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Concrete Mountain Landscape

I believe in its emmersed form AR mini doesn’t become so mini and reverts back to the height of normal alternanthera. However it’s submersed form it’s should stay pretty small.

Thanks that is good to know. I Will leave a bush or to, but eventually I will clear the in the middle.
 
Wow great effort. Tank looks amazing. Very jealous.
Can i ask, how have you got the cloud effect at the backing?

Ofcourse you can ask! It is simply wallpaper... like this: 15809140289684057178027841665575.jpg Just a left over from that project!
 
I believe in its emmersed form AR mini doesn’t become so mini and reverts back to the height of normal alternanthera. However it’s submersed form it’s should stay pretty small.

Well this is so true... its going to reach the blue sky soon! Its Tropica's AR mini.
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Easy to see what stems that was not cut after their last pruning!
I think I will try to cut them down close to substrate level when I flood the tank.

  • It's been a long dry start now... could I f... something up not hurrying up ordering more plants and get some water in?
  • the last trimmings from the AR mini, I planted in my low light, but co2 injected tank... they drop the leaves and their is almost only the stem left now. Is this because of lack of light or will they eventually start growing. they have been there for 30+ days now?
looking forward sharing some real progress for this tank with you guys... soon hopefully.
 
About "layers" front to back to achieve a sense of depth. Do you guys think it would work to remove the carpet close to the front, and just have "normal" black or mabe white substrate here?
 
Finally i filled the tank with water!

I just ordered a DIY set to make ferts from dry salts... will be interesting, I cross my fingers!!

CO2 is running very high... foamy bubbles on the surface!
Hmmm. Can I inject to much now that I dont have any inhabitants yet?

After 3 days i think some of the christmas moss that looked all dead/white/brownish/yellow and dried out is looking to become green again. If it is not just turned into algae...

I decided to try and to remove the front of the carpet, to create an "extra" layer and cut out a pathway, or atleast the beginning of one. This is best to see in this picture below. Sorry for all the fog.
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I might need to remove some more of the MC to make the path start more to the left... and become wider at the beginning. Also some small pieces of rock along the path.


The next picture is 3 days in submerged state...
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I dont really know where to place the plants not plantet yet.
Well I did plant some tissue culture Rotala H'ra behind the LH mountain. And some Bacopa compact in front of the LH mountain.

Should i put the slow growing plants (Anubias petite and Buce) in my mature tank, to avoid them getting cover in algae, and the Buce melting. Read that Buce is vulnerable to new uncycled tanks?

I have some flame moss, I am trying to find out if I should glue it to the bigger mountains or to some small pieces of rock I eventually can move around.

I also have some weeping moss i consider gluing to the top of the RH mountain and the LH mountain.

Should i trim all the stem plants in my other tank and plant temporary to help fight algae?


All kinds of feedback and ideas are VERY welcome!

Thanks for reading.
 
I only add bucephalandra and anubias when the tank is stable and algae free - having said that, a healthy nerite snail population seems to do the trick too.
Some aquascapers are moving towards the idea of using large leaved plants in the front. Personally I find foregrounds incredibly difficult.
 
I add all plants at the beginning no matter if it’s anubias or stems.
I see your diffuser all the way in the back there with most of the co2 mist going straight up to the surface.
You need to address flow to disperse all that co2 in the water column and down to your plants.
Other thing I was thinking...install a surface skimmer like the Eheim to pull in all that surface scum for better gas exchange. You might think that it’s good to keep all that co2 in the tank but in fact saturating the water with oxygen will allow you to drive the co2 levels higher without stressing your inhabitants like you would with lower oxygen levels.
Hope that made sense...
If I can say one thing about your scape, would be to keep the stems for the time being to help with the initial step but dump them after that. They really don’t go with what you’re trying to create IMO.
The path I think is a good idea just experiment see what you like . La Plata sand or similar will go nice with your gray rocks...
Keep the photoperiod short like 6 hours for the first couple weeks and do lots of water changes. Like every day or every other day.
Light intensity should be lower as well.
Gradually increase as plants grow and scape matures...
Good luck!
Edit: I should mention that some plants melting is just normal at this stage with the transition so don’t stress too much.
Crank up the co2 as much as you want now to minimize melting and gradually reduce when introducing livestock.
 
I only add bucephalandra and anubias when the tank is stable and algae free - having said that, a healthy nerite snail population seems to do the trick too.
Some aquascapers are moving towards the idea of using large leaved plants in the front. Personally I find foregrounds incredibly difficult.
I read that nerite snail is sensative to cupper, and my DIY ferts will contain trace elements of cupper since i will be adding rexolin to the mix...

I add all plants at the beginning no matter if it’s anubias or stems.

So I think I will drop the anubias and Buce in my mature tank for now... just to be on the safe side, as I had some problems earlier with BBA and GSA on the leaves.

You need to address flow to disperse all that co2 in the water column and down to your plants.
Other thing I was thinking...install a surface skimmer like the Eheim to pull in all that surface scum for better gas exchange. You might think that it’s good to keep all that co2 in the tank but in fact saturating the water with oxygen will allow you to drive the co2 levels higher without stressing your inhabitants like you would with lower oxygen levels.
Hope that made sense...

