River Roots mini tank

[micmath]

Day One of my attempt to create a naturalistic planted aquarium. The plan that it should have some root-like branches and grassy river plants, along with some open space, possibly suggesting a SE Asian biotope. This will be a habitat for female Betta fish and shrimp.

The tank itself is a plain old Marina 60L that I had lying about.

So far the work is to get the scale of the wood to feel right. I purchased thee pieces of branching wood from my local fish shop, each labelled "Sumatra Driftwood, Size:nano". I stuck them together using a couple plastic cable-ties to create a nice composition. The ties are hidden with Java Moss, tied on with cotton thread. Three or four pieces of Needle-Leaf Java Fern are also attached.

The wood is placed in the tank to allow me to evaluate the composition.

 

[John S]

The wood looks good.

 

[darren636]

nice stuff, grassy and sumatran wood just go together.

 

[micmath]

Plants in

Added substrate: about 8 or 9 liters of nutraSoil black, sloped from a depth of about 3 cm to 8 cm.





Added plants:

Staurogyne repens,
Sagittaria subulata,
Vallisneria spiralis "Tiger"

 

[micmath]

Dwarf Hairgrass added

I added about a dozen sprigs of Dwarf Hairgrass (Elocharis acicularis) around the base of the wood, to soften the transition a bit. That with the mossy wood, gives it a sylvan impression in my opinion.

Plants are starting to pearl, some quite vigorously, when all the lights come on.

 

[justjason88]

looks really good so far micmath!

 

[micmath]

Thanks for all the positive words. I'm still learning so the encouragement is greatly appreciated.

 

[Aqua sobriquet]

Looking good! But what is "Sumatra Driftwood" though?

 

[micmath]

Tigers in the aquarium

I wasn't sure why the variety name of my Vallisneria was "Tiger" -- it just looked like a bunch of green ribbons when I bought it. Now that new leaves have started growing in, I think I see: they are striated with lovely reddish brown stripes.

 

[micmath]

Looking good! But what is "Sumatra Driftwood" though?

I bought it because it looked nice, the fact that it was Sumatran wasn't important. However, a description for the same product on an online aquarium retailer says this...

"Sumatra Driftwood is a dead, dry root collected from the wilds of Indonesia and Sumatra. This wood typically has multiple branches cascading out from the centre of the main branch."

 

[micmath]

Like a tiny underwater Christmas tree...

Java moss, pearling oxygen bubbles.

 

[micmath]

Update: week 1, week 2

The substrate I am using is TMC Nutrasoil, which is designed to leach ammonia into the water column for the first two weeks. I added floating plants (Phyllanthus) and several bunches of Common Hornwort (Ceratophyllum) to help mop up the extra ammonia and hopefully avoid any algae blooms.





After two weeks I removed the Hornwort, but left in the floating plants, because I kind of like the way they look. Water params have all settled in to ideal ranges on day 15, and the filter is already cycled from a different tank, so I moved the fish in.



The moss is growing quite well.