A 6 Hour Saga

C

csmith

Guest
So today I took the time to re-do my incredibly old 20 gallon tank. By incredibly old, I mean it's been set up for 2 weeks. :rolleyes:

I wanted to add to my thin supply of ludwigia arcuata as advised by Gerry, as well as make room for my myriophyllum aquaticum and most importantly my new glosso. My dwarf sag, which was being replaced by the glosso, was also floating an inch or two from the surface of the substrate and being held down only by the very tips of the roots. I forgot the frogs pull on roots that are left out. :eek:
So, first things first, I pulled up all the plants that were in the tank and and removed the hardscape. Then I went through the 25 minute process of chasing my two frogs. I was hoping, as usual, this would be the most stressful and time consuming part of the job. Yep, I was wrong.
I finally get all of the animals out and drain the tank down as far as my knock-off python would allow (It's got the funnel part, but only about 5 feet of tubing behind it). There's still a few inches of water but it's no biggy. I'm adding an inch of sand anyway so what's to worry about?
As it turns out, a lot. For those that don't account for the math just like I didn't, 1 inch of sand in 2-3 inches of water leaves enough room for 1-2 inches of cloudy water. Yep, didn't see that coming. So with the next 30 minutes that I had to wait to even be able to see the bottom I start seperating glosso. I had three bunches and put them into a bowl, removed the rock wool and more or less just shook them until they came apart. By "come apart" I meant for the root ball to seperate. The plant, however, apparently took it to mean seperate the stems from the leaves. Gah, could this get worse? :mad: Of course.
So I finally get glosso plugged into the substrate with tweezers, piece by painstaking piece, until I've got a decent ground cover. Even with the fairly dense planting I've done I've got what looks to be two pots left over. I knew I'd buy too much. On a positive note I'm actually happy with my work for the first time (as far as the aquarium hobby goes) in quite some time. So happy that I take a second to pat myself on the back and admire my work. This of course comes back to bite me, but more on that in a bit.
Next I move on to the stems. I prune the bottom inch or two of all leaves and remove the top inch or two of the plant itself..just because. Then I go to seperate a bit of the crypts to cut the sizes down just a bit..and they almost completely unravel. So I've now got what was a crypt with about a 5-6 inch diameter down to a quite a few parts with two or three leaves each. Whatever, I'm out of patience at this point anyway so I just move on.
I start planting all of the stems. Well, this part can't really go wrong so I'll fast forward. All stems are in the substrate, glosso looks primo..oh no, I forgot to put any hardscape back in and there's no room left. :rolleyes: "Why me, why today?" I don't really want to redo any of this, so the hardscape'll have to sit out this time. Time to refill.
I purchased a "real" python months back, but never needed it when I had my 10 gallon running and my 55 was/is DSMing. Why not break it out now, no need to make 20 trips with milk jugs (this is where the pat on the back bites me in the butt). So I pull it out, set it up and am standing over my tank wondering why no water is coming out. Crap, I forgot to turn the "fill" knob at the sink. So I set the funnel piece down, go back and do that. CRAP, I forgot to turn the funnel off! So I race the water back to my tank, lift the funnel and put it over the tank just in time..to have a huge flow of water land right on my perfectly planted glosso. Sand, dust and glosso goes flying everywhere! I turn off the funnel, lie down on the floor and close my eyes for a minute. "Why me, why today?"
I give the tank a while to settle once again, and just start plugging glosso here and there. I just want to be done. It looks like crap now, but I don't have the patience to fix it any better than this. I slowly fill the tank, but it doesn't really help. More dust goes flying everywhere and I don't care.
So the tank is full, plants look like crap..and I now remember my shrimp, otto and frogs have been sitting in a bucket of water for 5 hours with no heat. I guess karma decided to give me a break, because nothing was dead. I reacclimate the animals and replace them into the tank. Then I played "replant the stem plant after the frog kicks it" for 20 minutes. Screw this. Out come the frogs and back to the LFS they go in trade for shrimp.

I haven't even looked at the tank since I put in the shrimp in, which is when I realized I had planted the myriophyllum aquaticum (the background plant) in front of the ludwigia arcuata (the foreground plant). :mad: All of this on one of the few days I had plenty of time to spend my day outside riding my motorcycle.
 
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C

csmith

Guest
Glosso
22May20104.jpg


Stems
22May20103.jpg


Crypts
22May20105.jpg


Crypts a week ago
16May20105.jpg
 

Biollante

Lifetime Charter Member
Lifetime Member
Jun 21, 2009
3,210
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Surprise, AZ
You Are Now Planted-Aquarist! Welcome Friend!

Hi,

For those that wonder why I go for carefully arranging my plants to look as though they have not been arranged, I present exhibit “A.” :cool:

Biollante
 
C

csmith

Guest
I'm telling ya, this was the most frustrating thing I've done in quite some time.

The only things left to happen are:
-Ammonia spike. Huge ammonia spike.
-A powerhead falling into the sand, pointing up and blowing it all out of the tank.
-Last but not least, the power failing while I'm at work. The entire time I'm at work.

Maybe that giant pterodactyl will come and knock over the tank in an epic fight with godzirra. That'd atleast be entertaining.
 
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Biollante

Lifetime Charter Member
Lifetime Member
Jun 21, 2009
3,210
3
36
Surprise, AZ
Been There, Done That, Got The Mop!

csmith;51013 said:
I'm telling ya, this was the most frustrating things I've done in quite some time.

The only things left to happen are:
-Ammonia spike. Huge ammonia spike.
-A powerhead falling into the sand, pointing up and blowing it all out of the tank.
-Last but not least, the power failing while I'm at work. The entire time I'm at work.

Maybe that giant pterodactyl will come and knock over the tank in an epic fight with godzirra. That'd atleast be entertaining.

Hi,

All of the above my friend, all of the above. :rolleyes:

I actually had the powerhead fall down into a relatively new worm poop, "mud" substrate. :eek:

Just failed to properly attached it, what a mess!

Biollante