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Paul's 200L, "Punishment of Luxury"

nelson said:
thats looking fantastic Paul.you need to go on holiday more often :lol: .

it's THE solution for tanks which are not doing well.

but this one Paul, even for your Holiday really nice. I am following you since post one and it's lovely to see the improvements
 
Wow, this has really matured into something nice. I've got to admit, I didn't really like the hardscape at the beginning but now love the look of this aquascape. It just shows you how letting a tank mature can change everything.
 
You're all very kind indeed! And thanks Nelson for the suggestion of more hols - perhaps you could have a word with my boss?

I'm really very pleased with this, and it does feel like I'm really starting to get the hang of how adjusting inputs affects the tank. That's not to say it won't go pear-shaped again, of course, but I do feel a bit more in control (but only a bit...)

The only area that really doesn't seem right is left-front. It comprises a bit of HC, hydrocotyle verticillata and a small bit of anubias nana 'Bonsai'. I now feel that the hydrocotyle works best as an accent plant twining it's way through other plants, which it's doing elsewhere in my scape. This hides the untidy horizontal runners and seems to help it root properly. The HC is fun (after all my trials with it) but a bit of an irrelevance. The anubias is just dwarfed by the hydrocotyle, but I really like the dark green contrast of it.

So I'm thinking of putting something darkish green in that corner, no more than 12 cms tall, to take the eye up, around and back into the scape. Any suggestions? I guess a slightly larger anubias might do the trick - perhaps nana? Anything else?
 
Yesterday added ten assassin snails (thanks Jur4ik :thumbup: ) to deal with my population of physis. I've got one or two tiny ramshorns too, which I rather like, but I guess they're going to be slurped up too. My missus calls the assassins 'terminator snails', which seems a better name to me.

All else going fine - glosso had a nervous and inadequate trim last week - soon to get a bolder crop. Rotala also in need of trim number three.

Pictures after a weekend away - enjoy the bank holiday, people. :wave:
 
Hi Verchap - you're very kind!

Hi Andy, thanks for the nudge.

I've been waiting for my new camera and lens - it turned up yesterday and I'm stunned by the capability of it. Quality glass is definitely worth the investment - I can't quite believe how well it takes low light shots without flash.

The tank is Ok'ish, but I'm really undecided as to whether I should include it in the IAPLC. I've suffered two issues with it. First one is minor. Despite having two 3kg canisters, and borrowing a 2kg FE, I managed to run out of CO2 for a couple of days. I reduced the lighting straight away and restarted dosing liquid carbon and I don't think it's done too much damage. What it HAS done is taught that I need to be better prepared, and that the canister pressure gauge can sit at the 'full' pressure for a long time, but once it starts to reduce it will very soon - and very suddenly - empty completely.

The other issue is with my glosso carpet. I let it run away with me slightly, and then when I trimmed it I think I was a bit too tentative (ironic really, as in my terrestrial garden I take great delight in scaring others by my vigorous and highly effective pruning).

As a result it's looking decidedly tatty. I've resolved to take a competition picture as it currently is (i.e. good clean-up and remove equipment), then give it a serious scalping and see whether it grows back in time for a better shot at IAPLC.

Any advice on just how brutal I can be with glosso? Can I remove all the leaves without killing it? Do you think I have time to trim it like this and get regrowth in time for IAPLC? And should I post a separate thread on the topic under 'Plants'?

I will load up some pics soon - promise!
 
I've got a bit of a problem. I had a closer look at the glosso today, and realised it was about to lift off completely. So I decided to hack it right back - if you're of a nervous disposition look away now...













img0040jw.jpg


Sorry about that. I've kept a fair bit of the healthy shoots and roots I trimmed, and I'm guessing that the almighty mess pictured above is unlikely ever to look really good again. So I'm tempted to pull it all out and replant afresh. If I do that I really don't see how this'll be in shape for IAPLC. Any thoughts?
 
i wouldn't of thought it would grow back in time the for IAPLC.
so either use an old photo or rip it out and have an open forground there for your IAPLC photo.
then replant it and start again.
can't think of anything else :( .
i'm sure others can.
 
Aah - thanks Tyro! But there's another problem - none of the old images show the tank with the equipment removed. I know that doesn't bar me from entering them, but I'm not sure I can face entering images with such an obvious shortcoming - it may be a step too far. I'll try out the open foreground, and PM you if I decide to take you up on the kind offer. Liked your post about eliminating distortion, BTW.
 
My glosso is recovering nicely after I pulled it all out and replanted individual pair of leaves properly. But I realised I had neglected to prune the rest of the tank in good time, and it was all very overgrown. So I gave it a very serious going over, and discovered a fair bit of decay in the undergrowth. I pulled out quite a bit of the vallis (disturbing the substrate), and trimmed the rotala and pogostemon hard.

Unfortunately the resulting ammonia spike and sudden reduction in plant mass has clearly upset the tank's balance, and I'm now awash with BBA and other algae, and plants have gone into decline - the collapse of the frogbit is fascinatingly horrible.

So - I've learned yet more from my 'learning' tank, and I'm now thinking about how to re-scape. If you can advise, perhaps you'll look at my post on 'How to re-scape' in the General Discussion thread.

I'll post some pictures of the mess in a while.
 
Hi paul

Sorry to hear of your problems - I know the feeling as I had much the same happen for much the same reason with "Peacocks Crypt". I do think that you have a very good scape here, and whilst I'm sure you have the urge to create something all new, I found it a very good learning curve to correct the cause of the problems, work against the algae to a week or two and bring the scape back in to line - it probably took me about 20minutes a day, but after 2 weeks the algae was all gone, and the plants were flourishing again. It was very rewarding, and in reality took less time than a rescape would have done.

This was about as bad as mine got...

Grave_BBAfest_MUS4454.jpg


SAEs_MUS4440.jpg


But within a couple of weeks those branches looked like this...

_MUS4656.jpg


Good luck with it whichever way you decide to go.

Tony
 
Thanks for your concern, Tony - good to hear from someone who's 'been there, done that'!

I have thought about trying to resurrect this - but have a look at these pictures to see the extent of my problems:

img0536t.jpg


img0542u.jpg


img0537ib.jpg


img0539d.jpg


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As you can see, I've got a major problem, and I'm worried the only way to try and save it would be to remove pretty much all plat-matter above the substrate - would it recover? I find it hard to believe it would.

One option I've considered is to remove all the plants, stop light, ferts and CO2, do lots of water changes until things are stabilised, then replant keeping the existing hardscape. This offers the advantage of not needing to move the livestock, lets me retain the good hardscape structure, yet try out a completely new planting plan. I reckon I could transform the look with a fundamentally different set of plants - what do you think?
 
You could perform a 3-4 day black out, and then remove the most affected plants after that, you just have to ensure you have enough CO2, flow, ferts pumping in there afterwards, lots of water changes might actually make the problem worse.
 
Looks very bad :( How You got so many algeas in one time, first time i see so big algea bouquet :D, sorry.
I personaly think there not enough co2 and something excess.
I think there no other option, only take off all and gluta or peroxide or bleach or some other way get off algea from plants.

P.S. My tank 2-3 months from setup all with diatoma-brown algea :D :D

Good Luck And Best Regards
 
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