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Thanks bro shadow. Will keep in mind once my tank arrived.Originally Posted by Shadow
That UG (Utricularia graminifolia). Locally the call cendol plant. If you want you can get from C328. I saw 3 pots 2 days ago.
Thanks bro shadow. Will keep in mind once my tank arrived.
Before I left for a week, the tank looked like this:
Well, had about 6-8" growth of many of the species after 1 week away.
45 min later after trimming:
Some of the Erios did not like less ferts this week and decided to flower.............supposedly the kiss of death for them.
FTS prior to trim:
Low grow red hygro is doing nice in the corner under low light.
Erio type 3 took off since I hacked everything else back good. Even have extra to sell.
I have not trimmed this plant yet, might wait another 3-4 days. This is after I trimmed everything else, then said furrrgetit, doing a water change(so the water is hazy here):
Took pics, then did a trim, took more pics, then a water change, then took pics again.
No disrecpect to you but I dont think it's too strong. It is one of the most beautiful I've seen and in my view it is also very well balanced. Choice of plants shows clever combination of colours and shapes. Love it. Love it. Love it!!
Well, there is still a balance issue and they are correct, you can still balance the strong contrast and colors effectively...........but I'm not there yet, this is a work that evolves and changes........like life, it is not a static "finished" aquascape.
I purposely left the Red macrandra without trimming it, but will tonight.
I wanted to see what the red wall looked like, it's a bit too intense and over whelming, it distracts from the other contrast too much.
Still, many people like the chosen species and most everyone loves lots of red or rare plants...........
I love the low grow red hyro! Question is, why is it deliberately placed at the back when it is a short plant? I had always thought that the plants are tiered in the order of their height of growth, no? Or was it meant to create a depth of space at the back? Also, was sand not use for the intention to bring out the colours of the individual plants?
Anyway, I like how your background plants (not too sure what those are) creeps out from the back, but in terms of the arrangement based on colours, I would have very much preferred your initial setup. IMHO.
Need something to scratch that itchy hand of mine.
Don't act smart. Be smart!
Well, this tank is not a finished nor a polished aquascape competition photograph, that's not the point of me taking and posting pictures. It's more educational.
It is more an understory plant, it's a very shaded section due to the wood. Also, the side is seen from that side, so the tiered slope is maintained on the side view also. This adds depth is the other dimension, something never considered if all you look at are front tank shots, that's NOT how I view my tanks at home, they are design for me and the living space where they are placed. I view this tank mostly from the top, front and that side.
Another good reason to have the ends trimmed down is for good/better circulation. This way the flow is not blocked by a wall of plants on the corner opposite of the filter flow.
Initial set up had some different plants, and contrast, but things change and fill in, I move some species around, remove others to be replaced by another plant. There are some things I wanted to illustrate such as the myth that low NO3 are responsible for nice red colors.
Some species where not very easy to sell and where replaced with species that I can sell on line very easily. Some were newer species I'd not had so I wanted to try those out.
The purpose is to try different things not normally seen, done in aquascapes etc......so breaking the rules so to speak. Why merely copy the basic layout and scapes that have been done 1001 times? They are nice, but less interesting to me personally and teach me little. This tank rotates various species.
Another huge factor in the design is also how the tank responds to different trimming methods. By NOT trimming the Rotala macrandra......... the tank looks very very different now. After I trim it and some of the background plans, this opens up the room and the tank.
I'll trim the plants at some point to have a nice tiered slope from the back, but that's about 3-4 trims away or so. The low grow hygro will pile up higher than the UG in front of it, and the other background plants on that side often extend over to fill that space, it's only after a good trim will you even notice the open space generally, but I try to prevent the plants from getting over shadowed too much.
I may chose another fish, no one can see the rainbows in the tank, I do as they dart back and forth through the plants, but in pics, they rarely show up.
Made some changes, still gots more to do.
This is what it looks like after I trim and mid and background plants.
Ideally, the green plants in the far back would be 3-4" taller and then the rest of the R macrandra would be okay, then trim the color rows in the front down about 2" lower.