Thanks I did not know that! First of all I have no intention of cranking CO2 to the limit of fish just to survive, but I must say that I am more fascinated about plants than fish these days.
I know plants take in oxygen when lights of, but for now I can buy any more gear for the tanks... if I would like to stay alive myself!!! I hope and think their will be enogh oxygen for the plants at night.

If I can say one thing about your scape, would be to keep the stems for the time being to help with the initial step but dump them after that. They really don’t go with what you’re trying to create IMO.
Thank you, this kind of straight forward feedback makes me think about thing! I like that, and I think you might be right. I was kind of fall in love with stem plants when I found aquascaping, and made that "hanging" substrate area behind the left rock for to grow som kind of stems, and fish to swim through... At least stems are easy to pull out!
What do you think about cryptocoryne albida brown in front? To big?

The path I think is a good idea just experiment see what you like . La Plata sand or similar will go nice with your gray rocks...
Thanks, I will take a look at that La Plata sand...

Keep the photoperiod short like 6 hours for the first couple weeks and do lots of water changes. Like every day or every other day.
Light intensity should be lower as well.
Gradually increase as plants grow and scape matures...
Thanks, it was running in sync with my mature tank, just reduced light to 6h, still 50% on the Chihiros VIVID.

Thanks for all the feedback, all other kind of changes for hardscape, plants or what ever I would love to hear

Take care out there!
 
CO2 diffuser is now moved... the flow from the HMF filter hit the opposite end and gets pushed down and around.

I have existing but weak flow front middle to front right... a spray bar creating flow over the mountain might be a be option.

Brown algae is moving in... really fast! As from what I can read I think it is diatoms. But if it continues like this I think it will choke everything!

Not sure what to do... plz share your advise.

I change 50% water every 2-3 days, I use 100% tap water, as hard as It gets. No water treatments.

No frets first two days, then 3-4 days with a all in one mix, now I stopped as I read nitrates will fuel diatoms.

6 h light from the vivid at 50%... tank is close to a window but not directly in sunlight, and most natural light appear when the lamp is on.

I introduced around 20 RCS some days back. I have 5-6 Amazon shrimp but am afraid to move them over as the tank is still cycling...

Theise pictures is 7 days in after the flooding:
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1.jpg
 
Theise pictures is from today (two days later!)

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Should I try to remove it with a cleaning sponge before doing a waterchange?
 
A tooth brush is a good way to clean the rocks and up the amount of water your changing try to.do 80% if you can keep.cleaning it off it will calm.down and disappear
 
Today I brushed a lot of teeth on the aquarium.. nice how easy this stuff comes off. But still challenging to reach the many narrow cracks and hideout's.

But the result was satisfying!

Allso gently rubbed the most affected leaves and pruned the ARM.

The VIVID is now running 7h with a ramp up on 3h to 20% ramp down is now 1,5h.

I will continue to add fertilizer.

Rounded of with a 80% water change.

I think I need to do a good carpet trim with next water change to keep it healthy, if it not to late!
How much green should be left after a deep trim?

This pictures was taken just after the cleanup, thanks for helping me out.
20200405_210531.jpg
 
Looks much better. Wait on the trim until you see the MC really take off. Turkey baster it gently to lift off any diatoms that might have settled in between them .
Run some carbon/purigen if you can . They will both remove organic compounds and help out with water clarity.
 
Thanks... I will wait trimming the carpet a few weeks.

I promised not to spend more money on my two tanks for a while, so the tank must run on 100% and hard tap water.
Well there is a good amount of sphagnum and res clay granulated below the substrate.

About the explosion of diatoms, as described in the tread linkes to above, light is definitely the key factor. The diatoms should have been back at the same brown level by now and tank still looks like my previous picture.

Thanks again.
 
So time for an update... tank is going/growing diatoms! Also begin to see some staghorn or maybe BBA as I have in my other tank.

I added more stems to help fight the algea.

Still the only cirkulation and filtration is the corner HMF with a Eheim compact 600 l/h, but the position of hardscape and co2 diffuser now really forced the co2 mist down and i see small bubbles all over the tank.

I have a bit of foam on the surface, look like... hmmm small soap bubbles?

I fight a bit with ambient light, tank is next to a window and I have a wall lamp just above the tank. Can not blame my kids from turning on the lamp, and the sun just have no on off, so I am considering to create something to block the light when lamp is not on.

Lamp is still goes on at 12:00, with a ramp up from 1% to 15% over 3 hours, then it increase to hit 20% at 16:00. Then at 18:00 it starts to ramp down over 1 hour to be off at 19:00

So is on for 7 hours... is this too long?

CO2 starts a 8.00, I have 6m tubing, hard water, and need to feed my other tank with light on at 11:00 from the same system.

Water change I have been lazy, maybe because the reduces light worked or lets say at least slowed down the diatoms. But 1 water change 80%. per week last 2 weeks.

I dose a homemade all in one fertiliser daily 5 ml. It should be a good recipe, but when I find the time I will read/research more and seek expert advice on this forum posting the recipie.

Anyway, does it sound reasonable to dose 10 ml. after a 50-80% water change?


Some pictures... nothing to be proud off !!
20200425_124842.jpg 20200425_124854.jpg 20200425_124913.jpg 20200425_124920.jpg 20200426_115620.jpg

Thanks!
 
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