Makes you Wonder

[Glenc]

This 10 gallon tank is in my sons room, mainly throw clippings in it I don't have the heart to toss.
Check out the colour and growth in here. L repens, L repens rubin and L palustris, all healthy and nice red. Crypt parva, corombosa compact, S valerandi, all healthy and thriving, almost no algea.
No ferts, 50% water change once a month if that, crappy gravel. 2 screw in spiral 15 wt bulbs. Havn't changed the filter in 3 months. Makes me wonder why I bother with high light, C02 injected tanks?!? Look at this tank with almost zero maitenance.
Hope you all had a great Christmas, got a gift certificate from BA, got to go buy something!

 

[Zagz]

That is truly impressive! Great colors. I have a 15 gal that I do the same with and it does by far better than my 75 gal tank. Go figure.

 

[Fishyfanatic]

I really like the red plant. May have to look into those once I get my CO2 unit up and going. Looks great!

 

[Jchillin]

See, this is exactly what I've postulated over and over again. Here are some quick ideas for why you are seeing such great results in a tank that receives no maintenance or ferts:

1. Canadian water - You are among a few that have this magic elixir. Why not share with others?

2. Supercharged nutritional substrate - Where does it come from? I have no idea but this must be a consideration.

3. Trick photography - Your camera is defective (not to mention your eyesight). Combined, this unfortunate situation leads not only to you seeing great things, but makes us believe it too.

Great job Glen.

 

[WaterPond]

i get canadian water too, and my plants look like crap

 

[travis simonson]

That is excellent Glen

 

[azn_fishy55]

Looks great~!It's like you have the blessing of a plant god

 

[Peyton]

Now that is just not fair!

 

[Glenc]

I don't know what the reason, but growth in this tank is excellent. It has been set up for 2 years, fish only at first, then converted to planted once I hooked up with all you planted tank aholics! I have let this tank go badly, mainly because I'm to tired from working on my high light tanks! It did have a pretty bad algea problem a while back, but once the plants grew in the algea disappeared. More healthy plants, less algea. Heard that somewhere before....
This tank is proof of that fact.
I am moving soon and will set up a variety of different size tanks. All will be different in terms of layout, lighting, substrate, C02 and non C02. I know this has all been done before by others, but I want to learn first hand. Pictures and info to come once I get set up.
Oh, that gift certificate from BA went towards a 75 gallon tank. Not exactly what I had in mind just yet, but the price was to good to pass up. $89 bucks, tank only. They had 2 left, had to get it. It's still in my van, havn't told my wife yet! I'm going to set it up once we move, once it's full it ain't going anywhere! She'll warm up to the idea, eventually

 

[Lonewolfblue]

Is it plant only, or is there still fish in the tank?

 

[mr funktastic]

looking great glen. what is that super redish pink plant? i dont think i have any of it yet. glad the tanks are going so well and i know i am not the only one looking foreward to what u can do with a 75 gal. i took advantage of big als boxing day sale to set up my salt water tank. i still want to upgrade my freshwater but i wanted a new challange. hope u had a merry christmas.

 

[Glenc]

Hey LWB, there is fish in this tank. Four full grown tiger barbs and two SAE. Thats it. I have never given this tank a gravel vac, though the gravel gets stirred up often as I'm always sticking cutting in it. It is full of crap, probably supercharged with nutrients. Could be why stuff grows so good in here. Even the elusive Rotala Macrandra grew in this tank. I put the last few cuttings I had in here, they took off. They all died off once I put them in my 20 gallon. One other interesting contradictory fact. N03 is off the scale in this tank, Lammote kit only reads as high as 40ppm, way beyond that. Acording to the AP nitrate kit, this tank is sitting around 80 ppm! fish are healthy and plants are thriving. Red plants can and do go red with high N03 levels, P04 is at .5 using Lammote. Pretty whacky, so much for fert balancing! I am learning light and light intensity has a huge effect on how your plants respond to fert levels. In my high light tanks I would never get the reds I'm getting with N03 levels this high. The N03 must be below 10 in my high light tanks to get outstanding reds. I have varied N03 levels in my high light tanks many times with many tests to confirm. Low N03 in high light, red plants. Higher N03 in high light, over 10ppm, not so red, very noticeable difference. Yet with the low light and super high N03 levels in this tank the L palustris is almost purple, very pretty and healthy. All my tanks use the same water, though the PH in my C02 tanks is at 6.6, it's at 8 in the non C02 tanks. Can't wait to get moved and set up multiple tanks, so much to learn. I will be using most of the plants from this tank to plant my new 75 gallon.

Mr funk, I hope you had a great holiday as well! That reddish pink plant is none other than L repens rubin, yes you do have it, cuttings from this very plant! Going salt should be really cool, I have thought about it but I'm a bit intimidated buy it. I'll be watching your progress

 

[Lonewolfblue]

Hi Glenn....

Good to hear. I'm wondering if NO3 has an inverse relationship with light, for red plants. Such as if light goes up and NO3 down, you get red. If light goes down, and NO3 goes up, you also get red. But the same relationship get's you not so red.

 

[Glenc]

Hey LWB, it sure seems that way, at least in my tanks! I'm going to try a bunch of weird stuff once I can get a few more tanks set up. Everyones tanks will be different. Tom Barr once said, "There are many paths up the mountain, but only one view". That really hit home for me. I'm no scientist or botanist, don't have any degrees. Trial and error gets results, sometimes good, sometimes not so good, always worth while. I think we are all after the same thing. Nice, thriving healthy plants and fish. You have to experiment and find out what works best for you. I'm going to do that, then I'll post the results so others can see. Hopefully we'll all learn something from them.

 

[garth7]

Great looking tank! Hopefully one day I will be there....