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GA in-store display 120P Iwagumi II

viktorlantos

Aquascaper
Joined
25 Oct 2008
Messages
1,598
Location
Budapest, Hungary
I thought i open up another topic for this tank. This is another one from our gallery.
We call this iwagumi for easier understanding, but this is not a typical iwagumi.

Keymaker memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=1068 created this tank a few weeks ago.
This is a high tech monster which represent all bells and whistles with a mass ammount of spending :D

The tank parameters are:
120x45x45 Opti White
ADA Style Premium painted stand
2 x ADA Solar I - 150W NAMH Green
Eheim Professionel 3 - 2080 and 2180
Pressurized CO2 with AM1000 reactor
ADA glass pipes on both sides
For substrate system we used ADA Powersand Spec and Amazonia along with additives like Penac P and W, Bacter 100...
Ferts here are our Green Aqua Macro Micro (EI) ferts

Earlier we had 2 AM reactors but figured the one just do the job perfectly so the additional was removed to save the horsepower on the other eheim.

So the tank had everything for a great start, but this was a bumpy ride.

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Keymaker build an extreme rocky scape with around 80kg of stones

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well the thing is that he built this aquarium fully in his house including the rocks. it turned out we had to move the whole set to the gallery, but the rocks was glued ;) so... this was not enough that the aquarium itself was heavy like an elephant, there was an additional 80 kg of stone in it. i would not give a cent to see this relocated in one piece, but somehow we did it....

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The rock was there on a rubber carpet he just had to fill in all the soils and additives.

Plants were selected before. L. Brasiliensis and Isoetes Japonica.
So 50 pots of brasiliensis planted for a few hours...

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i only prepped the plantlets for him, but i felt like a zombie at the end of the day with this much plant. :lol:

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The tank looked really good already on the first day because of the mass of plants.
Unfortunatelly we had to start with full light for the opening hours and with the 300Watts lighting caused green water shortly. As we fully used the lights (and using that nowadays too) for 8 hours a day.

A few days UV cure helped with the green start.

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looked awesome

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however this was still the emmers leaf on the plants...
and we had to trim it. did i ever told you i hate this plant? ;)
well this looks lovely but as all grass kind of plant this rot and gives a great challenge on start.
for us this trimming turned out to be a few weeks of fight with algae. as all the trimmed leaf got rotted and was not chance to remove all of it.

the solars gave too much light and warmed up the water. the 2 monster filter also warmed the water.
so we ended up with too much light warm water with full of algae. ;) less circulation because of the fully packed eheims. this was the time we shut down one of the AM reactors.

many water changes, 40-50 amano shrimps, manual algae removal helped us to make it look nicer and had less and less algae. added in some floating plant too. this week was a breaktrough as the scape is looking nicer from day to day.
as the old leaves removed, and more healthy leaves are there, the algae has less chance.

this is how the tank looks now:

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Still we had to lift up a bit the solars as the last step. The system will be ok from that time.

Brasiliensis is a hard plant. I had much much less trouble with parvula on the early rot, but this plant cause much more trouble. Still believe after the longer startup the scape will look good with this dense Brasiliensis field.

Will share more images later on the progress.

we appreciate your feedback and comments as always guys.
 
looks good viktor.

Any liliaeopsis sp. is a tough one. My first attempt made me nearly give up on it, but I've persisted with it. I find it quite easy now.

I have to treat it a little like anubias to some degree. It's slow growing, and get affected by GSA.

My first line of defence, is light. Raise that first. As long as CO2 is high, and ferts to match, your fine.

trimming old growth off is is a must in the first week, and then watch it grow. :thumbup: I find any trims after that first one, can cause some problems.
 
Nice aquarium and gear. Looks almost mater from the start :)
I hope i succeed with braziliensis this time as well. Failed twice before.
 
Another great setup!!! Congrats to Balazs for this effort, looks stunning, planting it like that must have taken ages haha how many pots used??

Which tweezers you using to plant?

Congrats guys :)
 
Cheers guys, thanks for your nice feedback. :thumbup:

Mark Evans said:
trimming old growth off is is a must in the first week, and then watch it grow. I find any trims after that first one, can cause some problems.

Thanks mate will do that. I do not think either a new trim would be a good idea. Will try to stay away.

Piece-of-fish said:
I hope i succeed with braziliensis this time as well. Failed twice before.

we're with you at least in soul ;) looking forward to see how that grow later.

LondonDragon said:
Another great setup!!! Congrats to Balazs for this effort, looks stunning, planting it like that must have taken ages haha how many pots used??

thank you. ;) when he is not trying to explain the golden ratios in one of the topics here, he can do some nice tanks. ;) he has a luck sometimes as i say. :shh: :D

we used 50 or 55 brasiliensis for the start. we worked on this for some long hours. the plant preparation and the planting also was really time consuming.

LondonDragon said:
Which tweezers you using to plant?

In most of the time pinhead tweezers. ADA or Do!Aqua ones.

quick question:

We're thinking about to add in some supportive plants. If you guys have any ideas to use some here and there or behind the rocks etc do not hesitate to share it. We're open to any suggestion.

not sure additional plant would be needed, but we're playing with the idea.
 
Had a shooting session at the end of the day so we finnaly tried to capture this tank with white background.

Hope you will like it ;)

Oh some crypt and fishes were added in to make it live. ;)

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we also did a video from this which will upload shortly.

next time we will prepare more before the capture and will remove hair algae and will do a wc before shooting 8)
 
Thx guys. Floaters will go as soon as the tank is ready. We had algae problems because of the slow-growing Brasiliensis. Instead of stems we used these to have some "fast-growing-ammonia-and-nutrient-eating" load in the tank. It seems they helped. But I don't like it, so it will be taken out.

We have 50 Pseudomugil Furcatus, Otos and Amano shrimp. Later, we'll increase the number of Furcatus - they are really-really nice fish in this setup, the video we took will show my point.
 
There's something about the sponge plant floating I do not like.
This is more a personal thing, I just hate it because it is a weed in CA, USA:)

We're thinking about to add in some supportive plants. If you guys have any ideas to use some here and there or behind the rocks etc do not hesitate to share it. We're open to any suggestion.

There is a strong urge for many to do this with these types of displays.

I'm not so sure it is a good idea, leaving it alone and simple often high lights the rock layout better.
Only you can be the judge of that and try a few things and see for yourself.

You might try some Tall hair grass, Amano does this on a few of his tanks.
Another plant might be some well trimmed domes of stem plants(Rotala green etc). The hair grass takes less labor.

These will not clash too much with the over all design. Needle leaf Java fern might also be a good choice.
Another idea is to add more Aqua soil and make the front to back slope steeper, Steep as the soil will stay and then carefully plant the rear section. You could slowly add more and more soil to the rear and allow the plants to grow in.

Or make multiple terraces with the rocks that will eventually get covered by growth.
 
Steve, this rock is imho the most difficult to be used in a hardscape of this kind. It is petrified wood from the Chinese-Mongolian border - the Continental Pole (!) ;) Problem is that it is really difficult to raise these rocks as they are more roundish. So I had to build a glued construction of 80 kg. :idea:

Hardscape only:
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Present:
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You guys rock, thanks so much for sharing this.

Best Regards,
John
 
Before the end of the day today i made some captures in the gallery. I just can't skip it :D

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-- Around this time the IAPLC shooting is in progress and we decided to capture it without cryptos in the back. can't wait to share that photo with you guys later once it is possible.
 
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