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Aqua at pet shop - layout no.3 - the end

I've got several replies from members of ukrainian aqua forum similar to UKAPS about too big space of white sand at left. Before I dismantled the tank I wanted to check their criticism and tried very quickly to add more wood and rearrange stones at left side. I should admit result was pretty promising. I think if I'd started the tank with such composition it would be a slightly different in style and probably slightly better. What do you think?

14793866064_7ae057a5b8_c.jpgIMG_1223 by bialix1, on Flickr

I see some potential in such hardscape. But, anyway I planned to finish this composition and start the new one.
 
Looks excellent before but I do prefer it with less sand on the left and more plants like in the last pic but I always like a bit of open space to show off the fish aswel so all look excellent
 
Result of IAPLC 2014.
This is the photo I've applied with to IAPLC 2014 contest. I think it's not the best photo of this tank, but other were worse. I'm working on improving my photo skills.

14841324348_fc1feb2166_c.jpgIAPLC 2014, rank 1159 (of 2320) by bialix1, on Flickr

And this is result of my first IAPLC attempt:

14841404607_d473ddbc6c_c.jpgIAPLC 2014 result by bialix1, on Flickr
 
I've decided to continue this journal for next layout. In the end it's the same shop and the same tank :)

Today I finished (well, almost) new layout. Most of the plants are in, I expect to make some tweaks here and there in next week and add red plant (guess what).

Here is the composition of wood I made almost 2 months ago, later I've tried to compose something better, but ended up with that first variant. It's nice to have photo of layout to compare different efforts. Also I've printed photo to have the image at my hands when I'm at shop.

15005107236_a48005dddc_c.jpgIMG_1137 by bialix1, on Flickr
14841371189_426903f3eb_c.jpgIMG_1138 by bialix1, on Flickr

This time I've tried to fix the mistake with the first scape: I've tried to ensure there is enough room for foreground. Well, basically in 30cm depth of tank I have about 10cm for each plan: foreground, midground and background. We rarely see how best scapers plan their layouts from the side point of view, but now this point seems very important for me, almost as important as golden ratio and good selection of hardscape. My previous composition had too little space for foreground at the right side, where all wood and rocks were. And that made maintenance of the tank not so easy. (And probably it made composition is not so good to get better placing in contest ;). Now I want to make sure the foreground is at least 10 cm and my maintenance job won't be hard. Although with all that branches at background it won't be very easy.

Photo taken right before I put water in, nothing special so far:
14909398418_370f342b89_c.jpgIMG_1523 by bialix1, on Flickr

Right now the water is a little cloudy, next weeks I'll try to show you the progress.
 
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There are 3 pieces of wood actually. And plus one little branch. :)

At home I have the same sized tank, I haven't created a separate thread for it yet. But I'm going to do.
 
Hi Alexander, I will keep tuned to see the evolution, looks promising!
There is a quite a lot of wood there, what kind of filter outtake are you planing to ensure good flow?

Jordi
 
Hi Jordi, Yep, there is one potentially problem spot there: right back corner where I need think about flow. We use the same filter Tetra EX 600 (600L/h) with Eheim 12/16 in/out green pipes. And the outflow is rather strong right now.
I'm not very skilled in the flow question, so it's time for me to improve my skill.

Maybe I just need to add small pump in the back corner to ensure the flow.
 
2 weeks check point.

Thanks to Jordi and his thread 2+ I've decided to buy spraybar to re-work the flow.

Right after planting I've just put my eheim pipes and was surprised by the flow power. Somewhow it was not so scary in the previous layout. But the bad thing there was the dead flow point on the back right side, I think my wood just screens that area against the flow. I didn't take the video so you might to guess. All left part was in very strong flow, plants swayed a lot, while the right part did not.

Photo has been taken after filling the water:
15040822338_2426becbce_c.jpgIMG_1526 by bialix1, on Flickr

Water was clear just the second day. I've started with 4 hours of photoperiod, with CO2 and dosing Potassium only. The filter was already cycled from previous layout.

2 weeks later: no big and bursting grow of the plants yet, I roughly follow Tropica's 90 day slow velocity tank start-up process, today I've added 30 min more to photoperiod. I've used the same slow start-up with first layout and it proved to be good thing for this tank. The biggest change though is installing a spraybar. I should say I'm very satisfied by its action. It makes roughly equal flow along the length of the tank, and I think now there are no criticial dead-spots there.

Photo:
15204225096_45bab9865a_c.jpgIMG_1548 by bialix1, on Flickr

Video is uploading atm, I'll publish it a bit later.

Put couple of young ancistrus in there to get rid the bacterial stuff from the wood, I've heard they eat that stuff. Tomorrow several amanos shrimps will go to help clean the tank.
 
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