The Hawkeye Project Tank

[tinyplants]

My ten gallon is nearly cycled and I got it planted today.  It's nearly ready to get its guinea pigs to make sure I won't murder shrimps before I put in the expensive ones I'm planning to buy.  It'll get low grade cherries in a week or two (the cherries are waiting at a neighbour's house for the tank to be ready).  I thought I'd share how pretty this tank is turning out.  

 

 

I got that spiderwood for a song and the plants were all at my LFS looking a bit picked over so I got them super cheap.  Originally this was going to be an all moss tank.  Ha, I saw that flame sword and went 'well then.'  There's also a green wendtii crypt and I've actually forgotten what the other grass-like ones in the background are.  I think one is a val and I've totally forgotten on the other.  They just looked nice and I thought I'd see how it turned out.  Hopefully they all live, if not, well, they were super cheap.  The moss is just java moss.

[jem_xxiii]

Swords are root feeders so make sure you through some root tabs below it. Also once it takes off it will want to take over your tank, just fyi. Other than that it looks as if you are off to a good start.

[tinyplants]

Yup.  Got some root tabs in there for everyone and I'm really hoping for a kind of overgrown look.  I like the effect of oversized swords in smaller tanks.  I've got a sword exploding in my 2.5 gallon right now.  I keep fairly high light (as high as I can balance without needing to put in CO2) to encourage low height and trim the longer stems in my other tank and *touch wood* so far it seems to be working out pretty well.

[Greenteam]

Whats shrimp are you going to get after the cherries?

[tinyplants]

I'm going to go for some blue bodied red rilis which I know aren't expensive compared to like, pintos or something, but are a pretty big investment for me.  The Hawkeye Project is going to be about attempting to balance the blue in the body with the red of the shell to get purple/purplish shrimps.  Named for the very purple Hawkeyes of Marvel comics.

[chibikaie]

I'm going to go for some blue bodied red rilis which I know aren't expensive compared to like, pintos or something, but are a pretty big investment for me. The Hawkeye Project is going to be about attempting to balance the blue in the body with the red of the shell to get purple/purplish shrimps. Named for the very purple Hawkeyes of Marvel comics.

I was wondering if there was a connection

[tinyplants]

I was wondering if there was a connection

Oh yes.  I'm a HUGE comic fan and a huge Hawkeye fan, among other characters.  My cat is Peter Parker, for example, and we may be adopting a blind kitten (he's not ready for adoption and we're not sure whether or not we can do it) who would be called Matt Meowdock if we get him.

[Greenteam]

I would avoid getting a ton of low grade cherries in that case. Maybe try 1 or 2 to test the waters that way you can easily remove them once your rilies come in.

 

The two will cross breed and low grades might set you back with your project.

[tinyplants]

Oh, I have five cherries living two doors down and once I get this tank running and I'm sure everything's okay, I'm setting up my cull tank and my cherries will move to the cull tank.  I can't stand the idea of killing culls because I'm a softie.  I'm just focussing on cycling one tank at a time--not counting my low ph tank which is apparently just going to take the rest of my life to cycle.  I DESPAIR.  But ah well, I'm getting this tank going and I'm hoping it'll be ready to receive my breeding stock in late December/early January.