing Diablo 3 so I haven't been on this forum much :X! So your fish ended up dying from the heat? That's really sad that you had to ditch your driftwood as well. What happened to them? Did you just put them in a dump somewhere :O? I woulda paid for them .
My guess is partially the heat and partially the extra eight hours in the bags with no water change/oxygenation is what did them in. It was a real bummer but I am excited for the next tank. I don't think I will be moving fish again any time soon. The next time I move I will just sell everything.
The wood was left in the garage, hope the landlord didn't mind haha. It was a final hour decision to leave it behind. There was literally not an inch of space left in either the truck or the van...it was crazy.
I did get the rocks and I piled them all into the tank and it is mostly planted. I ran out of steam halfway through so I didn't finish it off. I have two islands with tons of anubias and HM as the foreground. I can't find my camera though so no pics yet...
Yeah... the addiction. And hm.. I feel like they woulda had a better time if you put the fish into 1gallon jugs. My drive wasn't 8 hours, but the 5 hours in traffic from NJ to CT went perfectly fine. I put like 2 fish per gallon jug with a little plant. THE POOR WOOD LEFT BEHIND!!! . Must've had some really nice ones as well. Got any pictures of the moving process? I'd like to see how full your cars were !
Take your time with the pictures man. Get settled down in your new house first!
thanks, its very different than what I am used to. I have always done wood scapes so I had to get out of my comfort zone a bit with this tank. I think I accomplished what I set-out to do with the tank, just need to let it fill in!
and I need to find my dang camera...I hate moving!
I actually had them in large bags for the first day and then transfered them all to a large rubbermaid tote with 50% fresh water and I oxygenated overnight in the hotel. The plan was to do the same thing the next night but we didn't get into the hotel until 3am, as opposed to 7 pm like we planned...so by that time they were toast.
The would stings too, but I am sure I will find some awesome pieces on the beaches here.
no pics of the truck and van but believe me they were fully loaded! I wouldn't have been able to squeeze a baseball in!
lol, yeah it is a disaster when my wife packs. I kind of enjoy packing, I see it as a jigsaw puzzle, or a crazy horizontal game of tetris...
It gets pretty crazy when you get to the sofas and lazy-boys.
So I took some pics of the tank tonight. I used a camcorder because I still can't find my camera
Once the tank and plants stabilize, I plan on keeping the anubias trimmed. i am going to trim all the older bigger leaves and let all the small leaves dominate.
I plan on having the HM come in pretty thick in the foreground, not sure if I should keep the center valley unplanted...that will be something to deal with later. I also have a bunch of stems behind the rock piles that will add some height.
The more I think about it, the more I want to have it as a PFR shrimp tank.
Thanks! It was fun lugging those rocks out of the woods haha. I think I made 5-6 trips with the dogs.
Its hard to see in these pics but the rocks have some really neat textures, and they are slightly iridescent green. I will try to get some better pics of the rocks themselves...when I find my camera grrr.
The more I think about it, the more I want to have the painted fire reds in this tank. I will start with a fairly large colony and when they are established I will introduce a small schooling fish.
Thanks! I just hosed the rocks down and scrubbed off the spider eggs etc haha.
They were pretty clean to begin with, alot of loose rubble and rocks in the area. I wedged the big rhizomes between rocks where I could and glued the smaller ones where I couldn't.
Yeah the mosquito raspboras would be too red...I want a bit of contrast from the shrimp. My initial inclination was harlequins or even black neon tetras...but they are a little too plain. Some scissortail rainbows would be cool but I think that would break the bank...
while my kids would probably love that, I would cringe everytime I walk past the tank!
The rocks appear to be some sort of phyllite, which is metamorphosed mudstones. It is mainly silicates so they should be pretty inert, but I will monitor the water over the next few weeks to be certain.
haha, yeah there was an indiana, colorado, indiana and now rhode island version! I only have a two year contract here but there is a possibility for a permanent position so I really hope that that pans out because I am sooooo sick of moving!
