2016 Rescape: 'Little Red'

[Mr Ironiic]

So I did a post about my tank a while backed last year when it was called Eden Gate.

Though at the beginning of the 2016 I started planning out how to rescape it to make it look better.

Before the rescape my tank was in quite a bad condition. There was staghorn algae all over the mosses, my weeping moss had crazy burns and was looking more brown then green and the scape looked really unbalanced. In the end I got tired and decided to do a Rescape early this year.

Since it is was the new year I decided to give the scape by calling it 'Little Red'.

This is because my tank is filled with tons of red cherry shrimp and scarlet badis, all my fish are nano fish and the scape is inspired by forests.



Tank: Juwel lido 120 61x41x58

New fish stocking:
15 Pygmy cories
6 Scarlet Badis
3 Sparkling Gourami
2 Otocinclus catfish (will be getting more)
10-11 green neon tetra
5 amano shrimp
A few assassin snails
Only God knows how many cherries

Plants:
Weeping moss
Flame moss
Mini xmas moss
Fissidens fontanus
Eloecharis Acicularis
Eloecharis Parvula
Hydrocotyle sp Japan
Pygmy chain sword
Ammonia sp Bonsai

Substrate/hardscape:
Ada Amazonia normal
Ada Amazonia powder
Lava rock
Bonsai driftwood
Sand

Fertiliser:
Ei dosing

Lighting:
Quad odyssea t5 fixture but only using 3 10000k bulbs
8 hrs a day

Filtration/pump
Tetra tec ex800 plus (800lph)
Hydro Koralia pump (900lph)

Co2:
2kg co2 fire extinguisher
Co2art Dual gauge/single stage regulator
Bubble counter with in built check valve
2 more external check valves (glass and brass)
Co2 tubing
Intense bazooka diffuser












Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Mr Ironiic]

After nuking my tank with H202, I made huge changes.

I got tired of the sand path in the middle of my scape and decided to have carpet instead. I used Eloecharis Acicularis at the back because it was lighter in colour.




Creating the illusion that they are clear fields which are not shaded by the trees. Alongside Ammania sp bonsai and Pygmy chain sword. Basically I chose lighter colour plants like these to represent the areas that are outside of the forest.








Whereas in the forest I choose darker colour plants such as mosses and continued the carpet effect with Eloecharis Parvula since it was darker than Acicularis.













Originally I was gonna have Christmas moss be the main moss on the rocks but I bought so much weeping moss and so little Christmas moss I had to swap the roles

Either way I'm not disappointed.


One thing I kept the same was the weeping moss on the trees. This time I won't use excel and I will make sure my co2 levels are on point to minimise algae growth





All my moss were bought in their emersed form and are transitioning will into their submerged form. The weeping moss is even turning dark which is good.



Now on to the fish



I feed them a number of treats which include:

Hikari micro pellets
Hikari shrimp pellets
Hikari discus pellets
Hikari algae wafers

If you haven't noticed I'm a hikari fanboy lol

I feed baby brine shrimp and micro worms which I am currently trying to gutload with spirnulia algae.

I also feed Frozen brine shrimp, bloodworms and daphnia but not so often.






I tried raising a daphnia culture but found it to be too much work lol so I chose hatching bbs instead.






I'm a huge nano fish fan






Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Mr Ironiic]

And wanted to create a really good sense of scale in the tank (watching too much green machine on YouTube)



I chose the forest scape because I like scape a that allow fish to swim in and out of small spaces, it is a concept that not a lot of people do( didn't find a ton of pictures on google in comparison to iwagumi). Also I just find it really relaxing to look at and try to spot the creatures lurking in the woods.



As for my co2, what can I say this intake atomiser is sick. Creates such a fine mist which my plants seem to enjoy





Not to mention I can use soo much less co2. I had to use 4 bps with a glass diffuser but not I only use 1.5bps and my drop checker (which is placed in the furthest position from the diffuser) is always yellow. Haven't gassed my fish yet so it's cool.

Though it is annoying to clean sometimes because of calcium build up (my water is that hard)

I do have an inline diffuser which is on its way.

I do have some issues though. One is that one of my scarlet badis has dropsy. I will buy Epsom salt to see if that will help.

Also my Pygmy cories do spend a lot of time hiding and never really come to the front of the tank. I don't know if this is a flow issue or co2 or both or if they are afraid of me(weird because I have had some for months now). I wish someone could tell me what's up

I will keep you guys updated on what's going on.




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[fireblade]

nice scape there!
although it loks messy now, I believe it will looks stunning when it matures.
one thing to note is that your trees might be too low, when the plants grows in, some parts of the tree might be covered..
the bubbles looks like raindrops in the tank..

[Mr Ironiic]

nice scape there!
although it loks messy now, I believe it will looks stunning when it matures.
one thing to note is that your trees might be too low, when the plants grows in, some parts of the tree might be covered..
the bubbles looks like raindrops in the tank..

That's exactly what I thought when I saw the bubbles.

Not sure the trees are to low, it might be that the tank being quite tall can make it seem that way. Before I did notice that when the weeping moss on the trees was fully grown it did cover some of the branches. Though with some trimming I should be able to keep that look

Sent from my D2303 using Tapatalk

[Ivan Choo]

I think Pygmy Corydoras are just shy by nature. Mine hides all the time, even with plenty of dither fishes and good hiding places. I noticed they are more active during early morning and late night, often coming out to swim in pairs or groups, but they will hide when I approach the tank.

