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

[Alexander Belchenko]

Hi everyone. Almost 4 months ago, at the very end of November 2013, I was lucky enough to be able to scape the tank in small local pet shop near my home, in my home city. There was an empty 60L optiwhite tank with ADA-style cabinet and DIY a-la solar 2 lamp, which was intended to be scaped with another aquascaper from my city. But that tank gathered the dust for many many months with only some wood and couple of stones inside. That aquascaper wasn't able to find the right time and moment to finally setup the tank (and last year he moved to another country). So I stepped forward and asked the owner of the pet shop to design that tank and got a warm approval.

I've used redmoor wood, manten stones (from Carpathian Mountains) white sand and ada amazonia for design. I put frozen glass film at the back side, I really like it. I've used mostly slow plants for design: microsorum narrow and anubias nana, also bolbitis compact, crypt, potagemon gaya a bit of moss, hygro pinnatifida and ludwigia super red to add red color to picture.

Tank specification:
* 60L 60x30x36 cm optiwhite
* DIY lamp with 2*36 W tubes (OSRAM dulux 8800K and 4000K). I've started with 5 hours and very slowly increased period to 7 hours.
* Tetra EX 600 canister filter with gush lilly-pipe like inlet/outlet
* CO2 injection
* Internal heater for 23-25 C
* Tropica Nutrition+ all-in-one old style fertilizer (I believe today it's called Tropica Specialized fertilizer).

After almost 4 months it's developed very slowly into pleasant scape, I can be proud of. I like the stability of slow plants. I usually come to the pet shop at weekend to do a maintenance job (water change, trimming, dosing fertilizer one time a week) and thanks to slow plants I don't have to worry that something going wrong. I believe it was the right choice of plants for my first public scape. It proved to be more or less success.

Pictures time!
It started like this:


DSC04281 by bialix1, on Flickr

And now it looks much better:


100_6052 by bialix1, on Flickr

More pictures in the following posts.[DOUBLEPOST=1395604677][/DOUBLEPOST]Day 1


DSC04118 by bialix1, on Flickr


DSC04122 by bialix1, on Flickr

DSC04125 by bialix1, on Flickr

DSC04126 by bialix1, on Flickr

DSC04132 by bialix1, on Flickr


DSC04131 by bialix1, on Flickr

DSC04135 by bialix1, on Flickr


DSC04138 by bialix1, on Flickr

DSC04139 by bialix1, on Flickr

DSC04142 by bialix1, on Flickr

DSC04143 by bialix1, on Flickr

DSC04145 by bialix1, on Flickr


DSC04149 by bialix1, on Flickr

DSC04159 by bialix1, on Flickr


DSC04164 by bialix1, on Flickr


DSC04165 by bialix1, on Flickr

DSC04166 by bialix1, on Flickr

DSC04167 by bialix1, on Flickr


DSC04168 by bialix1, on Flickr[DOUBLEPOST=1395604734][/DOUBLEPOST]Day 3


DSC04247 by bialix1, on Flickr


DSC04245 by bialix1, on Flickr

 

[Alexander Belchenko]

Day 9


DSC04281 by bialix1, on Flickr


DSC04279 by bialix1, on Flickr[DOUBLEPOST=1395604882][/DOUBLEPOST]Day 24


DSC04482 by bialix1, on Flickr


100_5708 by bialix1, on Flickr


DSC04453 by bialix1, on Flickr


DSC04468 by bialix1, on Flickr


DSC04473 by bialix1, on Flickr[DOUBLEPOST=1395604930][/DOUBLEPOST]Panda corys


DSC04575 by bialix1, on Flickr


DSC04581 by bialix1, on Flickr[DOUBLEPOST=1395604997][/DOUBLEPOST]Day 50


100_5839 by bialix1, on Flickr


100_5844 by bialix1, on Flickr


100_5845 by bialix1, on Flickr


100_5847 by bialix1, on Flickr


100_5849 by bialix1, on Flickr[DOUBLEPOST=1395605078][/DOUBLEPOST]10 weeks - before first big trimming


