A new home for my T. verrucosus.

[Chinadog]

Over the last few days I've made a start on the eventual home for my T verrucosus. They're still (huge) larvae at the moment, so unlike most tanks I set up there's no rush and I'm nowhere near finishing it yet.
Most of the plants that need a substrate are in, along with a few floaters and a piece of wood with Java Ferns and Anubias attached. I've also made a simple rock structure out of some big pieces of slate. I don't normally bother with rocks, but the big 75 gallon tank is in our living room and needs something big as a focal point instead of just plants.
I've yet to decide where the water level will be and when I have I'll be adding some more roots or driftwood with ferns attached, but at least it's up and running now

 

[Azhael]

Looking forward to seeing how it progresses

 

[Stupot1610]

As always, looking fantastic already. I too am looking forward to see how it progresses.

Stuart

 

[Chinadog]

Me too! To be honest the size of the tank is a little overwhelming, especially since the three bags full of aquarium plants I bought just look like a few cuttings poking out of the sand.

 

[jAfFa CaKe]

What filter are you using?

 

[Chinadog]

It's an Eheim 2229 external wet and dry trickle filter.

 

[Chinadog]

The tank is almost ready for the newts now, I've added a sponge raft that's covered in moss and also some more plants, including three giant bunches of Vallis (Cheers morg!) and some more water lettuce.
I was offered two more newts from the same parents, so I now have four. Two of them are already morphed and two are still larvae. Fortunately the newtlets seem super confident in the water and have shown no interest in becoming terrestrial, even though they could if they wanted, they behave just the same as they did before they changed. As soon as the other two morph I think I'll let them go into the big tank, their tail fins are still big and flat so they're nice strong swimmers.

 

[mr cyclone]

Looking good there mate , they have the typical white chin of British lineage mate

 

[Bellabelloo]

Oh dear... I now need to toddle off and study T. verr chins......

 

[Chinadog]

Looking good there mate , they have the typical white chin of British lineage mate

They were born in Doncaster.

 

[Chinadog]

I thought I'd update with some new pictures, the plants are really getting hold now, especially the vallis and bacopa.
As the bulbs Fail in the hood I'm hoping to convert it to LEDs. I'm not sure how I will go about it yet, but from what I've seen in my other tanks it will be worth the hassle.

 

[CatSpit]

Beautiful tank - can I ask what the name is of the plant in the centre of your tank? I have that too, but don't know what it is called...

 

[otolith]

Thats grown into a very beautiful tank, well done. What sort of sponge did you use to make the raft? I've thought of doing something similar in an unusually tall acrylic tank I recently acquired. Im playing with the idea of planting water cress and a sponge seems like a decent medium to try.

 

[Chinadog]

Cheers for the nice comments!
The raft is made of open cell sponge that's used in Koi filters. The stuff I bought off ebay was just a square block, but I think you can get it in sheets as well. I just cut it in to smaller blocks and pushed them the spray bar from the filter through the middle of them to stop any water movement in the tank. It was planted with moss and looked great, but it started growing blue/green slime algae so I had to take it out and clean it. I will re plant it soon with more moss that's hopefully free from the slime algae.

 

[Chinadog]

I thought I'd post some recent pics of my T. verrucosus tank. The plants are doing really well, especially the Bacopa and Vallis and I'm constantly pruning the Elodea or removing nets full of floating plants. I'm not sure what the floating plants are, but they've completely out gunned the duckweed which has disappeared all together which is no great loss!

 

[slowfoot]

Looks lovely! I wish I could grow more of the stem-type plants, but they always get too leggy. Although I haven't tried any under my new LEDs...

 

[Chinadog]

I suspect the stem plants I have in here might go leggy when they reach the surface. Funny enough this corner tank is the only aquarium I have that still needs converting to LEDs, its a juwel tank with a built in hood so it might be trickey, but I will begin to swap over as the bulbs that are in there at the moment fail.

 

[Chinadog]

The tank is pretty much how I want it now, I added some big old marimo moss balls that I've had for years in another tank and some red leaved stem plants to break up the greenery a bit. The bacopa has grown really well and spread out across the top, it has gone a bit leggy lower down the stems but there is lots of new shoots poking out the substrate, so they should hide the stalks once they get going.
There's been bit of a surprise when what I was sold as Corkscrew vallis started growing leaves that are 3" wide and about 5' long! I'm pretty sure its actually Giant vallis and I really like how it grows up and trails its leaves all around the surface like streamers, I took a pic with my steel rule in front to show how huge the rhizomes are.

 

[BabySinclair]

Beautiful tank!!!

 

[LunaticNic]

Absolutely stunning set-up!