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4 x 2 x 2 Low maintenance 'scape

nrus70

Seedling
Joined
11 Jul 2008
Messages
13
tankupdate0609026.jpg


Hi Everyone

Ive been lurking for far too long so thought I would post a pic of my tank, it been set up around 12 months but this particular 'scape has been going for about 7 or 8 months.
Tank 4 x 2 x 2 Starphire glass
Light 2 x 150 w halide 2 hours, 2 x T5 54 w 89 hours
Pressurised CO2, Aquamedic reactor with Ocean Runner Pump 2400 LPH both external
2 x Eheim 2260
Substrate is a mix of ECO complete, some ADA , Pumice, peat and some clay tablets with blood and bone
Plants are easy ones for me to look after! Narrow leaf Java, Phllipine, Bolbitus, some Cyperus Helferi, Crypt Wendettii ( Green, Brown, Tropica) Some of these are absolute monsters Crypts!!
Anubias
Mini Xmas Moss
Fish 100 x Harlequin Rasbora, some Otto's, Peppermint Bristles and some Neon Gold Corys
Plus far too many Cherry shrimp and some Native Darwin Algae Shrimp, excellent algae munchers! ( I live in Australia by the way) hope you like it
Cheers Nick
 
Gorgeous tank. 60cm front to back looks so much nicer than narrow tanks. You're not tempted to put any other fish in? I wouldn't be able to resist a few pairs of dwarf cichlids, Nanacara or Apistogramma for example. You could have more than one male with several females, it would be great to see them stake out their teritory and try to attract the ladies!

Congrats on a lovely tank. We see very few from Australia.

Mark

PS Ever been to the aquarium in Townsville?
 
Thanks for the compliments everyone

Mark : No plans for anymore fish, I really love the Harlequins, their copper colour looks lovely against the green. I think Dwarf Cichlids would scoff all my Shrimp!

Sam : It took a while for everything to get going, but I wanted something long term, I would never dream of putting stems in a tank this big, my god the work to look after them ! The wife would leave me!!!

Jase : There is big chunk of wood in there ,Its sort of an S shape lying on its side, but its virtually invisble now, the Narrow Leaf Java had its first trim a couple of weeks ago, plus I took out heaps of moss, other than that its quite easy to look after, apart from shrimp kicking bits all over the sand at the front.
 
Nice job!

Low maint doesn't have to be low aesthetics and this is a perfect example. The vivid green textures fill the tank wonderfully and the touch of open sand provides a nice balance to the vista.

Thanks for sharing and welcome to UKAPS!
 
Excellent scape! The greens are stunning!

Can you explain what pruning you do with your ferns? I am interested as i have them in one of my scapes! :thumbup:
 
and do a plant plan!!

so we know exactly whats where. im gathering inspiration for my next tank so im looking at what plants work well!
 
Stop lurking and start posting more! This is a beautiful tank, gives me a lotta ideas for a low maintenance discus tank I'm planning.
 
Thanks everyone, been fiddling around with planted tanks for about 3 years now, this is my "Dream" tank, it was inspired by a 'scape by Luis Navarro called " Forest of Crypts". The missus made me fund it myself by selling off all my diving gear, the water in Victoria is too cold anyway!!

Ok a few questions to answer

Yes it really is blood and bone with clay in the substrate, they are made in Australia by a company called Aquagreen and sold as Dino Dung ( Im not joking), they are superb for gross root feeders, there around 20 or so dotted around in the substrate. There is a real mix of stuff in there, ADA, Eco, plus some homemade Powersand ( too pricey to buy too much) and the real ADA stuff. I also chucked in some Laterite that I had lying about plus some peat.

As for trimming the ferns, I just trimmed lots of old leaves off close to the rhizome, or cut pieces off the actual rhizome, it was VERY time consuming, but the fern has bounced with lots of new growth.

The hardest part with this tank was trying to visualise it several months down the track, you cant really be moving stuff about in here, so that was a real challenge. Long term gets my vote from now on, my 2 ft cube has just been stripped of stems apart from Proserpinaca Paulustris as it grows nice n slow, will post a pic of that up soon

Cheers Nick
 
Nick, have you always had this level of lighting on the tank? What is your fert dosing regime?
 
Mark

Lighting has been reduced, previously the 2 x 150 w halides were on for 4 -5 hours which I felt was too much, plus the 2 x T x 5 were on for 10 hours. I really only bought the halide /T 5 combo beacuse my local shop gave me a good deal on it and i have too admit when they are on the ripple effect is really nice. The halide bulbs are 2 x 8000k from a company called Watergrass in Hong Kong, they now just come for a couple of hours in the evening when Im home, the rest of the time its just 2 x T5 whic are Geismann and also are pleasent to look at but probably no better for plant growth than some cheap ones!!!

Ferts are just powdered NPK added two or three time a week , I mix my own chelated trace elements with a mix I bought from a hydroponics shop. I add 10 gm to 500 ml of distilled water and just squirt some in every day, no fussing around with drops or xxxx amount of millimeters.
Alage has never really been an issue, bit of BBA and some green spot here and there, but I just let them run their course and once everything stabilised and I tweaked the dry ferts they went. I get some green algae in the sand but i just turn it over and every now and then.

The ferns love their water column ferts and get plenty of flow over them plus a blast of 300 w of halide everyday and they are thriving, I will giving more away agian soon!!

Cheers Nick

Cheers Nick
 
Wow, now that's what I'm talking about! This is my type of tank, I would love to own something like that.
 
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