We are supposed to learn from our mistake; it is said a wise man learns from the mistakes of others.
Not having learned from the weedy mess of a failed attempt at cultivating Ludwigia Needle Leaf; we again have a weedy mess in the form of poorly anchored Cabomba and Didiplis diandra, disintegrating at half the rate the Ludwigia had.
The 10g:redux never really was rescaped when the new plant shipment came in; getting that moss wall started in the 10g:view was time sensitive. Sorry about the soft focus on some of these shots.
The planting in this tank does not look all that dense however all the taller plants ended up in the mid-ground.
The Cambomba will be moved to the back of the tank, the Giant Hairgrass is all but gone.
The Cabomba grew tall but did not branch due to lack of
pruning. As a result, it ended up making a canopy across the
top of the aquarium, competing with our patch of floating Riccia.
The moss wall has a start however we reserved quite a bit in case of disaster and hung it in a mesh bag. The moss wall is not growing through, perhaps moving the plants out of the way and laying it down so that the fronds grow toward the light will help speed things along.
In the meantime the silicone holding the airline into the caps of the DIY CO2 bottles tends to work it's way loose after a month or two. So a solution that does not involve stinking up the apartment every other month had to be found.
The cap on the right is a Brine Shrimp breeding cap. For size comparison, the cap on the right is a standard US 2L soda bottle cap. As you might guess; a perfect fit with no leaks. The brine shrimp cap can be purchased on ebay [here].
While cleaning out the bottles, we discovered after two weeks, this DIYCO2 jello based solution still had jello solids in the bottom.
Just for fun, we poured off the excess alcohol/water mixture from two weeks of CO2 production. Before we could finish preparing a new sugar solution, the leftover yeast became active and started processing the newly exposed jello.
There is quite a bit of Cobomba left in the champagne bucket to be replanted on the back wall. It grew roots from the center of the stems down into the substrate so, it will be topped and
The strange, dark looking thing on the left is a DIY filter sock. It was fabricated of a thin layer of filter fiber between two layers of net tulle. It serves as a pre-filter, should we ever have livestock offspring again, they will not end up sucked into the filter. Cleaning this little sock is pretty simple, pull it off the intake, run it under water from the tap, replace it. If we catch it every time it looks dirty, as it does in this shot, it keeps a lot of gunk out of our filter and acts to breed some beneficial bacteria as well.
That is it for today. When the second tank refills, we will post some night shots, without the annoying glare on the glass.
