Hello Germany.. :)

[MarcelM]

Good day everybody..

My name is Marcel and Evelyn tiped us about Flowgrow going international.. Which i think is great.. :bier: I've been reading this forum already from the day i started this hobby again.. I'm from the Netherlands, so thus Niederländer and live in Limburg which is actualy very close to the German and Belgium border. It's about 20km from Aachen.. I'm part German by heritage and speaking German was somthing we did at home for breakfast. I can read it and i can speak it sufficiently, only the writing skills are awfull and probably totaly hillarious if i try. (Already did and the ones who red it probably agree).. That is the reason why i never registered to this forum. Anyway i always liked it and there is tons of usefull knoweldge to find here and especialy your plant database is the best out there to find.. In one word Awsome!! :tnx:

So here i am untroducing myself and it seems i'm the one biting of the tip in this forum section. So you know you have some internatinal folowers as well. i'm one of them.. And i hope with me a lot of others will cross over and do so as well. Would be fun.

I've been doing tropical aquariums for many years, to be more precise for about 17 years i did tropical low tech aqauriums. Then i took a break tossed the hobby and went on with ponds only.. After a many years i rediscovered the aquarium hobby again after seeing some videos and pictures on the internet and i was very much intrigued and inspired by open top tanks with emersed plant growth and ofcourse Wabi Kusa, something i've never tried in the past. As well i never tried High Tech.. So far so good, so there was still a lot for me ito learn i never tried before.

It didn't took long and i got infected again with Multiple Tank Syndrom and at the time i have 3 aquariums and a pond in the garden.. And a 4th tank is still in the penn but definitivetly comming..

This is a pic of my hobby Ecke in the back of the house where i started to experiemnt again.
The little tank on the left is nothing special, that's actualy my plant bin i keep all plants i do not want to dispose off and keep for later purpose or temporary house something new, so not realy worth for going into detail. The tank on the right is my pride and joy, i dry started this last year in march and it grew in pretty good as you can see. For now i do not have any recent pictures of the submersed part, i might upload these in the future.

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• MarcelM
• 13 Juli 2016

Front shot

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• MarcelM
• 13 Juli 2016

And bit more up close.

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• MarcelM
• 13 Juli 2016

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• MarcelM
• 13 Juli 2016

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• MarcelM
• 13 Juli 2016

This is a pogostemon stellatus i'm experimenting with and see if i can get it to transition the same as the Kleiner Bähr above and also flower.

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• MarcelM
• 13 Juli 2016

That's actual te main goal from this tank, experiment and see where the possibilities lay for future projects.
Possiblilities like this earlier succesfull experiment last year november.

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• MarcelM
• 13 Juli 2016

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• MarcelM
• 13 Juli 2016

So it's a constant changing and evolving experimental project, not realy aimed as display show off piece, but just a learning curve.

Still got another experiment going on as a 3th tank which is open top low tech and naturaly lit, it stands bellow a roof window and only recieves filtered day light.. But this one is planted with rather slow growers and still needs time to devellop. Since it's like a pond only recieving daylight it has it's challenges i never tried before, till now i got it relatively good under control. At the moment i have very little pictures of it, only day light makes it hard to photograph and has a lot of reflection of course. I need to work on that.

It runs on a sump and thsi is how it looks as is today.. Still very juvenile tank.. (To be continued).

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• MarcelM
• 13 Juli 2016

Well that's a bit about me and so you know by whom and with what you're beeing watched internationaly too.. utzen:

I hope you enjoyed the read and pics.. If you have any questions, do not hesitate and shoot i'll be glad to answer to the best of my abilities..

Tata for now..

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• MarcelM
• 13 Juli 2016

Thanks for having me..

 

[Matz]

Hey Marcel ,
thanks for joining Flowgrow international :thumbs: ! You are the first here, but hopefully not the only one :wink: !
It was very interesting to read your post about you , your aquatic experiences and your actual tanks.
If you want, please post pics of your garden pond(s)too! Would be very welcome.
There is also a special forum called "Teich".
Nice to have you here!
Have nice evening,
with best regards,
:bier:

 

[MarcelM]

Hi Matthias,

Thank you for the welcome and the likes.. Well i guess it'l take time for people to find a German forum internationaly. At least that's what i see happen at Dutch forums who've tried it. Then you only see replies from foriegn poeple who recide in the country for whatever reason. Obviously most people try to search in their native language or in English to find answers. Then with very little replies in English it's not likely for people it find it amongst all the search engines hits. I also dwell around on UKAPS, i know you are a sponsor of that forum, but yet didn't see Aquasabi promote flowgrows international steps. Might be an idae to spread the word there as well, you already have a foot in the door. If Evelyn didn't promote it at Glassboxgardeners i'd probably never would have known. But flowgrow has huge potential that's for sure, your plant database is awsome and already very popular internationaly and as far as i know the most complete of all.

Regarding my pond, at the time i have only a very small garden, so i have to do with a very small thing i call pond. Because i can make nothing deep enough i decided to try things above ground with an old Zinc bathtub and a cut in half wine barrel. It's fun and constantly changing because i have to break all down and take the fish inside for the winter and start again new each spring with usualy also some new ideas. Here is a short video impression of what i came up with this year..

[BBvideo 425,350:mmfzh335]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-P1mYMeU95c[/BBvideo]

Well since we live so close together i guess you also witness a rather dull summer with lots of rain, low temperatures and very little sun. It's a pitty i had high hopes, but the weather gods do are not in my favor this summer. I planted Eichornia azurea and Nelumbo nucifera this year, but it's to cold and they don't take off. Also the lilies stay way behind and yet didn't flower. It's only green with very little flowers. Still fun but nothing much to show for.

 

[Tobias Coring]

Hi Marcel,

welcome on board.

Yes... our "international" corner will evolve hopefully but at the moment we have to check if there is a real need for this. Since UKAPS is very popular and we like the UKAPS guys very much, we do not intend to grab users from them.
But as you've told we have a very unique plant database and some other stuff that helps a lot of hobbyists out there.
Those databases can also grow much bigger if we had the man power for example regarding the shrimp/fish databases.

But still we like to open Flowgrow for international users and discuss some topics here.

I really like your tanks especially the emerged parts.

Best regards
Tobias

 

[MarcelM]

Hello Tobias,

Thanx for your likes, aquariums with emergent growth was a new frontier for me and the main trigger for stepping into the hobby again and explore it's possibilities. This is something i definitively will keep doing in every future setup. It's like the best of both worlds, Wabu Kusaquarium?? :flirt:

As far as the "need" for going international.. Well it can have different view points.. Maybe seeing it from a The Beatles view point "Lets come together".. That would be a very nice motivation where sharing our creations and knowledgable information is just a tool. Grabing members away? With all do respect anybody viewing it from that point and using that argument towards you would imho only be acting out of self disconfidence and should be ignored or helped to understand the world doesn't turn only around them. I see the most enthousiast and knowledgeable members from every forum i'm active dwell around on several other forums as well, for example UKAPS, plantedtank.net, aquascapingworld, seriously fish, barr report, glassboxgardeners etc. IMHO this probably only contributed in them being so knowledeable after all. And linking to eachother is rather common practice and never seen it been interpreted as luring members away. Hence it was via Glassboxgardeners i ended up here, this is not going to keep me away anywhere. Hey we live in a free world and free to stay where ever we please.

I saw you promote your Nitro ferts on UKAPS, nothing wrong with that and a very nice one :tnx: .. I didn't read Tropica or any other say "You are grabing customers away!".. feifen:

(I would rather say no need to stay in the twilight outside your borders)

Gruß Marcel.

 

[moss-maniac]

:greendance: Herzlich willkommen Marcel

ich freu mich sehr, dass du jetzt auch da bist!

Liebe Grüße
Ev :grow:

 

[MarcelM]

Hallo Ev,

Danke!!.. :bier:

And a big Moss Hug back.. :gdance:

Marcel.