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90cm Low Tech Wood, Cobbles & Emersed (Probably)

tam

tam

Member
Joined
5 May 2011
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1,469
Just paid the deposit on a new tank :D - 90cm opti-white from Aquariums4Life. About 6 weeks wait now so time to order everything else.

The rough plan is a low tech river/streamish look (not high flow) with cobbles and wood and emersed growth to one corner.

Aquarium: Opti-White 90cmx45x45
Filtration: Planted Aquaclear 70 HOB (maybe an external too or a circulation pump?)
Lighting: 3' Fluval Plant 3.0 (hung or on arms)
Co2: Just the free stuff in the air
Hardscape: Mixed size cobbles/pebbles & redmoor
Substrate: Something (Aquabasis/Tropica?) capped with fine gravel graduating to bigger pebbles
Fauna: Otos, Ember tetra, Sundadanio axelrodi, C.Habrosus, Scarlet Badis
Flora: Big lilly on the left, mixed anubias/buce/ferns/moss on the wood/rocks, some crypts, and rotala at the back
Emersed: HOB+Breeder Box to create emersed planters in the right corner

What I have (like my cardboard mockup?):

IMG_7157b.JPG


What I plan:
20180614_153457b.jpg


I'd love any feedback you have, still at the deciding what to order stage so better to tell me it's crazy and won't work now :)
 
Alper Kurt did an interesting slope construction in his
Paludomus Loricatus tank

- awesome scape :) just wish he had update photos

I think I mentioned before that you might use Tropica Growth Substrate under the fine gravel/sand & only use Aquarium Soil in confined areas
I'd just use the Powder Soil (if Tropica - re I've used it a lot ;))

One downside of the Growth Substrate is that you can't really recover & reuse as it pretty much "muds" ... though if determined you can vacuum away top substrate without much disturbance to the majority of the GS layer

Definitely use a coarse open "substrate" such as Dennerle Volcano Mineral or ADA Power Sand (texture/composition promotes good aeration & flow) for that steep slope

Your plant list sounds good for a non-CO2 tank - R rotundifolia would likely remain green & does better longterm than
R 'Green' (which prefers moderate CO2)
OTOH I had very nice Rotala macrandra in a low tech tank - except it remained green!
(note tap water is very soft & pH ~ 6.0 - 6.4 )
Hemianthus micranthemoides also does very well - crazy dense (& relatively compact) with CO2, more open structure in non-CO2 tanks
 
Thank you, that's really helpful! Generally, I tend to run an aquarium a long time without pulling substrate out. The substrate (aquabasis capped with gravel) in the larger of my two must be five years old ish, so I'm not too worried about the ability to reuse as I wouldn't change it out for a while (touch wood).

I think that could be a plan, Tropica soil powder in the main planted sections (uncapped), then Tropica substrate directly in front of the rocks where I will probably only plant lightly and that capped plus the rest of the area forward of it plain fine gravel. It should also mean I'm not spending extra to cap substrate I won't see the top of or areas I won't plant.

The slope is going to be fun, I need to get some hardscape to get my head around laying it out, I'm not sure how much will be rock/soil and how much wood, or how big my rocks will be. Nice to see the construction phase.

I was considering R. Green, so I'm glad you said that - I will stick with rotundifolia. At least stems are quick growing and not to hard to swap out, might even be interesting to try a mix see what looks good/grows best.
 
Yeah I though the R 'Green' might be just a local observation re the very soft tap water, but George Farmer noticed much the same in his non-CO2 low budget tank, initially plant does well (re energy stores in the nursery emerse grown plant), then begins to lag, then just smaller & smaller leafs

Note that if you have a high fish load, this has a noticeable (+CO2) affect on plant growth
(I've seen this done in smaller tanks with small fish that "like" the crowding - apparently re behaviour,activity, appearance is that of "happy" fish)
 
tam said:
What I plan:
View attachment 116441
Click to expand...

Nice drawing skills Tam.. :thumbup: Looks like a very nice idea, can't see any reasons why it wouldn't work. It atualy resambles my current setup very much. But mine mirrors yours and is a tad smaller 90x35x35.
DSC_0116.jpg


What i don't realy like in mine is a few crypts i planted behind the lily as background plants grew bigger and more robust than expected.. It takes the focus point away from the lily.. I yet do not have an alternative housing for these crypts and i dislike to trash healthy plants. But actualy they have to be moved from this tank.

