First Aquascape

[Dabryan]

Hi!
My first post on this excellent forum.
Short background. My wife bought the kids a small nano a couple of years ago. It’ll be fun for the kids, she said. Then she found some of pictures of Amanos aquascapes on the internet. Somehow I was in charge of making this happen. It will be fun she said...

A couple of years later, more kids, puppy dog, a cat and a new house the time has come to put up my first aquascape. Sorry boys, the punching bag will have to go

A few (🤣) of hours of google and youtube later hardscape is done and plants ordered.

/d

 

[Joris]

Nice looking setup! Definitely better than the punching bag 😆

 

[Courtneybst]

Man I wish my first scape looked like this! Looks great.

 

[Dabryan]

Thanks for the kind words.
As mentioned earlier it’s been quite a slow process.
When moving to our current house I set up a cardboard sandbox in the garage for me to play in whenever there was some leftover time over the last year or two...

Kind of relaxing to sneak out in the dark to play in the sand.

Still waiting for some plants to arrive.
I might have been a bit trigger happy when ordering 😎.

/d

 

[SudhirR]

Very strong hardscape layout. Would be a nice scape in the making.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Dabryan]

The beauty of Internet is that everything is available. Backside, everything is available.
Can I have one of each please...

Rotala Green
Rotala H’ra
Ludwigia Laclustris
Ludwigia Arcuata
Myriophyllum guyana
Gratiola Viscidula
Helanthium Tennelum green
Eleocharis Parvula
Cryptocoryne Willisii
Cryptocoryne Purpurea
Cryptocoryne Hobbit
Cryptocoryne Albida brown
Monte carlo
Eleocharis acicularis mini
Marsilea crenata
Anubias small version
Microsorum

To be continued...
/d

 

[Dabryan]

Planted an flooded. Sodastream co2 will be installed.

I forgot that I had ordered a pot of Hygrophila Pinnitafida.
Can I attach it to the wood as an epiphyte or would it be tommuc? Any suggestions on where to put it?

/d

 

[shangman]

Hygrophila pinnatifida can be planted in any way! You can plant it in the soil like a stem plant, or wedge/glue it to the hardscape as an epiphyte. I think it looks really nice around wood personally.

 

[Courtneybst]

First aquascape dreams! Enjoy the journey!

 

[Dabryan]

Made som rearrangements in the foreground and background stems.
Totally unintended...
Invitro plants don’t seem to like my water change technique, that is blasting them with a bucket of water. So the decided to move. Will be kind of interresting to see how the background stems and the carpet turns out. Rotala and Monte Carlo look very similar to a newbie like me.
Tried my best to replant everything neatly but pulling up another plant in the process. Friday Fun... In the end I just pushed everything into the soil wherever there was space left.

The equipment:
Bete Line 60 optiwhite tank. 60x35x35 cm
fluval 307 external filter
plastic inlet-outflow
Twinstar 600EA v2
sodastream co2-kit. To be installed
/d

 

[Michael1212]

Looking great

 

[Dabryan]

Waterchange. Switching from running with buckets every day to twice per week or so.
Almost three weeks since flooding. Things seems to mostly growing well. Still running without co2. Lack of time or just pure laziness…

Some issues though.
The anubias is melting. Most of the anubias lost their leafes and the roots turned to some kind of brown soft mess. Any ideas what’s happening?
Also the Salvinia is turning yellow/brownish.

Dosing Tropica specialized as recommended on the bottle. Light 6h per day dimmed to about 70% (a lot of ambient light in the room). Should I increase or decrease nutrients? Add extra something?
Tap water pH8. In tank pH 6,5. I guess the soil lowers the pH.
kH 3
NO2 0,1. NO3 3ppm.

Oh, and we got fish.

/D

 

[Dabryan]

Time for an update on the ”Miyeuk Guk”.
According to Tropicas app ”The aquarium is now in full balance”.
Well, the plants are mostly surviving. Most of the Anubias melted within the first couple of weeks. After that everything seemed to survive plant wise. CO2 kit still in its box.
Added the skimmer this weekend to get rid of the surface scum/film.

Unfortunately theres been quite few issues with the livestock.
The Amano shrimos added first are doing great. The three Endlers added at the same time died one every week about starting about a month later. Unfortunately that wasn’t enough.
10 green Neon tetras and another two endlers went the same way. Kept them i quarantaine for three weeks, as I was recomended. Everything looked ok for a week or so. But no. over the next weeks all but one endler died.
Water paremeters looked fine (JBL drop test kit).

The lone survivor. One of the endlers still alive.

Shrimps doing fine.

Well thats it for now. Don’t know if it is worth making another try with fish or just stick with the shrimps.

/d

 

[PARAGUAY]

Strange about the losses because you have done everything right and the plants look good. If you got the fish was same source could be worth having a word

 

[Kevin Eades]

Sounds like there could have been a disease or parasite issue. Possible contamination being an open top tank. There hasn't been any cleaning sprays or fly spray etc that could of got into the tank? I would suggest speaking to the shop where you got them. There may be something they have been made aware of since

 

[Djoko Sauza]

Tap water pH8. In tank pH 6,5. I guess the soil lowers the pH.

What are you using to measure pH? In my experience soil alone is not enough to reduce the tank water pH so drastically.

 

[Dabryan]

What are you using to measure pH?

Jbl and Sera drop test.
Ph was actually around 7 when disaster struck. Measured jusy before water change.
Strangely the shrimps seems to be ok.
No2 and No3 well within the green/ok range. (Cant remember exact numbers)

 

[Dabryan]

Fish from two different shops.
Shrimps and first batch of endlers from the same shop.

 

[Kevin Eades]

Fish from two different shops.
Shrimps and first batch of endlers from the same shop.

Did you only see the issue after your second batch of fish? I would suggest a parasite would be my best guess. If it only occurred after the second batch. Speak to that shop. They may deny it came from them but a good shop will say if they have other fish with issues and what they are using to treat. Some disease and parasites will remain in the tank so until you know the problem and treat you may infect anything that comes. I had this issue years ago. It was a local small store. The owner replaced not only the fish I had bought but also what I had lost of old stock. He also gave me free treatment for the tank. All of which was charged back to his supplier.

 

[Dabryan]

If I recall time line correct the first loss was just before the tetras went in. That would make shop 1 the main suspect. The green neon were doing fine in quarantine.