# Finally Converting to a Dirted on my 20 gallon



## Bbroush (Dec 17, 2012)

Here's the before picture.

this is actually from about a month ago!









We are moving the tank to another room so while I was draining it I said, screw it, and decided to dirt the dang thing.

Here's some pics from the staging area and of what I've done so far today.









Toying with adding some more driftwood I've been soaking.










Kids sand toys are amazing for removing substrate










The wife just helped me clean the glass. I've started adding soil.


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## Z1234 (Oct 25, 2016)

So far so good 

I like to put some gravel around the glass instead of dirt so that dirt is not visible; Anyway I guess this does not matter much.

Keep in mind, CO2 is a precious resource in low-tech, so if you mix your water like a blender does, CO2 might escape from the water. (hard to see, but this came into my mind looking at the "before" picture)

I'd keep the emergent plants. Some floating plants may help you save some trouble in the beginning.


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## Bbroush (Dec 17, 2012)

Z1234 said:


> So far so good
> 
> I like to put some gravel around the glass instead of dirt so that dirt is not visible; Anyway I guess this does not matter much.
> 
> ...


Thanks! Yeah I had a couple sponges going before but I don't think I'll do that again. Thanks for the advice! I realized I'd been going non-stop and missed lunch 

Tank is in place in the other room!


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## Bbroush (Dec 17, 2012)

Well it only took 13 hours and I totally screwed up the cap at one point but it's been done. Hope my fish and plants survive. I'm not doing that again any time soon. (Read: 5 years).

The canister filter decided to be a bear and that took a good chunk of time. Also I added some new hardscape and decided to glue on some moss/ferns. And I added purple waffle and some palm in an extra shower caddy.


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## flchamp89 (Aug 31, 2016)

I like it alot. Great job. Tell us about those lights. 

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G890A using Tapatalk


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## Bbroush (Dec 17, 2012)

flchamp89 said:


> I like it alot. Great job. Tell us about those lights.
> 
> Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G890A using Tapatalk


Lights were for both tank and riparium plants but were very low light for the tank. I think they are 9.5W feit electric LED floods from Costco . My wife got me a planted + 24/7 though that will be set up tomorrow


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## Bbroush (Dec 17, 2012)

We're opening one present early for each person since we're flying out of town tomorrow, ( I obviously chose my new planted + 24/7. Set it up and added the black background back. I think it looks better that way, even with the black sand! I love this light. I think it will really help the plants underneath the planters (and all the rest) flourish.

Here's some pics


















Picture of some of the riparium plants. I had part of a stem of L. Aromatica that hadn't completely melted but had lost all leaves that I just shoved in that planter and I think it is going to do well! Also I lost most of my emersed Monte carlo in the process of moving the tank but it looks like this portion might rebound. 









My purple waffle and palm experiment started with some serious wilting when the waffle was placed in a jar for a week but we will see if it will rebound. It looks like the palm will do really well.


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## Bbroush (Dec 17, 2012)

A night picture:









Current plant list:
Riparium Plants
Pothos Vine
Ruellia simplex 'Katie'
2 unknown house plants (a focus and some succulent-ish thing)
Purple waffle 
A palm of some sorts
A random emersed stem of L. Aromatica 
A little bit of Monte carlo

Aquarium Plants
Java Moss (Taxiphyllum barbieri)
Java Fern
Crypt wendtii brown (Cryptocoryne wendtii 'Brown')
Sword (Echinodorus palaefolius var. latifolius )The 
Telanthera Cardinalis
Anacharis (Egeria densa)
Anubias Nana (Anubias barteri var. nana )
Rotala rotundifolia (Rotala rotundifolia)
Monte Carlo (Micranthemum 'Monte Carlo')
Unkown plant in the middle, looks like Sag? 
Giant Hygro
Salvinia Rotundifilia
Sag Chiliensis
Pygmy Chain sword narrow leaf (still need to add this)
Echinodorus Xingu
Littorella Uniflora
Val Americana (growing out in jar fir now)
Sag Subulata narrowleaf (waiting to add this as well)
*Najas Roraima
Flame moss.
Ludwigia "Mini Red, 
Microsorium pteropus "Windelov
Salvinia culcutta.


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## dwalstad (Apr 14, 2006)

This looks like fun! It will interesting to see pictures of the tank after a few weeks and months.


