Color of Aqua Plants

It has been a while since I kept the following infor in my harddisk. I picked it up from one of the forumners who compiled such a list for reference. Good to note it here just in case I forget which plants belong to which color.

Green - Rotala Rotundifolia green
Green - Limnophila sessiliflora
Green - Hygrophila balsamica
Green - Limnophila aquatica
Green - Tonina sp. 'Belem'
Green - Eriocaulon setaceum
Green - Hetheranthera zosterifolia
Green - Ceratophyllum submersum
Green - Hottonia palustris
Green - Hygrophyla corymbosa "angustifolia
Green - Hygrophila difformisGreen - Rotala hippuris
Green - Rotala sp. 'Vietnam
Green - Tonina sp. 'Manaus

Yellow - Myriophyllum mezianumits
Yellow - Didiplis diandra
Yellow - Ceratophyllum demersum
Yellow - Eustralis StelataYellow - Rotala sp. Colorata
Yellow - Proserpinaca palustris

Red - Myriophyllum mattogrossense 'red'
Red - Myriophyllum aquaticum
Red - Myriophyllum heterophyllum
Red - Rotala wallichiiRed - Cabomba furcata
Red - Limnophila aromaticaRed - Cabomba Piauhyensis
Red - Myriophyllum tuberculatum
Red - Rotala RotundifoliaRed - Ludwigia arcuata

My first Air pump

Bought this Ocean Free, Zero Noise, Air pump today. As the box suggested, the noise is indeed Zero. I also tie it to a sponge as an added cushion to keep it steady on top of the tank.

The purpose of this airpump is to create added water circulation in area my Eheim couldn't reach, thus prevent formation of any algae in stagnant corner. It also helps to stir water surface to break protein film from building up and create more oxygen for my fauna at night.

Less than SGD10, this petite and quiet airpump is very suitable for people with fish tank in their bedroom too. Most importantly, it has an added bubble control tuner which is attached to the pump (see the blue cap on 2nd photo).

Update on PH - 2 months on

New tank PH update. on its 2nd month today. Tested: 7 *hooray!!!*

Decommission my old tank

Decommissioning tank is not as easy as setting up a new tank. We really need to get dirty because extracting the used soil is as foul as sewage business. Prior to that, I have transferred 5 tubs of the following fire red into my new tank:

Massive fellows, are you able to count them?

The java moss complemented well with the bogwood I acquired.



Sales Items which were grabbed up pretty fast

Mini nana/Golden nana on sale too and tub of pelia given free to my buyers as token of appreciation for their support.

Ain't they fresh and green? Mini nana has always been my favourite for low tech tank. I have also kept 1 set for my new tank before putting up the above for sale.

Eheim 2213

I have been reading a lot about this canister lately and pondered whether it would be necessary to get this for my 2feet 35 gal/125ltr tank. Having transferred at least 500 shrimps into my new tank recently, my Eden 501 seemed unable to cope, at least I thought. The water in the heavily planted tank with so many shrimps look quite "cloudy" and no sign of clearing up after 3 days. To make matter worse, the peatmoss I installed has melted in Eden and darkened the color of my water. I would have continue with Eden if I have not transferred so many shrimps. After installing Eheim, I wanted to make comparison between Eheim and Eden as follows:

1) Eden is easy to wash and rinse and scooped out shrimplets if they accidentally got sucked in.
(it might be challenging to scrub the scum off eheim pipes nearly 1 meter long and with so many layers of filter pads/media. I wonder if shrimplets can be easily extracted)

2) Eden pipes connecting to canister and other tubes have its individual tightening ring to provide additional safety lock to avoid leakage.
(Eheim pipe connecting to the rainbar and suction tube has to be manually pushed to tighten the grip, as in above photo, without any lock mechanism like Eden. Thus the eheim brand pipe must be strong and tight to ensure no easy leakage & breakage over time).

