So I intended to get back into the fish and plants thing slowly. I rescued some old tanks from a relative who had them in storage for years. This is the chronicles of my not-keeping-things-simple, return to planted aquaria.
It started a few months back when I discovered we had an aquarium shop operating in town. The last one closed almost 1 1/2 years back. Their fish and plant stock was not great, but they had a couple sad little crypt specimens in rockwool pots that looked like they might recover with some love. turned out they were listed as Wendtii but acually grew out to look more like Undulata. Also picked up some C. Parva and a few choice bits of Moss unknown, Java and some slightly larger 'leaved' varieties.
The tanks came with a pair old Aquaclear 200's and a pair of old Hagen heaters that worked in a week of testing.
Meanwhile the C. Undulata has been growing like no previous Crypt I've even owned before. Is it my Mad Plant Skillz or did I just luck-out?
Images in rough chronological disorder..
Tank filled with river sand capped stream dirt used from our water source's stream bed. Really cloudy, and planted with a few ROAK Echinodorus of unknown type(s). also adding my Java Fern, and Water Sprite.
Crypts added, could have separated them more but I didn't want to trigger a big melt, so I kid gloved them into the sand. I added a second worklight LED bulb for the left side and to reduce the shock of so much light, added a couple smaller, floating Water Hyacinth to temporarily shade the other plants. I added a few of my biggest White Cloud youngsters. Oh yes they love this 'big' old tank.
When things stabilize I think I might start treating the water with a bit of Alder cone infusion to add some tannics, and give the water filtered light a bit of a rosy glow. I may keep this single species tank, with just White Clouds for now. I like WCMM when they're couple weeks old and just getting that neon stripe, plus they forage much better than other fish I've kept.
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