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## Z1234 (Oct 25, 2016)

This looks awesome! I really like the hang-on containers for the plants!


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## Bbroush (Dec 17, 2012)

dwalstad said:


> This looks like fun! It will interesting to see pictures of the tank after a few weeks and months.


Thanks! I feel so excited to have you comment on my tank 



Z1234 said:


> This looks awesome! I really like the hang-on containers for the plants!


Thanks! I learned all of this from the Riparium sub forum of plantedtank.net

I'm thinking of trying to superglue moss to the front of each planter to mask the plastic.... Should have thought of that before though :/ I'll have to wait to grow out more moss and try it! I needed to use all the moss I could for my hardscape


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## abak (Nov 27, 2016)

Wow! I love it


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## Bbroush (Dec 17, 2012)

abak said:


> Wow! I love it


Thanks! I hope when I get back next week it is still looking nice.


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## Bbroush (Dec 17, 2012)

So being away from my tank has given me an itch to add some more plants. So which of these would work well with my set up?

Ammania Pedicellata sp. Gold 
Rotala Blood Red 
Alternanthera Ocipus 
Pogostemon Stellatus Broad leaf


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## Bbroush (Dec 17, 2012)

So I decided to make this a little bit of a journal (mainly because I don't know where else to post it on APC) and show you guys where I started from.

Okay so here is where everything started!

Back when I had zero clue what I was doing 

8/2012









The 8/2012 pic might have been right after I got 4 goldfish at a wedding which started me down this path  and I think I might have had some sort of tiger catfish? (he hid in that crab shack and would snack on tetras at night lolol) My fish I still have from that time is my BN Pleco (Tucker) who I got as a tiny little baby. I had that emerald Cory from then that just recently died    (I got him at adult size)

12/2012








the 12/2012 pic I had a lot of val and I think even some dwarf sag with wisteria and who knows what else in there. I might have had an angelfish still and I still had mollies at that point. I decided to get mollies for a while but they were fin nippers and poop machines.

1/2014









The third attachment is from January 2014 when I had some great riparium plants: an echinodorus, a black mangrove, my ruellia (look how small it was!) and my good ol pothos. My lighting in the aquarium was fairly low at that time. I had crypts and other stuff. and I don't remember what fish I had at that point.


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## Bbroush (Dec 17, 2012)

Update: I got home to no deaths but for some reason my filter wasn't working, (after looking into it, it appears it was because of my water level, though it wasn't that low...) 
I had decent growth on either my Pygmy chain sword or my sag subulata narrow leaf(I'm getting them mixed up, help would be appreciated... Haha); has grown four runners already. I had to do some trimming of my sword, it might be struggling with the move, but otherwise most everything is doing well. My sag chilensis has sent off a runner as well. It appears the najas in the back right has started rooting!
Here is a picture: 









Since being back I have some updates!

Today is my birthday and my wife took me to the LFS and said that I could pick out any fish I want. So instead of increasing my schools of any fish I decided to add a female betta! My daughter named her gully
















I was a little worried that my lone big flag fish would take issue with the addition of a betta, and that ended up being the case a little bit. No nipping, just general stress, so I went back and got 4 more flag fish to see if it would call her down, and I think it did. Now we'll wait and see!

Also while at meijer I waltzed by their fish section and noticed the most gigantic potted crypt and that they had a sale going on so I said, hey it's my birthday! And bought it. The clerk also threw in two floating ludwigia repens stems for kicks, when I got home I broke the potted crypt into at least 10-12 plants. 
between that and the raok I won coming Tuesday I'll be set on crypts for.a long while. Here's a pic from tonight!


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## s2man (Nov 8, 2016)

Looking good, Bb

edit: I just re-read the entire thread. Very nice work. i want to ask, what is the is the canister filter doing? Just mechanical filtration, or biological?


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## Bbroush (Dec 17, 2012)

s2man said:


> Looking good, Bb
> 
> edit: I just re-read the entire thread. Very nice work. i want to ask, what is the is the canister filter doing? Just mechanical filtration, or biological?


Just pot scrubbers, lava rocks and filter floss in there. At some point I'll get rid of it, probably.


