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Plant deprivation syndrome



>Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1998 20:18:21 -0600 (MDT)
>From: "Roger S. Miller" <rgrmill at rt66_com>
>Subject: plant groupings
>
>It's been a slow week here on the APD, and I'm starting to suffer symptoms
>of plant-email deprivation.  My deprivation-induced hallucinations have
>even lead me to believe that there was a large, conversational response to
>my letter of last Sunday wherein I called for information about
maintaining
>groups of plants.  Being the usually friendly type, I'm going to continue
>that conversation, hence this note about maintaining groups of
>Cryptocoryne wendtii. 

Oh, it gets worse, Roger.  Andrea and I have been in basic aquarium
deprivation for almost a year now, and we just snapped.  In the last month,
we've set up three plant tanks, two of them paludariums (one 30 breeder
that's now housing Bolivian Rams, cardinals, and a troop of C. rabautii,
and a 20l that's home to our daughter's red-eared slider), and the third
(the 20h that I wrote about in my plumbing article in the Krib) a freshly
planted Kribensis tank.

As if it wasn't enough, a discussion last week on the live-foods list
prompted me to go out and buy a dozen leopard danios and a dozen zebra
danios for the turtle and Krib tanks, for the live-food benefit of the eggs
and danio fry.  Now I'm totally hooked again, and I find myself stealing
any available extra time to go look at the tanks.

Plants for the 30 breeder were gleaned from my 55g and another 30 breeder
at my parents' house that haven't seen much maintenence in over a year, and
my 5.5g at the office.  This tank now has 80w mixed NO lighting and the
anubias, Java Fern, and Java moss are growing rapidly (partially emersed).

We actually set up the 20h for the first time since I wrote that article.
Previously, it was just a plant storage tank and wasn't very attractive.
Now it has E. rubris, A. crispus, and a couple of N. stellata in the
foreground, with anacharis, H. polysperma (sunset), and R. rotundifolia and
macandra for background nutrient absorbers.  The sad part about this tank
is the plumbing system.  I've moved this tank twice since I first set it up
with a vermiculite/sand substrate and elaborate subsurface plumbing.  With
the new house and carpeting, I was worried about the overflow systems'
integrity though, and so everything is disconnected (but still in place)
and I'm using the nutrient injection tubing as an air-driven UGF.  I
purchased some nice rockwork for a cave prior to putting the Kribs in, and
they liked it so much we never saw them.  Adding the dozen leopard danios
has brought the kribs out more though.  I think the danios serve as both a
dither and target fish.

The 20l turtle tank is the newest setup, and got the old trickle filter
tower that I built for my 55g several years ago added inside with a
powerhead to circulate water.  It's about half-full now with several rocks
protruding out of the water and a beach for the turtle.  A dozen zebra
danios provide an additional interest level in this tank, and a couple of
E. rubris plus an E. tenellus are the beginnings of the plant additions for
this tank.

It's amazing how expensive it can be to set up an aquarium on a budget,
even when you have most of what you need already.  I need to work on that
some.  The scary part is that I have a ton of unused aquariums sitting in
the garage, collecting dust (for now).

Now we are going to have to video them and put pictures up.  Oh, the work
of aquarium keeping never ends.  ;-)

--
David W. Webb
Live-Foods list administrator