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15 UK Gallon rescape journal

The UG has 2 weeks. 2 weeks is payday, I am trying to spend nothing this month, so unless the UG starts to do something useful it is going...or at least moving to a small area and planting the rest with HC. May move the vallis and PHelferi out aswell, they don't fit with the central mound of windelov on the wood.

Oh, and more bloomin' shrimp...
 
Didn't wait two weeks, eBay had some HC on which arrived today, seems fine so far (Expert Aquatics, got the UG from them aswell). Hope it does OK, will start planting Monday at water change time. Ordered some fine tweezers and scissors from AE, be nice if they arrive before I plant as my current tweezers are a bit large for HC...we'll see.
 
UG is gone, was going to keep a little but it has done diddly-all in the months it has been planted so tough luck on it. PHelferi is pulled up to be sent to a forum member today, then took about 1 hour to plant a single pot of HC across the majority of the substrate. Left the vallis in for now but I don't think it works well in the overall layout so at some point I may take that out too. Hopefully the HC will take OK, had success with it in my 5-gallon when it was high light/CO2/EI so fingers crossed. And darn I have a major shrimp infestation, they are worse than snails once they start breeding! I can really suggest to others that it is worth ensuring you buy true amano shrimp as they don't breed in freshwater, no worries over population control!
 
Picture update

Piccy update:

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Took me about an hour to plant the HC, best take well :) Oh, need to clean my lily pipes too.
 
Ta - the fern is from a single Tropica pot, they have an interesting habit when moved to new tanks where many older leaves die off slowly and go black/brown. Cut loads out before I planted the HC. Still don't like the fact that the wood is hidden inthe pictures, partly due to the moss I think - should have some flame moss coming from Ed which I will try - also debating no moss on the back-right wood and going for maybe anubias petite?

Vallis needs to go too but will wait until, hopefully, the HC takes before removing it - first come first served if anyone wants the vallis?
 
Yeh you might be right about the moss on the wood, some wood showing would add nicely to the scape I think.

BTW what substrate you using again? I've growing some HC in black quarts gravel with Tropica substrate underneath and its painfully slow. But I am double dosing EI to keep the water column nice and laden with ferts to compensate.

Sam
 
Tropica underneath Hagen Black River Sand (Extra Fine). HC grew fine in this in my 5-gallon, took a little getting going, but once it started it was fine. Hopefully planting it better in my 15-gallon will help it grow more evenly, it got very lumpy in the other tank as I planted it based on splitting the pot into 8 and leaving it with a little rock wool around the roots.
 
Yeh, I did a bit of an experiment with my last HC planting, the stuff in clumps (i.e. divided pots like Troipica suggest) had a much greater die back than the stuff I planted individually and its taken longer to get going. It also seems more prone to becoming dislodged out of the substrate.

Sam
 
I should have bought some proper scissors years ago. Alongside decent tweezers they are much better to work with than tiny nail scissors.

Trimmed some more older fern leaves and took the moss back a bit to reveal a bit more of thw wood. HC seems to be taking well, and had very little floating which was unexpected.
 
Vallis is not liking the carboplus (dosing to get rid of the annoying hair algae on my moss which is working well so far), taking it out anyhow, ordered some Lilaeopsis brasiliensis and Eleocharis parvula from AE today. LB to go in place of the vallis which was way too high for the 'mound' of fern, may spread some to the back-right of the fern aswell. EP will be used sparingly to create a few focal points but not over-doing things hopefully.

May have some spare HC (not loads) and EP if anyone wants them - PM me, I'll send them to the first person who asks and sends me a pre-paid padded envelope.
 
Plants added - still can't get these darn pictures to look as good as other peoples on here!

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Ooh, that's looking pretty sweet to me. I love the way those stones in the middle play against the the green. If you'd like, we can help troubleshoot the photography if you give us an idea of the camera and your software you're using. 8)

Cheers,
 
I wish I could get fish like yours.
One thing, if I may. I would move the island a inch or so on the left. But I might be wrong, those types of layout are not easy. I tried and it took me almost two month to be happy with the location of the hardscape. I would I have put the Lilaeopsis around the islandand leave all the rest for the HC.
Just my 2 cents ;)
 
Can't move the wood, it is well and truely buried beneath the substrate zip-tied to a plastic panel so it doesn't float - but I do completely agree, it is too far towards the right....ah well.

I did also wonder about the lp being around the base of the wood/fern, I'll see how it pans out. Still not convinced on the moss either, it detracts from the wood and the fern a bit I feel.

Camera is a Kodak SLR-type, a few years old now. I think the issue is more down to the lighting on the tank - once things bed in I may try some pictures with reduced/different tank lighting as that should reduce the washout of detail and over saturation of green. Name the software and I can probably access it, loads of stuff at work.
 
The windelov fern looks spectacular, how long have you been growing it ? I wish mine looked that good. When the new plantlets form on the older leaves do you replant them on wood straight away or let them grow out ? also do you discard the older leaves once you have removed the new growth?
 
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