My play play 2ft Iwagumi

[Cloud-Strife]

Last weekend I've tried to play around with iwagumi scaping, which I never try before.

The followings are my specs:

Hardware:

• 1 pack 3 litre ADA Aquasoil Amazonia II (M)
• 1 pack 2 litre ADA Powersand Special (M)
• ADA Bacter 100
• W60xD30xH36 5 mm tank (follow closely to ADA Cube garden) specification
• Some stones from ADA (don't know what stone is that)
• 2 40watts 1000k lighting
• Fluval 305 canister filter
• CO2 system

Flora:

• Glossostigma

Fauna:

• currently still don't know what to put.

Below are the photos when I was playing around with the arrangement of the stones before adding the substrate:









When I've achieved the arrangement I wanted, I poured in ADA Powersand special as the based substrate. As the stones are kinda high, I had to pour the substrate around them to cover them partially, else the stones will look like obelisk in the tank.










Then, poured about 3 spoons of ADA Bacter 100 on the top of the Powersand Special.



Then, pour the whole pack of Aquasoil Amazonia II onto the based substrate. After pouring, I used unused ATM card and soft paintbrush to create the slope and adjusting the soil around the stones to make scape more natural look.









Stay tune for more updates:

• planting glosso
• adding water
• installing filter system
• installing CO2 system

Please comment.

[blue33]

Wow... another thread to catch up Good startup

[JadeIceGreen]

This seems like a serious setup to me and nothing playful about it. Haha.

I like how your rocks turned out but the arrangement can be improved further, some of your rocks are lying pretty low and glosso may cover them. Also, your rocks are pretty spread out and both ends are almost touching the tank walls, this makes the scape looks smaller than it really is. You may want to rearrange your rocks and group them tighter together and create more depth at the same time.

Are your bulbs rated at 10000k? That is pretty blue so you may want to change it to something closer to 8000k. I like your light sets, very minimalistic and simple with clear legs.

This is a good start. Will be following this thread closely.

[Sinubux]

Another Iwagumi setup for me to add to my subscription. Keep those pictures coming in.

[Cloud-Strife]

Jade,

I'll try.

The rocks are kinda bulky, so it's kinda hard to put them together closely. For the scape, I'm actually experimenting how to plant the carpet or lawn type of plants that can grow onto rocks without putting soil on them. errrr ... I don't know how to explain but if you see this photo, you'll understand:



Regarding the bulbs, it's 10000K, unless it's a fake one. I've checked the marking on the bulbs. Anyway, the lighting stands are made from China. So you roughly knows the accuracy of the printings on them.

[Cloud-Strife]

Here's an update after I've
- installed filter
- installed CO2 system
- planted glosso and
- filled the tank with water







Using hard disk cooler fan as water cooler. The fan manage to reduce the water temperature around 25-26 celcius.

[Jervis]

A very sexy looking fan! Have you figure out those plants (look like HC to me) can grow on top of stone without the use of soil?

[JadeIceGreen]

I like your fan a lot! Its very sleek and nice, where did you get it from?

Okay, if you look at the scape that is the source of your inspiration, you got to understand that that tank is huge, I am guessing 5ft at least. The problem with getting inspirations from bigger scapes and then downsizing them to a smaller tank is that more often than not, your scape will look cramped. What I usually do is take the spirit of my inspiration, which in this case, you mentioned yours was to grow plants "on" the rocks. So my suggestion is to rescape your rocks into something that looks more focus and powerful, for example take the left part of your inspiration scape.

I have not heard of a way to grow plants like glosso or HC without soil on the rocks. The only way to "do" this in which Mr Amano did it is to cover the areas you want your plants to grow with ADA Amazonia Powder, then grow those plants on top of that. After the plants have spread and cover the entire substrate, it would seem like there are growing on the rocks.

Again, a word of caution. This usually works best on big scapes as you have space on your side and small plants look natural even with substrate beneath them between the rocks. For a small tank, it may not work so well as the plant is "bigger" now simply due to tank size.

[Cloud-Strife]

Jade,

Hmmmm ... I'll take notice on that. Since everything already been setup, lets wait and see how the tank will end up.

By the way, I bought my fan from computer shop. Just look for hard disk fan, then bent the holder according to your tank glass thickness. It's a lot easier than DIY concept. You just need to buy the correct fan and rewire the cable to 12V adapter and taaadaaaah !

Haha

[JadeIceGreen]

Jade,

Hmmmm ... I'll take notice on that. Since everything already been setup, lets wait and see how the tank will end up.

By the way, I bought my fan from computer shop. Just look for hard disk fan, then bent the holder according to your tank glass thickness. It's a lot easier than DIY concept. You just need to buy the correct fan and rewire the cable to 12V adapter and taaadaaaah !

Haha

Thanks! It looks really good... Like what Jervis said, sexy fan.

[Viper007]

Wow another interesting thread!

Well before the Iwagumi training conducted by ADA, I would say your rock placement looks interesting.

After attending the training, I find that your rocks are all over the place and your 2nd and 3rd are too low like what bro Jade mention once your plant is in place it may cover your rocks over time.

There are no support for your key feature rock as your 1st and last rock is really too far apart. Therefore one look at the rocks in the tank it does not look very pleasing to the eye. You may consider checking out on the golden ratio and rule of thirds to better place your rocks.

Anyway, that is still a good start you have. And like the rest had mention you have a cool looking fan!

[Cloud-Strife]

Hmmm ... how about if I remove all the smaller rocks, left only the 3 bigger rocks ?

[beetroot]

I have not heard of a way to grow plants like glosso or HC without soil on the rocks. The only way to "do" this in which Mr Amano did it is to cover the areas you want your plants to grow with ADA Amazonia Powder, then grow those plants on top of that. After the plants have spread and cover the entire substrate, it would seem like there are growing on the rocks.

Hi there Cloud-Strife

Good start! Waiting to see more updates.

Referring to what JadeIceGreen mentioned, I have also read somewhere that to achieve such an effect, you can use used ADA Amazonia soil which have sort of turned into 'mud', paste it on the rocks and grow those plants that way. A smart way to disguise and make the plants look like they are growing on the rocks. Don't think they can grow without soil.

[Verminator]

For some reason all your pictures are in a white box with a red X in. I can't view the pictures Sounds great, i'm going to try desperately to get the images working on my computer to see this for myself.

[beetroot]

yeah... strange, i was still able to view the pictures this afternoon, but now... all red X, no picture!

[Shadow]

the error message is:

The bandwidth or page view limit for this site has been exceeded and the page cannot be viewed at this time. Once the site is below the limit, it will once again begin serving as normal.

You might want to move your picture to Flickr or Picasa

[Cloud-Strife]

Aiksss ... I uploaded the images into google pages.
Ok ... let me play play around with flicker first.
Sorry if I can't link the images immediately.
Be patient hah ~~

[Cloud-Strife]

I've rearranged the rocks. Basically I moved the bigger rocks close to each others and the smaller ones put between the edges of the bigger stones.

Hope this layout looks better. The water becomes cloudy after I stirred and flatten the soil.





Damn ... the filter inlet and outlet look super ugly. Those come together with the filter itself. I think I need to purchase a ciplak lily pipes.

[Viper007]

Yup those glass type of lily piple will make your tank look nicer.

[blue33]

IMO. I find the slope is too low, especially infront.