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BWG's emersed ambitions

36K views 245 replies 14 participants last post by  peachii 
#1 ·
New project time! My aquariums are all doing well and I ran out of room for more. Well there is room in the house, but only in places that I'm seldom in. Not a place I want fish. So what does that leave? Plants. I like plants. I like getting a whole bunch to try out. One thing I've never done (well two) is emersed plants and terrariums.

With that in mind I started looking into terrariums a few months ago. Some really nice plants out there for them. Some really artistic people. That those is not me. I can plan and research like a crazy man. I can find lots of interesting plants and fish for good prices. Making a scape look pretty? Soooooo not me. Hate doing it, get frustrated, redo it, get really annoyed, redo it, give up and let it go. It's how all my tanks came about and usually shows. So making a terrarium might not work well for me.

I still kept looking up the plants though since they were interesting and I'm nerdy like that. That's when I stumbled onto the journal that made me not care if I could do it, I wanted to do something similar. Want to see? Borneo Stream Biotope Go ahead and look, I'll wait.















Back again? Most of my fish and plants are Southeast Asian. I'm obviously in love with the floral and fauna of that region, so a terrarium like that really inspired me. Thing is I can grow aquarium plants. I've never tried to go anything else though, let alone all those. Plus the artistic touch.

A plan started to form though as I researched. Start off slowly and just try emersed plants for now. This won't be a nice looking emersed setup like aokashi has. Nope! This will be plants in pot in an aquarium! If this goes well then look out!

I could do stems plants. I have lots from that area of the world. Not feeling it though. I'm anal I guess, just like restricting myself to one geographical region. The plants I have in mind are aroids, carnivorous plants, mosses, ferns, and orchids. The rarer the better, within reason since some costs hundreds of dollars or are poached. No way am I going to do either of those options. I do have a wishlist though that I'm working on if anyone wants to see.

First step after plenty of hardcore research was to pull the empty 55 gallon out of the cellar and clean it up. Yeah you read that right. 55 gallon, I'm going hardcore from the start. I'm laying 50/50 odds on this either being an epic failure of epic proportions or epically epic.

So now the 55 is clean and sitting on a dresser. I was making a long shopping list of things I thought I'd need. A fan, light, heater, eggcrate, pots. Research going like crazy. I even had the order of plants I wanted to try. Crypts, moss, and ferns first. Then jewel orchids and Nepenthes. Last Buces and Phals (if I made it that far).

It was a decent plan. Then I found a good deal on some plants and the whole plan went out the window. I couldn't resist the hard to find plants at a good price. I ordered some, quick threw together a ghetto tank in a 10 gallon. Those plants arrived today, but more on them later. For right now go look at some pictures of some Southeast Asian streams in nature. Corymad and Jungle Mike

I'll post some pictures and info on the new plants tonight. I would do it right now, I'm I'm frustrating a certian mod by not posting them. Something I think is massively fun.

PS-Follow along while I kill plants. No lurking. I will name names and place the blame.
 
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#102 · (Edited)
Well it finally happened. I upgraded to the 55 gallon. Still have the 10 gallon set up, although I did steal the heater from it. That means I have a whole, whole lot of room for pricey plants. I guess people want pictures. I must be getting better or the new light helps me since every single picture came out.



All steamed up. The Odyssea dual T5HO is on there so hoping for lots of new growth (some of the plants could use it, but more on them later). All that egg crate was cut by hand since I couldn't find a single person willing to trust me to use a power tool. Took quite a while to cut and trim it all. Without having the 10 set up I might have gotten away with using one sheet.



The reason the egg crate is so high. A cheap Maxi-Jet 600 set up as a powerhead. Seems to be doing the job since I can see a bit of current throughout the tank. I'm hoping that will cut down on any algae and also help to spread any ferts I might put in the water. Can't hurt. I was actually smart enough to put the powerhead under its own small stand. That way when I have to take it out to clean I will only have to move a few plants at most...if I ever get to having that many.






Same plants, so I don't know that I have much to say as a whole. The tank is taller so to get close ups I'm going to have to pull the pot out or either hang into the tank. Zooming makes my camera turn off. Yeah you read that right.

Next I'll show the two fullest ones and the two that seem to need some TLC.



Yep, it's growing a new leaf again. I should take this one out to get a shot sometime. There on the lower right is a sidestem with plenty of leaves of its own. It's just always hidden by the larger ones on the main stem. Wonder if I should separate it, but it's growing now so whatever.



Spathe still hasn't opened, but it's grown two new leaves this week so I'm not complaining.