3) Eden is extremely light but Eheim is very heavy once filled with water.

4) Eden canister inflow/outflow nozzles are located on its top cover, whereas Eheim 2213 nozzle is separated with top canister for outflow and bottom canister for inflow. It nearly flooded my floor when I filled up the water today, as the water began to flow thru the lower nozzle without any mechansim to block the leak. The only prevention of unncessary flood is to plug in the pipe to the lower nozzle and connect it to the tank before filling up the canister with water. Thus, the water will flow directly into the tank when topping up the canister.

5. Eden cover and container are secured by strong push-lock. Eheim canister is secured by "4 pins & clips" to its container and need to handle with care to avoid breakage because pins and clips are rather small and light.

However, my first good impression about Eheim 2213 is its filteration mechanisem - it comes with layers of different type of sponge/pads and ceramic ring/subtrate pro. The flowrate is good for my 35 gal tank if the rainbar is faced inward to hit the wall thus preventing the current from turning my tank into tornado.

Noise level is as silence as my Eden. Overall, forumners have given these two brands a very good review in the past. Eden good for upto 60ltr tank, Eheim 2213 good for 80-250 ltr tank both with equally lower watt consumption of 5w & 8w respectively.

My mind should be at ease now regardless how many shrimps are going to multliply inside the tank. No more dusty water to worry about with such "huge" acquisition in terms of size and cost and hopefully a reliable quality product that I had already experienced with using Eden 501.

Hair Grass substitute with Stingy Moss

HG is most challenging in a low tech tank. Thereafore I decided to use stingy moss as substitute to create grass effect for the foreground area by cutting the length of several long stingy moss into many shorter length. If it lengthened again (not that it is a fast grower), trimming will further add more of it to the foreground area and slowly create a compact HG effect to the tank. I like stingy moss due to its interesting pattern than HG. Next to it is dark green fissiden which is also not a so demanding plant to consider for foreground.

Shrimps update

New tank update: sign of healthy environment ready to breed? Didn't expect this female shrimp could be so "impatient" while my tank is still cycling. Nevertheless, it look safe because many of the fire red in there are showing darker red tone as compared to those still living in the old tank.


There is always enough space and I thought why not include a couple of yellow shrimps too. Frankly, I was planning to turn my new tank into a yellow/ Fire Yellow shrimp only tank.

Garden by the bay?

Initial Idea


Construct based on concept sketched.

I believed this is as far as my aquarium journey could stretch. It was fun but no less exhausting and backaching having to bend down regularly to do the scaping.


This is my 1 month and 2 weeks of hardwork travelling and sourcing for the right items. Though I am quite pleased with the created "garden", the tank is still aging and I haven't decide which shrimp to add in....


Anyway, I will just enjoy what is already created and let the tank take ownership for now.

Assorted Garden

The result of 6 weeks hardwork.

Peat moss for Eden 501

DIY the larger filter peat moss into smaller sachet using empty tea-bag bought from Daiso.


Layered peat moss in my Eden501. Let's see whether such method will decrease the PH in my new tank.

This is how I placed my Eden 501 on my 35 gal tank.

PH reading

Still spotted about 10 shrimp casualties in my old tank this morning. Immediately did 80% WC and rinsed my canister throughly. I also minimised the flora in my tank and rinsed them in a pail. Took another PH reading this evening - 6.6. Hmmm...pretty stable but I was unable to perform other test without any further kits.

PH test again on my new tank - still maintained at 7.2 despite adding bogwood and blackwater drips.

First Bog wood

This is my first bogwood, approx 10" tall, without costing me a bomb: 3 SG gold coins. I hope it blend well and give my heavily planted tank an added texture.

Update on Gloso - 2nd day after planting. They are very much alive now, really growing fast, vertically though, for a low-tech tank. Never much fancy this plant but on closer look, I think they are cute mini flora for foreground, midground?