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## Bbroush (Dec 17, 2012)

So I was watching 'Gully' the betta and 'Betsy' the flagfish interact today and I saw no fin nipping from Betsy. She is too fast for Gully to be able to nip her but Gully follows her or the four juvie flags around. I'll continue to monitor. Here is a picture









My ludwigia mini red is so fragile that my Cory and pleco have broken many of the stems. Hopefully it recovers.

I've recently been having an aphid problem mainly on my frogbit and on some of my salvinia that originated from my one gallon Jarrarium. I've been moving most of it over to this tank so I can have my top feeders eat them. I've manually been removing them with both tweezers and a pipette either sucking them off or squirting them off. Dunking has worked okay as well. Here is a pic:









This next week I have some more plants coming from a raok and my manzanita I bought myself! It's two 24" trees. I'd love some recommendations on where to put them. I'd definitely get rid of the maple wood on the far left, and maybe my really cool piece on the middle. I could possibly break down one piece for my 2.5 gallon jar, but I'd prefer both stay in this tank. 
Here is an example pic of the branches:
https://www.bloomsandbranches.com/v/vspfiles/photos/BBNRCH18-2.jpg


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## Bbroush (Dec 17, 2012)

Today I received a package of additional plants! I'm very excited  So I ended up doing some rescaping.

First what I moved: So I took the E. Xingu out of the back left and moved it into the middle in front of the mopani driftwood piece. I also lifted that piece of driftwood up a fair amount, which I think looks better. I also removed all stems from the front half on the left and move them back as far as I could. I also moved more of the crypts back to make room for the new plants.

These are the plants I received: 
Elatine Triandra which I put in the front, mainly on the right.
2 green crypts
2 blyxa japonica that I was able to break up into 4 plants in the middle.
a few sag.subulata which I put in the front left.
A bunch of Red ludwigia stems i added to the mini reds on the right.
some Bacopa caroliniana which replaced the E. Xingu in the far back left.
A BUNCH of Hydrocotyle japan which I was unsure what to do with. Most went into my jarrariums. For now it's in the middle back. 
More mini xmas moss that I'm likely going to be attaching to some manzanita.

I also removed the vertical piece of driftwood on the left to prepare for the manzanita I'm getting this next week.

We'll see how everything does. Likely I have too many carpeting plants, but we'll see what does well and what doesn't! I really like my mid ground plants and the stems. I also thought I'd attempt to put some random plants such as my floating najas and some baby java ferns into the planter with holes in the middle back to hopefully grow in and cover it up. Happy New Year!


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## Bbroush (Dec 17, 2012)

So today I got home and noticed that I had almost zero flow in my canister filter and decided that I'm done with that filter for now. If I'm going for the Walstad method I should probably get rid of it at some point, so why not now? I'm a tiny bit worried about how everything will turn out so I added back in my two little sponge filters in the back corners. We'll see how it turns out. I had to do some rescaping and realized that the large piece on the far right was still buoyant :/ I added a little more moss to it and another baby java fern. I also moved the bacopa stems up out of the back corner.

So my plan is to just run the sponge filter at night between 12am & 6am. Should I just go completely filterless?

by the way my TDS meter came and my tank was running at 577 so I did a 4 gallon water change with RO water and got it down to 400. I think my tap water is somewhere around ~300. I checked and I had zero nitrates & nitrites as well.

So here is my question: Should I just go full walstad and get rid of the sponge filter and get some sort of powerhead for circulation?

I'm continuing to dose metricide at ~2 mL daily.

Here's a couple pictures from tonight!


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## s2man (Nov 8, 2016)

First, your plants are coming along great, and I really like your hardscape layout. 

Second, it was a great leap of faith for me to pull out my filters and go full Walstad. But Ammonia and nitrites have stayed at zero. I say, go for it, especially with the riparium plants in the equation.


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## Bbroush (Dec 17, 2012)

s2man said:


> First, your plants are coming along great, and I really like your hardscape layout.
> 
> Second, it was a great leap of faith for me to pull out my filters and go full Walstad. But Ammonia and nitrites have stayed at zero. I say, go for it, especially with the riparium plants in the equation.


Thanks! I appreciate it! I think the maple looks phenomenal. I am getting two manzanita branches and I just don't know what I'm going to do with both of them... :/

I'm a little worried about circulation (and to a lesser degree oxygen, although I swear I remember reading that without CO2 dosing that shouldn't be a problem). Do you use anything for circulation?


