Alexander Belchenko
Member
Hi all, I'd like to share with you my latest tank adventure. In March I've bought several dragon stones in online shop, I just loved its structure. Also, they perfectly fitted to my 60x30x36 tank - so I couldn't resist.
Also, I always wanted to try the guide by Troi on dirted substrate and therefore I prepared some mix from potted dirt, sfagnum, peat, small gravel and something else, just to try it out. Covered with old & used Fluval Plant Stratum and some new small sized shrimp substrate.
And third new thing for me in this layout is new LED light. I've never tried to run aquascape under LED light, but I was lucky enough to get LED units from local manufacturer to try, so I'm testing and learning this LED sciense by my mistakes.
Too much text, let's look at the state of the tank almost month ago:
60x30x36 - about 3 weeks by Alexander, on Flickr
The tank looks clean and healthy enough (that's because first 2 weeks I run it with usual T5 lamps - 2x24W, not LEDs). Later I've removed most of tall plants as they didn't play well in the layout.
I didn't put any livestock almost for a month after set up, to avoid ammonia killing my shrimps or fish. Although, my tests of NH3/NH4 always showed zero. But I decided to follow "better safe than sorry" strategy, and only recently introduced shrimps.
About the beginning of the April I've got 2 LED units to test, and started to experiment with light, intensity, combination of cold and warm light, and so on. I'm still not confident enough with all this stuff.
As an expected result of my experiments - I've got a lot of green threads algaes on the rocks and plants. I guess it's spirogyra. Liquid carbon didn't help much, so next step was - put some cleaning crew. And last week 2 groups of shrimps (usual wild-style cherry shrimps and several amanos) was landed to the enemy territory. For my biggest and good surprise those amanos cleaned almost all the tank in 2 days. Just 2 days. They're animals! Crazy and good.
I've asked my daugther to help me with layout, to improve the colors and texture of composition. That was interesting experience for me - I know plants and she knows something about drawing and composition. I've transformed her thoughts into some changes in the tank, we all liked the result. But she doesn't really like to help me with maintenance of the tank, though Only with ideas But that's great anyway.
I don't have a FTS atm, just couple of fragments. We've added touch of pink with crypt flamingo and it's really pop under that light. What do you think?
60x30x36 - about 1+ month by Alexander, on Flickr
Cryptocoryne sp. Flamingo by Alexander, on Flickr
The idea is to have dark red on the background - with ludwigia sp. super red.
Also, I always wanted to try the guide by Troi on dirted substrate and therefore I prepared some mix from potted dirt, sfagnum, peat, small gravel and something else, just to try it out. Covered with old & used Fluval Plant Stratum and some new small sized shrimp substrate.
And third new thing for me in this layout is new LED light. I've never tried to run aquascape under LED light, but I was lucky enough to get LED units from local manufacturer to try, so I'm testing and learning this LED sciense by my mistakes.
Too much text, let's look at the state of the tank almost month ago:
60x30x36 - about 3 weeks by Alexander, on Flickr
The tank looks clean and healthy enough (that's because first 2 weeks I run it with usual T5 lamps - 2x24W, not LEDs). Later I've removed most of tall plants as they didn't play well in the layout.
I didn't put any livestock almost for a month after set up, to avoid ammonia killing my shrimps or fish. Although, my tests of NH3/NH4 always showed zero. But I decided to follow "better safe than sorry" strategy, and only recently introduced shrimps.
About the beginning of the April I've got 2 LED units to test, and started to experiment with light, intensity, combination of cold and warm light, and so on. I'm still not confident enough with all this stuff.
As an expected result of my experiments - I've got a lot of green threads algaes on the rocks and plants. I guess it's spirogyra. Liquid carbon didn't help much, so next step was - put some cleaning crew. And last week 2 groups of shrimps (usual wild-style cherry shrimps and several amanos) was landed to the enemy territory. For my biggest and good surprise those amanos cleaned almost all the tank in 2 days. Just 2 days. They're animals! Crazy and good.
I've asked my daugther to help me with layout, to improve the colors and texture of composition. That was interesting experience for me - I know plants and she knows something about drawing and composition. I've transformed her thoughts into some changes in the tank, we all liked the result. But she doesn't really like to help me with maintenance of the tank, though Only with ideas But that's great anyway.
I don't have a FTS atm, just couple of fragments. We've added touch of pink with crypt flamingo and it's really pop under that light. What do you think?
60x30x36 - about 1+ month by Alexander, on Flickr
Cryptocoryne sp. Flamingo by Alexander, on Flickr
The idea is to have dark red on the background - with ludwigia sp. super red.