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Hillside view turned into South American "biotope"

Martin in Holland

Martin in Holland

Member
Joined
28 May 2013
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2,307
It's been a while since I posted a journal, now with my new layout I will try to let you guys learn from the mistakes that I'm going to make.

Tank: 120 x 45 x 55cm
Lights: 2 metal halides 150W each
Filters: 2 Atman canister filter each 15500 l/hr turnover
Fertilizer: PPS pro
CO2: pressurizer bottle injected via external diffuser
Halea Chiller to keep it at 25 degrees Celsius

Tank it clean and ready to go.
20171001_105653.jpg

Some bags with cheap filter media to start the hills
20171001_110802.jpg

The substrate covers those ugly bags nicely.
20171001_113352.jpg

After some some playing around with the substrate was it time to add the rocks.
20171001_181711.jpg
Of course I'm never satisfied and added, and removed some more rocks later on.20171002_072555.jpg

A bit water in and I start planting (for now only glosso and hair grass)
20171007_221838.jpg

Planting done, fill up with water. Tap water here at the moment is about 30 degrees Celsius, the chiller had it's work cut out.
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A few seconds after the water is in.20171007_234344.jpg

I hope the plants will grow fast, it doesn't look like I planted enough in the photo, but I had to look for space to put the last pots in. (22 pots Glosso and 6 pots Hair Grass) There will be some more plants added soon.

The Substrate I used was a gift from a manufactory, but was already crumbling to dust, which made planting quit difficult and is tanning the water brown/greenish. I hope with a lot of big water changes the next few weeks that it will be OK, otherwise I have to start all over.
 

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Edvet said:
Hey Martin. still doing those shop tanks?
Click to expand...
I did one. That whole area has been evicted by the government and all shops are gone, my friend found a new place and we (together with another guy) made a huge paludarium in the display window of the new shop.
20171007_175653.jpg
 
After just one week, plants have already grown crazy (I also planted too long plantlets), time for a first trim and replant the cuttings.

I measured the TDS (just for the fun of it) on the second day and it was sky high, over 950 ppm. Everyday I'm doing a water change until its about 300 ppm (btw. I'm using 2 hoses to do this water change, one draining to water on one side of the tank, the other hose one the other side of the tank filling it up at the same time. I let it run for about 30 to 45 minutes while I'm having dinner.
Not sure though where this high TDS is coming from, I guess the substrate is leaching more than only Ammonia.

trim and replant 1.jpg Start of trim and replant

trim and replant 2.jpg

trim and replant 3.jpg

I still left the Pothos plant in the tank as compensation for fast growing plants which I do not have.
 
I had some melting of Glosso, I'm not sure why, but the CO2 was low and even one day almost no CO2.... also I found an old bottle from Easy life anti algae which I probably shouldn't have used.
Hopefully lots of big water changes will ensure that the meltdown stops and good CO2 of course.
 
Martin in China said:
I measured the TDS (just for the fun of it) on the second day and it was sky high, over 950 ppm
Click to expand...

Could the TDS be coming from the stone? Having said that I doubt if you're changing water every other day it would time to raise the TDS much. Wonder if the "cheap" filter media you used to build your hills with is inert?
 
Martin in China said:
I'm using 2 hoses to do this water change, one draining to water on one side of the tank, the other hose one the other side of the tank filling it up at the same time
Click to expand...
You'll waste a lot of water doing it that way... filling at the same time you are removing water means that you'll be removing less dissolved particles in the long run.

Also, as @AverageWhiteBloke mentioned, the rocks may be leaking something to the water as well.
 
The rock (and filter media) came from my old scapes, I suspect the substrate more for the high TDS, but it's stabelising now. Yes, the way I do this water change is wasting more water, but this way I can do it while I'm cooking, eating or watching TV even. I measure the TDS when I start and at the end of the water change, and it's consiberely lower at the end (from 600 to 200), I want to get it stabel at about 200 TDS before adding any fauna.
 
Yep....done it.... left home for a week without checking if I had enough CO2 and of course there wasn't, one light timer didn't turn off and so the plants (glosso) almost all died 😕 (melted away)
Well, good time for a rescape 😵

With the Cardinal tetras back in the tank, I found that the combination (hardscape and fauna) wasn't that good, the tetras kinda looked as if bleached. I dumped in some wood and voila, colourful tetras instantly. So the next scape is going to be dedicated to the Cardinals and will be (more or less) a South American biotope, this is something I always wanted to try. I collected some boulders, still got the wood, looked for some Amazon swords, luckily the hairgrass is still good, they will come in the foreground. I want to keep it really simple, a big school of Cardinals, some Coridoras and maybe one more fish such as a Bleu Rams (I'm open for suggestions), simple planting, sword, hairgrass and maybe some floaters.
 
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