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## s2man (Nov 8, 2016)

Diana recommends a small airstone or powerhead for circulation. Though, I don't think she has that in all of her tanks. 

Following Diana's advice I removed all of my surface aggitation to reduce the loss of CO2. I have one small powerhead, which is throttled back, in the 125. None of the fish are gasping for air : -D

Seriously, I think that is Diana's criterion; If the fish seem oxygen starved in the morning, add some circulation. Maybe she will jump in here to clarify circulation needs...


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## Z1234 (Oct 25, 2016)

s2man said:


> Diana recommends a small airstone or powerhead for circulation. Though, I don't think she has that in all of her tanks.
> 
> Following Diana's advice I removed all of my surface aggitation to reduce the loss of CO2. I have one small powerhead, which is throttled back, in the 125. None of the fish are gasping for air : -D
> 
> Seriously, I think that is Diana's criterion; If the fish seem oxygen starved in the morning, add some circulation. Maybe she will jump in here to clarify circulation needs...


Pretty much same with me. I have never seen any fish gasping or showing any other sign in my NPTs. Of course, it needs immediate attention if there is any sign of distress. I'd guess if a tank runs out of oxygen, that's a disaster.
I think the book somewhere says that newly submerged soil can pull O2 out from the water.


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## Bbroush (Dec 17, 2012)

s2man said:


> Diana recommends a small airstone or powerhead for circulation. Though, I don't think she has that in all of her tanks.
> 
> Following Diana's advice I removed all of my surface aggitation to reduce the loss of CO2. I have one small powerhead, which is throttled back, in the 125. None of the fish are gasping for air : -D
> 
> Seriously, I think that is Diana's criterion; If the fish seem oxygen starved in the morning, add some circulation. Maybe she will jump in here to clarify circulation needs...





Z1234 said:


> Pretty much same with me. I have never seen any fish gasping or showing any other sign in my NPTs. Of course, it needs immediate attention if there is any sign of distress. I'd guess if a tank runs out of oxygen, that's a disaster.
> I think the book somewhere says that newly submerged soil can pull O2 out from the water.


Thanks guys!

In that case I'll likely replace the sponge filters with air stones and call it good from there. Should I just run those at night?


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## Z1234 (Oct 25, 2016)

Bbroush said:


> Thanks guys!
> 
> In that case I'll likely replace the sponge filters with air stones and call it good from there. Should I just run those at night?


I guess the sponge filter is also OK, as long as your water movement is not very quick (so that enough CO2 stays in water). I'd guess that air stone bubbling _gently_ at night can also be OK.

Whole thing comes down to what/how many plants you have, how many fish etc, etc. I think even substrate can influence how much filtration is needed. It might be hard to generalize because there are so many factors influencing this.

So far what I have figured out, which might or *might not* be true:


I definitely don't need a huge external filter with 10x tank volume/hour capacity (I don't use the ones I already have)
I have few lightly stocked tanks with no filter / no water movement at all, both plants and fish seem to be OK
Surface scum can be a problem with some (new?) tanks. I use a skimmer to remove it; good skimmer can take care of it in a couple of 10 mins
If I have too much flow, some larger particles don't really settle
Occasionally in some tanks I have issues with small floating particles, but those I can filter out
Even though I feed generously, mulm build-up is typically not very fast
I have a problem tank where I used peat (from a shop) as a substrate, mulm builds up much faster even if I don't feed much. 

I guess the thing is, if you have large flow, then the filter will collect much more stuff. Once the filter collects so much stuff, then you need a large filter volume to "store" the stuff. (= external filter) When you clean it, you remove a lot of potential plant nutrients (and possible source of CO2) and then you might increase the need of liquid plant fertilizers. CO2 you can't really add, unless you convert to High Tech.

With other words, fast water flow might trigger a chain of events.

Please be very, very critical with my opinion above. _I really don't know what level of water filtration / movement is needed therefore I cannot really advise. _ I have some problem free NPTs with no water movement at all and this makes the filtration topic more confusing for me.

_In my opinion_, you have a good amount of plants in the last picture you posted. If there is enough light, I think this plant mass should be able to support more fish then I could count there.

Why do you dose _*metricide*_?


