140 L project tank improvement Step 1: teach some manners to Amazonian frogbit (a.k.a ulkoilla made a plant separator)
Amazonian frogbit is a nice plant in many ways. Easy to grow. Easy to thin out. Creates nice shade and shelter to fish, labyrinth fish like it etc etc
On the other hand, the roots can grow long and create a messy look I want to avoid. It blocks light. My other plants aren’t doing good, thanks to it eating all light. This is the tank & tanks surface, the separator just put at use
I was actually surprised how well it hides. In the tank pic below you can see it at left corner, but it really looks more like a vallisneria leaf than the hideous piece of plastic it is.
(At the time of posting, I’ve had this a bit longer than a week. It’s still functioning as it should and such but if/when I have to replace it, I’ll be making an extremely thin separator.
Why?
Because then I could allow a couple runners out of the separator. They’d hide the plastic better.)
I’ve previously attempted to control the growth by controlling where I allowed the runners go. It wasn’t very effective method, so perhaps it would go better if I cut the runners and contained the plant.
A round air pipe separator? Is my tank round? No, I don’t want round. My tank isn’t round. I want to have a thin wall of roots where the fish can hide and feel safe.
The first attempt to shape was steel wire inside air hose. But it sunk.
It could be of interest in shaping and submerging air hose, but it clearly wasn’t a way to go with this task… So I went for the good old drinking straw route and made approximately the same shape using pale green straws.
The joints are not sealed in any way and it’s free floating for now – I’m hoping the filter and bubblers will keep it roughly where I want it. I hope I won’t have to clip it in on in any way… The tank is placed under a plant rack so fiddling with suction cups or such is bit of an irritation and I’d like to avoid to do so in every WC.
So far so good.