mUAr_cHEe’s Piece of River

[Goalkeeper]

Very nice driftwood you have.

[mUAr_cHEe]

why not pair each inlet/outlet together?

I find it more effective to have more water flow directed behind the wood scape to reduce the dead spots. I also aim to minimize the export of the inlets and outlets for a more natural look.

[mUAr_cHEe]

What I have been busy with for the last few days.


Small house meets Big house.


Let there be light!!


Aquascape post coming up. Stay tuned.

[jiajuen900]

I see it in the background More pics! More pics!

[mUAr_cHEe]

Finally the tank arrived. I had some excitement when the tank and cabinet was delivered. The tank had to be shifted to another spot due to some issues and my scape is AGAIN changed. The river will now flow from right to left.

The Maxspect R420R 300W arrived too.



I like the programme feature of the light set. I will be testing it out and see if the plants will do better to gradual light changes rather than 0-100% light in 1 second.

After some initial equipment set up and unboxing, it is time to get to work immediately for the back-breaking part. First to do up the stone barrier. I got some Volcanic rocks which are reddish-brown and porous. I noticed that they are quite brittle and tend to crumble easier when rubbing against each other. I chose a good mixture of big flat pieces and big ones that could stand on their own.

Initially, I had some problem trying to stand them up on their own so I decided to start pouring some substrate to help me in keeping the rocks stable. I pour my base substrate of ADA Power Sand for this purpose.



After the rocks, next comes the woods!



First piece in.



More pieces in. Although this wasn't the first version that I planned but it turns out that there drift wood pieces are still quite versatile and I manage to put them together in a 'better way'.

Time to lay the substrate.



I have the ADA Power Sand as the base, then ADA Aqua-Soil Amazonia Normal and Powder type as my substrate. The sand that I used is the ADA La Plata Sand.



All done.



Now to wait for my order of plants to come in.

[het]

looking good already =)

[Goalkeeper]

Super! Great looking wood and sleek tank.

[Phillipians]

You will find Maxspect razor to be superb lights. However I hope you have either purchased the diffusing light module to spread the lights better or are planning to get a hanging kit so as to raise the lights and get more coverage.

By the way, why didn't you opt for clear silicone ?

[mUAr_cHEe]

looking good already =)

Super! Great looking wood and sleek tank.

Thank you guys.

You will find Maxspect razor to be superb lights. However I hope you have either purchased the diffusing light module to spread the lights better or are planning to get a hanging kit so as to raise the lights and get more coverage.


By the way, why didn't you opt for clear silicone ?

I am actually looking for a hanging light kit. I am looking for something with a cleaner look or customisable. I have not been able to find anything locally yet.


Clear Silicone?





Seriously, I am a little worried about the algae build-up that I cannot clean off without roughing up the tank too much. However With black silicone, Algae would not be so noticable. I think with my current set up, the whole look would be better enhanced with black silicone; Wood-ish / river set up. Clear Silicone would really bring out the beauty and vastness of a iwagumi setup. This is just my personal opinion.

[mUAr_cHEe]

It was a public holiday yesterday, the kids have to prepare for their upcoming exams. Perfect. I get to spend my whole off day stuck at home. Seriously, as a AQer, could you not ask for more when you are just starting a tank?

My first order of plants arrived earlier and it was perfect again. I picked it up from the LFS Tuesday night after dinner and got to work after breakfast on Wednesday. I had a nice grilled ham, cheese and egg sandwich made by yours truly. First you got to fry the egg. I was trying to go a runny egg version but I did not managed to flip the egg right. The trick to getting that perfect golden crust on the sandwich is to use the grilled buttered side of the toast as the outside. First generously butter one side of the toast, put it face down on the frying pan over high heat. Subsequently, put ham, preferred choice of cheese and cooked egg on the grilled toast in that order. I would think chedder or elemental cheese would be better for grilled sandwiches. Place another buttered toast on top of the stack with the buttered side facing up then proceed to flip the whole stack over. All this should be done quickly so that your first toast does not get too burnt. Grill till the other toast is golden in colour then flip over again on a plate to serve. It should come out looking something like this:




Once Again a Perfect Breakfast to start the day. By the way, picture above is not the grilled ham, egg and cheese sandwich I made/ate. This was an experimental 2-cheese sandwich I tried with a different kind of bread the other day.

Oh wait. Wrong forum.


Back to the river, first step would be to prepare the foreground. I was not sure if I could finish planting the whole tank in one day, so I planned to at least complete the foreground first. With young kids and a need to balance things right, I have very limited time to do up my tank. I would usually only have Sunday and week nights to work on my tank. Saturdays, the kids have a full programme of enrichment classes and other extra-circular activities. Week days, I spend quite a bit of time at this thing that they call, a job. This public holiday is a bonus for me and I do not intend to waste it.


I targeted to try to complete the tank within the day but I knew that had a good chance of being not achievable. My plan B, which I activated, was to plant the foreground or as much plants as I could and let it dry-start a couple of days till my next available day to continue planting.





This is pretty much my workstation for the whole day. Final plug of plant went it at 2234 hours.





I was pretty knackered at the end of it all, too tired to hold the camera still for a FTS and too lazy to set up a tripod. So this is all I leave you for now.


More pictures would some soon. I promise.

No more food posting next time. That I cannot promise.

