It was time to fresh up the look in the Fireplace Aquarium again. The last major rescape happened 8 months ago and things had pretty much gone over to jungle status. I also was noticing some of the dreaded black beard algae coming up on the roots of the Anubias barteri ‘Mini Coin’ on the mountain, which was worrying for a major hidden infestation.
So… everything comes out, DO-OVER! All part of the fun really.
pre-rescape
post-rescape
plant ID by colour
Key to circled plants in the new scape photo
- Anubias barteri ‘Mini Coin’: lime yellow
- Microsorum pteropus ‘Windelov’: pink
- Bacopa caroliniana: blue
- Limnophila sp. ‘Orange Laos’: orange
- Bacopa salzmannii ‘Purple’: purple
- Rotala ramosior ‘Florida’: black
- Echinodorus ‘Miracle’: pale cyan
- Echinodorus Aflame: bright red
- Echinodorus ‘Hadi Red Pearl’: dark red
Teardown was not as bad as feared
Actually, after getting everything out of there, things weren’t nearly as bad as I had feared. In fact, removing all the Anubias from the mountain did not reveal a huge hidden pile of nastiness, to my surprise and relief. A lot of silty debris got released taking out the rooted plants, but also not as bad as feared. As with other rescapes, I left all the animals in situ during the whole process, on the hope that some silty water for a bit would be less traumatic than getting all catch-and-release on them.
Shifting the hardscape around
I thought I’d try an asymmetric placement of the mountain with the idea of generating a good block of free space for plants. The Kessil is essentially a point light source in the centre of the tank lid and having the mountain right under that actually sucked up a good bit of quality light real estate that might better serve plants. The one worry about the mountain next to the wall is it violates the “don’t put hardscape up against something you’ll need to clean someday” maxim. In the Fireplace Aquarium I don’t actually need to clean the walls so less of a concern – hoping this doesn’t come back to bite me later.
I took the opportunity to tuck the heater in behind the mountain. You can’t see the heater anymore, but you can see the electrical cord making its way out of the tank. Seems not so bad though.
I usually run the powerhead lower down, but we’ll try a more up-top location to keep the new plants from being too aggressively flow-blasted.
Plants in the new scape
Legacy plants
extracted mountain
cheeky Windelov
Anubias barteri ‘mini coin’: lime-yellow circle
The one plant I always intended to keep was the Anubias barteri ‘Mini Coin’. I have never found another epiphyte that works quite so well as this little Anubias gem on the mountain. The leaves are just right, it grows well but slowly, and the look is great. It was straightforward to select just a few of the choicest pieces and tuck them into some nice crevices on the mountain. Since the fragments came off full-size plants I could give them a good amount of rhizome and enough roots that I could wedge them in firmly enough to not need glue or string to hold them in place.
Microsorum pteropus ‘Windelov’: pink circle
I did not intend to keep any of the Microsorum pteropus ‘Windelov’ but when I removed the mountain I found that a small amount had grafted itself onto one of the feet of the mountain. Since it worked so hard to get there I didn’t have the heart to tear it off, so it goes in as a legacy. It won’t get much light in its new location, but that maybe isn’t much different to how it established itself. I figure not much harm in keeping it around.
Bacopa caroliniana: blue circle
Another wonderful plant that does super-well in the Fireplace Aquarium, Bacopa caroliniana grows well, looks great through the whole length of the stem, branches readily and does not grow ridiculously fast. Very undemanding. Highly recommended as an easy stem plant. Very straightforward to replant or move around if you want to swap it up.
New plants from CloudAqua
CloudAqua is a new vendor for me. They have a bit of a reputation for giving you small portion sizes, but to be fair they are pretty transparent about what you’re going to get and I’m not looking for massive portion sizes. They are also known for sourcing some of the more unusual and less common varieties and cultivars. The plants arrived very promptly and in good condition.
Different from many aquascaping vendors, many of the CloudAqua offerings are already in submersed form. Presumably this is because they are growing the plants underwater and snip you off a few stems when you place an order. Most other shops sell only emersed-form plants that need to adapt to life underwater. In theory coming in submersed form should give the new plants an advantage in settling into their new home.
