Ash J
Member
Hey guys!
It's been quite some time since I've posted on the forums. Thought I'd share with you my current project.
I've always enjoyed the beauty and simplicity of an Iwagumi so after 1 1/2 years of having the nature scape running and thriving I thought I'd give an Iwagumi a try!
My first challenge, getting enough height of the substrate to support the rocks. The tank has rather odd dimensions of 56x60x54 so it's a rather tall tank so I knew I'd need quite a lot of substrate to build a reasonable amount of height.
Substrate & Rocks
JBL Lava rock 9l x2
ADA Amazonia v2 9l x2
Tropica soil powder 3l x1
ADA Powersand Advance 2l x1
30kg of Frodo/Elderly stone
Also fairly happy with the rock formation.
Time for planting!
For the foreground/carpet a mix of;
Hemianthus callitrichoides (HC) 'Cuba
Marsilea hirsuta
Eleocharis acicularis 'Mini'
Too add a little detail around the rocks
Cryptocoryne albida Brown
Cryptocoryne Lutea "Hobbit"
Riccardia chamedryfolia
Background
Eleocharis acicularis (centre)
Hemianthus micranthemoides
Rotala rotundifolia (left side)
Rotala rotundifolia orange juice (left side)
Rotala rotundifolia h'ra (right side)
I've had pretty abysmal results growing HC from tissue cultures in the past so initially went hard on the co2 to minimise melts, co2 coming on 3 hours before lights on to ensure drop checker was pretty much lime green/yellow on lights on, rate of Co2 was probably 8+ b/ps. Light used is a Chihiros WRGB2 that I started at roughly 50%. HEALTH WARNING - No Livestock was in the tank for the first month when the Co2 was pumping.
For the first 3 weeks I suffered minimal melt of the HC, Result! However, 80% of Crypt leaf melted, likely transition from emersed to submersed. The Marsilea was abit odd, it grew like wild fire and then 1 day, 1 plant seemed to rot and the rest followed, however no signs of any algae! I started to wonder if the rot of the marsilea was due to lack of ferts in the water column, I hadn't dosed anything for the first 3 weeks. I'd read a number of conflicting articles that ferts should be added from day 1, or after 3-4 weeks, the later being the approach I had followed given the amount of nutrients being leached from the 4 inches+ of substrate. At this point I started to follow my usual EI dosing regime...However as I will get into next, may be the cause of my current issues.
After 1 month and 1 week of EI dosing everything still seemed to be going well though algae was started to appear more prominently on rocks. After checking parameters the tank appeared cycled so it was time to introduce some livestock/clean up crew to help clear the newly established algae. Co2 was dialled down slightly to roughly 5b/ps.
Livestock added
6 Emerald Raporas
12 Celestial Pearls
6 Rosy Loaches
2 Pygmy chain Loaches
2 Octos
6 Amano shrimps
20ish Red/Black
4 Nerites
I started to notice that the HC Cuba in back centre of the tank, although growing was starting to get green fuzz algae. I wondered if this was due to poor co2 distribution, I read many comments on here that flow is king so to add more flow to the tank I upgraded my Oase Biomaster 350 to an 850. Green fuzz algae persisted and also started to grow on the rocks with GSA.
7 weeks in
This is the tank now just past the 7 week mark.
Growth remains pretty good, crypts have started to bounce back with new leaves, the rotalas have been trimmed twice however, I'm starting to feel a little discouraged as they still exhibit next to no colour (other than green) which I would have expected at this point. I've been reading a number of articles that state in order for rotalas such as H'ra and Orange juice to get the deep orange/red colours, lights need to be high and nitrates low. This had lead me to start looking into my fert regime a bit closer as I feel this is where I've made mistakes. I have been dosing 60ml of EI (macros/micros) x3 per week, this is the regime I followed when my nature scape was heavily planted. It hadn't occurred to me that the iwagumi is in fact not heavily planted and has more slow growing plants with slower nutrient uptake. I also read a number of articles that iwagumi scapes require a lot less in ferts, many use phos/nitrate limiting dosing such as APT zero or ADA style lean dosing with great results.
From further testing I'm currently dosing the following per dose;
KH2Po4 - 2.18ppm
KNo3 - 10ishppm
Please correct me if I'm wrong here, but I think I have been dosing far too much Po4/No3 for what I'm trying to achieve and could also be the reason for the increase in algae. I've addressed any flow/distribution issues and Co2 is dialled in as much as the fish can cope with, light remains around 50% with photoperiod of 6 hours. I'll now try halving the amount of EI I currently dose and monitor, maybe even half again following this. If I see no improvement within the next couple of weeks I may give APT Zero a try or ADA Brighty K, although open to suggestions to!
