Heart of the Mountain

[PKB]

Beautiful scape, love the way the rocks were laid out. At first glance the rocks look with King Kong with its 2 arms spread at the side ( just my point of view). Doesn't look like a newbie scape at all.

[bluebubbles]

I thought it was rock scape from the title. Should be "heart of the jungle".

[tureblue82]

wow!......"newbie" is an understatement!.......

[mUAr_cHEe]

@mUAr_Chee
Thank you. I'm guessing you're implying that the "mountain" of my scape is somewhat lost among the tall growing plants? If that's the case, I agree. The sense of scale was lost the moment I chose wrong plants. For example, if you can spot the Melon Sword in the initial panting phase, and how small it is, to where it is currently (I almost threw it away at one point because it grew enormous). This is what happens when you don't research plants before buying. Haha! I might change a few plants in the future to bring the scape back to scale, particularly the Melon sword and the Cyperus helferi.

I know. I am facing something similar right now as well. I will be sharing it in my tank thread too once I got it more documented.

The bow front is definitely a challenge when taking pictures. Even when not taking pictures, and I put my face close to the glass to "zoom in" on a particular area, I get a slight distorted view due to the refraction.

I think a bow front tank is better appreciated about 2 to 3 feet in front, on a chair, preferably a lounger and with your favourite drink in your hand.

[Donut the Donkey]

Hi, you do not know how to use multiple reply,here is a thread for it.
It is easy.
http://www.aquaticquotient.com/forum...1-single-reply

sorry for the long wall of text! haha.. Thank you zerofighterx101.

[Donut the Donkey]

Beautiful scape, love the way the rocks were laid out. At first glance the rocks look with King Kong with its 2 arms spread at the side ( just my point of view). Doesn't look like a newbie scape at all.

Thank you PKB for your kind words. Still learning and a long way to go.

Haha that's an interesting point of view. My take is that it kinda coincidentally looks like a dragon with its neck towards the front of the tank, main body in the middle, and two wings on each side (if you see the initial planting phase picture). Is that you Smaug? Maybe we think too much..

[Donut the Donkey]

I thought it was rock scape from the title. Should be "heart of the jungle".

Good point but I'm pretty sure "Heart of the Jungle" has been used/heard before (not that HotM is original and I came up with that either). Anyway in all honesty, I thought my hard scape has a "mountain" looking thingie, and while thinking of a title, for some reason the 'Arkenstone' came to mind.

It was simply my tiny little tribute to Peter Jackson's adaptation of J.R.R Tolkien's books in the movie franchise. Nothing more. Especially since they just released the third and final installment of 'The Hobbit' weeks ago. Haha sorry fanboy speaking.

[Donut the Donkey]

I know. I am facing something similar right now as well. I will be sharing it in my tank thread too once I got it more documented.



I think a bow front tank is better appreciated about 2 to 3 feet in front, on a chair, preferably a lounger and with your favourite drink in your hand.

That's good to know. Please update.

Well yeah, agreed. That's pretty much the range where I "appreciate" it from daily, technically speaking. Heh. When I said "zoomed in", it is only in instances when I see that certain areas contain weird looking stuff and is unsure if it's algae or just pieces of floating moss stuck between plants. That's when the "warping effect" happens due to refraction. I apologise if my comment confused you.

[Donut the Donkey]

wow!......"newbie" is an understatement!.......

Thank you, Sir. I try to do the best I can, with the limited knowledge I have of this hobby currently. Hope to learn more from the pros here like yourself.

[backspace]

This is a great looking setup...really captivating!

[boonware]

Very nice scape!

[chong99]

very good growth of all plants, time to add more fishes...

[Donut the Donkey]

This is a great looking setup...really captivating!

Thank you, backspace!

Very nice scape!

Thank you, boonware!

very good growth of all plants, time to add more fishes...

Thank you, chong99! Uhm, I'm not sure about that.

Currently there are around 50 neon tetras, 15 Yamato shrimps (forgot to add that into the list) and just added 10 Red Cherry shrimps. 8 SAEs. 4 Oto cats. 6 Nerites. Just yesterday the water appeared very cloudy and this happens occasionally. Could the increased bio load have triggered a bacterial bloom in the water?

Have been troubled by this quite often lately. Today the water has cleared up slightly. I'm pretty sure it's not the CO2 micro bubbles from the atomizer. Need some advice from the experts here. Tomorrow is water change day so I will have to do that first. Maybe I need to do 50% water changes weekly as opposed to once every 2 weeks?

I think part of the problem is that I have been dosing KH2PO4 (amounts vary, about once every 2 days), to battle green spot algae that have been really rampant but have been reduced significantly lately. Add to that, I don't test my water parameters so no idea what my PO4 level is. Although have read online, Mr Tom Barr have stated that it's ok for that to range in the 1.0-2.0ppm, which is why I dose it quite generously. Appreciate some advice.

[Donut the Donkey]

My apologies for the wall of text again but apart from the problems I just listed earlier (put that as Question 1), here are some other issues that I hope all the experts here can help.

Been using Seachem's liquid fertilizer dosing from the start and it's easy to follow dosing regime but finding out quickly that in the long run, it isn't cost effective especially for a noob like me and my tank capacity. Therefore I am switching to dry ferts.

I bought LUSHGRo NPK (15% N 15% P 15% K) which is in blue granule form. Did I buy the correct thing? I don't think I have read anyone using this before or I could be wrong. I'm hoping this can be used for aquariums as I bought two bottles.

I also bought two bottles of their Potassium Dihydrogen Phosphate (KH2PO4)and I've read many others using this so I'm okay on this part. I'm thinking of using these two along with Seachem's Iron, Flourish, Trace and Excel.

Question 2: Do I need Flourish? What else do I need? Do I need Calcium Nitrate which Eco City Hydro also provides?

Question 3: I'm thinking my fert regime should be Mon, Wed, Fri (NPK), other alternate days KH2PO4 along with one of Seachem's mentioned earlier?

The hard part is the tsp measurements. If anyone can help with the measurements. My tank is 333 litres. Thank you so much!

[Donut the Donkey]

Hopefully a few of you guys could help with some of the questions I asked earlier.

Well, did a water change and I'm happy to say the water clarity is a lot better. I really think I have to step up my WC game. 50%, once a week it is, for now. Can't be lazy.

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[Donut the Donkey]

Only battle now is with GSA. Monte carlo that replaced part of the HC Cuba is growing in well.

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[Donut the Donkey]

Just a little update:
After about two months of "semi-neglect", the scape became a jungle. Partially because I wanted to see all the plants grow out to its full potential without trimming, plus also because I got lazy. Bad idea as the shade pretty much blocked out the light needed for a few carpeting plants. So a week ago, I started removing all the monster plants, and decided to do a slight rescape, while I'm at it. Here's a picture of my tank before trimming.



And here's how it looks currently, one week later. Lesser denseness in terms of plants, but I guess it's much better than before. Some areas have gone bare, due to the shade previously, so I replanted the MC that were left floating on the surface of the water, which had been uprooted. Still waiting for new growth on that part.

[Donut the Donkey]

Comments on how to improve further will be appreciated. Thank you.

[BFG]

I like it a lot!

[ZIr]

I prefer this latest version which has some resemblance of a mountain. Looks majestic