The theia brown had some issues when I got it. As I kind of expected the damaged leaves have gotten worse. Hope it recovers.



The rhizome is fine on the bukit biru, but it did lose leaves as I've mentioned before. I'm hoping this and the theia brown are just adjusting issues. I'm caring for all the plants the same.
 
#106 ·


Not the best picture (and look I forgot to hold up the camera strap!), but I come home today to check on the plants, well actually to see if the timer I started using was working, and see the green chile spathe is now white. How was that for a run-on on sentence? I first noticed this thing growing 2 and a half weeks ago, so it's really hard to say if one day under the much brighter lighting was the cause of it looking like it finally wants to open up.
 
#108 ·
Also... it honestly doesn't look like you have much more room for more plants...
I'm older, means I was doing sarcasm before you. My signature even comes with a sarcasm fee. Space was never an issue, money and finding plants were. So in the spirit of that you can send me a royalty fee for the schtick stealing.



The flower opened up today. This picture should also prove once and for all that I have a left hand and that hand has a tattoo on it. There is still no proof however that I have a face.
 
#109 ·
It's beautiful, Cory. . . so tiny and so perfect. Makes me happy. . .



(You do have a left hand. That had does have a face tattooed on it. This *also* makes me happy.
The face that's on your head is much nicer, though - I have proof!
Spathey baby has both hand face and face face beat for pretty, though your face makes me happy, too!)
 
#113 · (Edited)
Got asked for some pictures so here we go. For the quick version the original five Buces continue to do well, the five new ones are adapting.



My normal view.



Kir royale



Artemis. Was having trouble with a picture, cause I'm me. New leaf there. All the original five put out a new leaf in the last week or will in a few days.



Green chili. The flower is browning, but was pretty while it lasted. So do I cut this thing off? This one had two new leaves in the last week thanks to the sideshoot. The one with the water droplets is the newest on the main plant. Not really a good pic though either.



Gunung sumpit. New leaf just finished opening today.



Mentarang kal-timur. The picture doesn't really show it off, but the leaf bases are red in color. See? Not all my plants are green!



Theia brown. Looks bad right? Well check out the bottom left of it for a little baby leaf. It's adapting, but will take a long time to look like the first five pictures.



Sanggau. The leaf on the left is slowly dying. Common trait with these new Buces. No clue if I should cut it off. I haven't as of yet.



Centipede 2. Only one of three Buces I currently have with a sideshoot. Only one of the newest Buces to put out a new leaf since I got them. Of course at the same time it did that, the top leaf started to deteriorate.



Semuntai 2. This one has actually done nothing. No growing, no dying back.



Bukit biru. Another on its way to adaptiontown! The theia brown had one baby leaf. This has three, although you might only be able to see two. The are occurring on the rhizome were the old leaves fell off. If I had to guess these tiny leaves might be the start of sidestems. Not sure, but will let everyone know.






The Crypt nurii pots. No fast growth, but they are all still growing. I think maybe I should open up an Osmocote + root tabs and spread it out between the four pots. I haven't fertilized at all yet. Should start, but no clue what to use or how often. Need a spray for the buces and ferns.

My emersed tanks also have blackwater. Why? Cause I'm BWG and that's how I roll.
 
#114 ·
Your photography skills have really improved! Not to mention all those new leaves look wonderful! I still see room in there. Any plans for all of that empty space?

About your Semuntai 2, I've had new plants not show any visible growth above ground, but be rooting like crazy down below. All of a sudden it's BAM new leaves. As long as there is no leaf death, I'm always happy.
 
#116 ·
I'm not worried about the Semuntai 2 at all. Even if you stretch the definition of fast growing to its breaking point, I still don't have any plants that would qualify. It's possible the roots are growing, but I haven't even noticed any new roots. From what I've seen so far those grow farther up the rhizome. Later tonight I can pull the Sanggau out and take a picture of the new roots it is growing. Those two plants have a similar upright growth pattern and came from the same seller.

Plans? Yes. I'd love to get some more buces, some rarer crypts, and Schismatoglottis roseospatha. Rarer ferns I'm iffy on, since I'm not sure I'm doing the best with them. For instance I wonder if they'd do better in hydroton than on the soil mixture (ok let's be real, half at least hang in the air). There are some interesting Anubias barteri strains too, but they might do better on hydroton, plus most are really, really pricey.

