Snail... another beautiful creature in the fresh or marine water. Why do you all hate them so much? I like them.. and alot of ppl do, just like some ppl like shrimp. But what make shrimp much more better then the snail?

Well, got to agree, some snail do eat plant such as apple snail.. but not all. Well, I might not be long enough in the world of "planted tank", but I m sure not all snail eat live plant.

Let put it this way, do all fish will not eat plant? Well, as we know, some fish do eat live plant! Then how bout shrimp? Do you think all shrimp only pick on those left over food or alga? Then why must you put that way... because of some snail eat live plant, you have to prejudge that all snail eat live plant!

I have tried with few snails and put them inside with my HM. I m not really good on plant, but I do think HM have a very small and soft leaf. And I assume HM did not produce any of those stuff that keep snail or fish away. Almost been month, and so far the HM are safe.

Try The Apple Snail (Ampullariidae) Website for more info.

Anyway, its just my 10 cent opinion. No heart feeling ah.

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Regards,
Flashout
snail.flashout.net

i dont hate snails in general, but i will hate them when they get into my planted tanks.
shrimps are not much better then snails , thats why you dont see any in my tanks, nor do those fishes that have a habbit of eating plants.
as you said you are not long enough in the world of "planted tanks" but you are sure not all snails eats live plant...how sure is your sure?
20 years of planted tanks for me...but thats not long enough in the world of "planted tanks" to be sure that not all snails eats live plants. so as long as there is no hard evidence that some snails are more well behave then the rest, its better to be safe then sorry. yes ..i "Have to prejudge" all snails are qulity unless proven otherwise...and unlike snails, we humans have the ability to discriminate...im only using this given ability to protect my investments.
the shrimps and fishes are not on trial here...but we will come to that.

lets put in this way...if you knew certain fishes do eat live plants...why then do one still puts that fish into his planted tank? in a vain hope that things might be different for him..or was it he wasnt doing his homework or research before putting that fish in?
are those fishes guilty for doing what they are born to do...or was it the person who put them in planted tanks should be quilty?
to put in another way...is the snail quilty or was it the person who asure everyone that not all snails eats live plants?
then we come to the part ..."do i think all shrimps only pick on those left over food algae"? I dont think...i know for sure not all shrimps pick on those left overs and algae...thats why they are banned from my tanks.
then comes to part of left overs...if you have been reading right...i did mention left over food are not suppose to be there in the first place...if one have to relie on snails and shrimps to clean up mess resulting from the owner's mismanagement of his tank...then he sure is not a good aquarist!

HM?..u mean Hemianthus micranthemoides do you?. ....suppose they are safe with your snails, all credit must go to you for a job well done, but then can you be certain to the extend to guarantee those snails will behave in the same manner when up against other plant species? i quote...do you have to prejudge...all plants are safe from the snails you recommened as safe?

For what is certain ...snail is a new toy in your posession, it woudnt be wise to advise or recommend on presumption with the limited time spend on these creatures. animal behaviour is not ascertain thru one experiment alone nor was it ascertain thru trials lasting a few months nor was it ascertain thru hearsay. what works for one might not work for other and its pure stupidty to asssume everything will work out the same...always and everytime without fail.

thanks for the link...but no thanks...i have my own source of information thru years of fieldwork and research....i have learn not to trust all that i read.
dont not for one moment be certain that im against snails...as i mention before they are a joy to enjoy...but they do not belong to a planted tank until there is hard evidence to prove otherwise.

a 10cent opinon is better than no opinon, its good to speak up your mind, you need to bring some to get some..after all its just a debate
rest asure there is no heart feeling...i prefer ladies

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Holidays almost over..it would be august soon and its back to work...yup, money starts rolling in, hell ,havent seen any pay for the past 2 months, that why ive been showing my face here more often than i should have....after all it beats going out spending money.
work also means no more time for plants as i would be spending months until CNY between bangkok and jakarta. how i wish i was rich and could afford a second home in either of these two cities, a home means having a planted tank. for an aquatic plant fanatic...these two cities is the place to be, the limit is the money you have in your wallet. between the two, jakarta is my pick as it has plenty of wild and rare species...and if you could speak javanese like i do...then every purchase made would be dirt cheap.
sometimes is frustrating to see what you like but couldnt buy, until it was time to go back home to malaysia and theres a limit to what a person could carry.
speaking on my present planted setup...it would be the last of my free stlye planting setup.trials and experiments over and its time for aquascaping, i guess im more confindence now to tackle the top of the list tough guys...lets see what i could find in jakarta later...perhaps an exotic rare species...maybe.
anyhow, my future projects would be focus on aquascaping using 3D fiberglass castings and a species or two of the extrme diffcult plants. yup..i have invested abit on several fiberglass moulds...but i have yet to decided if the castings should be used simply for my own enjoyment or mass produce them for sale.....not in malaysia of course, there is no market for such product here,malaysian aquarist is not the investing type,...its no big wonder why we are been left behind by our asean neighbours when comes to fish keeping or plants.

