Re: Help identifying a fish and a plant.
Ian H said:
My vote on the plant goes to Hemianthus callitrichoides ''Cuba''. The fish looks like a tetra type, not sure which.
Ian
Curiosity got the better of me and I made the one and a half hour drive to visit this store. The store was easy enough to find and it was at this point I remembered what I dislike about San Francisco, spent half an hour driving around trying to find a place to park
I am horrible with scientific names but the name the store owner gave sounded exactly like what you typed for that plant. I wanted it so badly I ended taking two square inches, heh that is how they sell it by the square inch at 12.95 per, and raced home to get my tank setup. I know, most likely just made a donation to the owner of that store but I could not help myself. The name he gave for the fish stuck in my head about twelve seconds and evaporated. The fish is incredibly small, a bit smaller then an average sized neon tetra. This fish did not appear to school at all even though there were at least twelve in this 18 gallon tank (the same tank as seen in the link above).
I have to say anyone in the Bay Area should take the time and go check this store out, the owner and employees are real nice and the tanks are what I hope mine will be some day. I did end up buying based on the owners suggestion of my intent to use Eco Complete which is essentially a volcanic rock and peat mixture. The small bag gave me about 1/4" on the bottom. I hope this goes ok with the Eco Complete... I also picked up one of the beetle glass diffusors, smallest one they made, it was outrageous price but quite honestly is the nicest looking in tank diffusor I have seen. I was really surprised to see the approximately 18 gallon ADA rimless tank was only 109.00 and had to really fight my urge to buy it; this is the same tank that was holding those green fish and the Hemianthus Callitrichoides. Amano is selling fixtures that use, if I recall correctly, 8800K bulbs and I have to say I really like the appearance of them. I was hoping to see what the ADA canister filters were like but they have yet to import them and I can understand seeing that smallest one was 409.00 but pretty intriguing since it is stainless steel and a replaceable pump to boot.
I was curious if anyone knows what those 8800k bulbs might be, I think he said they were t-8 bulbs? Would be interested in building my own hood out of oak instead of the plastic I have on all of mine. The owner said the tanks had been setup just prior to the opening on July 1, it is incredible to think that the small tank with those green fish had Hemianthus Callitrichoides covering every inch minus the five rocks; might I hope with good fertilizers and the proper amount of light and co2 to get some growth even approaching that?
I now have, after attempting the seemingly simple job of breaking up that two square inches of Hemianthus Callitrichoides, much more respect for how darn difficult it is to get the plants to stay the heck where you put em! I am sure my cat was mocking me the whole time I was trying to break off smaller leaders and get as much spread as I possibly could. The darn plants just don't want to sit still or stay in the substrate. I finally gave up on trying to plant thin individual runners as I had no long tweezers to get the roots cleanly into the substrate and that will be the next thing on the buy list.
Hopefully you made it this far and can stomach a few more questions. I went against common sense and what have said is the best way to start the tank. That being said I ran home and set the tank where I wanted it and due to being on some nasty hard well water I used 60% RO and 40% well water. From memory of the last water report DKH was in the area of 32 degrees, I may need to go find that report to be a bit more accurate but hard enough I can not drink the well water due to my body loves turning them into kidney stones.
The gentleman was actually extremely kind in the amount of plant he gave me as I had about four squares of three inch squared pieces in this empty tank. I was really hoping to get the foreground established and then do the rear aquascaping later. Have I no chance of getting this to work out? I am dosing co2 at one bubble every five seconds, I figure there is very little plant matter at this time and probably am already over dosing.
I do need to get an order into Greg but at this point would really love a simple purchase list for enough material to last say a year on this 20 gallon tank. I have no plans to add any fish untill I get the rest of the aquascape complete, I still need to decide what plants I need opposed to want to keep the tank healthy. If the tank can survive to that point I figure I can add some very small fish like the green tetra fish from the post above.
Terribly sorry for my usual long winded post but I am kinda giddy and a bit nervous that I might just be killing off a very lovely plant. Please, if you have any insights to offer me even if it is just a link to another post for comparison I would much appreciate it.
Ken
Oh yeah, almost forgot what I wanted to ask originally :gw I was going to buy a canister filter from a gentleman on the plantedtank.net forum but he never got back to me. At this point all I have in the tank is the heater, ADA co2 diffusor, Ebo Jaeger 100 watt heater and a Zoo Med power sweep power head with the foam filter base. With no fish load will I be running into any trouble with no canister filter at this point?
