Neocaridina davidi are small freshwater shrimp and very popular for tropical aquaria. These come in many different vibrant colours, most commonly a bright red usually referred to as ‘cherry shrimp’, but they can also be blue, orange, chocolate, white, black, green and several with alternating block patterns of colour. Looking some something that would be […]
Read more →Year: 2021
The newly planted vallis seemed to be doing poorly with the leaves suffering structural damage and since vallis is thought to be sensitive to damage from liquid carbon I stopped the daily dosing of EasyCarbo. Stopping the daily liquid carbon is something I had been thinking about doing anyway, on the grounds that with injected […]
Read more →My wife suggested planting something “long and grasslike” so I straightaway thought of vallis. There are several species of Vallisneria commonly available and I plumped for Vallisneria asiatica as sold by Aqua Essentials. This is the second smallest vallis (Vallisneria torta being the smallest), and is listed as growing to 30 cm with pretty corkscrew […]
Read more →They say Cryptocoryne lutea ‘Hobbit’ is a small crypt, but saying it and seeing it are two different things. This is a really small crypt! The original idea was to have a small plant to go in front of the Lobelia cardinalis ‘Dwarf’ to hide the rooty lower stems of the Lobelia without covering up the […]
Read more →I picked up two pots of Cryptocoryne parva from Pro Shrimp as produced by Aquadip with the idea of putting in a crypt a little larger than the Cryptocoryne lutea ‘Hobbit’ in front of the Ludwigia palustris ‘Dwarf’. The pots arrived promply and in excellent condition. It was straightforward to remove the rockwool growth support […]
Read more →After two week holiday – no maintenance yet We took a two week holiday and left the fish and plants in the Fireplace Aquarium on their own recognizance. I did an 80% water change the day we set out, gave the fish a little extra food flakes, turned off the CO2 gas and otherwise left […]
Read more →Jurijs Jutjajevs’ (of Tropica) has a “pro tip” for avoiding ‘crypt melt’ and getting Cryptocoryne species more rapidly adapted to submerged growth in an aquarium: cut off all the emersed form leaves when planting. It’s quite a dramatic thing to get your new plants in from the vendor and then immediately cut all the leaves […]
Read more →I ran out of CO2 gas today for the Fireplace Aquarium and swapped out the old CO2 supply cylinder for a new one. I get 600 g CO2 at a time in disposable cylinders used for MIG welding, and sure enough, the empty cylinder weighed 1200 g and the new cylinder weighed 1800 g. End […]
Read more →Golden creeping Jenny in an aquarium Also known as ‘moneywort’, the golden form of creeping Jenny came up in the weekly sales email from Aqua Essentials and even though I know impulse buying isn’t a good way to go with a planted aquarium, I was looking for a plant that gets to around 30 cm […]
Read more →How to avoid crypt melt I’m really liking the look of Cryptocoryne lutea ‘Hobbit’ in the front of the Fireplace Aquarium and it might be nice to put in a second row but it has taken this slow growing crypt more than four months to really get going. Is there a way to speed up […]
Read more →