Rhode Island is a great place, I really like it here so far.
Di: ok cool, I will check that to make sure. Thanks for the tip!
Hey I'm from Indiana! Go for the shrimp tank + a school of CPDS and corydoras habrosus! Large schools of nano fish gives a large a tank a lot of life. These are all relatively shrimp safe, but get a shrimp colony started first to be safe.
C. Habrosus:
C. Pygmaeus:
CPDs:
PFRs would be huuge contrast on that green + rock:
xenxes:
Yeah I have definitely decided to go with the PFR's, and I would love to get the CPD's as well, they are just kinda pricey. I guess I have a lot of time while I wait for the shrimp colony to get established so I will be able to save up for the CPD's.
Good idea with the pygmy cories. I think I may go with them as well.
MyMonkey:
thanks! I hope to make it worthwhile
The tank is coming along nicely, the stems are growing behind the rocks, it won't be long before it starts to fill in. I will take some pics when the sun goes down. I haven't tested the water to see where I am in the cycle but I should be getting close to being ready for shrimp. Probably at the end of this month...
I haven't connected the CO2 and I have been keeping a pretty short photoperiod as a consequence, so there is no algae to speak of. I may try to avoid CO2 altogether for this tank, hopefully I can get by on this tank with just a bit of glutaraldehyde dosing. I will then use the set-up for a calcium reactor in the saltwater tank I am assembling.
I got CPDs at my LFS for $2 each. Scratch my pygmaeus suggestion, go with habrosus, they're less shy and more active. You will rarely see your pygmaeus in a densely planted tank.
For the plants you have you don't need CO2. Well, you never *need* CO2, just more patience
I only dose glutaraldehyde (Excel) sparingly when I see lots of algae growth. Use some floaters if you're getting too much light.
I have only ever seen them for $6 a pop...but if i can find for $2 i will buy tons of them. I have never had a really big school of fish before. The most I had were of serpae tetra and I think I had ~15 or so.
Yeah I purposely kept the 'easier to maintain' plants so that I could avoid CO2. This tank is in my dining room and it is an open stand, so [STRIKE]I want[/STRIKE] my wife wants to keep the clutter to a minimum. The co2 tank and the cerges reactor create alot of clutter under the tank. If I run into a problem I will jsut raise the light up a bit. I am not very fond of floaters for some reason...
That is what I had in mind for the glut as well, maybe do one or two small weekly doses.
[STRIKE]I want[/STRIKE] my wife wants to keep the clutter to a minimum. The co2 tank and the cerges reactor create alot of clutter under the tank. If I run into a problem I will jsut raise the light up a bit. I am not very fond of floaters for some reason...
It's not a problem if you stick with the larger floater variety, red root floaters, water lettuce, frogbits. Easy to scoop out whenever. Avoid salvinia minima and duckweed, ick.
Here are some pics I jsut took... doesn't look terribly different but I think another week and the stems in the back will start to change the look of the tank alot.
long time since I updated, been super busy at work and no time for tanks unfortunately. The lights are still on only afew hours a day so the growth is very slow. Still no livestock, except for a couple redwag platies and a couple black mollies (the kids were tired of no fish so they picked them out).
i still want some shrimp in there eventually.
I have some green hair algae in the HM...I kinda like twirling it out with the toothbrush haha.
I had an awesome curbside pick up last week, got a fluval 306, wet/dry filter filled with bio balls, huge HOB overflow and pump and one of the huge aquaclear hob filters for free. Everything worked great so I added the canister filter to this tank and will use the wet/dry filter in my saltwater set-up.
I think I want to add CO2 to the tank, the plants are not terribly happy right now so I want to get a boost with the CO2. I managed to fix gthe solenoid issue I had with the milwaukee set-up so I will connect it up to the cerges reactor and the fluval canister.
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