Little Red 2016 rescape

[Aqua Hero]

So I did a post about my tank a while backed last year when it was called Eden Gate.

Though at the beginning of the 2016 I started planning out how to rescape it to make it look better.

Before the rescape my tank was in quite a bad condition. There was staghorn algae all over the mosses, my weeping moss had crazy burns and was looking more brown then green and the scape looked really unbalanced. In the end I got tired and decided to do a Rescape early this year.

Since it is was the new year I decided to give the scape by calling it 'Little Red'.

This is because my tank is filled with tons of red cherry shrimp and scarlet badis, all my fish are nano fish and the scape is inspired by forests.

Tank: Juwel lido 120 61x41x58

New fish stocking:
15 Pygmy cories
6 Scarlet Badis
3 Sparkling Gourami
2 Otocinclus catfish (will be getting more)
10-11 green neon tetra
5 amano shrimp
A few assassin snails
Only God knows how many cherries

Plants:
Weeping moss
Flame moss
Mini xmas moss
Fissidens fontanus
Eloecharis Acicularis
Eloecharis Parvula
Hydrocotyle sp Japan
Pygmy chain sword
Ammonia sp Bonsai

Substrate/hardscape:
Ada Amazonia normal
Ada Amazonia powder
Lava rock
Bonsai driftwood
Sand

Fertiliser:
Ei dosing

Lighting:
Quad odyssea t5 fixture but only using 3 10000k bulbs
8 hrs a day

Filtration/pump
Tetra tec ex800 plus (800lph)
Hydro Koralia pump (900lph)

Co2:
2kg co2 fire extinguisher
Co2art Dual gauge/single stage regulator
Bubble counter with in built check valve
2 more external check valves (glass and brass)
Co2 tubing
Intense bazooka diffuser

After nuking my tank with H202, I made huge changes.

I got tired of the sand path in the middle of my scape and decided to have carpet instead. I used Eloecharis Acicularis at the back because it was lighter in colour.

Creating the illusion that they are clear fields which are not shaded by the trees. Alongside Ammania sp bonsai and Pygmy chain sword. Basically I chose lighter colour plants like these to represent the areas that are outside of the forest.

Whereas in the forest I choose darker colour plants such as mosses and continued the carpet effect with Eloecharis Parvula since it was darker than Acicularis.

Originally I was gonna have Christmas moss be the main moss on the rocks but I bought so much weeping moss and so little Christmas moss I had to swap the roles

Either way I'm not disappointed.

One thing I kept the same was the weeping moss on the trees. This time I won't use excel and I will make sure my co2 levels are on point to minimise algae growth

All my moss were bought in their emersed form and are transitioning will into their submerged form. The weeping moss is even turning dark which is good.

Now on to the fish

I feed them a number of treats which include:

Hikari micro pellets
Hikari shrimp pellets
Hikari discus pellets
Hikari algae wafers

If you haven't noticed I'm a hikari fanboy lol

I feed baby brine shrimp and micro worms which I am currently trying to gutload with spirnulia algae.

I also feed Frozen brine shrimp, bloodworms and daphnia but not so often.

I tried raising a daphnia culture but found it to be too much work lol so I chose hatching bbs instead.






I'm a huge nano fish fan

And wanted to create a really good sense of scale in the tank (watching too much green machine on YouTube)

I chose the forest scape because I like scape a that allow fish to swim in and out of small spaces, it is a concept that not a lot of people do( didn't find a ton of pictures on google in comparison to iwagumi). Also I just find it really relaxing to look at and try to spot the creatures lurking in the woods.

As for my co2, what can I say this intake atomiser is sick. Creates such a fine mist which my plants seem to enjoy

Not to mention I can use soo much less co2. I had to use 4 bps with a glass diffuser but not I only use 1.5bps and my drop checker (which is placed in the furthest position from the diffuser) is always yellow. Haven't gassed my fish yet so it's cool.

Though it is annoying to clean sometimes because of calcium build up (my water is that hard)

I do have an inline diffuser which is on its way.

I do have some issues though. One is that one of my scarlet badis has dropsy. I will buy Epsom salt to see if that will help.

Also my Pygmy cories do spend a lot of time hiding and never really come to the front of the tank. I don't know if this is a flow issue or co2 or both or if they are afraid of me(weird because I have had some for months now). I wish someone could tell me what's up

I will keep you guys updated on what's going on.





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[Joe Turner]

Brilliant effort and thought in to the layout! I enjoyed your last, and can't wait to see this grown in

Try and isolate the Badis with dropsy if you can, should stand a better chance.

Good luck!

 

[Aqua Hero]

Thanks, yeah I will try that if I can find him.

I haven't seen my amano shrimp eating him so I'm sure he is somewhere in the tank.



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[Aqua Hero]

Update

So my inline diffuser came today

I was weirdly surprised at how big it was, thinking I bought the wrong size.

But any ways, it took me a while to hook everything up since it was my first time.

I read a lot about inline diffusers and that a lot of them have leak issues especially the ones where you can take the ceramic out etc.

Fortunately I bought the solid ones and haven't experienced any leaking issues(water or co2)

Also I'm experiencing algae issues that are mainly co2 and flow related.

So I put my spray bar at the back of the tank and swapped my 900lph wave maker with a 2000lph circulation pump. I just want to test if this will make a difference.

