Journal Whitecloud09s Journal

[Countrykingdom09]

Hi. Have 3 tanks. 3 years of tank experience. 2 of keeping plants. I had some great success last year with all my plants, this year, ehh.

2 are cycled, the one is not but stores plants only. And a handful of bladder snails (rn at least).


10 Gallon planted WCMM tank:
Stocking: 6 wcmm, bladder snails
plants: Anubias, amazon sword, Val, dwarf sag, water sprite, moss ball, hornwort, and dwarf lily.
lighting and ferts: ACO EG ferts, nicrew light, nuthin to special. But it does the job. And working on A BUDGET.
HOB filter, PF sand. Rock planter for the anubias. Airstone. It has been set up for 2 years. Has had MANY MANY plants over that timeline!
20 Gallon planted community:
stocking: 6 harlequin rasboras, and bladder snails, ofc they hitchhiked lol.
plants: anubias, amazon sword, Val, dwarf sag, water wisteria, hornwort, moss ball, windelov java fern babies, tiger lotus.
lighting and ferts are the same.
Two sponge filters. PF sand. I plan to add more fish including...
honey Gourami
pygmy corydoras
green neon tetras
5 gallon hornwort tank:
Bladder snails, cheap topfin light, came with tank. Hornwort, a LEGO cave for fun lol. I grabbed the water from my 20 long. It was in storage for 2 plus years, but I have a LONGGGG story about my hornwort. It is not cycled.

More info later folks! Glad to be here, -whitecloud09

 

[Art]

We are glad to have you and thanks for starting the journal!

lighting and ferts: ACO EG ferts, nicrew light, nuthin to special. But it does the job. And working on A BUDGET.

I love this. This is how I got started a LONG time ago and you are bringing me back to those days.

Aquatic gardening doesn't have to be expensive. There is room for DIY, creativity and making the entire tank affordable (whatever that means for you).

To me, this is what was fun (and still is). Like having a sports car that you save up for a piece to make the car faster or fix something, I would save up for a new light or a new regulator, etc.

I have a LONGGGG story about my hornwort.

Well, you have to tell us now that you dropped this.

 

[Countrykingdom09]

We are glad to have you and thanks for starting the journal!


I love this. This is how I got started a LONG time ago and you are bringing me back to those days.

Aquatic gardening doesn't have to be expensive. There is room for DIY, creativity and making the entire tank affordable (whatever that means for you).

To me, this is what was fun (and still is). Like having a sports car that you save up for a piece to make the car faster or fix something, I would save up for a new light or a new regulator, etc.


Well, you have to tell us now that you dropped this.

Yes! I will tell yall soon, its a goodie!

 

[Countrykingdom09]

The story of the hornwort, I have come to tell it....

I ordered Hornwort from a plant place; I'm not sure how I came across it. It had great reviews even on that plant. I order it, it comes, I open it, it smells AWFUL. Worse than stinky socks washed in mud. I was like oh yeah I think it is not handling the transportation??? DUHHHH. So I get it and give a quick rinse. Place it in my 10g and it gave my 10g a nice shower of needles, so I think okay what. It would not stop. I place the other chunk in my 20g (oh yeah there was 3 plants in one) not learning my lesson. It does the same thing this time, showering my harlequin who thinks anything is fun! They enjoyed it; I freaked out, knowing something was up. I realized either the parameters in my tank were crap or there's (at first my thought). My tank's parameters are fine tho. So the shock of it (not to mention it shipped in 100-degree heat, hey, it's the SE) killed it (figuratively), I guess. So I grab my 5g out of the closet, rinse it and scrub any dust off, then place it on the carpet, no table space available. Then I fill er up with the water from my 20g that I siphoned out. Because I started doing wcs then after hearing dead needles can cause nitrates spikes. Lemme say this, the hornwort was not dead, or not green, it looked fine! So fill it up, had extra sand and filled that. Turned on my extra HOB. Okay, then I placed the hornworts in there. I take 2 hours aside to clean my tanks of the needles. I was using a great trio of options for this, planting tweezers, a siphon, and a fish net. Well, I started doing that for what seemed like forever. My harlquin rasboras LOVEDDDD it. I thought they would be stressed with me swinging that net around in their home but they would chase it, and acted like it was a dandy thing!! So that part cut short, I took 2 hours aside to do it. Did get 80% of the sheds, which landed at the bottom.

Okay, meanwhile, I'm contacting customer service. On their chat, which will not reset if you close out the page or even go off the device, they will send you emails when there is a new message from a HUMAN! I told them it shed, I sent pics, and described my tanks. So they respond quickly, and say that they will give me a refund and store credit or send me new hornwort. I chose store credit, a wise choice in this situation. I buy a dwarf sag, and got it FREE. It was about the store credit price so free.

That was a short story of the chat, it took me a while to explain stuff, they asked for pics and such and after a while they said sure! I get the sag, it is doing pretty good.

Back to my 5g on the ground. It is still ok, and I finally clipped some parts of the plants and slowly added them to my tanks. No shed. Thats my story, you might think its lame but what I went through in like a 10-hour span changed me... lol.

Pics btw. And you might ask, is that a LEGO CAVE???!!!! It is, for fun. Only living things in my tank were bladder snails, so I played with it lol.

I will continue to update y'all.

 

[Countrykingdom09]

I use a fan to cool my water since the minimum temp i get in the SE summers is 72 F. Its a bummer lol.

 

[Countrykingdom09]

Whoops, forgot this journal existed. As some of y'all know, I am changing the scape in my 20g long tank, and also the 5g tank has had some big changes as well.

20g:
I decided the scape I had did not have the height I needed, it sat in the lower part of the tank. So I switched it, twice. Below is the current look. Also found my 2 missing nerite snails.
10g: Nothing big, just changed out the bridge for a cave. I HATE the cave and bridge, but due to money restraints, I have to stick with them for now. I would say in 3 years my tanks will be presentable.
5g: I took out the lego, and hornwort for the most part. Put in an anubias nana, and a lilly bulb plant. Added stones from a creek nearby (do not worry I did the tests on em). Pictures below of the tanks and some snap shots of my white clouds!

-Whitecloud09

 

[Countrykingdom09]

I just switched to GLA ferts, PPS pro method. Wcs on all three tanks today. I am about to pick up some peppered corys and ghost shrimp in a little bit too.

(Sorry, the 10g is in bad shape my light quite and it took me a week to get another so the algae bloomed, yeah a whole week, long story)