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James' 60P

MrHidley

MrHidley

Member
Joined
13 Jan 2014
Messages
351
Location
Ipswich, United Kingdom
6 Months after taking down my first scape we're finally settled in our new house, so it's time to start again. This is a bit of a blank canvas, built with only a vague idea in my head, we'll see how we go with it!

Tank - ADA 60P
Stand - DIY ADA-ish style
CO2 - DIY set-up with 2kg fire extinguisher. Inline UP Aqua diffuser.
Heater - Hydor Inline 200w
Filter - Eheim classic 2215
Lights - 24" Current USA Satellite Plus Pro 30W LED (decided to import one of these because I wasn't impressed with what's available in the UK for a reasonable price.
Substrate - 9 Litres ADA Amazonia, Unipac Fiji sand.
Hardscape - Baltic Rock from AE
Flora and Fauna - As yet undecided

I'm open to suggestions on just about anything. I'm definitely going to have some Monte-Carlo, Alternanthera Reineckii mini, probably some Anubias Nana petite and some S.Repens, other than that, i'm not currently sure.

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Hi MrHidley

IMO MobyDick (the white one) catches too much your attention when you look at the tank. To give a more natural look I would go for rocks that are similar in color, texture, etc. It happens the same with the two stones on the left. The large one has a nice texture and I guess the smaller one too, but you're showing its flat/textureless face. Trying to align the rock textures can make a big difference (this is how rocks occur in nature). I would also play with them, for example moving one of them to foreground/background and seeing if you add some depth to the layout. Adding more medium size stones would help to fine tune the composition.
Finally another piece of advice. With this slope (and with the kind contribution of shrimps), the AS will roll over the cosmetic sand and it will be a pain. I've been there before... It's nice when you see it on Amano layouts but unless you plant, as Mr. Amano does, a thousand mini wabikusa in the foreground to prevent the substrate from sliding or you have 20 minions removing everyday the AS grains from the sand, you will end up with a mixed substrate that doesn't look very nice. Place some rocks/wood/mini wabikusa to create a barrier or cover it all with AS.
My two cents 🙂

Jordi
 
I 100% agree on the rocks, the hardscape is nothing near final, I've also got another 6 rocks to play around with but I don't want to overload the tank. I was intending to use corrugated plastic to support the substrate and prevent it from rolling down the slope, will this not work?
 
MrHidley said:
I was intending to use corrugated plastic to support the substrate and prevent it from rolling down the slope, will this not work?
Click to expand...
It may work the first days, but if the plastic is high enough it will be ugly to see it. If it is at the same level than the substrate, AS grains will invade the sand due to shrimps' activity or gravity. IMO the key point is to prevent the soil from falling into the sand, and this can be achieved by adding a hardscape barrier (see in most of the journals/layouts it is done this way) or by heavily planting this area to fix the substrate. This is why I was mentioning the mini wabikusas for the foreground. They are themselves barriers, but additionally you can grow a significant biomass and root system in a short period of time.

Jordi
 
parotet said:
It may work the first days, but if the plastic is high enough it will be ugly to see it. If it is at the same level than the substrate, AS grains will invade the sand due to shrimps' activity or gravity. IMO the key point is to prevent the soil from falling into the sand, and this can be achieved by adding a hardscape barrier (see in most of the journals/layouts it is done this way) or by heavily planting this area to fix the substrate. This is why I was mentioning the mini wabikusas for the foreground. They are themselves barriers, but additionally you can grow a significant biomass and root system in a short period of time.

Jordi
Click to expand...

I was planning on carpeting monte carlo around the edges, also planning to dry start the tank to build up the biomass. Was hoping that would be enough to help separate the substrates.
 
rotated the second rock round a little to give it more character, removed the third rock as it just doesn't look right. Don't know what i'm going to do about adding more rocks. I have a load left over, but they're all either rather large, or lack in character.

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Bit of an update. Added a couple more rocks to the set-up, very happy with how it looks. Planning on planting sometime this week, doing the dry start method.

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Green - Micranthemum 'Monte Carlo'
Yellow - Staurogyne Repens
Red - Rotala Rotundifolia
Purple - Need a bit of advice on this, was thinking some sort of grass or dwarf sword, thick leaves. Would love some Blyxa Japonica, but I don't think it's available in the UK. Was also thinking, possibly some Alternanthera Reineckii Mini in between the rocks and the S.Repens.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
 
Would love to see this coming out nice.. I have such a crush wit seiryu stones and mountain - ish scape..


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Planted today. Ordered way too much Monte-Carlo, so it's already quite tightly planted, but better to have more than less. The alternanthera had got a bit beaten up in the post, so Co2 art are sending me a new pot, although i've tried planting it anyway, see if it recovers. Lights will be running at 40% 8 hours a day.

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1 Week after planting and everything seems to be going well, my Blyxa should be arriving tomorrow, then I just need to wait until friday for some elbow joins for my pipe work to flood it.
S.Repens is really starting to spread out, the Alternantherna is doing really well, rotala is really starting to move upwards and the monte carlo is doing well also.

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I dont think blyxa can be grown immersed. I realise its only one day but not sure how it will do


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