Until next time,
Ash
It's been quite some time since I've posted on the forums. Thought I'd share with you my current project.
I've always enjoyed the beauty and simplicity of an Iwagumi so after 1 1/2 years of having the nature scape running and thriving I thought I'd give an Iwagumi a try!
My first challenge, getting enough height of the substrate to support the rocks. The tank has rather odd dimensions of 56x60x54 so it's a rather tall tank so I knew I'd need quite a lot of substrate to build a reasonable amount of height.
Substrate & Rocks
JBL Lava rock 9l x2
ADA Amazonia v2 9l x2
Tropica soil powder 3l x1
ADA Powersand Advance 2l x1
30kg of Frodo/Elderly stone
Also fairly happy with the rock formation.
Time for planting!
For the foreground/carpet a mix of;
Hemianthus callitrichoides (HC) 'Cuba
Marsilea hirsuta
Eleocharis acicularis 'Mini'
Too add a little detail around the rocks
Cryptocoryne albida Brown
Cryptocoryne Lutea "Hobbit"
Riccardia chamedryfolia
Background
Eleocharis acicularis (centre)
Hemianthus micranthemoides
Rotala rotundifolia (left side)
Rotala rotundifolia orange juice (left side)
Rotala rotundifolia h'ra (right side)
I've had pretty abysmal results growing HC from tissue cultures in the past so initially went hard on the co2 to minimise melts, co2 coming on 3 hours before lights on to ensure drop checker was pretty much lime green/yellow on lights on, rate of Co2 was probably 8+ b/ps. Light used is a Chihiros WRGB2 that I started at roughly 50%. HEALTH WARNING - No Livestock was in the tank for the first month when the Co2 was pumping.
For the first 3 weeks I suffered minimal melt of the HC, Result! However, 80% of Crypt leaf melted, likely transition from emersed to submersed. The Marsilea was abit odd, it grew like wild fire and then 1 day, 1 plant seemed to rot and the rest followed, however no signs of any algae! I started to wonder if the rot of the marsilea was due to lack of ferts in the water column, I hadn't dosed anything for the first 3 weeks. I'd read a number of conflicting articles that ferts should be added from day 1, or after 3-4 weeks, the later being the approach I had followed given the amount of nutrients being leached from the 4 inches+ of substrate. At this point I started to follow my usual EI dosing regime...However as I will get into next, may be the cause of my current issues.
After 1 month and 1 week of EI dosing everything still seemed to be going well though algae was started to appear more prominently on rocks. After checking parameters the tank appeared cycled so it was time to introduce some livestock/clean up crew to help clear the newly established algae. Co2 was dialled down slightly to roughly 5b/ps.
Livestock added
6 Emerald Raporas
12 Celestial Pearls
6 Rosy Loaches
2 Pygmy chain Loaches
2 Octos
6 Amano shrimps
20ish Red/Black
4 Nerites
I started to notice that the HC Cuba in back centre of the tank, although growing was starting to get green fuzz algae. I wondered if this was due to poor co2 distribution, I read many comments on here that flow is king so to add more flow to the tank I upgraded my Oase Biomaster 350 to an 850. Green fuzz algae persisted and also started to grow on the rocks with GSA.
7 weeks in
This is the tank now just past the 7 week mark.
Growth remains pretty good, crypts have started to bounce back with new leaves, the rotalas have been trimmed twice however, I'm starting to feel a little discouraged as they still exhibit next to no colour (other than green) which I would have expected at this point. I've been reading a number of articles that state in order for rotalas such as H'ra and Orange juice to get the deep orange/red colours, lights need to be high and nitrates low. This had lead me to start looking into my fert regime a bit closer as I feel this is where I've made mistakes. I have been dosing 60ml of EI (macros/micros) x3 per week, this is the regime I followed when my nature scape was heavily planted. It hadn't occurred to me that the iwagumi is in fact not heavily planted and has more slow growing plants with slower nutrient uptake. I also read a number of articles that iwagumi scapes require a lot less in ferts, many use phos/nitrate limiting dosing such as APT zero or ADA style lean dosing with great results.
From further testing I'm currently dosing the following per dose;
KH2Po4 - 2.18ppm
KNo3 - 10ishppm
Please correct me if I'm wrong here, but I think I have been dosing far too much Po4/No3 for what I'm trying to achieve and could also be the reason for the increase in algae. I've addressed any flow/distribution issues and Co2 is dialled in as much as the fish can cope with, light remains around 50% with photoperiod of 6 hours. I'll now try halving the amount of EI I currently dose and monitor, maybe even half again following this. If I see no improvement within the next couple of weeks I may give APT Zero a try or ADA Brighty K, although open to suggestions to!
Until next time,
Ash
