Fishumentaryâ„¢

I got several Penthorum Sedoides stems from Tim at All Oddball Aquatics on Saturday. I haven’t had time to do too much research on it yet. For now I’ve planted the stems in the 55 gallon tank.

Above is a photo of the 55 gallon tank 1 week after trimming the Ammania. It took a few days but new leaves have started growing.

I finally got around to trimming the Ammania senegalensis in the 55 gallon tank. It had started to breach the surface so I didn’t really have a choice.

I removed all of the Ammania senegalensis stems as well as a group of Dianda stems that were growing amongst them.

I trimmed about 6-8 inches off of each stem and snipped the leaves off of the bottom 3-4 inches of each top that was going to replanted (photo below). I managed to fit all of the tops back into the original area I took them from but decided to leave out the bunch of Diandra that I removed. I used a few of the shorted clippings in the front to fill in a few gaps as well.

Overall I think it has a much greater impact now. The emersed (green) sections of the stems are no longer visible and the group looks much tighter.

I’m going to replant the lower parts of the stems in a nursery tank to see if they will develop new side shoots.

I made another trip to All Oddball Aquatics today and picked up a few more Blyxa Japonica for the 55 gallon tank. I wanted to replace the Crypt. wendtii because although it was staying short, it had grown very bushy and was taking up a little more space than I wanted it to. I removed the Crypt. wendtti and planted 4 of the Blyxa I purchased. I had only purchased 3 but the plants were so big I was able to separate them and ended up with 7 good sized plants. The shape of the Blyxa left more of the substrate open in that area (which was the goal) so now I can plant more Glosso to fill it in.

I also topped a few of the Ammania senegalensis and planted them with the new Blyxa to add a splash of color. I know the Ammania won’t stay short enough to keep it in the foreground but it looks nice for now.

The other 3 Blyxa went into the 10 gallon which is filling in nicely.

I got another shipment of goodies from Big Al’s Online today including the CO2 Pro System by Red Sea. I bought this setup for the recently restructured 10 gallon tank. I know this system is probably overkill for such a small tank but I wanted something that gave me more control than the Natural Plant System I was using. I picked up a 20oz CO2 cylinder from a local paintball shop to use with this new setup. I needed something small enough to hide behind the tank and this ended up working perfectly.

Installation was quick and painless. I opted not to install the diffuser for the time being because I don’t have another open outlet to plug it into. Instead I just hooked it to a micro bubbler.

According to the CO2 monitor that was included in the kit, the natural system was not providing anywhere near the desired 10-15ppm of CO2. Within an hour of setup the tank reached the optimum CO2 level running at about 1 bubble per second.

I purchased 3 Otos from Wet Pets to help get the algae under control. Now that the Pleco is no longer in this tank there was no one to keep up algae duty.