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Julia's tank 40L - 3rd layout - Anubias Garden

Alexander Belchenko

Alexander Belchenko

Member
Joined
23 Sep 2013
Messages
1,242
Location
Ukraine
This thread became quite long in time, so I just put here some anchors to help with naviagations about the content.

It's all about tank I make for my cousin Julia. Tank is custom built 47x30x40H, with custom lid.
About once per year, usually at the end of fall, I have desire to improve something in her tank, despite her desire not to mess around and keep it as is. Every time (so far it's 3rd time) we're trying to make something pleasing to eye and easy to maintain. Every time on redesign I'm trying to improve what was bad in the previous design and make something new and better every time. Poor Julia, but she trusts me in the aqua-design area. As of today she's already good at maintenance and can make some interesting adjustments to initial idea.

First layout started like this:
10802554695_78976f71c0.jpg
100_5547 by bialix1, on Flickr

2nd layout was started here: http://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/...ayout-anubias-garden.30181/page-4#post-373026

3rd layout "Anubias Garden" now started http://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/...ayout-anubias-garden.30181/page-6#post-425072
 
Last edited:
Thanks Henry, legytt. Definitely the scape needs month or two to mature: there are several red stem plants behind wood, they need to grow above to be visible. I'm going to add more anubias petite at the right part, and some moss clumps here and there.
 
Excellent scape, and I m sure it will mature beautifully but unfotunately I can not see the pic taken lately.
 
Kevin, sorry, last weekend I wasn't able to take photos because my sister managed to overflow the tank during waterchange and we spend all evening trying to fix this situation, including (almost) complete emptying the tank to be able to move the tank temporarily out and dry the water from the bottom pad. :-/
I have a big hope that next weekend nothing will stay between me, camera and the tank.
 
Thomas, I think our gobies are "Stiphodon ornatus" species, but I'm not 100% sure. Also, I saw they probably "ate" something on the rocks surface, but still there is no evidence they are algae eaters, especially if you saw otto in action. We are even not sure what they eat actually, they tend to hide most of the time under rocks. Maybe they need more time to adapt.

They look as on this image: Stiphodon ornatus
Grey body with black lines along it.
 
Hi alex,really a terrible weekend,hope everything is okay next weekend,by the way,are you a photograph fans?

Kevin
 
Kevin, well, I can't say it was terrible, rather "unexpected" :)
I'm not sure what do you mean by "photograph fans"?
I like to take some photos of my tanks when they are in good condition. Although I'm not very good at this, I'm still trying to improve my skills.
 
Alexander Belchenko said:
At the end of November the tank was like this.
One week ago I bought stiphodons for that tank, and they dug small burrows under rocks. So I need to slightly "repair" the scape now.
Click to expand...


So... Those stiphodons have managed to seriously break the layout of the tank, due to their habit of digging. I don't have image of these beasts, because I had to remove them from tank recently. But you can see that tank is now looks worse than I expected :( I need rework most of the tank now, probably I'll make "soft" restart/rescape, because a lot of rocks and substrate are not in place now. Also, not all plants grow as I expected (hard tap water there) so I need to replace some plants at the background.

11985458565_6e2a91702a.jpg
100_5817 by bialix1, on Flickr

Also, my second mistake was buying small rasbora: rasbora urophthalmoides. They are so small fish and have so pale colors so they are only visible in half meter distance to the front glass. Very poor choice for tank in a living room. Two mistakes in a row with fish :(

I need to find new bigger and peaceful fish now, I'm thinking about using Red Еye Тetra Ballon, just need my cousin to agree with that choice :)
 
Yesterday I was finally able to see how the tank looks like today. I was forced to rescape it after stiphodons in the end of Jan.
For my big surprise it's developed very well, and mature into good mini-jungle.
My sister becomes very good at maintaining planting aquascape like tanks. I'm very proud of her.
I haven't had the camera, but I plan to take some pictures next weekend.
Also I've added 10 cardinal tetras juveniles. Oh my, despite they're small about 1.5 cm, but they're sooooo briiiiight.
They're really add positive touch of red to overall picture. There was too much of green.
 
At last. Yesterday I was finally able to make some decent and recent shots :)

13674310865_eeb57729e5.jpg

13674371233_771fe70427.jpg

Not all plants do their best as I'm expecting, but in overall we have a very nice home tank. Esp. keeping in mind the tank is running on tap water with medium parameters. I thought pinnatifida won't do at all, but as you can see it's still going. I'm thinking about using water softenizer additive. I suppose ATM fluval plant stratum substrate helps keeping water parameters close to optimum, but it won't last long.

I'm going to edit short video of the tank, I'll share it in a couple of days. Stay tuned.

And BTW, yesterday was an "aquarist day" here. My best wishes to all members of this forum as well!
 
Thanks Lee, Mr.Teapot and tim.
Kudos for my cousin. She's doing fantastic maintenance job. She's actually very disciplined person and she's following my instructions well enough.
 
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