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Luke's TMC 8L Nano

Luketendo

Member
Joined
25 Feb 2008
Messages
630
Location
Australia
Hey, so my tank came during the week and I've gathered a few bits of pieces and some vague ideas. Thought I may as well got on with the journal now, rather than later. Mainly pictures for the moment!

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3L ADA Aquasoil Amazonia
500ml ADA Aquasoil Amazonia Powder
500ml ADA Powersand Special
Thanks to Aquajardin for these!

JBL Regulator
JBL Solenoid
JBL Bubble Counter (needs fixing)
Thanks to my boss for these!

And finally D-D Purple Aquascaping Putty
Yes, purple! Luckily I have lots of Aquasoil to hide it.

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Slate - 17p
'Spider' Wood - 50p
Got these from work today, the wood was just bits on the ground and in the bottom of the trays that had come off the large pieces! Not bad at all if I can create a nice feature out of this with my Aquascaping putty. Not sure how I should really go about this, if it's what I want for my scape in fact! If you guys have any ideas how I should go about arranging the wood, go me a shout. Also if there's anything that I'd be better off using rather than the putty. Obviously putty and slate will not be visible in the tank anyway, just a support.

And finally the tank. Sorry for the background aha :p.

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Shopping list (off the top of my head):

Drop checker
Diffuser
Replacement bubble counter
Rock?
Plants
CO2 bottle
Solenoid transformer
Light timer
Maybe going to get my Dad to make an ADA stand, not sure where the tank is going yet
ADA Brighty K, Step 1, Special Lights in the future perhaps

Probably missed some stuff off but yeah.

Anyway, just to finish off, would like an opinion on this rock we have at work as I've never had any decent aquascaping rock before. Going to have to break it up before I used it in my tank, but wanted to know if it's any good.

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Cheers for reading, may add to this as I usually forget to include everything first time, oh yeah I hope to add CRS and CBS to this tank. Hopefully going to order some from Germany, but that's far down the line!
 
Hey luke nice to see you've got all your stuff ready for the tank. Bet you can't wait to get it all set up. Your wood looks great and a bargin at 50p. The rock you're suggesting will look good broken up, I think I have some of that from my old scape so I'd go for it if I was you. I'm going to set up my 20 litre, very similar ideas to you. I have some ADA amizonian ll left over from my current tank. What mosses are you thinking? I'm still trying to get hold of some.
 
Hah, not quite all my stuff. In fact add Scissors and Tweezers to the list. I'm going to be bankrupt soon, considering as I quite fancy Cal Aqua and Do Aqua gear, oh dear. Ok then, I'll have a look at buying a bit of that next Saturday, as a guideline I think the bottom right bit cost about £6 when I weighed it up and took my discount, not too bad. Yeah I really want to get the substrate installed after it arrived today, but I can't because I might need to bury the slate in it and of course I have 3 different substrates now, and the Powder goes on very last too. As for plants, no clue yet, would be open to suggestions, in fact grateful. I do however have Weeping moss and Spiky moss mixed up in my other tank, it's very lush even under low light and no ferts or carbon. Moss will feature though I'm pretty sure unless I go full Iwagumi somehow.

Also, got any pictures of your old scape mate?
 
Yeah sounds like you are gonna be skint, but hey join the club. All tha cal aqua and do! Aqua stuff is really nice and probably works really well. See your point with the slate better to wait and be sure then mess it all around which is what I used to do. Forgot u said you might try something a little more hi tec, ever thought of trying hc? When you give your moss a trim I'll buy some off you. Don't need much:) as for my first scape it's in the jornals somewhere I hunt it out.
 
Yeah I was going to try HC if I used Iwagumi, not sure if it would go otherwise though. I'm so clueless about plants aha.
 
I've now bought the bottom right rock in the last picture. £7.03, not bad and it's nearly 3kg I think. Going to break it up tomorrow probably, might install the substrate soon, not the powder yet obviously.
 
