First try - 65L (now with a short clip)

[Stu Worrall]

Re: First try - 65L planted

love the scape and its superb for a first one with everything looking super healthy. Im a sucker for HC lawns

 

[schraptor]

Re: First try - 65L planted

love the scape and its superb for a first one with everything looking super healthy. Im a sucker for HC lawns

Thanks, HC carpet looks a bit better on photos than in reality tbh. I still have some brown algae remains on the leafs and small uncovered with HC pieces of substrate. I've read that having brown algae is quite normal in newly setup tanks and when all matures and stabilizes it should disappear by its own. Hopefully it will happen soon.

Btw. my Koralia nano has arrived yesterday, we will see how increasing the flow will influence the overall condition of the tank

 

[Ian Holdich]

Re: First try - 65L planted

excellent first scape!

 

[schraptor]

Re: First try - 65L planted

A few recent close-ups. I simply love pearling HC

And a full tank view after some hard trimming on background plants:

 

[Piece-of-fish]

Re: First try - 65L planted

Looks great, and you have added some color

 

[schraptor]

Re: First try - 65L planted

Thanks

That red accent is my Alternanthera reineckii, which was there since beginning, but after spending 2 weeks in a bucket was in really bad shape. Seems it started growing after 1 month of vegetation (fingers crossed). You can also see Rotala rotundifolia in the middle, getting redish nicely.
I'm really happy with the HC carpet, after reading many posts on how hard it is to grow it healthy green and compact.
Next time, I'll give it a try with Glosso maybe.

I have to say, that after adding Koralia nano into the tank, some plants seem to be growing less towards the surface, but are getting a bit bushier due to the high water flow above them. I think Mark Evans made a similar observation regarding the way Crypts grow in his tank.

I still need to decide on the shrimps and fishes. Is there a big difference on how well Amano's are handling algae in comparison to Caridina cf.Babaulti or Red Cherry?

 

[schraptor]

Re: First try - 65L planted

Hi folks,

I guess its time for a new layout and new plants

Hardscape:
Wood + black lava

Plants:
Alternanthera reineckii
Glossostigma elatinoides
Rotala rotundifolia
Staurogyne repens
Hydrocotyle sp. japan
Christmas moss (Vesicularia montagnei)
Weeping moss (Vesicularia ferriei)
Flame moss (Taxiphyllum sp.)
Java moss (Taxiphyllum barbieri)
Anubias barteri var. nana


Hardscape with plants, no water yet

Christmas and Flame tied to wood

Filling the tank. Old Amazonia that I have re-used has created a nice mist

Finished. Now I only need to wait for the plants to kick-in.

I'm not so experienced with growing mosses yet, so fingers crossed.

 

[spyder]

Re: First try - 65L planted

1st time I've seen this thread, do you have a final shot of the old scape? It looked fantastic.

Moss's are straight forward. Shrimps help keep moss clean and worth considering.

New scape looks great, will be watching this one grow in.

Good luck.

 

[Iain Sutherland]

Re: First try - 65L planted

Thats a really nice looking scape again, good job!
I love mosses but had no luck until adding cherry shrimp, my amanos dont seem to touch it but the cherrys groom it all day long.
Looking foward to see this one grow in.

 

[schraptor]

Re: First try - 65L planted

Thanks guys for your comments.

1st time I've seen this thread, do you have a final shot of the old scape? It looked fantastic.

Spyder, previous scape has been evolving a bit but there was no real final photo taken. Here are the two shots showing pretty much how the old tank looked like most of the time, I only did occasional trimming.

To all of you trying to grow health HC carpet - don't be afraid to prune it hard, I cut mine to the point where I could see my Amazonia and yellow / melted bottom leafs. In a week or so you will have a more dense and healthy looking carpet than before. I did mine circa every 2 weeks. Let's see how I'll manage with Glosso, but it is supposed to be easier to grow and maintain than HC.

Also, if you look at Alternanthera reineckii shown on the picture, it is the last time it had such big leafs. I find cutting it often makes it much more bushy with smaller leafs. Not sure though how to make its red / purple colors a bit more 'juicy', especially reddish top side.
Similarly Staurogyne - the more I cut it, the healthier / dense it gets.

I forgot to add, that new layout features also Microsorum pteropus 'Philippine' and Lomariopsis lineata.