a shot from the sumanep fish market, jakarta. the plants are place outside..without pumps or lightings..a good way to save on power bills



this the kinda tanks where my money comes from ...not from selling peanut aquarium equipment or pellets at the fish shop. for many whos wondering where i learn to DIY...this is your answer...seafood construction and this is big money. Fish shop business is just a side attraction for me...besides i was the designer for a bangkok/jakarta based seafood construction company for 15 years before coming out on my own.



when one is designing systems like these...one has to be on his toes with DIY, and of course register the patent , ie the skimmers in the photo. btw i have not have the chance to thank CC Joe on his advice on patent laws...that was a year back i guess. anyway thanks brader.

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Everyone Has a Photographic Memory..........some just dont have film!

as i have mention above this will be my last free style planting...i hope to have a grand finale with this setup before moving on to 3D aquascaping



the method i use here is one of my old tricks called "blending in". all around the open spaces i have planted R.roundifolia cuttings, leave to grow for a few days before planting the L.glandulosa right on top of the cuttings. in this way, the roundifolia would provide a constant matt thru trimmings while the glandulosa grows taller giving a scene of glandulosa growing in a sea of midget roundifolia




i intend to turn these R.macranda into midgets, they are first planted tall upfront, afew days later they will be trim, again and again in the coming weeks just like i did with the roundifolias



trimming done this morning

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the red stellata planted on thursday night. i was abit worried that they are not what i was told they were. they look the same as the common stellata avaible locally..man i could be taken for ride if they dont turn red


Relief...photo taken this morning...showing signs and the sign is good...reds!


planting all done....so just have to wait and see how things turn up. my main concern is the glandulosa...the sooner they turn submerge , the better i would sleep at nites

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Everyone Has a Photographic Memory..........some just dont have film!

Very enjoyable read. Good stuff.

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The nose runs and the feet smell - go figure
Steven

Hi brader Ari,

Mind sharing about your lighting setup for this tank. Wat wud be the number and wattage like.

Thanks.

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Tom NG

ha..i havent actually paid much attention to the wattage nor did i calculated them. but lets do it now...
36w PLL 827 x2 = 72w
36wPLL 840 x 2 = 72w
36wPLL 865 x 2 = 72w
30w T4 white x2 =60w
30w T4 blue x1 =30w
30w T4 pink x1 =30w

total 336w

as these lightings are over a year old ...minus 50w...so its safe to say i have give and take about 280w
well probably that explains why i notice my plants are growing faster and less compact to how it was when those lightings are new. haha im the odd one that want plants to grow slower. thks for asking this question brader..its a reminder my lights needs to be changed
infact the higher the lightings you have the slower and shorter your plants grow....unlike whats been told by a joker staff at 88 PI..."oi fai tai, car tang"....
hehe..i used to enjoy going there to amuse myself asking basic and idiot planting questions to the staffs there....well until the boss blew my cover, nowdays they just stayed the hell clear away from me.... apart from that new cashier..haha the same one thats once worked for east aqua...."leng chai ,tuck han mo"......its time for a quick getaway!

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Ari, all so far I tough u were in fresh water & planted tank, never tough u were good in marine tank! Can give some advice? I was planning to have one in my house. Size of 100 cm x 45cm with 50cm height. It is recomended to have planted tank, snail tank and marine tank in one same house? Some ppl told its not recomended.

Honestly, I never been to Indo or Thai fish shop, but heard alot of ppl say its very nice.

Keep us updated and info on your setup, cannot wait to see how it come out... cun man!

