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Aquatoon

Yeah a bigger tank would be great, imagine this being done in an ADA 60P. It's the spilled look, growing down from the top into the water spreading over things like the Blob rather than the traditional planted look of growing up and out of the ground. Different slice of an aquatic realm I suppose. Hmmm grassy banks, I have an idea already in my head for this type of planting for a friends potential tank, long hair grass with a swept look from flow over it until it drops of abruptly into deeper water with a quiff look to the terminal edge.
 
Sounds great, you've got me wanting to rescape my 60cm tank again and I've only just redone it for the shrimp!

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk
 
Good thing about doing all this on removable walls is that I can reuse it on a bigger scape by attaching more mesh sections so it won't be a total loss if I end up upsizing. How amazing would it be if you could actually buy sections of mesh already pre-planted like how I've done, I've been ruminating this idea for a few weeks on how it could be possibly done without the tremendous amount of legwork required to do it and all roads seem to lead down the tissue culture path. I'm off to the Yucatán in a few weeks and will be surrounded by natural inspiration so will probably get to do a lot of thinking, I'm taking an underwater camera with me and hopefully I'll end up swimming in a Cenote which I'm sure will be all the planted wall inspiration I need to get the creative juices flowing!

🙂
 
https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3912/14436229471_303e39c88a_k.jpg

Its not finished yet as there are still things to do, but that's both walls in the tank together. It was quickly filled to get a few pics so the water is not very clear.

https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5274/14252923769_2dddcd6532_k.jpg

Its looking quite untidy at the moment but I think I'll let it rest for a few days before I try and organise the leaves a little more while the walls are in situ. I'm not happy with the frame for the carpet as it has warped after using the mesh tightly on it so it won't sit flat anymore, I even cut the mesh at the back to release the tension which helped a lot but its still slightly warped, it doesn't help that its just ever so slightly positively buoyant so that when I straighten one corner the opposite floats up, I'm also thinking its occupying too much height so I'm thinking that I may redo it in stainless without the girders. Maybe I should dispense with it altogether and replace it with black polished gravel that I have and maybe use a few largish flat polished river stones topped with the Cladophora, hmm need to think on this a bit.

https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3870/14442176111_b20da4b021_k.jpg

I will need to securely rig up a spray bar to trickle the water that will be lofted by the sponge filter over the emergent Anubia growth, hopefully I won't have to rig up a mini power filter as I'm trying to keep the kit as minimal as possible, the filter space has enough room to occupy the JBL TekAir sponge filter and the heater that are in the shrimp tank at the moment. I could make more space by swapping the glass heater for a slim/flat one and trimming the sponge a little. The Red Root in the photo is in the filter compartment temporarily so I could guddle around on the other side without losing it all in the wall. I'll need to get a little more light over it to encourage the leaves to lift more, the reflected spill from the main tank is nowhere near enough to do the job on its own where it is sitting in its temporary spot, a carefully angled mirror may do, or I could just rob the tile from over the current shrimp tank temporarily and stick the old PL light from my Aquatart320 hood in its place since I'm not really trying to grow anything in that tank but shrimp.

🙂
 
Strange one today, actually I'm flabbergasted, I've been back from my hols since Thursday and I really need to be doing some water changes on all my tanks but I have been running a temperature since I got back that is only now starting to go away (runny nose drying up also) so I have been reluctant to muck about with the tanks. So I'm sitting here and notice something move in the empty Anubia walled tank that is to replace my shrimp tank.

https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3854/14521822908_7831b86fe9_b.jpg

Somehow this CRS has managed to move in all by himself! Wow!
 
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I know exactly where it came from just not the method of transit.

The aquarium on the top shelf in the below picture houses all the CRS (including an ever growing hoard of RCS).

https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2917/13962200558_b76e64ae8f_b.jpg

The new planted shrimp tank sits between the wall and my main tank as you can see in this picture so that it gets incidental light.

https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2930/14355051215_4e976f2465_b.jpg

I just got a text back from my wife, she didn't move it. They were all present yesterday. What I think may have happened is that it must have been sitting around the edge of the lid when I raised it this morning to put in some pellet and it's gone and done a 'leap of faith' and fortuitously it's landed where it will eventually end up. If it landed in the big tank the TDS difference would have knocked it out and the hungry shoal would have devoured it.

I think I'm going to have to name it Geronimo now.

🙂
 
Geronimo is not only an expert at free fall techniques through 3ft of empty space into quieter realms below but he also appears to be a hide and seek champion!

Oh yeah, shrimp flats not required in this tank!

He's still in there, I have only just spotted him weaving his way through the Anubia!

🙂
 
Thanks! I only wish they would mate as I'm beginning to suspect my CRS colony is sterile, that's not such a problem for the RCS though as there's scores of them now and they grow fast hence the need to perform an afternoon feed as opposed to one at lights out (need to see that the shrimp are eating what I give them before the snails get a chance to polish it all off).
 
Hi Toon, how the heck do you get such great macro photos? Camera/lens/flash details pleaeaease!
 
The macros in this thread have been taken with a Nikon D800E with a Micro Nikkor 60mm f/2.8 lens. Where supplementary lighting has been us it is an Nikon SB800 that is running in Remote mode and the camera flash set to Command Mode, flashgun is suspended above the water surface and is pointing down into the tank at the subject matter. Lens Aperture was set to about f/22 if I recall correctly.
 
Discovered another escapee!

https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3913/14581694987_9006d82e42_k.jpg

There may be another escapee today making it three in there now, 1 CRS and 2 RCS. The second RCS escape today happened when I was removing some Frogbit from the shrimp tank, I gave it a good shake inside the tank to get the flies off before I removed it and there was a clinger-on that dripped onto the lid of the walled tank, I noticed it lying in a splash of water, so rummaged in the gubbins box for a dropper so I could run some water over it to flush it into the tank proper but it had gone! I checked the floor and around the tank and couldn't see it, so I assume it hopped into the tank.

I was moving the Frogbit to let light from the flashgun hit the substrate for a feeding time photo.

https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5588/14768174085_c8872d19c4_k.jpg

I have no lack of RCS, and I think it's about to go exponential in there as today I discovered that they have bred (put berried females in the CRS tank, that generation now saddled) there are fry swimming about. This pretty much confirms that my CRS colony (11 individuals) are entirely of the same sex (doubtful) or that they are sterile. Unless of course my TDS isn't high enough for CRS but just enough for RCS to breed. Here's a near full tank shot.

https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2935/14581537658_ef7e319363_k.jpg

It's turning into a snail factory again, so I'll need to get busy with the tweezers and syringe, although a turkey baster might do a quicker job, lol.

🙂
 
Crystal shrimp want a lower tds than your cherries. Maybe tds is nice and high for cherries but too high for crystals? Crs usually like a lower ph too.
 
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