I have got to agree with you on experimenting on the tank setup and plants involved in it for the sake of educating yourself, and I would like to think that one learns best when theory is put into application. I like how you wish to illustrate or debunk myths/common misconceptions, and that's probably what got you started on this tank in the first place - moving beyond the usual boundaries of aqua scaping and challenging yourself, that's something I find very commendable! Also, I had just notice silhouettes of your fishes now that you had mentioned it. I don't suppose you would want to add more fishes of the same species, would you? I have some neon dwarf rainbow fishes in my tank and I love how they can school together (which is really an impressive sight!), though my parents find them pretty boring fishes because of their natural colours.
Need something to scratch that itchy hand of mine.
Don't act smart. Be smart!
I likely will replace the fish with another species, they are hard to see in the tank and when I had the different fixture, this was even more pronounced.
They just blend in.
I can see them easily in person because they swim quickly and either are running scared or are begging for food.
I have 60 fish in here, you only see maybe 20-30 at any one time though.
At night, they come out and school well, but not so much during the day.
But, catching them is really hard in this tank!
So I'll try and hopefully get them out and try a different fish.
I also have to do this for my 70 gal as the seprae tetras have gotten beautiful....but mean and have eaten all but 3-4 of perhaps 40 Amano shrimp and these are full size Amano shrimp, they are not small and the fish were added after the shrimp had been there for weeks. There are ample hiding spots for the shrimp also, so that's 2 different fish species that have not worked out, but I can catch plants easily............fish are harder to switch out and see what looks best.
The Rainbows are a nice fish........but they are too subtle to compete with the plants for this tank.
Serpae tetras are bad choice. A school of 10 black skirt tetra once tear up a school of 30 neon tetras in my 2 feet tank. I was an amateur then.............
colin | The Wilderness and Forest | FTS
Yes, I figured that out in my 70 gal, I put them in a holding tank for now and will sell them back.
I was looking at the Paraguay tetra, a nice black and white color, the other idea was an African or South East Asian species
I uprooted all the Erios and the Tonia Lotus blossom, all the other Tonina, all the pantanal, all the D diandra, some of the other groups also.
So I did a lot of work on the tank actually, so it's pretty clear less than 1 hour later. If someone think they can do all that and make it clear with ADA AS, I'd like to see them try:thumbsup:
I raised the Pellia up and it is on the Left side in front of the Ech augustifolia. "vesuvius".
I need to figure out how to better manage the R macrandra or reduce the stand. I'll need to figure out a better location for the R wallichii I think. Hydrothrix grows well in the back but parts melt due to a lack of light after a lot of growth starts to block the light.
The Erios on the right side and Tonina lotus blossom are much better now.
I think I've produced 3x more Tonina lotus blossom vs the normal type, which I've only managed to double over nearly 2x longer time.
So Tonina lotus blossom is a better plant for cultivation and sales. I have nearly 50 stems/shoots now. About 40 for the Pantanal.
I'm also thinking about doing something different with the Downoi and putting Elatine triandra like I had the Gloss before.
But I need a good home for the Downoi before I go that direction.
hi. my 2 cents worth I think gold barb(Puntius semifasciolatus) will look nice in this scape. or alternatively, golden white cloud mountain minnow(Tanichthys albonubes) can be used too. i think you can try swapping the fire red with fire yellow shrimp. BUt then again it'll be difficult to catch out the shrimps :P. Just my humble opinion
Yellow is not a prominent color, so that might work well. I was going to add a few yellow like plants in the rear. Still undecided about that. Yes, I'm afraid there's no way to get the shrimp out without killing every fish and redoing the entire tank. I even tried using insecticides to kill the shrimp in another tank after removing the fish. 3 treatments and 2 weeks later, there were still Fire shrimp left over alive!!
The insecticide kills the shrimp, but not the plants.
Would getting predatory fishes to clear out the shrimps work better? You could not feed the larger fishes for a short period of time and you might see the dwindling shrimp population?
Question: I see that you have got some moss on the top most branch of your driftwood. Wouldn't it turn brown easily since it's at the water surface and much closer to your light?
Need something to scratch that itchy hand of mine.
Don't act smart. Be smart!
I plan on keeping the fire shrimp as they sell very well and they seem to help the tank, no sense in removing them.
Moss is fine, even at reef light light intensities. Fissidens etc, as long as it's got water and stays moist, it's much less intense than the sun.
Beautiful Well planned layout of your plants......
A nice piece of driftwood that stand in well in the scape.
You can see the Bun's in the rear behind the wood, they are small now, but in a few months, they will look pretty nice. There are 8 different types.
There are now 10 planted streets in this tank.
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