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Wow nice rocks. Where did you get? I want to go collect also.
Hello!
After much procrastinating and lazing around, I had decided to start my rescaping of my 1.5ft tank! This is my first attempt to come up with a reasonable looking tank that remotely resembles the rest of the tanks here.
This is how my previous tankscape looked like. You might (might!) like it, bu it was a pain to maintain. The plants either grew too slow to be taken seriously by algae growing on them, or they would just melt away. Only the Indian Fern was able to flourish in such a poor tank by overtaking over the whole tank within a week. But it's still a personal favourite to use Indian Fern when I need some plants to buffer the newly changed water in the tank. Regardless of my sentimental feelings towards this tank, I shall tear it down!
I did it on monday night, 23rd August, by taking everything out of the tank. Took me three hours to catch the fishes, pull out the plants, rocks and wood, remove the gravel. Finally after cleaning the tank of any evidence of a previous scape, I poured the ADA Amazonia aquasoil into my tank and created a slope. I thought the tank would be very cloudy from the dust from the soil, but when I filled the tank, the water looked cystal clear! So far so good! (Except my ignorance of not documenting the result of that nite's work!)
The previous scape was maintained with two HOB filters which were barely helping. For my new tank I bought one Resun Cyclone External Filter CY-20 to better clean the water. Not wanting to be caught unprepared, I had already run the new canister filter together with the two HOB filters to start the growth of bacteria in the canister filter. I removed the weak HOB filters and started using the new canister filter after the putting in the Amazonia, not that there was much bioload. I gave most of my fishes to my friendly LFS friend.
I had read up that I should 'break in' the soil for at least a week to slight haziness but little did I know that it was going to be BAD. The next day after putting in the new soil, the tank looked especially yellow and hazy. My unplanted bunches of grass and a small amount of planted HC melted in the acidic water. I had to seek help over here to find out what to do. Good thing that the water cleared up and became less yellow after a week of many 70% water changes.
To celebrate my victory over cloudy water, I went to C328 on Friday, 28th August to buy some Japanese hairgrass, HC, anubias 'nana', some other plants and an assortment of stuff in anticipation of the big day. Finally on monday night, 31st August, IT WAS TIME FOR AQUASCAPING!
I wanted to follow Amano's style of aquascaping, so I had my rocks positioned beforehand until I saw what I liked. I got them around my school, which was found off the sidewalk. I think they're granite or something since they're so heavy. Good thing I wasn't stopped at the customs when I went back to JB. They would be wondering what I was doing with at least 3kg worth of rocks in my backpack!
FINALLY!!! After 5 hours of back breaking work I had done it! I had to tease the japanese hairgrass and HC before I planted them, and with my lousy plasticky tweezers it was a lot harder to get the plantlets to stay rooted in the soil. The shifting and pushing around of the rocks released a whole new batch of dust into the water column and once again my tank is polluted. The Resun external filter was not really powerful enough for my 1.5ft tank and couldn't really remove the dust off the water.
It took ages to plant these two plants individually into the soil, but hopefully they would take root and grow! What do you think guys, did I plant them correctly?
Yawn. Look at the time. That's it for now for part one. Will continue my long story the next time. Do share you thoughts about my aquascaping!
Last edited by thomaspkc; 12th Aug 2007 at 03:39.
Thomas
Wow nice rocks. Where did you get? I want to go collect also.
I'm back!
i think that place will run out of rocks in no time!!
nice scape bro.
As much as I would want to share the place with you, I thought about it and decided not to disclose the location... Just in case what yeoyl87 said comes true, then I will get into trouble!Originally Posted by Aeon
So sorry!
Last edited by thomaspkc; 16th Aug 2007 at 06:34.
Thomas
just a suggestion, it may be nicer if you had the back of your tank made black by sticking black paper. It bring out the color of the landscape.
it hard to find nice rocks of the same composition and texture.
I do have black paper that I had removed earlier on. But I removed them to see whether it's better or not. Will put up the black paper soon to see!
I agree that it's hard to find rocks of the same composition. That's why I was eyeing those rocks for a year and decided to use them for my rescaped tank!
Last edited by thomaspkc; 16th Aug 2007 at 06:35.
Thomas
how did you plant the HC. Any Guide.
Well, first you will need to prepare the HC for planting. Since the HC usually grow together in clumps, it will be easier if you seperate them into plantlets first. Take time to take them apart, especially those that had grown entangled together. Break apart the plantlets that are connected with a runner. place and arrange the 'processed' plantlets on a tray preferbly, and with sufficient moisture on them. Don't let them dry out.
When you're done with the tedious ordeal (mine took 35 mins to seperate just a single pot, you can start planting them. You will need a pair of stainless steel tweezers with a fine tip, so that you can grip the plantlets and plant them into the substrate without messing up the substrate or uprooting the plantlets that you had planted before. Do invest in a good pair, rather than going for the plasticky kind. It made a difference for me when I used the stainless stell one.
Push the plantlets down into the substrate, leaving only the 'crown' of the plantlet exposed to the light above. You are planting them, not burying them!The whold process of planting might take about 1 hour, so be ready for that!
Then that's about it. Don't get any fishes yet for your tank and let the HC settle in in about four weeks. Or else your tank will look like mine, with my panda cories burrowing everywhere for worms, uprooting my plantlets in the process!
Thomas
It's time for my second update! Sorry that I took that long to come up with the update, I had tons of school work waiting for me! Anyway here it is:
After about one week, the water cleared up reasonably and much can be seen in the tank. Notice anything different about the tank?
I have a BRAND NEW EHEIM CLASSIC!!!
My friend (who is also here and I won't mention his name) decided to give me an early christmas present when he found out from me that my Resun Cyclone External Filter isn't that wonderful when it comes to removing minute particles of expensive ADA dust from all that planting. It was fantastic to see such a beautifully designed equipment work its magic. I the filter media in this order:
Eheim blue coarse filter pad
Mr Aqua Ceramic rings
marble chips (to stablise the pH)
Eheim white filter wool pad
The filter is very efficient, having such strong water intake and output. My dusty water cleared within two days of filtering.
So what do you think of my setup? I didn't really plan it to be a Iwagumi setup since I had limited variety of rocks to choose from. So hopefully they are nice enough.
Thomas
One week later, I changed the only wood piece in my tank to another piece:
The filter had by now filter away all the dust in the water column and it is sparkling clean, all thanks to the Eheim Classic. The plants were filling in nicely, though the background plants (which I have no idea what that is) are thriving/melting. As usual the cories at the bottom were uprooting some of them, with me cursing under my breath when I had to replant them. On an impulse, I bought a hundred pygmy rasboras for half the price, at RM50 for that hundred!
The hairgrass is doing what grasses usually do: grow like weeds. This hairgrass is sending out runners to take over the tank! Wow!Looks like my tank is thriving! (I think)
A shot of my pygmy rasboras, fully acclimatised to the water and with their colours showing. Beautiful fishes, aren't they?
Thomas
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