Limnophila sp. ‘Orange Laos’: orange circle
Four submersed form stems ordered, and exactly four stems delivered, no more, no less. Size is reasonable. They looked a little off-peak in the plastic maybe, but do look great in the tank. “Orange and pink at the tips” is not super evident, at least not yet. I kind of thought from the name the whole plant would be orange, but green is nice too and we’ll see how we get on.
Bacopa salzmannii ‘Purple’: purple circle
Ok, to be fair these are pretty small. I know Bacopas can grow like weeds under good conditions so I might have expected some more length on these guys. Still, can’t complain. Whether they will keep their purple colour remains to be seen.
I did briefly try Bacopa salzmannii ‘Purple’ in the Fireplace Aquarium before and it did not do well. I think the new location in the front right corner is a reasonably undemanding placement, so willing to give it another try.
Rotala ramosior ‘Florida’: black circle
Unlike the other CloudAqua plants, this Rotala came as a tissue culture cup. I’m not usually a fan of these in vitro pots because they tend to exist in some not-great netherworld between emersed and submersed forms, sometimes don’t orient up from down very well, and generally are spoiled (and fragile?) from excessive babying in the tissue culture conditions. There were enough reasonable-looking pieces of the ‘Florida’ so let’s throw it in and see what happens. I must say my expectations are pretty low though.
Echinodorus ‘Miracle’: pale cyan circle
Ok. This one I did NOT order from CloudAqua. What I actually ordered was Echinodorus Aflame. Without comment or query, CloudAqua swapped in ‘Miracle’. I asked them about it after the shipment arrived and they said:
CloudAqua: Unfortunately we didn’t have any stock of Aflame which is why we substituted it for Miracle. If you are happy with the substitution I would suggest to grow out the plant otherwise you can wait for the next time we receive stock.
This strikes me as poor form. They could have emailed me and said they were out of Aflame and was this swap ok, but didn’t do that. The resolution seems dissatisfying as well. If I’m happy not getting what I ordered, I can keep the plant I didn’t order and if I’m not happy, then… what? Wait until they get what I actually ordered and paid for in stock and pay for it again? Note that when I placed the order the plant was listed as being in stock.
That said, it’s maybe not a bad substitution and I did put the Miracle into a back corner and let’s give it a go.
I didn’t go back to CloudAqua to try to order the Aflame again when four days later the really awesome AquaCalc app alerted me that the plant was back in stock at CloudAqua…
New plants from k2aqua
k2aqua is another new vendor for me. Operating from an ebay storefront, they list as having 99.9% positive feedback, 669K items sold, 15K followers which is about as good as it is possible to get. Excellent variety. Inexpensive and FAST shipping (arrived on a Sunday!).
Echinodorus Aflame: bright red circle
Hah! Actually shipped me what I ordered. Very interesting plant with a very shallow root system. At first I wasn’t sure what kind of condition it looked like it was in, but after getting it into the tank and letting it settle in for a day or two it seems ok.
The Aflame is supposed to be a relatively compact (for a sword) interestingly coloured show plant. I’m kind of excited to see how this turns out. Sometimes conditions (or whatever) make things turn out other than as advertised. The Cryptocoryne wendtii ‘flamingo’ for me didn’t show any signs at all of ‘flamingo’ just a very dark green with maybe purple tinges.
Echinodorus ‘Hadi Red Pearl’: dark red circle
I wasn’t looking for this one, but I was browsing the k2aqua listings with ChatGPT and discussing Aflame and the engine suggested this one might be worth a try. If it sucks, blame the LLM. If it’s great, then I for one welcome our new robot overlords.
ChatGPT: I like Echinodorus ‘Hadi Red Pearl’ for you because it gives a strong red focal point without usually becoming as huge and coarse as many swords, and it should suit the Fireplace Aquarium’s good light and CO₂ better than fussier red stem plants that have disappointed you.
Animals got through the rescape just fine
No casualties. The big-enough-to-tear-your-face-off amano shrimp also put in an appearance. Nice to see it’s doing well. It did take several rounds of water polishing to get all the neutral density debris out of the water column, and off of the plants it was clinging to back into the water column and back out of the water column (and rinse, and repeat, etc.) but seems pretty clear now.