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AUSTIN & S.A.Hobbyists

24K views 256 replies 51 participants last post by  trag 
#1 ·
It seems we have close to a dozen members who post who are from the surrounding area and I for one see no reason we cannot organize a swap meet/informal gathering in the next few months.
Something low-key maybe at a resturant some evening.
We can swap Plants,fish, equipment,and ideas.
I know I have great trimmings every month that I either throw away or sell at LFS for pittance(3 nice bunches of bacopa + java moss& fernNOW)and I would much rather swap or give them away to some of my local hobbyists.
If interested post on this thread and tell other that may not post and lets see what kind of response we get.
Dean
 
#5 ·
Hi Dean and gang,
How are things going Dean?
Count me in :proud:
I dont have much but have a few things that I am willing to share.
If and when just give me a week or two week noticed so I can put my note in for work to request off or early shift. I am lookinf for cherries if anybody has some.
-Pete
 
#6 · (Edited)
Just replying to keep the tread going and say hi from Cedar Park. I am building up my tank at the moment, think it is mostly planted now, but need a while to talk hold before I will need to worry about clippings.

Lights went out for a week (back on 9/2 or so)- equipment failure, waiting on repair parts. Tank does not look as planted as it used to - so would be interested in clippings, but still not able to donate much.
 
#7 ·
Everyone,
Lets try to get a few more"warm bodies" to join us and start planning for a meet within a month or two.Before cold weather and holidays.
Everyone has something to bring, we all don't have the same plants and fish,and what someone may not find interesting, another may want.
I know out of 25 different plants in my tanks,I will always have extras of something at any one time.
DDaquaria has already gat my interest with the narrow leaf fern.
I allways have bacopa,Rotala indica, Riccia, javamoss and fern,and will later
have Stellata ,anubias and crypts.
Pete, I have a tank full of shrimp,they are the wild/color phase of cherries
neocardinia,algae-eatin buggers.If you want some of these let me know.
Lets all try to post occasionally on this thread so someone local can see it on the main menu.

Dean


Dean
 
#9 ·
Pete,
Just let me know when and we can meet although I work in Georgetown now so logistics will be more difficult and I will be out of town rest of this week.
I also have about 30 7-9 in stems of bacopa if any one need it. Hate to throw it out.FREE TO GOOD HOME. Also peice of java fern and java moss.
 
#10 ·
Meeting

I'd be interested in coming to an area meeting. I've been keeping tanks for 20 years plus, used to be into breeding Rift Lake cichlids. But broke down my fish room 5 years ago. I guess once aquariums are in your blood you just can't stay away. I'm plunging into aquarium keeping again, but thought I'd get back in with doing a display tank. I'm a gadget geek... so I decided to go the full CO2 injected heavily planted tank. Might as well jump back in all the way! I'm in the process of putting together a 120 gallon tank. I'm a newbie when it comes to lower pH tanks with plants, so I'm glad I found this forum. It's nice to know there are people around my area into it too. Reading about the offer of exchanging plants and getting together is interesting to me... I"m going to be looking for plants in about month or so. And it would be great to be able to pick the minds of more experienced aquarists. How about New Braunfels or San Marcus, they are in between both San Antonio and Austin?

Kelly
 
#12 ·
i'm in south austin, i frequent aquateck every weekend.. in a few weeks i should have some val jungle grass, i have the green and red variety.. it spreads like wild when the co2 is crankin...

i'm not in here much, but i'll try and check back..

chris
 
#13 · (Edited)
I am still new to this, but if I can keep my lights running (that is a BIG if right now), the salad bowl is producing lots of weeds very quickly. Not sure if it is anything anyone but a newbe would want though.

Right now probably have a bit of Rotala Indica, Baby Tears, and a mistery weed that needs to be pruned, and could probably find some val and narrow leaf chain grass to spare (but they really dont "need" cutting this week. I am still trying to propagate the Narrow Leaf Chain Sword and Wisteria.

My schedule is bad for the next couple weeks, but would be game to do somehting after that possibly.
 
#14 ·
Finally gonna get my tank

Aquatec was going to deliver my 120 gallon and stand about three weeks ago. Unfortunately the deliver truck met with some I-35 road construction and the stand met an untimely end. BUT Aquatec guys rock, they got one in pretty quick and are going to be here tomorrow! I suppose I'll have a pretty neat looking tank by the time family arrives at Christmas.

Being this is my first plant tank project. How long after i get the water in , should I wait before putting in the first plants and maybe a couple of rainbows. I read somewhere on the net that cycling is faster if you put in some plants and a small fish or two right from the get go. But that seems odd to me... is that true? Or should I let the water and soil just be for a week or two first?

New stuff, new toys, I'll really probably annoy Aaron with all my questions tomorrow.

Kelly
 
#15 · (Edited)
IMHO and possibly very misguided understanding - heavily planted tanks have somewhat different/more complex cycling characteristics. The standard nitrate/nitrite cycle is not as relevant. The plants have quite a lot of surface area which will have bacteria on it, plus the plants themselves serve as a nitrate (trite?) regulator. Sure you can still get into trouble adding way too many fish at one time (given a limited biomass of plants – heard one guy on this forum tried to add 150 neons at once – it was not so much a cycling issue as a balancing issue).

