Project sunken garden

**Aquaculture** · 20th Nov 2008, 22:43

Oh wow. Its looking really natural. Very nice bro.

**benjamin.fxj** · 20th Nov 2008, 23:41

I dare say the most breathtaking project I've seen here so far.

**Kajsa12** · 21st Nov 2008, 05:42

I've been reading the whole thread. It took more than a few minutes

, but it was time well spent.
What an amazing garden

.

Thanks so much for sharing.

**JadeIceGreen** · 13th Jan 2009, 17:10

Awesome! I've never seen anything like this, this makes all our tanks at home look tiny!

**freshfish** · 13th Jan 2009, 17:32

wow beautiful ... looks so nature

**fighting fish** · 28th Jan 2009, 01:38

Breath taking tank you have there. can sit by tank and just enjoy the beauty for hours...

**Viper007** · 28th Jan 2009, 11:29

Wow your house must be really big to have such a beautiful showpiece!

**Petia** · 29th Jan 2009, 09:46

Its amazing how you bring the outdoors indoors literally. Beautiful work of art.

I notice the picture in post #168, there is a power strip dangerously close to the edge of the water. Perhaps you can consider installing outdoor water proof power sockets for safety reasons.

**medicineman** · 22nd Feb 2009, 20:35

Short story update :
I've had enough of the old fish stock for they have always bothered the plants too much. From nibbled or pulled off leaves to unplanting smaller plants.

So reluctantly I'm forced to evict some of the most possible culprits :
- Bala shark : guilty for creating bottom mess and probable of plant nibbling behaviour (even towards slow growing and thick-leaved assorted echinodorus). They blow and sucks in gravel for food and making the tank murky twice a day (right away after feeding time, it does not matter if there is no food sinks down).
- Puntius denisonii : guilty for unplanting small plants and possible plant nibbling.
- Puntius johorensis : confirmed on act plant nibbler
- Some other fish, and left with angelfish, algae eater, CAE, corydoras in the tank.

So the list after I use fishing net (yes, cut, long fishing net as normal aquarium net or simple fish trap will not do) and create a mess out of the tank, I'm feeling quite glad.
The extreme measure result in improvements right away. Now I see much less leaves floats around and no more plantlets getting carried away. The water is also relatively much clearer due to less bio load and lack of bottom disturbance.

As replacement, I ordered some natural colored discus from a local discus breeder to match the wildness of tank. To my surprise, two of the discus (size 3.5-4") immediately formed a pair within two weeks of being introduced in the tank and they laid eggs on one of the giant echinodorus leaf. They refuse to gather during feeding time as usual and darken in colour, became aggressive towards trespasser.
Too bad my water seems to hard for the egg to form/hatch properly. Four days later they seems to abandon the nest (no more eggs observed) and come out to eagerly eat. I'm not totally clear if the egg does not hatch and eventually being eaten by the parents or they simply hatch and hide. I'm not too accustomed towards discus breeding behavior.

Just several days away ever since they are back to beg for bloodworm, the couple kind of disappear again behind the forest of echinodorus leaves. Well, kind of, as one of the parent would still come out to be hand-fed. Nursering couple still needs to eat anyhow.

I managed to take decent shot of the slightly smaller, non breeding discus :

Lately I found a bulb just like my old, burnt one.
I decided of getting rather bored by the existing orange bulb and take the greenish-white bulb home. The effect is just like before : white with strong tint of green and blue. A matter of personal preference, people may like or dislike the change. But I assure you my plants appreciate both.

Here is a full front shot, taken in late evening

To the back center part of the tank (fills up space to the right of green limnophila aquatica until left of the broad leaved echinodorus marble queen), not well seen due to dimmer lighting and dark leaves colour is my giant echinodorus rubin.
This species indeed is not a joke as it reached massive full size of 50+ leaves, almost the size of a small racket each.

**ecar0h** · 22nd Feb 2009, 21:24

Breathtaking. Wow!

**Verminator** · 23rd Feb 2009, 19:02

Simply stunning. I can only dream of having such a tank.

**iwishweallcouldwin** · 23rd Feb 2009, 21:10

Nice discus!

**medicineman** · 24th Feb 2009, 11:13

More pics ...

you can spot one of the natural coloured discus from here

From the top

**Aquaculture** · 24th Feb 2009, 11:38

Love the greenery. Able to post pics of the full view, up to the wall. Really curious on how it'll look like by now.

**craftsman** · 24th Feb 2009, 13:48

This is so dang beautiful!!! I wish I can do this. Ha ha ha ha ha ha

**medicineman** · 25th Feb 2009, 21:29

Not all of the blue-green discus formed good colouring. Here is an example of how the younger one at the right still retains quite a lot of the stress bar and of less colouring

The other one with formed colour, but more obvious stress bar

One of the lone, natural colour discus

The couple

My greedy and tamed anglefish (yes, you can stroke and hand-feed it)

**plasticknife** · 27th Feb 2009, 14:28

This is the most impressive home setup aquarium i've ever seen. FULL SCALE!!!! will book mark this thread for reference for my future project.

CHEERS!!

**littlerat08** · 12th Mar 2009, 11:43

Originally Posted by plasticknife

This is the most impressive home setup aquarium i've ever seen. FULL SCALE!!!! will book mark this thread for reference for my future project.

CHEERS!!

I will be foolowing your thread.. Awesome is the word. Beyond imagination. Great job and I salute you.

**footballe** · 12th Mar 2009, 23:28

Originally Posted by Kajsa12

I've been reading the whole thread. It took more than a few minutes

, but it was time well spent.
What an amazing garden

.

Thanks so much for sharing.

took me 1 hour to view the whole thread. this guy is crazy !!!

**medicineman** · 7th Jun 2009, 23:01

Play around with my new lens... and for update

I took out this echinodorus uruguayensis out of my tank. The plant takes up so much space and would be better in the pond.

If I have the chance, perhaps one day I will make again a setup but looking more to something like this, something combined with outside garden. Living room or dining room next to such would be nice.

This setup is taken from Singapore zoo. It is the new proboscis monkey display if you wonder. They have this setup with the monkey at the dry part. I observe the fauna to be scissortail rasbora and a kind of bala shark.