my first ADA 120P planted tank journal

[finfan]

thanks guys for the kind words, i love it, in person it looks like a forest with an opening in the middle, plants just look amazing to me, believe it or not that lotus grew from two tiny little leaves to that giant in two weeks... completely unexpected and it was not even planted in ada soil, i actually planted that in the sand! i am not sure what it will look like once it really overtakes and touches the surface, i guess we have to wait and see

[wesleydnunder]

Tank looks great, finfan. The plants look very lush.

Mark

[manifresh006]

Looks GREAT thx for the Update.
The wild caught black phantoms are AWESOME!!!!!!

Where did you get them at FF?

[finfan]

thanks guys, mani the i got the black phantoms at fishgallery sometime in 2007, i have not seen them there since, if i found some more i would get more, they are very playful and hardy

[Zulaab]

Awesome looking pictures.. I love variates of fish you have in there :) They are beautiful !

[finfan]

thanks Zu

on a different note, i'm a little disappointed about amano shrimps, i bought 5 of these (never had any sorts of shrimps before) on saturday and by sunday all had jumped off my tank at least 4 or 5 times, i was able to rescue some, others perished, the rescued one's are in a non-open top tank

with so many hiding spots, i don't understand why they had to get to the top and jump off so many times, do you guys have the same experience with amano shrimp, i'm scared to by RCS because they are too small/expensive to be fish food for my fish or die from jumping

[Darbex]

RCS will be eaten by the Angels gaurantee mine did I tried. I am no shrimp expert but I know all of my Amanos like going to the top every once in a while, no idea why but if they go up there and are spooked thats when they try to jet away and if their behinds are pointed to the top then out the top they will go.

[tattoo]

looks great.... post more pics when plants when really start to fill in...

[finfan]

here's an update, the plants took over and i should have taken a picture before trimming, but i forgot, today i had a huge trim and pretty much got two buckets full of cuts, wish i had a place to plant them! the lotus has really gotten big and i love the plant but can't decide yet if i leave it there or not or do what with it!

full tank shot



close up of lotus



i was finally able to get some shots of my congos which are not easy to picture, these pictures are ok but really don't do them justice





notice the teeth!!!



teeth again!







here's my beautiful harlequins and fat gold cloud



here's a bad pic of panduro



here's another dwarf cichlid (forgot the name) he can get very dark or light, in this pic he is more on the light side



so i tried and tried to get some pix of my odessa barbs with no luck... here are some partial pix





female with male



last but not least, my loan clown loach, he does the side by side dance with my congos quite a bit... not sure what that means, he is about 4+ inches... same size as my congos

[finfan]

please help

over the last 4 to 6 weeks on a daily basis i am finding severed plants or leaves floating, at first i thought it was just dead/dying leaves/plants but i have noticed it is also healthy plants/leaves

i have spent hours looking/observing and can't figure out which fish/group of fish is doing it, today i found one of my favorite red stem plant cut off like someone knawed it off

can anyone help from their experience, please help this is driving me nuts

below is my fishlist

Koi Angel (male) 1 Kribensis/ Pelvicachromis pulcher (female) 1 Bolivian Ram (male) 1 Gold Ram (female) 1 Blue Ram Pair 2 Cory 4 Harlequin Rasbora (large) 5 Black Neon Tetra 5 Black Phantom Tetra (wild) 5 Cardinal Tetra 2 Congo Tetra 5 Turquoise Rainbow 5 Bleeding Heart Tetra 5 Gold White Cloud 4 Firetip Tetra (3m/2fm) 5 Apisto Pandura 1 Unknown dwarf cichlid 1 Apisto Macmasteri 1 Unknown small pleco 1 Checkered barb 5 Odessa barb 5 Rummy nose tetra 2 Honey Gourame pair 2

[TaTeR ToT]

the dwarf that you forgot the name to is a Aequidens Curviceps male

[finfan]

thanks eartheater

here's a quick update on this tank, the lotus was clogging up the middle 50% of the tank, so as part of my weekly pruning, along with all the stem plants i cut off half of the lotus leaves and here's what it looks like now, i'm currently not happy with how this tank is looking and anticipating a rescape in the next 3 to 4 months





after the water change yesterday my honey gouramis decided to spawn again and provide everyone else in the tank with tasty morsels of eggs, i could not get good pix, but you will get the idea from the following three timelapse pix

embrace 1



embrace position 2



embrace position 3 (notice the angel waiting for the eggs to fall, he knows the process now!!)



also, finally i was able to capture a few pix of one of my odessa barb male, he looks so much better in person, but you will have an idea... that blue spot on his gills is really bright





here's another top view after the trim

[finfan]

all, as i mentioned above, i am planning to do a rescape again, and i am still undecided which direction i want to take this now, maybe you guys can help, i really like the look of the lotus, but it gets very big very fast, so i am not sure if i want to keep it or not, but i really want to keep it, i don't know why, but i miss my swords, so i am very tempted to bring back one sword plant, so below are some of the possible scenarios. Please give me your thoughts:

(1) move the big lotus to the left, keep rocks w/ anubias nana at the base of that, also leave the crypts i have as in on the left side, on the right side, take out most of the stems and show the large crypt that is more in the back and not visible currently, add different types of crypts in in front of it extending almost to the middle of the tank with decreasing crypt height, combine different colors, in the very back have a line all the way through of the plant that i currently have in the very back left (sorry, forgot the name)

(2) move the lotus to the left side, add a large arrangement of manzanita woods extending from a base in the right center towards all directions with some branches going over the waterline, take out most of the anubias from the rocks and plant them towards the base of the wood, on the top sides of the wood add java moss, leave the large crypt on the right back where it is, in the very back have a line all the way through of the plant that i currently have in the very back left (sorry, forgot the name)

(3) move the lotus to the left side, add one sword plant on the right center side, leave most of the rockwork as is with slight rearrangement, have a sloping v line of stem plants in the back

(4) have one large lotus plant on either the left or right, and have a random mix match of small crypts and nanas throughout the tank with a mix match of rockwork, in this case the lotus will really be the focal point of everything with the other plants as accent

(5) your suggestions

notice that all the scapes would allow me to keep this tank low-tech as it is currently, no CO2, no dosing (occasional excel)

another thing i want to do is put a 2 to 3 inch layer of just white sand over my current substrate to make it all one color but also leave the aquasoil underneath so that plants can get nutrients from the substrate

[madugo]

the tank and the plants are awesome!!

[finfan]

thanks madugo

everyone, any suggestions on which option you guys like?