On the other hand, the tank must cycle and balance out which will end up taking much longer than a simple nitrate/nitrite cycle. I had thought I had achieved that zen like state of balance – but then my light broke. Current light appears to be as bright – but are different (went from metal halide to ondo – just to keep tank lit while I work out the hqi issue) with a different spectrum – and in one week my tank went from beautiful to algae again. Will manually remove what I can today, and hope that balance can once again me achieved. Fear that every time there is a substantial change however, equilibrium will need to be re-established.

Algae may grow, water may cloud, have not experianced green water get - but most of these do not really hurt your fish (suspect the fish like green water)

Anyway, was going to offer a bunch of plants to help set up your new tank (just quick growers – stuff I am disposing of on a weekly basis), but they do not look increadably hot at the moment - course next week might be different again.
 
#16 ·
Adding first plants

I think some fast growers would be great especially to get it going. JGC I would love to take you up on your offer. I"m going to be in Austin with friends kayaking under Congress Ave bridge to see the bats fly out next Wednesday evening... so I"ll be up in your area. Would you like to come along with us?

I have a pond with a variety of plants and I read that pennywort does okay with CO2... so I will toss in some anacharis from the pond and plant some pennyword as a mid foreground plant (from what I read it grows slower), but I think it will be pretty becuase of it's round leaves it will contract with most of the other underwater plants I may get. I've got some creeping jenny too... that's really a bog plant.. but with the higher CO2 levels it might do okay. Anyone got any experience with it?

I'd love to get some other fast growing things in there... and maybe another slow grower wide bladed kind of plant... how long should I wait to put in cryptocorn sp?

Kelly
 
#17 · (Edited)
I have a nice little grocery bag of goodies put together. It is a little bit of most everything from my tank (no baby Amazon Swords yet, sorry). just an idea of what is in my tank

This was a little short notice, but it would be great if we could get a larger group together. The baggie I made lacks variety. I am out of busy season, and should be open most Wed's to do a plant trade if we can get a group motivated.

I pruned a little heavy this week, but will more than likely need to do a decent pruning in two weeks. That said, I am sure I could find some plants to prune next week if there was interest.

Ok - Group, when do we want to try to get together?
 
#18 ·
Trading Plants in Austin

JGC,

Thanks for the pleasant surpise of those plants. What a way to get jump started! That was really nice of you to share your trimmings!
The wisteria looks really pretty and I'll have to learn about all that other stuff.

I hope I'll do well enough to have some to share myself in the future.
It would be great to get together once a month with others and share ideas, maybe form some kind of area club and have a tank contest... (I'm dreaming here... but who knows... maybe I'll create something worth bragging on).

(now if only I could get my CO2 figured out.... those little red shrimp look really neat... )

Thanks Again!
Kelly
 
#19 ·
Hey everyone,
I live in SA :D my old username was pipefish but i changed it to mercuryshrimp cause i didnt like the name. Anyways, i can't really go to anywhere cause i dont have a car or licencse yet but if you guys are planning on making this thing sort of like i club i have a site that isn't really active yet because i've been so busy and if you guys like i can add this club thing to it on a button and you guys can have a forum or just post times for meeting or something. I can also host any pics of tanks or something and if you see any other SA/Austin/local plant people you can direct them to the site. My site is www.fishyland.net, i haven't had time to finish it but next weekend i will finish the homepage but right now it looks too blue. what do you guys think?
 
#21 · (Edited)
pennywort

I don't know anything about Brazilian Pennywort. But, I do have Marsh Pennywort ( Hydrocotyle verticillata ). Sometimes it's called Whorled Pennywort. The plant has one leaf on a single stem and the leaf shape is round about the size of a US $1 coin. The edges are kinda scalloped. Really pretty and different looking. It grows about 6 inches tall. Pennywort is actually a marginal or bog plant that likes growing in damp locations but above water level. In nature it doesn't mind being submerged during parts of the year... but it really doesn't do well if it's submerged all the time. From what I've read though, in a CO2 injected tank it can do really well. Sounds like you've got it dialed in.
Does the Brazilian form have larger leaves? That would be really cool.
 
#22 ·
hey guys, im also a newbie in san antonio. i just setup my first planted tank, a 55g, a couple of days ago. i added some plants from petco, its been 3 days and only the hornwort is showing signs of sucess. was any type of meeting ever organized? id love to get in on some clippings :)
 
#23 ·
nothing has been organized yet (as far as I know) - although I suspect several of us have met (Shrimp look happy - Thanks snake). My main tank is pretty much recovered from all of it's earilier set backs and is starting to pump out weeds at a furious rate (and the thickness of the najas grass (my current best guess) in my small tank is pretty rediculious).

I know I would be interested in an exchange of sorts - I have a small variety of fast growing weeds (great for new tanks), but would be interesting in doing a little rescaping as well (to cut down the weekly mowings a bit).
 
#25 ·
I got mine used in the early 90's from a used resturant equipment junkyard (paid +/- 70 for a tank and regulator). I know of a homebrew place in Austin - but it is not cheep (athough it has a special on last week on an amano style micro regulator - not cheep, but cool looking). My bet is online for the regulator, but I am cluelss for a "cheep" tank (other than luck of the draw on a used one somewhere) - call arround and you will probably find one "reasonable"..
 
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