my new ~1.4 ft cube tank

[Jervis]

Your tank is looking real good... the background plants grow so naturally... have you been trimming them? I strongly suggest you submit for ADA 08... definitely stand a good chance in getting good ranking

[Jervis]

Another thing... for some strange reasons... I find your temporary Riccia looks good in the layout... serious!

[Cpark188]

I think you should leave the riccia there, is true as what jervis said, so lushing and so much difference compare with the previous picture. Good work as first timer with so good result.

[Panut]

Very nice setup.

[torque6]

see, illumnae has got good taste, at first glance didnt even see the cave as it blended and camoflage well into the aquascape. Nice placement there Ong !

[stmoo]

wow... that is a very nice set up.. can see you had put in a lot of effort.. keep it up..

[ongtw]

Your tank is looking real good... the background plants grow so naturally... have you been trimming them? I strongly suggest you submit for ADA 08... definitely stand a good chance in getting good ranking

wow jervis you serious? i personally don't find it that good you know. anyway so far i've trimmed it only once. i'll probably going to do another trimming real soon. too bad that i played the blyxa japonica in front of the rock. now its blocking most of it.

Another thing... for some strange reasons... I find your temporary Riccia looks good in the layout... serious!

oh the riccia looks good? lol! i had to place it there as i have run out of space and my gf insisted we should get riccia. that's why i placed it there. but then again the riccia really multiplied! i only got a small handful of them and now it multiplied like 3 times more.

I think you should leave the riccia there, is true as what jervis said, so lushing and so much difference compare with the previous picture. Good work as first timer with so good result.

thanks. i suppose i was lucky. i didn't really do a lot to check the water parameters. just plant heavily and let it run like that.

see, illumnae has got good taste, at first glance didnt even see the cave as it blended and camoflage well into the aquascape. Nice placement there Ong !

yeap.. i liked the cave too. haha.. ripped off some spiky moss elsewhere and tie it on top of the cave.. hehe

[chinhl]

Dear Ongtw,

Heard that white sand with ADA sand togather is very hard to maintant the white sand, you have any idea on maintant the white sand?

[ongtw]

Dear Ongtw,

Heard that white sand with ADA sand togather is very hard to maintant the white sand, you have any idea on maintant the white sand?

hi chin,

it's really tough and impossible to seperate them nicely. if you'd notice in my picture, the white sand is still mixed with some ada powersand. what i did was to insert small stones between the white sand and the ADA substrate as suggested by fellow forumners here.

if you really want to keep it white and nice, i suggest that you do not keep fishes like apisto or cory. these guys will ruin everything for you. in my case, my pair of apisto is giving me headache

[ongtw]

hi guys,

did some trimming, removed some plants and riccia is growing like crazy. so ended up tying them in wire mesh and simply throwing them into the tank... dont know where to put them anymore.

anyway after a few days, found that they start to bubble like crazy.

[blue33]

Well done, you have a nice scape shape. You can trim the blyxa to make it look nicer.

[ongtw]

hi blue,

can i just cut them short? i read somewhere that i can't do that. that's why i don't dare to cut them yet and its blocking my stone already.. lol

[blue33]

hi blue,

can i just cut them short? i read somewhere that i can't do that. that's why i don't dare to cut them yet and its blocking my stone already.. lol

I did trim my blyxa, now it starts to grow more bushy, you can try trimming one of them first, start with light trim. It works for me.

[ongtw]

oh you can? i read somewhere that you need to actually cut them from the root or something. if you cut the leaves i read thta these guys will eventually die

[blue33]

oh you can? i read somewhere that you need to actually cut them from the root or something. if you cut the leaves i read thta these guys will eventually die

I've tried few times cutting it, some even quite short and they survive.

[torque6]

Nice going ! Is your lights still 11wx 2 + 15w ? No algae at all in your tank ??

[ongtw]

hi torque,

i use 11w X 2 and a 36 watts lightset (total 2 lightset). so far i've not seen any algae in the tank. lucky?

but noticed the hairgrass are light green in colour. is this normal?

[Panut]

58watt! and no algae!

hi ongtw, will you teach us your secret

[ongtw]

magic,

i guess probably i got very lucky with the plant choice and dosing of ferts? what i did was just to read this forum for about a few months before buying and starting my tank. i did very little now after the initial setup.

so far i've only been dosing wondergro macro and micro plus 3 times a week each and do about 40 % water change on saturdays or sundays. lighting wise i'm breaking it up into two sessions. 5 hours morning, 4 to 5 hours break in the afternoon and 5 hours at night.

that's it.

[Cpark188]

The plants very lush and healthy growth, thanks for giving us the secret and we will take note of it. Well done.