__________________
Regards,
Flashout
snail.flashout.net

i was never good in marine tank brader.i dont even have one at home. the fact is seafood and ornamental marine fishes is two different agenda. the equipments and water quality used is totally differrent. many people think they are the same...but they are not.ornamental marine fishes could be learned from the internet...but how do one learn seafood?...haha, if you are in this line, you are , if not... you sink if you step your foot in it.
when i started out my company over a year ago..i was pretty worried about competition from top kl FS...well, i had worried for nothing, hahaha i soon realise with the kind of hi tech but unsuitable systems they are using for seafood ...hell, they couldnt even touch me with their horses at full whip. no contest actually .one joker even use magnesium for seafood tanks...the joker is east a!#@$#...kenot mention name hor..but he knows who he is...magnesium?..really? champion lar lu

the only experience i have with ornamental marine fishes is a short one...about 4 years, then i stop...when i quit my job. i would like to continue but keeping marine fishes in malaysia is very very very expensive and im not willing to pay for the highly inflated price they charge here...even at dealer's price. man, i could imagine they kinda price you people are paying for. a stinking piece of mushroom cost rm20...hell i was getting that in jarkarta for RP4,000...abt rm1.60, so how does one expects me to continue?
to be honest..i did not have much basic experience with marine setup....i jump start straight away to the hard stuff...no thanks to the indonesian kakis i mix around with. well, indonesian chinese are loaded up to the neck with money kinda folks, they could afford stuffs we could only dream of, ie a 10feet sps coral setup in their living room, a 22feet tank filled with white tip sharks or a 15feet two tier mangrove setup with a similar size slump filled with equipments to create hi and low tides according to the hour of the day.

so when i started out, naturally these loaded sifus gave me all kind of ideas and advice, even giving some equipments they no longer need...thus a 5feet sps setup was my first, filled with high quality montipora and purple acropora...i didnt paid for any of them, its all just.."masok buku"..company account lar..hahaha
its a wonder how they didnt die, lucky to have those busy body loaded sifus coming to the house everyday to check them out. the routine of my work is..i would spend 2 weeks in bangkok then another 2 in jakarta...so when ever i was in bangkok, guess who came around to look after this sps tank..yup you guess rite, and i was begining to have doubts if im actually the owner of this tank.
when i buy common sps or mushroom( i was a beginner la, so how i know what is what) to put in my tank..they scolded me..."eh, apa sih lu, jamur(mushroom) kan buat mainan anak anak...buang deh!

then i was introduce to this guy name kok sidick ( kok means elder brother for chinese indonesian), this guy is a hard core...whatever fish that is diffcult to keep ...he wants it.probably my present attitude of wanting the most diffcult and demanding plants is thru hanging around too much with this dude..."kita piara ikan yang orang laen gak bisa piara, baru jaguh namanya"( we keep fishes that nobody else manage to keep..only then we are known as experts)
i spend my final 2 years in indonesia keeping Moorish Idols....this fish is impossible to keep,but thanks to kok sidick i did manage to keep them alive for over a year, after at least more then 10 attempts..and it was about then, my boss kicked my butt over to china for 6 months, i quit upon returning, i was kissing goodbye to a SGD6,500 pm job, all the girlfriends in jakarta and bangkok, my cichild collection, well, i wasnt too sorry from my marine tank, guess i wasnt really that interested in it, but the cichlid collections simply broke my heart.

thats all the experience i have on marine setups...so i cannot consider myself good coz i do not have the total experience nor the bacis.

yup fs in indoensia and thailand is truly better than here. the thing is they setup fish markets, you dont need to run around like here in malaysia to look for fs, you just need to go the market and all the fs are there. its the same in vietnam, hongkong, guangzhou and shanghai...only malaysia dun have la.
for bangkok...they have plenty of freshwater fishes, good cichilds are not usually found in the markets, you need to go straight to the farms. snails, plants, birds, dogs, cats, snakes is all for sale here. for marine fishes...well not too good, its rather expensive, probably more expensive than malaysia due to total ban and protection of all marine life in thailand...not like here hor, ban liao also got lubang to jalan one.
in jakarta, freshwater fishes are not really good, most of the good ones export liao. for marine fishes,,,they are the cheapest around..i might say dirt cheap. aquatic plants is very good...plenty of rare species. for good arowanas..then must go to kalimantan..aiyo brader...see liao also siau...so cheap ah.

finally...why is not recommend to have planted tank, snail and marine tank at home? who told you this must be joker. this what i tell you...DONT ever let anyone tell you what to keep or not to keep in your house...its your house. if a fengshui master or a part timer who thinks hes an expert fengshui master told you this...then tell him go suck an egg, dont ever believe all these fengshui rubbish..
but if the wife or gf tells you ...then it must be obeyed

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