[SHRIMP TANK] Blue berried

Here are some pictures of the possible parents. 

Looked in my mischling tank today and noticed the eggs of the female were very dark. It looks like I have more KK shrimplets on the way.

[Shrimp Tank] Extreme Closeup

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.

Keep in touch!

[Shrimp Tank] Black Cherry Shrimp

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.

[EHEIM OPAL] Plant Review

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.

Here is how my Aquarium looks today 23/2/13

[EHEIM OPAL] Plants GALORE! 20 species

Just a quick update.

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)

2. Rotala vietnam

3. Limnophilia aromatica

4. Rotala colorata

5. Persicaria sao paulo

6. Rotala nanjenshen

7. ludwigia inclinata

8. ludwigia glandulosa

9. Mini Java Fern

10. Needle Leaf Java Fern

11. Java Fern broad leaf

12. Tricolor Lotus

13. Tonina fluviatilis

14. Syngonathus belem

15. Syngonathus manaus

16. Eriocalulon shiga

17. Crinum calamistratum

18. Ludwigia ovalis

19. Bolbitis

20. Windelov Java Fern

[EHEIM OPAL] Raising the back

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.

[EHEIM OPAL] Complete Rescape

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.

[Planted Tank] Additional Plants

I will be emptying out my 3 foot Eheim Opal 100 soon so stay tuned in the next weeks for that major rescape. Meanwhile here is how my 2 foot starfire setup looks today. I have added some more staurogyne trimmings down the front right and added the following plants

1. Tricolor lotus - far left

2. ludwigia ovalis - middle back

3. Bolbitis on driftwood - far right corner

Scape looks a little more filled but still not completely happy with it. Now just waiting for the plants to settle in and hopefully fill in a little more.

[Planted tank] 2 Foot update

Another update.

The 2 foot tank is doing "okay". The heatwave combined with the faulty timer has caused some minor melting issues. ADA Soil is very strong so ammonia burn may also have contributed to that as well.

Here is an update of how it looks now.

Plants used:

1. Back Left Hygro Pinnatifada

2. Back middle Syngonathus Manaus

3. Back right Syngonathus Belem

4. Far back right corner Tonina fluviatilis

5. Front left Erio Shiga

The CO2 diffuser I am using is from Aquascape design.com.au

ANS Diffuser - Jap Style 5000