PH 7.2 - 2ft tank

Latest update on my 1.5ft tank. Daily casualty about 10 pcs. For 3 consecutive days when I switched on the light in the morning, I saw them lying lifeless. It really hurts to see heavy casualties even though I have so many FR in my tank. Yesterday, I quickly did a 20% WC and today another 50%WC including siphoning out poos which have been accumulated over a year because I don't usually do WC to my tank except topping up water. I took a PH test before WC and it read 6 - too acidic (forgot to take photo of the test). Now it went back to around 6.5 after major WC. I suspect it could be amonia strike or was it the result of my recent over-trimming of watersprite? Whichever, I am closely monitoring the livestocks closely......
The purpose of the above photo is to show the Glossostigma I bought recently for my new tank. These are extra pieces to try out in my old tank. It is not appealing in the current sorry state because I have been quite impatient pulling the clumps apart. I wonder will they even survive under my care...hmmm

Latest update on my 2ft. I took some of the aged water from my 1.5ft tank during WC for my 2ft tank and added couple drops of black water. A day later, I think there is slight improvement to the water PH - 7.2. Still a long way to go before adding in shrimps.

Midground plant

As usual, I am exploring what plants are suitable for the midground area. I decided to concentrate around the "tree roots" in order to leave more spaces at the foreground for shrimp/fish feeding.

Some of the plants I have an idea how tall and far they will stretch but several of them are pretty new for experimenting. It looks a little "messy" for a start but as the journey progresss, everything should fall in place (I hope) with some trimming to be done.

Underwater Creatures

Let's see what creatures I have adopted during my tank cycling process, and hope the poos so created by these animals will give my plants an added natural source of nutrients.

Endler


Galaxy


Otocinclus & couple of fire red at the background


Nirite Horn snails

Hara Jerdoni, a night roamer (my new favourite)

Underwater Garden

Background flora scapes


Flora along the "river walk"


As the title suggested and the journey I have painted previously. I love greens, the more the merrier especially now I have so much space in my tank to explore what work or doesn't....thus I invested quite a fair bit in planting my tank, though I am not at all sure what were some of those names. Here is a glimse of my tank slowly taking shape as planned.

"Tree Trunk"

It was a long hunt for me to find dw that looks like "tree trunk". My hands and arms were nearly covered with dust from tossing all the dw around to finally catch this piece of gem. It has bark, quite rare among the dw and certainly live up to being a real looking tree trunk in my tank. The only challenge is to get it to sink since I can't squeeze it into a small pot to boil. I just have to tie two rocks around its base until it settled down in a month of two. While I was at it, I decided to "decorate" it with nana. java fern and some moss took from old tank.

Touch up with loose dw as extension to the roots of the "tree" above....

River Gravel

Started to fill my new 2ft tank. Gravel from unknown source which was believed to contain element of fine coral chips?

Anyway, decided to change the substrate to real river gravel which is neutralising according to LFS who sold it to me.

PH Test Kit

First time using a PH Kit. Let's carry out some experiments...



Singapore water from the tap...pretty high PH 7.6 at least...
Fire red will be very stressed and appear "retarded".



The aged water from my 1.5ft tank where shrimps are in abundance...
PH 6.4 - 6.5. Fire Red in happy mood.

Water Sprite

Trimming plants is like giving my tank a good haircut. I have lost count how many times I gave watersprite a good trimming. Too bad they were infected with dark algae otherwise can give them away and reserve some for my 2ft tank.

New Challenge on 2ft tank

I was a little impatient to make space for my shrimps and took all the nana out of the 1.5feet tank. They were huge and I separated them into smaller clumps and let them float on the bigger tank. Regretably, they melted within a week before I could even use them. I should have kept them dry instead of drowing their lives. It was a heavy lesson learned because the nana has been following this journey since the day it went into the petite tank with just a couple of small leaves..

Anyway, life moves on and I started to conceptualise on paper how my new tank is going to look in future.