 

[schraptor]

Re: First try - 65L planted

Hi guys,

It has been a week since a restart and the tank is doing fine. No major signs of algae as of yet, I think matured filter and daily water changes help alot. I was a bit nervous when I saw all the mud coming out from my Amazonia during re-scape, but I've sucked almost all of it during water changes. I can only see some green algae in the substrate next to the glass.
New life has entered the tank - guppys and fire red / baubaulti shrimps which I've been given (circa 45 of them, different generations / sizes) for few plants from my previous scape.
I'm dosing 1/2 of my normal micro / macro (EI) since day one and 2 ml EasyCarbo every day. Lights are currently set to run for 7h / day.
I had to reduce the flow a bit from my Koralia Nano, as plants have not grown enough yet and it was creating to big whirlpool for fishes and shrimps to handle. As it doesn't have any regulation built in, I have cut half of a round plastic container and simply covered half of Koralia's 'intake' holes (or should I say, Koralia sucked the plastic and it remains like that till I power it off).

Here are some pictures from today:

Day 1 vs day 7

I can see some growth on mosses, rotala and anubias. Hydrocotyle sp. Japan has also kicked in, soon it should start spreading nicely. I've added temporarily some Hydrocotyle leucocephala and Limnobium laevigatum to stabilize the amonia levels quicker.
Any comments / feedback is welcome.

 

[schraptor]

Re: First try - 65L planted

Its me again, 2 weeks update

Hydrocotyle sp Japan growing nicely and getting more dense.

Front tank shot - need to buy some tripod as it is hard to shot from this side with camera in my hands and no real vision on what I'm shooting (wall standing in between).

2 weeks vs 1 week vs day 1:

 

[schraptor]

Re: First try - 65L planted

4 weeks, therefore I shall spam some more
Glosso and Hydrocotyle sp. Japan have kicked in. Mosses are doing great, no problem with these so far. Other plants are doing ok, although I see some deficiency as new leafs of Anubias and Staurogyne repens are a bit to yellow for me.

View from the kitchen:

View from the living room's couch

Some Mark Evans style PS edits :

And finally my nine months old precious keeping an eye on dosing regime

 

[flygja]

Re: First try - 65L planted

Hi, that is growing is very nicely and doesn't like there's even a speck of algae. Beautiful photography too.

 

[schraptor]

Re: First try - 65L planted

Thanks flygja for your comment. There are some minimal signs of algae, but the tank is still quite fresh and I'm using old Amazonia which released a lot of stuff into water during rescape. I'm thinking about buying some Purigen, will see if this helps.
Photography wise, I'm trying to improve my skills, therefore I tend to ask / check what are the settings and light conditions used for photos that I like.

 

[Broomy]

Re: First try - 65L planted

Stunning scapes you've created there, makes me wish I'd come across this site before I stuck gravel in my tank.

 

[schraptor]

Re: First try - 65L planted

Thanks Broomy ! This is my second scape, but I can assure you, that having a good substrate (e.g. Amazonia) is one of the key factors. If you take into account that I've only put 9L of it into my 65L tank and the fact that I'm using it second year now really makes it a good choice. Of course overall cost will depend on the size of the tank, but you can always go with an island or a sandy beach foreground scape. I have achieved a bit higher slope in this scape by using black lava rock, which is nice due to number of reasons:
- easily covered by moss, which attaches to it very quickly
- black means usually quite neutral color in the scape
- weights a lot less than normal stones
- costs around 50p / kg if you don't need ADA logo

 

[NeilW]

Re: First try - 65L planted

Looks awesome, one to be proud of . I really like the red. That Hydro looks very healthy indeed and really dense.

The only thing I'm not so sure on is that light, but then its obviously given you results so it does the job! Would look amazing with pendant lighting.

Keep up the good work

 

[schraptor]

Re: First try - 65L planted

Thank Neil for the comments. I agree that having pendant lightning would add to the overall feeling, but I'm stuck with Hagen Glo 2x24W for the time being. Looking at the tank live it is not so disturbing though. I'm still thinking about glassware, but am afraid I will brake it quickly. Also this would need to be cleaned often to look nice.


In the meantime reinforcements have arrived for my cleaning crew:

And the tank shot from the left:

 

[schraptor]

Re: First try - 65L planted

A few shots taken while changing the water and cleaning the filter.I've also trimmed Glosso and Hydrocotyle sp. Japan a bit. Hope you like those.

After the change:

A few close ups: