rk923

My few plants have started to fill in! Yes, I know I only have a few but its all I can afford to put in there for now. Any suggestions for ground cover? Please let me know what you think! Thanks.

rk923

just started to dose the flourish excel by seachem today! (12/23/09) hopefully the algae will go and the the plants will grow!

rk923

Since i have started dosing the Flourish Excel 2 weeks ago, the algae has gone away and the plants have taken off. the amazon sword has gone crazy and so has the water sprite. i just added 3 spiral vals for the background. i think i will need 5 more to fill it in better. new pic on the way. looks way different!

rk923

2-14-10 Yesterday I added "The Algae Squad" or the start of it. I added 4 Otocinclus Algae Eaters and 13 Olive Nerite Snails. I did a lot of research before picking them to start attacking the algae. I have a lot of brown algae on the water sprite and a good amount on the glass. Hopefully they will do the trick for me. We will see how effective they are and possibly add more snails and possible one more Otto.

rk923

2-20-2010 Started up a DIY C02 system today. I was quite suprised by how simple it was and how well it works. I had my doubts about how well it would produce C02 but it seems to be producing a lot! I counted 2 or 3 bubbles a second! I might end up changing the mixture after this one runs out but this time I did the following. - 2 cups sugar - 1/4 tspn of bakers yeast - 1/2 tspn of baking soda - 1.75 liters water I will watch this one and see how long it last and see what kind of ppm i get with this many bubbly per second. updates to come soon.

rk923

2-28-2010 Its been a week since I started the DIY C02 system and it is still going strong! This solution seems to be working suprisingly well; still getting about one bubble per second at a steady rate. I am very happy with the results thus far. The plants seem a little better, especially the Spiral Vals. I took apart the bunched Vals and discovered i really had about 10 or 12 plants! That was a nice suprise.

rk923

2-28-2010 Almost forgot the update on the "Algae Squad". I only lost one Otto and it looks like one snail was dead upon arrival. Other than that everyone is doing well and really doing an amazing job cleaning everything up! The glass has never looked so good! The water is very clear as well!

rk923

4/3/2010 Since my last update things have changed quite a bit. The DIY C02 system has been kicking some butt! it has lasted just over a month and it finally ran out of steam today and I mixed up another batch of the same mixture. My plants have been benefiting a lot from the C02, especially the Spiral Vals, which have been sending out 2 or 3 leaders per plant! Amazing! I love it! Also, today I picked up some great looking driftwood which is soaking right now and it should be in within a week and I will have a picture up of that! One last thing, I have some Potted Chain Sword on order and that should be in soon as well.

rk923

4/19/2010 I put the driftwood in about a week ago and I think I did ok with the layout, I think it will look better once the plants fill in a bit.

rk923

4/27/2010 I got new plants today! I got Alternanthera reineckii (Red Temple), Lysimachia nummularia (Golden Lloydiella), Cabomba Piauhyensis (Java Fern), and one other one that I can't remember the name of. They all look good and I hope they grow good! I hope to get a canister filter soon and add another bottle of DIY C02. I will post pictures once I have everything planted!

rk923

2/28/2010 Just ordered some ferts today! I ordered one pound of: KN03 CSM+B KH2PO4 Also, I ordered a canister filter today too! all should be here in 2 or 3 weeks!

rk923

5/1/2010 I added another DIY C02 bottle today, just spliced it into the existing setup using a "T" connector. Hopefully this will help create more C02 to help offset the surface agitation caused by the HOB filter, and eliminate the downtime in between bottles. Ferts should be here next week Thursday, and the canister filter the week after that.