VerdantGrotto's Fresh-Water Habitat

VerdantGrotto

Pic #1 = The Not-so-Red Ludwigia

Pic #2 = Name This Mystery Plant... It came as a hitchhiker with some Madagascar Lace and has grown 4" in about 2 months

Attached Images

	Not so Red Ludwigia.jpg (93.7 KB, 52 views)
	Mystery Plant.jpg (40.5 KB, 54 views)

VerdantGrotto

I think you're right about the spectrum

JDM

Mystery plant:

Egeria najas AKA narrow leaf elodea (most likely)

Looks like a decent low light plant that like high KH water... Perhaps I should look for some.

Jeff

Byron

I couldn't even see that plant in the earlier photos. I've no idea what it is, Jeff's suggestion may well be it.

VerdantGrotto

Apparently that little bugger is native to North America and is very prolific. I plan on clipping the top and attempting to help it propagate. Once I get my new light system this thing should really take off.
Also, my angel loves to nibble the leaves off of it. It sits at the edge of his domain and he is always chowing on it.

Jeff, If you can't find a shoot of this plant I would be more than happy to send you one. Seeing as how I only have this one though it might be a few months before I could send it. Although, I think the plant might be considered a noxious weed... Customs might not like it

JDM

Yah, probably not worth trying to send it... thanks for the thought though. If you were in Canada I might take you up on it. I think that most aquarium plants are noxious weeds somewhere, I am disappointed that I cannot find frogbit locally... I will just wait and look for it in our river in the summer, I'm pretty sure that I have seen something very close to it.

Besides, I am up to 12 species in my tank, it's only 37 gallons and I am running out of planting room so I have to start getting choosy about what I pick next.... although stems that go straight up are my best bet... those two swords I have take up a LOT of real estate.

Jeff.

VerdantGrotto

Or... You could just buy a bigger tank Muah ha ha ha!

VerdantGrotto

Just got the new light fixture for the tank. It's an Aqueon 48" with two T5 Bulbs. One of the bulbs is a 6700k Daylight 14 watt and the other is a Colormax 14 watt. The only issue I'm having is the local fish stores don't have a Marineland Glass top and none of the ones they do have will fit the Marineland 55Gallon. So what I did was purchase a sheet of Acrylic and will be cutting it to fit the top. This is temporary until I can get one ordered from Marineland (Unless this works nicely)

VerdantGrotto

I've had a slight issue the past few days with Ammonia. It reached 2.0 but has now dropped down to .5 ppm Thanks to water changes and Microbe-Lift NITE-OUT II. The Ammonia level has also seemed to drop due to the new light I introduced to the system. I assume this is from the Plants being able to Photosynthesis. During all of this there hasn't been any casualties... However one of the Pepper Cory cats was a little stressed out (Breathing rapidly, laying out in the open and even "fainted" one time). At some point during this time one of his tank mates decided since he couldn't defend himself that they'd take a bite out of him . Whomever it was bit off his Adipose Fin and took a small bite out of his Tail Fin. Since I did a water change at the same time I added 40 ML of Stress Coat. He is no longer breathing heavy but hasn't moved very often from the substrate. I did manage to place some food in the vicinity of him and got him to eat. He seems to be healing a bit but his tail is swollen. I've decided to see if he will pull through instead of putting him out of his misery but it doesn't look promising.

VerdantGrotto

Well...
The Pepper Cory appears to have pulled through. It was difficult and stressful to nurse him back to health. What I did was:

1. Spot fed him after feeding the tank so they didn't "trample" him while they were in their frenzy. I'm pretty sure this caused me to overfeed the tank which only made this event more difficult to manage

2. In the middle of last week I did a 40% water change and double-dosed the tank with API stresscoat.

3. Three days ago I started introducing API Melafix to the tank. I did this to hopefully keep the wound from getting infected. And according to the label this stuff helps promote quick healing.

I don't know if these steps attributed to the recovery of this Pepper Cory but he seems to be doing better.

4. Today (Sunday the 17th) I did a 20% water change, another dose of Melafix and made sure to clean as much of the Fecal matter off of the substrate to provide him with a cleaner environment so he could finish the healing process.

- The Melafix dosing will continue until friday the 22nd which will be when I do a 50% water change (Or whatever the instructions say on the Melafix bottle)