That's the only point of consern and feedback i can give.. Choose the plants in the lily background carefully if you plan to make a focal point from this plant. The long slender floater stems easily fade away in the background. :)
 
zozo said:
That's the only point of consern and feedback i can give.. Choose the plants in the lily background carefully if you plan to make a focal point from this plant. The long slender floater stems easily fade away in the background. :)
Click to expand...

Yes, that's very similar to what I'd like to end up with - I hope mine goes as well!

I see what you mean about the lilly stems. I don't like to see too much of a tank background so I want something planted behind it but I don't want them to disappear. I was looking at the dwarf lillies in our pond and wondering if they might have thicker stems than the usual aquarium tiger lotus, but I don't know if it would grow in a tank - I presume there is a reason you don't see people with them. What lilly do you have growing there?
 
tam said:
What lilly do you have growing there?
Click to expand...

This one is a Burgundy Princess and the very same lily as this one.. Everybody seeing this would say that lily is to big for an aquarium. Ok like this it indeed is, but it doesn't have to be.. :)
dscf1188-jpg.jpg

There are a lot of misconceptions about lilies in the aqaurium hobby. You can choose from an enormous variety of lilies and still grow then small in an indoor tank.
But than you have to know a bit about the plant and how it grows and what it likes, for what it likes most are extremely addaptable and easy to grow.

What you need to read into is the type of rootstock varieties lilies come with and how they propagate.
https://www.iamshaman.com/lotus/cultivation.htm

The maturity and size of this rootstock defines how much energy it has stored and how big in can grow the plant. A fist size tuber, grows the plant if fertilized enough to full potential.. But if the tuber is small, it grows the plant according to the energy it can supply, can never sustain leaves that are 10 or 20 times bigger than the tuber it simple doesn't store enough energy for that. A tiny tuber grows a tiny water lily and it takes years for a tiny tuber to grow to full potential. Thus if you start with a tiny tuber cutting from a a lily with rather large potential you will grow a dwarf version of this lily for quite some years. Than if you take a winter hardy pond lily with a chunky horizontal running tuber and examin it, you can compare it with a Potato.. We all know the eyes of a popato out of these eyes the roots grow out if you keep it to long. If you cut a potato in several parts and put a part with a shoot from an eye in the soil it's grow into a plant. A lily tuber also has these eyes, and if you examin a fully matured tuber from a lily you take out of your pond.. You might notice a pimple with a small tiny new plant developing on that mature tuber like in the drawing bellow.
Lilyvanily.jpg

Cut that tiny young plantlet growing on that pimple from the tuber. Than you have some tiny foliage with a piece of tuber as large as a fingernail.. Plant that in the substrate on top of a clay ball and you have a little mini version of your pond lily for many years to come in your aqaurium slowly but steadily growing bigger. By the point it grows to big you probably wont have the same aqaurium anymore..The bigger you cut this tuber piece the sooner it'll grow bigger. All about size and stored energy. So actualy you can play a little and have some say into the size you like to start with. And you do not need to run around the country to find dwarf varieties that are small in mature size. Like 99% of all lilies to find are eroneously labeled as not aqaurium suitable. Far from the truth..

:)

The one in my tank started like that and is 3 years old now.. A tad bigger but still a dwarf with floaters not bigger than 4cm in diameter.
 
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Another thing you might consider growing a lily with floaters in a tank is flow. Keep this at an absolut minimun in favor of the lily.. These plants are very flow sensitive and actualy there is some logic to it see them grow in flow. The want their leaves at the surface, once a leaf reaches this it stops growing it's stem in lenght. It doesn't need to it arrived it's destination. In stagnant water it grows straight up verticaly the shortest distance. In flow it has to grow diagonaly because the flow is pushing or pulling it. Than it needs a longer stem to reach the surface. If the flow is to strong and the leaf is pulled under it keeps on growing a stem till it simply breakes off or till the leaf is ripped apart by the flow.

Thus do you want thick stems :) than reduce the flow, than it doesn't need to put much energy in growing a long stem to reach the surface and it grows a shorter but thicker stem.

There is a video posted recently here from an African stream submersed. Rather fast flowing stream. it has lilies growing in it and you'll see what i mean, how it grows floaters never reaching the surface. Many are ripped to pieces by the flow.. I see if i can find it back..

here it is..
 
Wow, I'm surprised those lillies survive at all! That end of the tank should be lower flow as it's furthest from the filter etc. I was wondering whether I'd need a circulation pump of some kind the opposite end, but maybe leaving the lilly in calmer water would actually work best all around.

