No newts in water...for MONTHS

[suztor]

You guys are going to be so proud of me! I just got back from my weekend trip and have a ton of plants now! I'm so excited! Plants were in salefor the holiday weekend. Depending on the store I got by one get one free or 30% off!

Sucks that I'm gonna have to take my set up apart to get it all fixed right. But its going to be awsome. I even got some gravel to do it correctly.

And my walstad book comes this w eek.

I got so excited when I was unpacking my plants, I saw a tigerblood nerites snail shell and thought I'd gotten a bonus gift! But was sad to see it was just an empty shell.

 

[suztor]

I just got the walstad book in the mail yesterday. For some reason I thought it was going to be like those basic fish care books you find at the store.... Not a friggin text book! Either way I'm super excited about reading it.

Yaaay!

Sent from my ADR6300 using Tapatalk

 

[suztor]

Alright! So Monday night I re did my tank... For the millionth time.

Took as much sand out as I could. What I couldn't get out I mixed into the soil very well (was sorta fun playing with mud indoors). Then I flattened it all down and put gravel around the edges, then planted all my plants, put my wood and stone in and filled in the gravel where was left. Filled it up 1/3, drained it and filled it up again. This morning it was finally clear enough to see the background!

I have some shrimp and one guppy living there right now. And am running a 6/4/5 lighting schedule

Do I have enough plants now?!

I've got a custom hood in the works with 2 t5 bulbs and fans for cooling and circulation.

 

[suztor]

Soo today was quite the epic day!

We (My fantastic boyfriend and I) built the majority of the custom hood for my tank (i'll be making a step by step post about it soon) it holds 2 t5 fixtures and 4 92 mm case fans for cooling. The fans haven't been installed yet and it hasn't been painted because it's far too cold to paintand since its so cold, I don't need the fans yet and I want to have nice switches for the fans the fans are going to be so kick butt! Because they are 3 speed and I have 4 of them that we are going to be putting on individual switches to control the amount of airflow and noise! (don't worry its all screened off there is really no means for escape unless they devise a tiny grappling hook and a tiny newt hydraulic lift or something.... perhaps a newt genie.... either way no one is getting out!

Best of all, my tank after sitting for around 2 weeks and letting plants grow in some and roots to start growing and the water to clear up... I moved my newts back in... and so far they've been in there a few hours and the 2 full adults are in the water and the other 3 have explored a little but found shallower ground.

I'll share pictures shortly!

This makes me so happy I was about to be very upset if they didn't like the water.... very very upset!

 

[SpaceCadetHayde]

That looks great! I'm glad to hear the newts are happy. You seemed to be having the worst luck prior to this even though you were taking everyone's advice.

 

[suztor]

So I just wanted to do a little update.

All three adults are still going in the water and spending most of their time there. One of the juvis has started going for short swims while the last is not a fan yet lol.

Everyone is eating well and looking plump and healthy.

I'm having a little of a green hair algae and brown beard(I think) algae issue but I'm not too concerned. Water is tea colored but I don't mind that either.

Plants working themselves out a few have melted away as expected. So there are a few bare spots that I'm going to address later since some plants seem to be doing really well.

The tank.

Mr. Gimpy

Wild man chip (being shy)

Big momma

Spunky the juvi

 

[suztor]

Accidently hit submit

And here are the adults togeather

Spunky