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## Bbroush (Dec 17, 2012)

Z1234 said:


> I guess the sponge filter is also OK, as long as your water movement is not very quick (so that enough CO2 stays in water). I'd guess that air stone bubbling _gently_ at night can also be OK.
> 
> Whole thing comes down to what/how many plants you have, how many fish etc, etc. I think even substrate can influence how much filtration is needed. I guess this is the reason why its hard to generalize.
> 
> ...


Yeah I get it. So I think I'll continue to run my little sponge filters at night for now. Thanks for the advice!


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## s2man (Nov 8, 2016)

Z, lots of good thoughts, there. 

Bb, might perhaps the beneficial bacteria die off without a constant flow of water in the sponges? If you think so, a small airstone would achieve the same circulation you want.


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## Bbroush (Dec 17, 2012)

s2man said:


> Z, lots of good thoughts, there.
> 
> Bb, might perhaps the beneficial bacteria die off without a constant flow of water in the sponges? If you think so, a small airstone would achieve the same circulation you want.


Great point. This is something I've been worrying about anyway. In that case it would be more stable to NOT have the sponges. Thanks guys.

Next question: how/where could I get two 24" manzanita branches to fit where it will look good in (or above?) the tank


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## dwalstad (Apr 14, 2006)

The latest picture of your tank looks really promising. I love all the different plants!

I see no harm in slow air bubbling with or without a small sponge filter. You seem to know what you are doing. Very nice!


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## Bbroush (Dec 17, 2012)

dwalstad said:


> The latest picture of your tank looks really promising. I love all the different plants!
> 
> I see no harm in slow air bubbling with or without a small sponge filter. You seem to know what you are doing. Very nice!


Thanks! I appreciate it! I love the variety as well. We will see how it turns out  yeah for now I'll probably switch to air stones just for the space vs a sponge.


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## abak (Nov 27, 2016)

Just read the whole thread. Thus is really cool!


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## Bbroush (Dec 17, 2012)

abak said:


> Just read the whole thread. Thus is really cool!


Thanks! It's a definite work in progress but I think it's close to a point where Il be able to sit back and stop meddling


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## Bbroush (Dec 17, 2012)

Update! My manzanita came in the mail and it's beautiful and I love red manzanita. I moved a couple plants around as well and got rid of the black lava rock and the large maple branch.

The manzanita was gigantic so I had to cut the two branches down into smaller parts.

Hope you guys like it!


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## Bbroush (Dec 17, 2012)

Update: tank has been doing well. ~4 weeks ago I traded in all the flag fish since they were eating all the plants. At first I thought it was just the roots of the frogbit but then I realized it was all my carpet plants too. My poor blyxa looked like it had a buzz cut 

I had an outbreak of what I think was a parasite about 3 weeks ago. that week I had added 4 peppered cories. It started with a missing pepper Cory, and then a listless cherry barb that died within a day. Then my oldest fish (BN Pleco) mysteriously died. Nitrate and ammonia have stayed at zero or close to it the whole time. I dosed metronidazole & praziquantel at recommended dosing for two days and put a sponge filter back in to give some circulation. During this entire time my TDS has stayed consistent in the low 300s (varying with top offs of TO). No casualties since that time. I did about a 60% water change of 80/20 RO/tap 48 hours after last dose and got my TDS back down below baseline. I've done a couple small water changes since then but other than that water parameters have been stable. Since then I have added 5 white cloud minnows and I think plant wise I added some more crypts and moved over some more stem plants from my Jarrariums. After the loss of my pleco I decided to get rid of the large maple branch and replace it with some more ludwigia stems.

I moved more of the crypts to the back and tried to balance out the sag chilenses. My Amazon sword has grown several new leaves and my inkown echinodorus has had some incredible growth and has darkened a lot. I'll try and get a close up of it. My e. Xingu is looking fantastic and I actually don't mind it being in the mid-ground because of the thin leaves. The najas has always just been floating around and hasn't grown much, so I've attempted to get it to root in a few places in the tank.

So far I haven't had much luck with any of the carpeting plants. I blame the flag fish for eating the tips of the blyxa and micro swords and pulling up everything else.

Since they've been gone I made some changes. I got rid of all Monte Carlo and m. Minutea and I filled in with some hydrocotyle Japan and some E. Triandria.

The micro sword has sent off several runners but they're all still small. The dwarf sag on the middle left has been fine. Some growth.

