Iwagumi scape journal

[Justikanz]

Nice... This tank supplemented with CO2?

[richietay]

Ken, like your setup very much, very nice!

[Ah_ZhaN]

wow Ken, that's a pretty nice Iwagumi scape.

[uorme99]

really great looking tank ken!! congrats!!

[Fei Miao]

Thanks for the compliment Guys.

Thomas, yes it's with CO2 (2-3bps) and aeration at night after lights out.

I cut back the T5 lights from 24W x 3 to 24W x2. Just gave the hairgrass a major trim last night, will post a pic when I find the time to take another shot.

Update on the specs
Dimension: 60cm x 30cm x 45cm
Lights: T5 24W x 2
Photo period: about 10 hours
Substrate: ADA amazonia
CO2: 2-3 bps
Aeration: Night after lights out
Temp with fan: average 28ºC on cool days 26ºC

Base Fert: nil
Liquid Fert dosing: Easy Life, PO4, NO3

Flora:
Hemianthus callitrichoides ''Cuba''
Eleocharis acicularis

Fauna:
1 Oto, 3 dwarf pencil fish
Main Fauna: Still none at the moment...

[Justikanz]

No wonder can sustain such nice HC! I am thinking of using HC for my planned office tank with no CO2 and thought your tank might be an example that just might be possible... Haha... I wished! Oh well...

[Plantbrain]

It's been about 4 weeks since the set-up of this tank, started dosing liquid fertilzers and trimmed hairgrass in the 2nd week, seen some new growth for the hairgrass now.

The HC covered about 70% of the lawn after 4 weeks, but I'm having some trouble getting the HC to spread more with the area directly under the main rock(in the shadows of the rock), the area is still quite sparse, any suggestions to get the HC growing better here?

The tank had some issues with thread algae and greenwater initially, I have to manually remove as much of the thread alage as possible and been doing 70% water change twice a week since, a oto and 3 pcs dwarf pencil fish(Nannostomus marginatus) were released to help. There were improvements and so far I managed to keep the algae in check. Hopefully when the tank matures fully, the algae will disappear all together.



shot taken 22/09/06

Crank CO2 if you have no fish and then slowly reduce before you add livestock.

note, since there is such little plant biomass you can reduce the lighting(bad idea really unless things get away from you), or do frequent water changes(2-3x a week) to reduce the NH4, or add Zeolite to your filter to remove the NH4from the Aqua soil.

With low plant biomass set ups, this is tough.
So you need to think ahead and plant such things, EI dosing is not needed and will not help too much because, well....there are not much plants to begin with!!!

Later after things grow in well, then you can dose.
Plant biomass drives many ofb the changes and dosing issues many have.

NH4 cause alage so things can be done to reduce that other than plant biomass, like large frequent water changes, Zeolite etc till things grow in better.



Regards,
Tom Barr

[tcy81]

nice setup, taking pics for ADA 2007 competition ??

[kemp]

ken bro, nice tank!

[Nevada]

fei miao,

u should prepare the tank well and sent it for ADA ... it will grow nice. The appearance has changed drastically. it looks much better after the 4th week.

Edwin

[luenny]

Really nice tank fei miao. Simple and nice - I'm sure you've planned very hard to achieve this. Often the simplest look are the hardest to achieve.

[Fei Miao]

Some updates on the happenings to this tank,

... well I took Tom's advice, (Thanks Tom ) and whatever I can do to reduce the NH4,
1. Manually remove as much of the thread algae as much as I can with a tooth brush.
2. Cut back on the fert. dosing.
3. Added zeolite to the filter.
4. Carried on with massive water change twice a week.
5. Crank up the CO2.

It works!... and the algae seems to be retreating however there were some stubborn ones that are still quite visible.

I guessed the turning point came when juggler got me to add in yamatos, which I was reluctant to do so in fear these critters will up-root my hard-work. However I relented and added in ten yamatos, well, I must say these shrimps really live up to its reputations, within a day or 2, I can see significant reduction of the thread algae, along with a significant of up-rooted HC ...just as I feared. I was almost tempted to remove them, however, I grit my teeth and leave the shrimps in to do their work..

In the next few days, the shrimps really did a good job in clearing all the visible algae. I reduced the number of shrimps to 5 since then and these guys are doing great as maintenance crew, I removed the zeolite and resumed fert dosing. The tank is in a much better state, back on track now.

A big thank you to all for the valuable comments & advises.

...will take some updated pics soon...

[Fei Miao]

Here's the updated pic


close-up

[valice]

The HC lawn is so beautiful... *Droolz*

[StanChung]

Looking very nice. Can't see any algae! Yamatos really live up to reputation-no wonder they are Amano's darliings.
Any plans to plant taller hairgrass at the back?

[Fei Miao]

for now, just HC and harigrass....until i get tired of it.
What plants would you suggest for the back?

[StanChung]

I would go for Eleocharis vivipara perhaps? Or Isoetes something. A thin curtain of grass would be nice so that we do not see so much bg.

[eddyq]

Looks like this scape of 3 months had became a success. The HC had carpeted nicely! Good to see the algae being tackled.

[Ah_ZhaN]

Thumbs up for yoo Fei Mao...Great to see your HC lawn so grow so lushful.

[|squee|]

How come you left the right hand corner empty instead of "completing" the rock line?

Great growth of plants, and a nice tank indeed.