I didn't realise there was such variety in the way lillies grew and propagated. I've a lot of potential source material in the pond, but the lillies have been growing, swapped, repotted over the years so I've no idea on varieties. The red leaved one in the centre here is one I had my eye on:

20180714_185154b.jpg


It's got smaller, much pointier leaves than the others, as well as having very red new leaves that seem to fade to green. The stems are fairly thick - from what you've said that could well be partly down to the fact it's in very shallow water - probably only 8" to the basket surface.

I wonder if it would be best to pot the lilly so it's easy to remove and swap out for a new baby one if it gets carried away?
 
tam said:
I wonder if it would be best to pot the lilly so it's easy to remove and swap out for a new baby one if it gets carried away?
Click to expand...
The answer is in your pond.. :) Lift a basket and look where all the roots are, likely far out beyond it... So it wont make much difference, they root outside the pot.. I didn't pot i just put them in the aquarium substrate, but wasn't planning moving it anyway. But you got some nice potential in the pond already you can cut babies off.. :)
 
I’ve found the growth of lillies in my tank to be quite unpredictable. They are all ‘standard aquarium’ N lotus/zenkeri and some kick out 6 inch pads on thick stalks once a week or so and others stay much smaller. The ones in the flow actually kick out the longest and thickest stalks. After leaving them to grow for a few months I’m now taking out 10-20 floating pads every two weeks. They are rather too easy to grow for me in my open topped tank but need a lot of work to keep any light below - if I neglect things for any amount of time my fish all disappear into a black hole
 
gltjc said:
They are all ‘standard aquarium’ N lotus/zenkeri
Click to expand...

I'm not sure, myself i never grown this lily... But seeing this picture i believe it has a Mexicana rootstock. And grows smaller (clustering) bulbs and is more depended on roots than the bulb. The plant takes more energy from its roots.. Most tropical lily spieces have this. The few that are popular in the aqaurium trade are all tropicals. I've tried the N. glandulifera that also grows like this, but it is too difficult i failed.
11688828333_134e089386_b.jpg


In this pic you see it also grows runners on a stolon and this little plant will eventualy grow a new bulb..
RqDm0-_F2amDEWBRZYN7uvbklXOMse3AOct6gGjjjhjZYshihZ.jpg


The ones with the chuncky horizontal growing odorata tubers, i experienced easy to control, these lilies depend a lot on that tuber. And if you cut out an eye that has young growth to it. Than it grows according to the tuber part size you cut off.
izom-de-nnuphar-jaune-dans-un-lac-jurassien-bg58ep.jpg


For the Tuberoza type this works simmular.
nymphaea-tuberosa-sf-gmorrison.jpg


But for these experiments you need a pond or something else.. You buy a lily take it out the basket, clean all soil off examin the rootstock and go from there. Cut the correct piece off and grow it on.. But than you still have to house the mother plant. And that's also a bit my issue, i do not have the space to experiment with a batalion of different nymphaeas spp.. If i had i would.. :)

But all hardy pond lilies grow from these chuncky tubers. Worth a try to start cutting..
 
Hijacking a little but do these winter dormant lillies just grow normally all year round in the stable conditions of a tank?
 
mort said:
Hijacking a little but do these winter dormant lillies just grow normally all year round in the stable conditions of a tank?
Click to expand...
Yes indoor or in tropical conditions they are evergreen.. :) Nobody actualy knows where they originated since already cultivated for millennials. Oldest scriptures found where asian and most likely from tropical origine. But that will stay a myth forever i guess.
 
This is how small you can start, cut from a fist sized tuber about 4 months before this pic...
dscf8265-jpg.103759


more than 1 year later
dscf8279-jpg.103760


And about 2 years later again see earlier tank picure above and the barrel picture for it originating mother.
 
zozo said:
This is how small you can start, cut from a fist sized tuber about 4 months before this pic...
Click to expand...

Can you try again, the images didn't load :(

Thought I posted this, but it's disappeared. Started playing with some rocks...

20180718_171925b.jpg


And then this morning, the bits of wood I ordered turned up! Obviously going to need a bit more in the middle but I like how these line up....

20180720_105647b.jpg


20180720_105800b.jpg


I think the right hand side of my big rock pile needs to come higher to make it more triangular? Need to get some more rocks.

What's the best for supporting them? At the moment the back row are sat on a brick. I'm not sure about egg crate as the otos/corys I want are going to be the perfect size to get stuck in a grid if any of it gets exposed. I'm wondering if a pillow of something in a stocking would be safer?

Should I sit the whole pile on something too, or on a bed of gravel or straight on the glass?

Would it be worth running a tunnel through on the right to help with circulation - something like the clay pleco tubes?
 
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