I have just trimmed my plants again and the tank is again looking fresh. The ludwigia glandulosa has been moved to the back left side of the tank as it looked a little messy in the middle. I have also recently divided the bucephalandra and am curious as to how large it will grow. It is certainly a very slow growing plant. The HC in the front right section has recently taken off and hopefully will start to cover some of the foreground.
Now to the shrimp. Ruby red is still going strong. Here are some pictures of the red wine and the black cherries. I have recently separated a very awesome blue cherry from the black colony. Looks very royal blue unfortunately the pictures do it no justice.
A quick update on my Eheim Opal. Did a massive trim a few days ago and cut all the syngonathus plants short. I also purchased another large piece of driftwood for the right side of the aquarium. Hopefully the plants will fill in nicely. The mini java fern is growing nicely and I am planning to fill various areas of the driftwood with it. The right side of the aquarium still needs some work.
A brief description of the plants in the tank: (spelling may be wrong just jotting it from memory)
On the driftwood
- Mini java fern
- Bucephalandra
- Native bolbitis
- Mini bolbitis
- Fissidens
On the substrate
- Syngonathus manaus and belem (front left)
- Sao Paolo (back left)
- Staurogyne (front right)
- HC (front)
- Eriocaulon shiga (front middle)
- Crinum (back left)
- Hygrophila pinnatifiada (back right)
- Ludwigia ovalis (middle)
There are other plants in there but I just cannot think of the names at the moment
Now for the shrimp. As some of you may know I am now taking a break from the shrimp hobby. My kks have all grown up from being juvies and I will post a few pictures below. The tiny rruby red shrimplet posted previously has already grown to a considerable size. (see the youtube video below)
The sunkist are looking nice - nice strong speckly orange on the adults. The red crystals are nice and solid with red legs and face. I have also fine tuned my black cherries to a solid black colour. The red rillis still need some work however.
It has been a while since my last update. I have been very busy with my personal life and unable to write up any updates at all. I have now over 10 erios in my collection and have spent some time trimming and replanting all my plants so that they can all fill 2/3 of the left side of the aquarium. The mini java fern is growing very well.
Recently i have had an outbreak of black beard algae. I made a few changes to the tank after i noticed this algae beginning to take over.
1. Excel (dino spit) dosing
2. Increased flow of my powerhead
3. Cleaned the filter as it was blocked
4. Upped my CO2
5. Bought one Siamese algae eater fish
This managed to clear ALL of the algae. I was very surprised. Now there is not one remnant remaining.
So I am back from holidays and am delighted to see a ruby red juvenile juvie. This little one popped out of nowhere and I am unsure who the parents are. The black cherries and chocolate cherries are also very happy and I am proud to be a father of a new batch of shrimplets. I see a mix of colours in there. Some dark blues, some chocolates and ofcourse some solid blacks as well.
I will try to get more pictures up later when i get more time.
Here is a videos and pictures of a 1 day old newly hatched King Kong Shrimplet. I am yet unsure how many new hatchlings there are but hopefully there are a lot more. The extreme king kong shrimplet is still alive and I will put up more pictures of it later on. Currently I am cycling another tank to transfer all the juveniles. Will keep you updated on its progress.
So my new camera has arrived and here are some more pictures of some shrimp I have been working on. Firstly are my crystal blacks. Trying to achieve coloured legs and face. One year later and some results are just beginning to show. Here are pictures of some shrimp from my colony.
Secondly my KK shrimplets. Very cute little critters and sensitive too! It is just a delight to see them mature.
These are Aqua Plant Cultivation Glass Pots. I was lucky enough to purchase a few from Aquakitz to try out today and am quite happy with the build quality.
They are used to create another level to cultivate sensitive plant species in the aquarium. I have put mine towards the back of the aquarium.