Just broken all the rock up, eventually I ended up with a tall but thin piece that I couldn't get the chisel to smash. However I took a more direct approach but just whacking it with the mallet and had more success. Hopefully the pieces aren't too similar.
 
Put the powersand and normal grade aquasoil in today and I've been fiddling with scaping for a couple of hours or so. Not got very far though :p.

Currently I've got what I believe to be my favourite candidate for my main rock. Not sure if it's any good or tall enough but it's the best I've got so far. I've got a few angles so I can get some input, I think I like the middle angle the best.

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Other than that, I'm not too sure on how to add to it. As the tank viewing space is only 17cm by 15cm and it's 22cm tall I'm having trouble incorporating another large rock. So I've pretty much decided I need to use low lying rocks, but having a bit of trouble achieving something good. If anyone has an input I'd appreciate it.
 
So, managed to develop on the original rock and here's what I've got.
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I think I quite like it, not sure though. Not bad for a first attempt a decent scape let alone Iwagumi. What do you guys think, an criticism?
 
Hey luke not looking to bad, it's pretty Tricky getting the balance in a narrow but tall tank. Took me a while and a few £££ to get the right rock. I personal think you should try and get a taller piece if poss. If unsure wait a little longer because it will only annoy you long term. Good start though.
 
Yeah I know what you mean about a taller piece, in a tank with a height more to this scale I think it'd work really good. However what I thought is you do get lots of Iwagumi tanks with low lying rocks. For example there's George's Meadow Zephyr, where to me, the rock is about the same scale as mine. But the overall look is balanced by use of tall plants as well as shorter ones.

But yes I think I will take a look at the other two rocks at my work, the things is I have a lot of rocks from the one I bought, probably another 5 or so that are the same size! But yeah I would say if the tank was just an inch or two lower it would work so I'm not too sure really!

Also I am going to add aquasoil powder to the tank, although I only have about an inch before I start blocking the lower filter inlet. Not sure if blocking it up would be too much of a problem though, seeing as most of the inlet is at the top.
 
So, got the other rock today at work and got home and smashed it.

Here's what I've come up with, the rocks are now all taller so hopefully with a small plant like HC and low pruning I shouldn't have a problem with disappearing rocks so much.

I took a couple of shots with level and sloped substrate, just to see what you guys prefer. Also I've ditched the powersand as it was just mixing with the Aquasoil too much when I'm scaping.

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Have to say I quite like this scape and I'm tempted to go with it.
 
Thanks George, any ideas on plants species? I'm thinking HC for the front section at least because I need something small that won't hide the rocks too much. Going for ADA ferts and CO2 so hopefully I'll be able to grow it. Also what type of plants are best in the sloped one and vice versa, never thought about that before.
 
I personally think a 100% HC carpet would look good on the 'flat', as it would suit the simplicity of the layout.

I'd consider hairgrass (E. acicularis) as a background if you went for a slope, with P. helferi or Staurogyne between the rocks.

It's your 'scape though... ;)
 
George Farmer said:
I personally think a 100% HC carpet would look good on the 'flat', as it would suit the simplicity of the layout.

I'd consider hairgrass (E. acicularis) as a background if you went for a slope, with P. helferi or Staurogyne between the rocks.

It's your 'scape though... ;)

Yeah I know it's my scape but I'm pretty clueless to be honest and still need to learn how to grow the plants properly. Think I will go with the hairgrass type setup as I quite like Iwagumi with a high background. Also it would suit the tank I think because of the height of it.

Not sure what plants Aquafleur do, but I can get them very very cheap from work so how many pots of each do you think I should get?

Cheers.
 
George Farmer said:
You'll only need a couple of pots of each species. It's one of the advantages of such a small tank!

Wow, that's alright then. Also one last thing, is there any specific tweezers and scissors you would recommend George? Just there's so many different ones at different prices.
 
Liking this placement of rocks best. Also another option if you want o use hairgrass, You can buy the hairgrass from the pond section, Alot Cheaper and you Get Sooo Much more for your money.
 
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