Below are a few updated pictures of my 75G. Since the last update, I’ve replaced most of the anubias barterii with anubias barterii var. nana, per the recommendation of some GWAPA members to use smaller leaves in the scape.  

(75G – 10/18/2006 Darker)

(75G – 10/18/2006 – Photoshopped brighten the picture.) 

This weekend, I decided to make the 30-45 minute trip out to Aquarium Center, in Randalstown, MD. A lot of folks have a lot of different feelings about this store, but as far as plant selection goes, this is one of the better stores in my area. From GWAPA, I’m so used to seeing the latest and greatest plants that enter the hobby, thanks to a few folks in the club who actively trade and acquire plants from all over the world. This time, I decided to finally try out some of the plants that have been around for awhile, but have never graced my tank’s aquascapes.

The main plant I wanted to try was didiplis diandra. Over the years I’ve seen a number of nice aquascapes using this plant. It’s got a nice greenish, bronze color, but the knock on it is it that the stems can be quite delicate, causing the bottoms to rot and the tops float up. I’m looking forward to see how this grows in my 40G in aquasoil.

Another plant that I’ve never truly tried in ernest is baby tears. This is a small leaved plant that can be grown and trimmed into a bush-like form. I did buy this plant once before, but I didn’t have the proper equipment or trimming techniques to really get this growing how I wanted it to.

 Finally, the last plant I got was rotala wallichii. I’ve never been able to maintain any of these thread leaved plants over the long haul. Invariably, the stems end up branched and ugly, and the leafs themselves end up with algae or other crap in them. This time, I’ve promised myself that I’ll take a little bit better care of it. We’ll see how long that lasts!

 

Last week, I ordered a few new compact flourescent bulbs from AHSupply to replace some old ones over my 54G. Previously, I had always had 6700k bulbs over that tank, and I always thought that the tank was a little bit off in color. So, this time I decided to mix one 6700k bulb with a 10,000k bulb.

Dozens of tiny phyllanthus fluitans flowers

Now, I’ve had phyllanthus fluitans in this tank for 2.5 years. Basically, we had an agreement: I did nothing, and it grew like crazy providing the rainbowfish shade, and sucking up any excess nitrates. One of my goals for the pond this past year was to get my “red-root-floater” to flower outside under the full sun. It turned bright red, but never a single flower. So, anyways, I opened the lid to the tank this evening to feed the fish, and low-and-behold, dozens of little white flowers are sticking up from each phyllanthus fluitans leaf. These aquariums never stop giving me nice surprises!

I realize that I haven’t posted any updated pictures of the 40G since I posted about the hardscape. Well, I took all of that blyxa japonica out of the 75G, and inserted it here. I probably ought to remove some of it from here, but I imagine a few clumps will remain in the final scape. I’m in the process of growing out enough ludwigia cuba, p. stellata, rotala macrandra ‘green,’ and ludwigia aromatica to fill out the back of the tank. For now, they’re just long stems waiting to be trimmed, and replanted.

Since I’ve been dosing regularly, keeping the CO2 levels fairly high, and finally have the lighting period set nicely, the plants in this tank have been doing really well. So, as usual, the blyxa japonica (pictured left) really overgrew itself, throwing the whole aquascape out of balance. I was debating whether to simply flip the anubias and blyxa, putting the anubias in front and blyxa in back, but ultimately, I decided to just yank out the blyxa altogether and go with all anubias. (I’m a maintenance kind of guy, and if one plant is less maintenance than another, chances are, I’m going to go with the lesser maintenance plant.)

75G – 09-28-2006 (Angled view)

Anyways, as you can see, I’ve replaced the blyxa with anubias barterii var. nana. I like how more of the hardscape is revealed by doing so. I’m pretty happy with it thus far, but I might yank the anubias afzelli, which is the long slender leafed anubias in the center-left part of the tank. Additionally, I’m anxiously awaiting the utricularia graminifolia (pictured right) to grow in on the bottom left side. I’m currently blaming my whiptail catfish for hanging out over there, and uprooting the plant. As always, I welcome everyone’s comments on this scape.

75G – 09-28-2006 (Front view)