I got rid of the black background to allow more ambient light for the plants in the back. I had several plants that haven't done much other than the crypts back there. I also added some jungle val in the back left to try and see how that will do.

Floaters: the water aphids got a little ridiculous there for a while. I've thrown out at least twice the water surface worth of floaters since I rescaped this. I also have found that the minnows LOVE eating the aphids, so now I know longer am trying to get rid of them. I imagine the increased circulation from the powerhead will keep the floater population more under control.

A couple other things: I added about 12 RCS after the pleco died as well and have created a little cholla wood/moss tower in the front right. While I had lots of circulation they stayed close to that side but I've cut the sponge filter back almost completely and they've bow spread out. I saw at least two berried females last I checked.

Also the amount of mulm finally was getting to me so I replaced one of the riparium shower caddies with my aqueon 30 HOB filter full of filter floss and the riparium plants. 
I also added a peace lily and I think an arrow plant and a bit of ivy.

I'm waiting for a few things this week: my steel mesh filter intake to replace the foam I have right now. A bag of purigen to clear up all the tannins. I also am getting a Hydro pico powerhead to add a little more current since I've stuffed the HOB enough to decrease the circulation substantially. (plus I've done everything I can to make sure it isn't making to much noise or causes to much off-gassing.)

The pico is going to be nice because it has variable output. I included some current pictures and some from the last couple weeks as well.

1/7









1/24


























Saturday


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## dwalstad (Apr 14, 2006)

I looked back at your earlier pictures taken in January. I see diminished or no plant growth, plus the water is cloudy. That Elodea and swordplant on the left should have taken over the tank by now, and the water should be clear. Then, there are the fish diseases.

It doesn't look good to me. I would not worry about carpet plants or small items. Something major is wrong. I wish I could sort through everything you have written, but your entire setup is so complicated that I don't know where to begin. 

With all the work you have done, I am truly sorry.


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## Bbroush (Dec 17, 2012)

dwalstad said:


> I looked back at your earlier pictures taken in January. I see diminished or no plant growth, plus the water is cloudy. That Elodea and swordplant on the left should have taken over the tank by now, and the water should be clear. Then, there are the fish diseases.
> 
> It doesn't look good to me. I would not worry about carpet plants or small items. Something major is wrong. I wish I could sort through everything you have written, but your entire setup is so complicated that I don't know where to begin.
> 
> With all the work you have done, I am truly sorry.


Yeah I should probably simplify it. I do love my riparium set up and they have continued to grow well. The most explosive growth was in floaters. I've had some growth in my sword in the middle but the leaves have stayed more compact. The e xingu has put off many leaves but overall I agree that many of the stems and the sag chilensis and dwarf sag on the left have been slow. I feel like I've spent too much time changing things and not just letting it be. I've just been trying out alot of plants and trying to get it very heavily olanted.

I've been gone for a week and I think coming back with a fresh perspective tomorrow will help.

I also wonder if the metricide dosing could be an issue? I'm dosing the recommended met dosing found online here and TPT.

Could it also be overfeeding? This week will have solved that.

It seems as well that the new driftwood has caused some of the haziness? Maybe?

Any advice would be appreciated. Lighting has remained on the 24/7 mode as well.


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## dwalstad (Apr 14, 2006)

Bbroush said:


> Yeah I should probably simplify it. I do love my riparium set up and they have continued to grow well. The most explosive growth was in floaters.
> 
> Any advice would be appreciated. Lighting has remained on the 24/7 mode as well.


#1 Haziness could be due to the driftwood releasing DOC and causing a slight algae/bacterial bloom. 
#2 If the floating plants and emergent plants are growing well, then maybe they are out-competing the submerged plants for nutrients. 
# 3 Maybe something is wrong with the substrate.

I don't think its the metricide.


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## Bbroush (Dec 17, 2012)

dwalstad said:


> #1 Haziness could be due to the driftwood releasing DOC and causing a slight algae/bacterial bloom.
> 
> #2 If the floating plants and emergent plants are growing well, then maybe they are out-competing the submerged plants for nutrients.
> 
> ...


Thanks! I do think you're right that the manzanita is playing a role in the haziness.

So I added some purigen to that HOB and everything has really cleared up. I think limiting the floaters to increase light might help the submerged plants compete more. I'll post some more pictures soon. My TDS has stayed around 250 for the last week so that is good!