There are several advantages:
1. Enables weak plants to recover by giving them access to more light higher up.
2. Creates more space in the aquarium
3. Looks nice / stylish in a way
4. Helps organise plants better
5. Enables experimentation using different types of soils
6. Keeps the soil in one spot
Disadvantages:
1. As it is glass it is prone to breaking just like the CO2 diffusers.
2. Algae magnets
3. Increases clutter in the aquarium
So I had some spare time with my new camera and have taken some photos of my aquarium. The macro photos will have to wait as I am still awaiting on macro lens. This camera produces some very nice vivid pictures. Was stunned by the quality and sharpness of the pictures.
I have some new NAG pots arriving this week and have already picked up some rare plants. I will post these up in the next update.
So everyone here is the first picture of a newborn kk shrimplet straight from a mischling project I am working on. I purchased the parents from Boss Aquaria and am very happy with the quality of the shrimp. This little beauty looks almost pure black/blue with a tiny spot on its head. Photo was taken using my iphone with a microscope lens.
Please note! I will be getting my hands on a BRAND NEW MACRO LENS and CAMERA in the following few weeks. The Sony Nex5! Hopefully future updates will contain pictures that will BLOW you away.
I believe it is between platinum and extreme in quality (thanks to MrShrimpy for providing me with grade descriptions). I will post some pictures of the father in the next update. Also we will be keeping an eye on this little gem in future updates.
I now have a larger colony of black and brown cherries. I would like to extend thanks to Dean for supplying me with these awesome quality shrimp. Here are a few pictures for you to enjoy. I also have noticed 2 blue rillis in my red rilli tank. They were too small to take pictures of but I will post them up as soon as they are large enough. Check back again later.
I will write a short review of my experience of each plant in some detail. This is my personal experience of each plant and it may differ for other people. If you wish to use the information here for your own website please do not copy paste my information. Instead feel free to ask me and I will be more than happy to help provided you mail me the website you wish to post the information on.
Thank you
Pogo Helferi
Starting with my favourite plant and the plant that gives me the most grief. This plant seems to do better in conditions that are stable. It is a LOVELY foreground plant but is very fickle and will perish if the soil is disturbed around it or if it is removed from the water for extended periods. This is now my third try with this plant and so far it seems to be doing well.
The secret to looking after this plant is:
1. Iron and lots of it
2. Good flow around it
3. CO2!!!! and lots of it
4. You need strong light
Eriocaulon shiga
A stunning plant that requires good light to grow. It does not seem to do very well under my LED for some reason but under 2x T5HO bulbs it does grow steadily. The maximum size I have seen this plant is approximately 6cm high so it does remain small and compact. When fully grown it is symmetrically hemispherical and just looks amazing. A very good foreground plant and very desirable.
The secret to looking after this plant is:
1. It seems to love good light
2. ADA amazonia
3. Keep it above the soil. Do not bury it in or it will melt.
I have added various plants to the aquascape and am currently trialing and rearranging each plant to best suit the scape. I will write a more detailed description of the position of each plant once I have finished playing around with the scape. Tank looks a bit messy at the moment as each plant has been placed apart to allow growth while they acclimitise.
It is ironic that my favourite plant (the pogo helferi) has melted away within a day. BAH! A love and hate relationship. I went to the LFS today and bought another pot! This time with Iron Root tablets. The smaller 2 foot tank in the post below has been decommissioned for now. I needed those plants for this setup and have slowly moved them across.
I am finding some plants more difficult to aquascape with compared to others. I will write up a thorough growth analysis in a future post. Stay tuned.
1. Pogo Helferi (melted away but purchased more from my LFS)
I am attempting to raise the back substrate to get some depth. I have added another 6L of Amazonia to the back left hand side of the tank. I will experiment with the landscape and post up some better photos once the tank clears.
So as promised I have decided to empty my Eheim Opal and start over. A very tiresome job. First I had to empty all the water, move all the fish and scoop out all the gravel into a large tub. Once that was done, the next job was scraping all the algae from the glass and giving it a good clean. Unfortunately I accidently busted the globe to the light and I had to visit my LFS for new globes :p
Next came the fun part. I bought 27L (3x 9L bags) of ADA Amazonia to fill the tank. Using a hose, it took several hours to fill the tank.
Finally the addition of driftwood and java ferns. I will write up more about this later. Still need a lot of plants to fill the tank.