20140209_093342 by bialix1, on Flickr


20140209_101023 by bialix1, on Flickr[DOUBLEPOST=1395605114][/DOUBLEPOST]11 weeks - trimmed


100_5902 by bialix1, on Flickr[DOUBLEPOST=1395605167][/DOUBLEPOST]16 weeks


100_6052 by bialix1, on Flickr

 

[allan angus]

nice simple and elegant looks ideal for low maintenance

 

[Alexander Belchenko]

Allan, yes, maintenance is a breeze there. Almost no algae, glass is clear all the time. Only the white sand need to be refreshed from time to time.

 

[Robbie X]

Great job, love the pandas also, my fave Cory's

 

[Brian Murphy]

Looks well .... well maintained aswell

 

[Alexander Belchenko]

Thanks, guys for your kind words.

 

[dafil]

Really a good job!!!

 

[tim]

Lovely setup Alexander, well done promoting the hobby so well.

 

[Ady34]

Very nice aquascape. They should let you do more

 

[Alexander Belchenko]

Very nice aquascape. They should let you do more

LOL. Actually I set up one more in nano format (approx. 30L) just yesterday. I didn't finish it yet, so I didn't take any pictures

 

[Ady34]

Well don't be shy sharing it once it's complete

 

[Alexander Belchenko]

Lovely setup Alexander, well done promoting the hobby so well.

Yes, that's right. When I do a maintenance I look around what customers do.
Most people just pass by this tank for dog/cat food (the tank located just next to counter) and didn't notice it.
But it's really fun to watch how children look at it. A lot of small shrimps are definitely eye catchers there, not only fish.[DOUBLEPOST=1395649098][/DOUBLEPOST]

Well don't be shy sharing it once it's complete

I'm going to participare in Dennerle Scaper's tank contest this spring with that nano. I have only 1 month to complete it, because April 30 is deadline.
It would be fun sprint, or maybe it would be one big fail. Who knows?

 

[Alexander Belchenko]

At the center of the tank you can see a branch going out of water. I put HC there initially, but due the low humidity it's died very fast. So I gathered some terrestial moss from city park (the park is called "Rainbow" due to big rainbow-like arch at the entrance) and put it there. It does not die but in the same time I don't see it grow. Maybe it's just very sloooow moss


100_6032 by bialix1, on Flickr

 

[pintainho21]

really nice, congratulations

 

[Greenfinger2]

Hi Alexander, Superb little Aquascape

 

[Alexander Belchenko]

Well, new nano tank ~30L is not complete yet, because I didn't finished planting. Just took some pictures yesterday after w/c, and I don't really like the result so far. I have to rework background. Right now at right side background there is hairgrass, but the tank really asks me to put there some stems. Probably hemianthus m. What do you think?

 

[Alexander Belchenko]

Maintaining white sand foreground.

If you look closely at 16 weeks foto you can spot algae on white sand and front glass. There were some diatoms, gda and cyano. Ditto on left side glass. Also most of the top surface of the sand got a touch of green color. I have never replaced the sand before in a such tank, but I had to do it sooner or later. So yesterday I spent several hours at shop doing maintenance job, including cleaning external filter and glassware, and replacing dirty sand with fresh one.

I sucked out sand from the glass area at front and left side and cleaned the glass from algae.







You can see the difference in color between sand at bottom not exposed to light and top surface with greenish color.
I also sucked out that green sand at top surface (about 0.5-1cm).

I've replaced dirty sand with fresh one. The difference is huge! The last shot taken without top light (because the light day finished at that moment) and the only light source was daylight from outside and regular light at the shop. You can clearly see how's clean the sand now



Stay tuned. More pictures and short video will follow.

 

[Alexander Belchenko]

After trimming.



[DOUBLEPOST=1396819622][/DOUBLEPOST]My pocket camera is not good in filming video :-/

 

[Luís Cardoso]

Lovely Scape...