20 Gallon Journal

bigfish93

My plants were not shipped on Saturday or Monday like Sweet Aquatics told me they were going to be. So I emailed them again and asked for a status on my order and an approximate shipping date and told them I hope to have my plants soon. They responded today and told me that my plants will be shipped out this saturday and I will receive an email friday evening with all of the shipping info. Hopefully they really do get shipped out on Saturday this time, so I can get my tank going.

bigfish93

It has been a long two weeks, but it is finally official. I received an email from paypal that said my plants have been shipped!! I am so excited to continue on with the next step in this project. I will have pictures up of the plants in the tank as soon as I get them planted.

k19smith

I think we ordered near the same time I got my shipping email today to, it's about time.

bigfish93

I agree. I was going to give them this weekend to ship may order out. If it still didn't get shipped out by monday then I was going to file a dispute on paypal. That seems to be the only way to get them to mail the order.

bigfish93

My tank is finally planted! Now comes the really tough part, waiting for everything to grow and fill in. All of the plants look really healthy, there is some brown on them. Sweet Aquatics was unable to ship the water Wisteria to me, so they are offering me a refund which is fine because the Wisteria didn't fit my SA biotope theme. They did however give me 2 amazon swords. Not sure what to do with the second one ATM so I just put in next to the original one. I will get 4 Bloodfin Tetra on sunday if my parameters are where they should be.

Attached Images

plants.jpg (55.4 KB, 77 views)

k19smith

Looks good, I got my plants today also, my jungle val looks awful but everything else is ok.

bigfish93

Thanks! My corkscrew val isn't looking very good either. Most of the leaves are brown and there are not to many leaves on each plant. The only that really looks good is my Amazon Sword.

Does anyone know what I should do with the brown leaves? Should I cut them of or just let the plants get established before I start trimming?

Byron

Let the plants settle in. Brown leaves will not recover and can be removed at the base but there is no harm in leaving them presently.

bigfish93

Here are a couple questions that I have that I hope you guys can answer:

1) Does corkscrew val grow taller than 12 inches?

2) Does the crown (point where the roots meet the stem) on the corkscrew val need to be exposed? I read somewhere that if it is buried then the plant will rot.

3) Is not enough flow bad? I got a sponge filter because the tetras like really calm water, but does this mean that I am going to end up with a lot of dead spots that lack nutrients for my plants?

4) How quickly does Amazon Frogbit send off runners? I am using this to dim the light in my tank so my tetras will not be stressed, but I only have 3 plants of it right now.

Byron

I put 12-20 inches max in the profile since this is what the sources report. My plants are maybe 8-10 inches max, but then I have very soft water and I am quite certain this is affecting them.

True. All plants generally do this, so plant the crown just slightly above the surface of the substrate. Sometimes a plant will pull itself down into the substrate; my crypts are always doing this.

No. There are thermal currents, fish swimming, plus the filter to move the water around, and more than one might realize. After all, one can maintain good plant growth in tanks with no filter at all.

This depends upon the plants and their cycle. I have noticed with this species that it regularly goes through growth spurts followed by a slow down that actually even causes the plants to die off. In the two years I have had this species this has happened twice, so I believe it is seasonal/cyclical. All plants need a period of vegetative rest. Swords go through spurts of new growth, inflorescences, leaves, whatever. Then they sit almost static for a couple months. If our plants flowered in our aquaria, I am sure we would see this relating to these periods. This week I have noticed several plant species in my tanks beginning to show increased activity. This relates to the seasons in South America, we are entering the end of the dry season for areas north of the Amazon [if I've got my directions accurate].