Everyone was alive and well when I got home and I added a hydor pico pump that is currently on one of the lowest settings. I'm a little worried about it sucking up shrimplets or other things. I like it overall


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## Bbroush (Dec 17, 2012)

Tonight after adding a red ludwigia stem from my jarrarium.








As you can see it was incredibly red in my one gallon jar.


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## Bbroush (Dec 17, 2012)

Update: things have stayed steady and consistent. The addition of the HOB and the pico powerhead have worked wonders with the clarity of the water. I did some trimming of the anacharis because it's been explosive and the hornwort as well and I grouped all the stems. Hornwort has been moved to the back and the anacharis is still on the back left and bacopa on the far left. I haven't done much trimming of the ludwigia but they're probably do in the next week or two. I like having the multiple ludwigia species together on the right.

I also switched my unknown sword plant and my e. Xingu, (which is now sending off a LOT of runners.) I've moved all the runners do they're staying in the middle or back. I moved my other sag. Chilensis to the right corner so they're sort of framing the tank.

The plant I'm the most excited and impressed with is the narrow leaf pygmy chain sword. It has a lot of runners and has a lot of reddish coloration as well. I moved the blyxa to one of my jars (which then melted and was gobbled up by my snails)

I moved all of my hydrocotyle to different spots near the back now that my carpeting plants are doing better.

The other carpeting plants: the dwarf sag, is really doing well on the left by the sag. Chilensis and I think the elatine triandria is also doing well in the front. 
I did a trim and also moved one ofthe anubias nana to the cholla wood in the front and congregated most of the najas roraima to.the front right.

I think my plant list is looking like this now:

*Riparium Plants*
Pothos Vine
Ruellia simplex 'Katie'
2 unknown house plants (a focus and some succulent-ish thing)
A palm of some sorts
A random emersed stem of L. Aromatica 
A little bit of Monte carlo
Some other new house plants that I don't know the name of.

*Aquarium Plants*
Java Moss (Taxiphyllum barbieri)
Java Fern (Microsorum)
Crypt wendtii brown and other crypts (Cryptocoryne wendtii 'Brown')
Sword (Echinodorus palaefolius var. latifolius )
Ludwigia Repens
Anacharis (Egeria densa)
Anubias Nana (Anubias barteri var. nana )
Rotala rotundifolia (Rotala rotundifolia)
Unkown plant in the middle, looks like Sag? 
Giant Hygro (<--- this might still be alive? Maybe?)
Sag Chiliensis
Pygmy Chain sword narrow leaf
Echinodorus Xingu
Val Americana 
Sag Subulata narrowleaf

Frogbit
*Najas Roraima
Flame moss
Ludwigia "Mini Red, 
Microsorium pteropus "Windelov
Red ludwigia,
Bacopa caroliniana
Hydrocotyle japan 
mini Christmas moss

Here's some pictures of the riparium plants, which are doing well, as well as some emersed hydrocotyle japan. (this was before the trim and rescape seen above)


















as well as my girl betta eating some water aphids.










TDS has stayed consistent at 260ish.


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## houseofcards (Feb 16, 2005)

Looks good. Yep the pygmy chain is a great little plant.


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## Bbroush (Dec 17, 2012)

BABY FISH! I think it's more likely to be a minnow than a Cory or cherry barb. Also I saw at least one baby shrimp recently. How old is this guy?
















Also I've asked this before, but now that it's really healthy, what on earth is this plant?


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## Bbroush (Dec 17, 2012)

Video of the little guy


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## dwalstad (Apr 14, 2006)

Bbroush said:


> Video of the little guy


Do you have any male Bettas in your tanks? It looks like a baby Betta to me. The big eyes and the way it hangs around the bottom. I once brought plants from my home across country for my sister. She ended up with a baby Rainbowfish. One of the eggs from my tanks had hitched a ride.


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## Bbroush (Dec 17, 2012)

dwalstad said:


> Do you have any male Bettas in your tanks? It looks like a baby Betta to me. The big eyes and the way it hangs around the bottom. I once brought plants from my home across country for my sister. She ended up with a baby Rainbowfish. One of the eggs from my tanks had hitched a ride.


That's fascinating!

I don't actually have a male.... maybe it hitched a ride on something? I haven't seen the little guy for a day or two, we'll see what it is if it wasn't eaten.


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