Another forumer suggested to me to drop food (Sera O-nip) at the front of the tank to lure them out, it's hit and misses for me. But I do notice them coming out more often after some time, I guess they just take longer to get comfortable with the environment (maybe as long as a few weeks).

I think other dwarf corydoras species are less shy.

[Mr Ironiic]

I think Pygmy Corydoras are just shy by nature. Mine hides all the time, even with plenty of dither fishes and good hiding places. I noticed they are more active during early morning and late night, often coming out to swim in pairs or groups, but they will hide when I approach the tank.

Another forumer suggested to me to drop food (Sera O-nip) at the front of the tank to lure them out, it's hit and misses for me. But I do notice them coming out more often after some time, I guess they just take longer to get comfortable with the environment (maybe as long as a few weeks).

I think other dwarf corydoras species are less shy.

Yep that's exactly my issue. I even tried the same feeding trick but not much luck.


but you see I have had some of them for a few months now. Before they were always out and about and now they just stay at the back and hide. Maybe I should have gotten some of the other species.

Oh well I will just wait a bit more I guess. Though I do suspect my flow could be and issue so I will try to change the direction since they chill in the back flow of the pump


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Ivan Choo]

Well, they are shy! I think it's also a numbers game. Double your Pygmy population and you'll probably see more of them out in the open. It just takes one or two outgoing pygmy to led the rest out. Personally, I'd give this fish a miss and go for other species.

[Mr Ironiic]

Well, they are shy! I think it's also a numbers game. Double your Pygmy population and you'll probably see more of them out in the open. It just takes one or two outgoing pygmy to led the rest out. Personally, I'd give this fish a miss and go for other species.

I already did that loool bought 7 more of them now their numbers are at 15-17.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Ivan Choo]

Lol I feel you man. I stopped at 8. Try hastatus sp. you'll have better luck I believe.

[Mr Ironiic]

Hmmmm I will look into the other two species. Might try to catch the pygmies and sell them to get a more courageous species


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Ivan Choo]

You'll want to remove them before your scape fully grows in. I can imagine a hard time catching them in a densely fully grown tank.

[Mr Ironiic]

Update

So my inline diffuser came today



I was weirdly surprised at how big it was, thinking I bought the wrong size.

But any ways, it took me a while to hook everything up since it was my first time.



I read a lot about inline diffusers and that a lot of them have leak issues especially the ones where you can take the ceramic out etc.

Fortunately I bought the solid ones and haven't experienced any leaking issues(water or co2)

Also I'm experiencing algae issues that are mainly co2 and flow related.







So I put my spray bar at the back of the tank and swapped my 900lph wave maker with a 2000lph circulation pump. I just want to test if this will make a difference.

If anyone has any ideas on ways to remove the algae I would really appreciate it .

The mist made but the online diffuser is like 5 times finer than the bazooka. Makes my forest look like it's covered by a morning mist with light rain shower. Really effect for the scape.

Some news (other than the algae) is that my scarlet badis with dropsy sadly didn't make it and passed away in his hospital tank.

I think the cause of the issue was when I was stirring up a lot of dirt in the tank when I was rescaping and didn't clean it after wards properly (which could also explain the algae issues) so I will be conducting some water changes to remove dust particles and mulm that is on my plants (especially moss).


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Mr Ironiic]

Sunday update.

So after discovering that my staghorn algae issue was slowly creeping back I decided to take action by dosing 2-3x of excel on the mosses and grass most effected, mowed down the grass(including the infected grass) , did a 50% water change and increased my flow and co2 rate.



The excel treatment alongside the increased flow seems to be helping me my infected mosses (especially the fissdens fontanus mini)



However, as I was trying to increase my co2 I noticed that my bubble rate was still the same. I twisted the needle to the point where it was completely open but still had a very slow bubble rate. At first I thought I had run out of co2 and changed my 2kg to my 5kg cylinder (surprised it fit in my cabinet)



But After nothing changed I figured my regulator was broken.

This morning when the co2 came on I saw a huge rush co2 coming into the tank. So I shut the valve completely off to avoid killing my fish and then slowly turned it on, only to realise that the bubble rate wasn't increasing as I was turning it. So I have ordered a new regulator and impatiently waiting for it to arrive.



This really sucks because it's gonna cause fluctuations in the co2 output which will favour algae growth. One idea I'm thinking of is putting the tank in a blackout until the order comes (which should be 3-5 days). This way algae can't grow and it could also help wipe out the existing algae in the tank.



Alongside the algae issue I have noticed that my dwarf hair grass at the front of my tank is growing really slow. I'm not sure if it was because of the algae that covered it or the lack of flow but the plant isn't producing as much runners as the grass at the back (mind you this grass is Eloecharis Parvula whereas the grass in the background is Eloecharis Acicularis). Either way I made sure to trim it really aggressively to encourage runners.




As for the rest of the tank, things are going fine.

My mosses are growing and pearling






Fishes are chilling, eating and playing












My shrimps are doing a good job with maintenance(I'm not paying them for nothing)






Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Mr Ironiic]

So far im happy with the growth, I just need to deal with the regulator and algae business.







Also I am very happy with the misting from the online diffuser.




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk