High-energy soil-substrate layout - updated

[jack-rythm]

Re: High-energy soil-substrate layout - planted (image heavy

You have absolutely cracked the river bed themed scape really well done Mate. Good photo positioning too.

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Tim Harrison]

Re: High-energy soil-substrate layout - planted (image heavy

I love it, it looks like a very natural riverbed!
Thank you for posting, keep us updated!

Mario

You have absolutely cracked the river bed themed scape really well done Mate. Good photo positioning too.

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk 2

Thanks guys, I was beginning to think no one cared...

 

[REDSTEVEO]

Re: High-energy soil-substrate layout - planted (image heavy

Those last photo's are gob smackingly good, if I hadn't known it was an aquarium I would have thought someone had taken an underwater photo of a river bed.

Amazing what you did with the soil. :idea: I might look at doing something similar to this on my pond in the spring.

Thanks for sharing and I look forward to further developments.

Steve

 

[Tim Harrison]

Re: High-energy soil-substrate layout - planted (image heavy

Those last photo's are gob smackingly good, if I hadn't known it was an aquarium I would have thought someone had taken an underwater photo of a river bed.

Amazing what you did with the soil. :idea: I might look at doing something similar to this on my pond in the spring.

Thanks for sharing and I look forward to further developments.

Steve

Really...wow...thanks!

 

[John S]

Re: High-energy soil-substrate layout - planted (image heavy

Looks great Tim As the others have said it looks so natural.

What maintenance do you do on this?

 

[Tim Harrison]

Re: High-energy soil-substrate layout - planted (image heavy

Looks great Tim As the others have said it looks so natural.

What maintenance do you do on this?

Thanks Dave, very little although the plants grow at an phenomenal rate. I trim perhaps once every two weeks and change about 50% of the water at the same time. Algae on the glass and plants is pretty much non-existent, minimal at worst. Although, I've got a very healthy bright green covering on some of the stones and wood, which looks amazing and only adds to the natural look. So overall perhaps no more than an hour every two weeks, excluding tinkering with the layout of course.

I've found that given a balance between lighting, CO2, fertz dosing, flow, etc I can leave the tank for a month or more without maintenance and both fish, and plants seem to thrive without showing deficiency or any symptoms of excess metabolite buildup that a lot of others seem to experience in high-energy setups. I think that perhaps we tend to kill with kindness, so I advocate healthy neglect. Obviously, that doesn't suit everyone especially those that go for more manicured look, but then I kinda like to let nature do its thing 8)

 

[jack-rythm]

Re: High-energy soil-substrate layout - planted (image heavy

Bit like my walstad jungle nano. Do a water change maybe once month on that too

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Tim Harrison]

Re: High-energy soil-substrate layout - planted (image heavy

Strangely enough you're right. My high-energy tank has a lot more in common with my low-energy tank than I was perhaps initially led to believe was possible.

I think that Clive is essentially right...Like him, I also think that given the correct balance between parameters it isn't at all necessary to bombard macrophytes with excessive photons to see them at their best, and this is perhaps the key to solving many a high-energy problem.

By the way, for what it's worth, I've just noticed that p4 was devoid of photos, I have now reinstated them. And here's another:

 

[plantbrain]

My talk at the AGA was centered around light and CO2 mostly. As nutrients, or light or CO2 go from no growth and then severe limiting levels, up to moderate limitations, to critical level(90% or more max potential growth) to non limiting................this relations ship is Non linear.

In other words, at the lower levels of light, say the change from 30 umols to 40umol is HUGE.
At 150 vs 160 umols, the change is virtually non existent.

The CO2 demand also behaves precisely the same way. There are huge differences between say 30 and 40 umols of light on the CO2 demand. There is very good support in the research specific to aquatic submersed plants(Bowes, Haller and Van, 1976).

Ole and Troels also presented such evidence, but did not discuss it in this context, but they both know about it and could fill folks in if asked.

 

[Tim Harrison]

Thanks Tom both papers make very interesting reading, and at least go some distance in dispelling commonly held misconceptions.