I have plans, so why aren't I getting the plants right? Well I've found a bunch for sale lately of the buces. Probably close to 30 varieties, many of those from Vasteq who's pictures I showed way back. He's in Poland. The rest from Southeast Asia and China. The Chinese plants are super expensive. I think they come with phytosanitary certificates though, while the rest don't. Without that it's illegal to import and customs could seize the plants. Don't want to risk that.

I am working on another project though! I'll be good and let you guys in on this. I'm going to make a DIY fogger! Like this. I also ordered a humidity/temperature gauge and regulator. I don't need a temperature regulator, since the aquarium heater does that itself. The humidity gauge is broken for sure. That thing never registers less than 89 percent even outside the terrarium. This will let me measure and will run the fogger so I can keep humidity pretty stable and to whatever level I need. I'm going to have fun playing with that. The regulator goes all the way up to 95 percent. My first experiment (when I get more plants) will be to turn it up that high and then drop it slowly to whatever level I decide to keep things at (no clue) over a period of weeks and see if that helps the plants transition quicker.
 
#117 ·
Two things and then I'll be serious.

Gesundheit

I think you should change you username to "Aqua Rebell" lol...

Okay now. Serious face.

How on earth did you even find S. roseospatha? It's quite a little pretty thing. Reminds me of anubias. I know it will be more expensive, but I'd go for the phytosaniary cert over those without it. Just too much risk there. Maybe you could find some other people to go in with and make a large purchase from the sellers in China. I know I've seen CP people do that with Neps from Asia.

Your DIY projects are much more ambitious than mine ever are. Let us know how it turns out! It looks neat!
 
#120 ·
i looove the new pics and how great the buces are looking! You are totally levellin up to expert on photo taking ^_^ That gungnum sumpit is reallly spectacular :) I'm liking the big buces way more than the tiny ones, though I can see how great tiny ones will look in a pico scape :)

Keep those pics rolling in!
 
#121 ·
Everything has now been gathered for the building of the fogger. This is so incredibly simple that even I should be able to do it. I'm following the method set out on the Dendroboard link so full credit to that person.



Vicks ultrasonic cool humidifier, 1/2" ID vinyl tubing, aquarium safe silicone, 2" to 1/2" bushing, 1/2" barbed something or other (too technical?), and the ZooMed hygrotherm controller.



I took the directional nozzle off the humidifier and siliconed the bushing in its place. That is currently curing. This is most likely the sole sum of things I have to do beyond screwing in the barbed whatchamacallit (still too technical?), attaching the hose and plugging everything in. All this building has me tired. I need a nap.
 
#124 ·
Naps are excellent, Bekah!

Willow-No lurking. Read post one. I know there are other lurkers and they need to stop! Even if they have to join the forum to post!

I bet everyone is wondering about the fogger. I realized last night I probably should have screwed on the barbed thingamajig before siliconing the bushing to the humidifier. I said to myself "Self just be careful and it will be fine. Nothing to worry about. You got this! I bet you won't even rip the silicone if you just don't overtighten."

So after resiliconing it tonight I decided to distract with some pictures. Yeah you can read between the lines for what happened. Don't make me say it. One tool (a wrench for crying out loud!) and bad things happened. Well not even bad, since it's harmless, but a delay. I could lose my man card for this.



There's an upclose picture of the Bukit Biru. Those little leaves are definitely sideshoots since you can see the one on the left forming a second leaf. Chesh asked me what a sideshoot is, that's just what I call it. If it was stem plant it would be a sideshoot or sidestem. Don't know the correct term but I have heard people call these either of those or even plantlets.

Remember the other Buce that died back? The Theia brown? It has sideshoots as well, both growing a second tiny leaf. You probably can't see it so well on the first picture so I took a second that hopefully you can.




Chesh always wondered if the original rhizome would die. That's a no. Here's the Gunung sumpit and green chile so you can see what happens. Honestly I could cut both of these off and have a second small plant no idea if that is something I should consider or not.




I should have gotten a closer picture of green chile. The centipede 2 also has a sizable sideshoot, but I didn't take a picture of it. I can if anyone wishes, but only as a further distraction.
 
#129 · (Edited by Moderator)


Testing everything out and...IT'S ALIVE!!!!!



This here is a demineralisation pad. My water is soft so I'm going without using this. No sense in having to keep replacing this. White dust is possible? Oh no! Wait...so it'd be the same as if I was spraying with a bottle and got some water marks? Whew.



After getting the kink out of the hose. Going...



going...



Gone! This is 85% (less than the broke hygrometer read) which is about as high as I can get. I'll have to work on trying to seal things better if I want it higher. It's late, I was lazy and didn't cut the plastic at the back, just slid the big hose under it.
 
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