First attempt on Iwagumi wannabe in 60x30x36

[David]

Nice...think you should grow some thing on the trunk rather than cut.

Nothing red or reddish ...brown maybe?

[Ingen]

True, contemplating to have java moss or fissidens and some small patches of ferns, but not sure what type of fern is small size.

Will probably cut the front truck to allow movement of the whole piece to further front of the tank.

What do you think? Any advice on the background plant?

[David]

The problem with cutting the trunk or branch is that it looks unnatural.

You may be quite stuck with small leaf stemmed plants

[Ingen]

Any suggests on small leaf steam plants? Thinking of trying some bucephalandra around the base of the drift wood, worry it might grow too big?

[Urban Aquaria]

Any suggests on small leaf steam plants? Thinking of trying some bucephalandra around the base of the drift wood, worry it might grow too big?

Can consider trying Micranthemum Micranthemoides (aka MM or HM), relatively low demand and fast growth, their leaves are small and bright green... the more you trim it the denser it grows, easy to replant the tops to fill up the tank background too.

[Shadow]

they do have small bucephalandra but bucephalandra have a stiff leaf does not look good in large quantity just like nana.

[gilch icariel]

Nice rocks you have. Hope to see it bloom.

[Ingen]

Nice rocks you have. Hope to see it bloom.

Thanks thanks, the iwagumi scape is gone. Now is a forest wannabe haha.

[felix_fx2]

Thanks thanks, the iwagumi scape is gone. Now is a forest wannabe haha.

got picture

[Ingen]

Look at the previous page for the initial look. Now the driftwoods are full of moldy stuff, very unsightly to take picture, I'm waiting for them to disappear, but it doesn't seem to haha, still waiting after three weeks.

[felix_fx2]

update pictures ma.. hehe...

[Ingen]

update pictures ma.. hehe...

Honestly, it looks horrible haha. The whole driftwood is coated with the white mold, it's even killing some of the Annbias petite that I place on the truck. I'm the only one who can bear to look at it, my wife refuses to look at the tank more than 2 seconds haha. I'm reluctant to take the wood out for a scrub, waiting to see if it clears in a few weeks time.

[Shadow]

You can siphon the fungus, you can also add some yamato or malayan shrimps.

[Ingen]

I plan to add some Yamato, but I noticed there's an ammonia spike since I rescape and adding ADA soil. It was zero before I add in the wood and soil, but the ammonia level has been in the green (API test kit) since. It's coming to three weeks now... I wonder how long does it take for the ammonia to clear, since the tank should be cycled previously.

[Shadow]

I never measure ammonia but normally for new setup, 4 weeks use finished cycle. Your is old setup so maybe it is already cycled.

[magpie]

You can try to manually pull out the white mould/fungus from the dw.

[Ingen]

You can try to manually pull out the white mould/fungus from the dw.

It's like a force field surrounding ALL of the wood and branches hahah.

[Ingen]

I toothbrush off the mold and did a 50% water change and it wiped out 50% of my pygmy cory the next morning... I been conducting 30% water change every other day this week due to the high ammonia level and I noticed the fishes are gasping for air during lights off.

I also noticed that my HC carpet is starting to melt after 4 months and my fishes are all at the surface, seemingly gasping for air during lights off (CO2 is off too). I will be putting in an air stone just in case but any idea what could be the sudden cause of such change in the environment?

Could it be that the plants are not producing enough oxygen during lights on due to the constant water change and affecting the HC carpet?

[Ingen]

Spent the last 5 hours cleaning up the melted HC carpet and changing the foreground substrate to ANS bright sands with the tank full of water... Such a tedious hobby haha! Now got to wait for the tank to settle to take a good look at it in the morning.

[sammajor]

Any further update bro ingen?