[zhaoronglim]

Hi Bro I think u need more lava rocks to hold the soil so that i dosen't get to the white sand. Nice Scape!

[Ingen]

I think something like koke stones will suit your tank nicely instead of the brown lava rocks. Can just buy a few pieces and hammer it to small pieces and layover your brown lava, over time algae will grown on the koke stone and give it an aged feel and the green foreground plant will enhance it. Just a thought haha.

[jiajuen900]

Add a dash of black pepper to your sandwich. It will give it a whole new dimension of flavor.

Great post by the way. Looks like it's coming along nicely.

I mean the tank. Not the toast

Cheers,
JJ

[mUAr_cHEe]

Hi Bro I think u need more lava rocks to hold the soil so that i dosen't get to the white sand. Nice Scape!

I think something like koke stones will suit your tank nicely instead of the brown lava rocks. Can just buy a few pieces and hammer it to small pieces and layover your brown lava, over time algae will grown on the koke stone and give it an aged feel and the green foreground plant will enhance it. Just a thought haha.

Thank you, guys. Suggestion noted. After relooking at my pictures, I'd agree with you. Yay! Shopping time!

Add a dash of black pepper to your sandwich. It will give it a whole new dimension of flavor.

Great post by the way. Looks like it's coming along nicely.

I mean the tank. Not the toast

Cheers,
JJ

Pepper. Hmm. Why didn't I think of that?


Thank you for the compliments.


I agree, the toast is not that pretty but it sure tasted good. I will try to get a better picture the next time.

[Phillipians]

As in why didnt you opt for clear silicone finish for your tank?

You can go East Ocean to find out whether they have the stainless steel hanging kit, but I am not sure if they have it for 4ft though.

[matashi]

Oh my, the lights are awesome. Very sleek.

[mUAr_cHEe]

As in why didnt you opt for clear silicone finish for your tank?

You can go East Ocean to find out whether they have the stainless steel hanging kit, but I am not sure if they have it for 4ft though.

Besides the reasons explained as above, I somehow prefer black silicone more. Maybe its the Dark Side of me that made the decision.

Oh my, the lights are awesome. Very sleek.

Thank you. The price was very sleek too. Its one of those many occasion where my wallet went from 'cannot close' to 'closed tight' in 2 seconds. Even still, its a good deal that I got from an old friend.

[mUAr_cHEe]

Full Tank Shot Day -1. Oct 24, 2014.



After fixing the last of the piping, I decided that it was time.



It was initially a little back-breaking by filling the tank up cup by cup. I did not want to upset the substrate too much. Even still, some parts were unsettled and I had to mould it back. Another interesting bit is that some of the ADA substrate, La Plata Sand, both Aqua Soil Amazonia Normal and Powder type floats! I guess some of them clung onto some air-bubbles. I managed to sink them back down by 'poking' at them.

After the water level has gotten reasonably high, I topped up the rest of the tank via a hose with a gentle flow down a drift wood. No leaks. Then I switched on the pumps. Water level sunk back down. It was already really late, so I decided to just top the rest the next day whilst I clean the tank.



Good Night~

[mUAr_cHEe]

Leaks are our worst nightmare and I honestly have not been sleeping well due to one connection. Although it is only one night.

I am running Eheim Ecco Pro canister filters with connections that are 12mm-sized and a Hailea Chiller which has 16mm sized connections. I know I can connect a reducer but I somehow have a problem finding it at the usual LFS that I go to. I remembered that I used to solve this problem by inserting the 12/16mm hose into the 16/22mm hose with a lot of pipe glue applied. I had a lot of confidence on this method back then because I remembered that I exerted quite a lot of strength inserting the 12/16mm (small) hose into the 16/22mm (big) hose.

This time round, I had a little too much ease inserting the smaller hose into the bigger hose to the point where I start to feel very uncomfortable. The difference this time is that I did not apply pipe glue but used vaseline as earlier suggested by another member here on another thread. Another variance is that I previously used hoses from the same manufacturers and this time it is hoses from different manufacturers.

I first put the respective hoses on both equipment. I made sure to push the hose all the way till the end of their connection points. I then thread through the smaller hose into the bigger hose and then clamp down both ends accordingly with metal fasteners.

On the filter end, the bigger pipe went over the small pipe and the outlet. The fit here is rather snug and I managed to fastened this end rather well.



However on the end, where the connection is from big to small, I am a little uncomfortable here. This is what I have right now.



To explain more clearly here, I used an Eheim 12/16mm hose with a Greyish-clear 16/22mm hose that I bought from an LFS. You can see here the gap between the small green Eheim hose and the chiller inlet. Although the measurements and specifications are such, there is still some gap between both hoses. I can see there is water accumulated there. The only comfort that I have right now is that the pressure would not be so great since water is flowing from the small hose to the big hose, some flow rate and pressure might be lost there. But I am still worried about any pressure accumulation.

With the system and water already running for about 24 hours and there is no water leakage detected, I am still a little worried. Anybody else here have a similar problem and what is your solution?

[jiajuen900]

Looks like it's coming along great.

To save you worry and more hours of meddling maybe you should just get the pipe adaptor. I was just at Y618 that day. I think they should have the size you are looking for.

Alternatively, you could order it from Taobao. Order a few and you could save some cash rather than getting from LFS.

http://www.sgshop.com/?taobao=show_1_12929792710