[FDNY911]

Hello Everyone.

My Name is Hector, and this is my first attempt at a Planted tank.

My girl bought me the Fluval Edge for Christmas, and thanks to her I can finally try planting HC in a tank and hopefully move onto bigger and better things/tanks.

I am VERY new at this, so please forgive any silly questions or any wrong decisions that have been made, and be sure that I will quickly fix any mistakes for the sake of the Plant life or inhabitants!

I went out and bought Seachem's Fluorite Black Sand substrate and washed and rinsed, surprisingly it cleaned up pretty well and pretty quickly.

I have not gotten any lights just yet but I will be ordering some replacement bulbs tomorrow for proper photosynthesis. I saw a thread on the Fluvals here so thanks to those guys!

Currently my tank will be an HC only tank with some shrimp. I won't be using any Co2 just yet. As for Ferts, I am not sure if I should use Excel or any other type of fert as I am currently growing the HC Emersed. Perhaps adding some Excel to a spray bottle would be a good idea?

My current worry is the length of the HC that I have. Some are as long as 3 1/2 - 4 inches long. I wanted to know if perhaps cutting them down in half would allow me to plant more or would it be useless being that they wouldn't have a root/runner coming out of the cut portion. Will they grow one eventually? I really don't want really long HC.

What should I expect in the coming weeks since the HC was immersed and now is being grown Emersed, basically will I be seeing a lot of brownish tips or anything like that?

One last question for now, I have a 45 Tall with fish X 8 months now and I was wondering if using some of the water from the established tank in the HC tank would make any sense? Not much, just during the times that I am spraying the HC. Any beneficial bacteria?

Well enough blabbing ... here are some of the pics ... please don't mind the mess.

 

[bigboij]

looking good have you upgraded the lighting any? i didnt think they had good stock lighting

 

[FDNY911]

I think imma do that tomorrow ... they arent good at all lol.

 

[killacross]

you sure thats HC and not HM? either way...stylish tank...not sure how well itll grow plants because the bulbs dont go the entire length of the tank...but still very stylish! good luck! I plan to check in on this one time to timeroud:

how big is the tank aka how many gallons?

 

[chaosmaximus]

I agree with killacross, using the Carona bottle for scale I am sure thats not HC. Not sure which of the two larger versions it is.

Very cool looking tank though.

Im sure that the plants came covered in bacteria but you could add a little tank water, it wont hurt. Either way you should notice a smell in the tank which says there is significant biological activity pretty quickly.

Chaos

 

[Church]

Uh oh. I know you don't want to hear this, but not only is that not HC, it's also not HM. I'm 99% sure that what you have there is Micranthemum umbrosum. Different genus altogether, and definitely not a carpet plant.

 

[FDNY911]

I am so annoyed right now, not to mention embarrassed. Thanks guys. I have heard people call the HC "Baby Tears" but not often enough not to ask the guy at LFS, so I asked him pretty clearly, "Is this HC????" He said yes to me. I was skeptical at first because it looked so much longer and thiner, but I have never seen HC in person so I just thought that was the only reason for my skepticism. Now that I think of it, how could I miss this?

Now what do i do?

 

[Church]

First of all, don't be embarrassed. Stuff like this happens. I just recently was sold the exact same plant, although it was sold to me under the guise of being HM, not HC. I questioned it, but the guy was like "It's baby tears, it's just emersed that's all." Well it turns out that MU is commonly called "Giant Baby Tears" and people have decided that it's okay to shorten that to just baby tears.

So I, too, will eventually be trying to replace the MU in my own tank (see my 20g link). But yeah, it's slightly different for you, because you were looking for a carpet plant. At least the MU will be able to successfully substitute for HM in my aquascape for a little while longer.

Sorry man. It happens.

No big deal though. Just take it back to the place you got it from and demand your money back. That's what I would have done if I would have been unable to substitute for my intended plants.

Many people out there are just looking for a sale. It sucks, but we live in a society where we not only condone this behavior, we encourage it as well. But it's okay because we would be un-amurrican to say anything bad about it.

 

[FDNY911]

Thanks Church, kind words. I feel better about it now but unfortunately the LFS isnt really Local, so I won't be making the trip. Maybe I'll just plant it in my 45g and let my loaches play with it. On another note none of the stores around me sell HC or even HM so I have to order it online.

 

[Dryn]

A tank full of that stuff would look cool! Not carpetplant cool but definately interesting. You could use it as a background plant, but then aquascaping would be hard since you have to reach in through that little tiny hole in the top...

 

[FDNY911]

HAHAHA to make matters worse! My light is burnt out!! It will not work at all .... I put it on a timer and it was on for maybe 2-3 hours and now it wont work and it smells like burnt plastic ... how great is that!

 

[non_compliance]

Bummer dude. There is a thread on this forum where a guy swapped out LED lights for the halogens that come with the EDGE.... he also added some sort of power compact in front of the light fixture and zip tied it on... pretty sweet/ingenious set up. I would search the link for you, but I am lazy.


Hope things turn around for ya... sounds like you hit a couple road bumps.... hang in there, it will even out.

 

[FDNY911]

LoL i know which one ur talking about, I'm subsribed to it. Thanks bro.