The ludwigia had reached well beyond the height of the tank casting a considerable overshadow so it was time for a trim. I had just received a new set of ADA pinsettes and was looking forward to trying them out for replanting the trimmed tops*. It was also time for a water change and I’m […]
Read more →Plant layers add vertical interest Aquatic plants for aquaria are commonly classed by how tall they can be expected to grow, with the idea that it is sensible to grow the shortest plants at the front of the tank, middle-sized plants somewhat further back behind the shortest plants, and the tallest plants at the very […]
Read more →Anubias nana ‘Snow White’ – one month update It’s been a little over five weeks since I planted anubias nana ‘snow white’ in the aquarium. I wedged it into the various crevices on “the mountain” which is a biOrb Amazonas Root ornament sculpture. There has been some discussion around the impossibility of actually being ‘real […]
Read more →It is relatively straightforward to use the visual editor of WordPress or BoldGrid to embed pictures and have text flow smoothly around the picture to either the right or the left: Insert the picture using ‘Insert Media’ from the column tab, then select the picture in the visual editor, click the ‘edit’ icon, and then […]
Read more →Simulated daily light programme My daily lighting sequence with the Kessil A80 LED light controlled by a mains timer was pretty straightforward: lights off for 18 hours per day and lights on full for 6 hours per day. That’s fine but of occasion I’d head into work with the lights off and they’d already be […]
Read more →Today I got in two pots of Cryptocoryne lutea ‘Hobbit’ from Aqua Essentials as grown by Dennerle. The idea is to fill in some of the space in front of the lobelia and to hide the bare stems and adventitious roots that make up the lobelia understory. As usual (always?) the plants arrived in prime […]
Read more →How tall do submerged aquarium plants grow? Figures are approximate, as they say. When planning a planted aquarium (and there should be some type of plan!) it’s important to consider the expected maximum height of plants in the layout. I went wrong previously planting echinodorus radicans, a fine plant but much too large for this […]
Read more →Following up on observations of changing fish behaviour when either lighting or flow rates are changed, here we take a look at what happens when the lights turn off. The video shown starts after the Kessil A80 light has been on for nearly 6 hours, the typical photoperiod for the current setup. The tetras and […]
Read more →In transitioning from a low tech to high tech tank I noticed a significant change in the behaviour of the fish* where they used to swim mostly at the top/middle regions of the tank under low tech conditions but then spent a lot of time at the bottom with the high tech conditions. At the […]
Read more →I’ve been running the Kessil A80 light for 6 hours per day on the maximum intensity. The aquarium looks nice either with the lights on or lights off so here are some contrasting photos. With the lights on, the fish tend to stay at the bottom of the tank. With the lights off they are […]
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