If anyone has any ideas on ways to remove the algae I would really appreciate it .

The mist made but the online diffuser is like 5 times finer than the bazooka. Makes my forest look like it's covered by a morning mist with light rain shower. Really effect for the scape.

Some news (other than the algae) is that my scarlet badis with dropsy sadly didn't make it and passed away in his hospital tank.

I think the cause of the issue was when I was stirring up a lot of dirt in the tank when I was rescaping and didn't clean it after wards properly (which could also explain the algae issues) so I will be conducting some water changes to remove dust particles and mulm that is on my plants (especially moss).


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[Aqua Hero]

Sunday update.

So after discovering that my staghorn algae issue was slowly creeping back I decided to take action by dosing 2-3x of excel on the mosses and grass most effected, mowed down the grass(including the infected grass) , did a 50% water change and increased my flow and co2 rate.

The excel treatment alongside the increased flow seems to be helping me my infected mosses (especially the fissdens fontanus mini)

However, as I was trying to increase my co2 I noticed that my bubble rate was still the same. I twisted the needle to the point where it was completely open but still had a very slow bubble rate. At first I thought I had run out of co2 and changed my 2kg to my 5kg cylinder (surprised it fit in my cabinet)

But After nothing changed I figured my regulator was broken.

This morning when the co2 came on I saw a huge rush co2 coming into the tank. So I shut the valve completely off to avoid killing my fish and then slowly turned it on, only to realise that the bubble rate wasn't increasing as I was turning it. So I have ordered a new regulator and impatiently waiting for it to arrive.

This really sucks because it's gonna cause fluctuations in the co2 output which will favour algae growth. One idea I'm thinking of is putting the tank in a blackout until the order comes (which should be 3-5 days). This way algae can't grow and it could also help wipe out the existing algae in the tank.

Alongside the algae issue I have noticed that my dwarf hair grass at the front of my tank is growing really slow. I'm not sure if it was because of the algae that covered it or the lack of flow but the plant isn't producing as much runners as the grass at the back (mind you this grass is Eloecharis Parvula whereas the grass in the background is Eloecharis Acicularis). Either way I made sure to trim it really aggressively to encourage runners.

As for the rest of the tank, things are going fine.

My mosses are growing and pearling

Fishes are chilling, eating and playing

My shrimps are doing a good job with maintenance(I'm not paying them for nothing)

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[Aqua Hero]

So far im happy with the growth, I just need to deal with the regulator and algae business.

Also I am very happy with the misting from the online diffuser.

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[Aqua Hero]

Quick update.

So far not much has changed with the scape except for a few things.

My battle against various algae seems to be going rather well. After doing a three day blackout, increasing flow and co2 and spot treating my plants with a 50/50 mix of h202 and excel all the algae is practically non existent.

My fissidens fontanus mini and other plants are growing well and healthy.

However, due to how slow some of the other mosses were growing (due to shade) I decided to put them in my 3 gallon quarantine tank.

I use 12 ml of macro and micro nutrients (alternating days) and 1ml of excel every day. I used my spare 240 gph wavemaker to create a ton of flow for the mosses.

I'm also using a single 10000k t5 bulb raised way over the tank. I might implement a DIY co2 system using some citric acid and baking soda laying around but I have to buy Coke bottles which I'm too lazy to do right now.

Moving back to the 30 gallon, I did sell lol my Pygmy cories. I really liked them but I was annoyed at the fact that I would never see them in the tank (before people say I should have increased their numbers, I already had 15 of them). So now I'm contemplating on either getting more badis and gouramis or buying corydoras hasboras.

I also bought some root tabs to give my dwarf hair grass at the front some extra boost in growth.


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[Manisha]

Nice scape - I like the 'trees'. Also the close up of your basis & sparkling gourami are super cute!

 

[Aqua360]

nice thread, I like the scape

I'm also battling small outbreaks of staghorn algae etc, I'm discovering just how balanced these high tech planted tanks have to be!

 

[Aqua Hero]

Well this update is more of a bad day.

So after buying my new regulator, thinking my old one was broken, I discovered I had a leak. The issue was that I honestly couldn't find it.

At first I thought it was my check valve because the plastic screw had cracked

But when I replaced it with my glass check valve the bubble rate would still decrease.

Confused at what he actual heck is going on I decided to do a running test on my 'broken' reg.

I I connected a glass check valve and a glass bubble counter and let it run for an 8 hour period, changing the bubble rate at different times. I then realised that not only was my old regulator not broken but it was holding its bubble rate constantly.

From this I guessed that there was a leak in the bubble counter. I sprayed soapy water but couldn't find the leak but I know it is there.

Today, as I was trying to find the issue with my bubble counter, I broke the plastic screw again(luckily I had a spare) and when I removed the tubing I forgot I had the co2 still running and then my glass check valve exploded

Awesome.

After that, I tried removing my glass bubble counter from my test set and yeah

I did order more glass check valves and bubble counters as well as a brass check valve.

Other than the destruction of my equipment and the crazy co2 fluctuations in my tank. I have little algae issues (GSA is still annoying)

I also bought some miracle grow me some capsules to mow some DIY root tabs. I don't need them but I thought I would try them out to see what different they may make

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[Aqua Hero]

Nice scape - I like the 'trees'. Also the close up of your basis & sparkling gourami are super cute!

Cheers, I really need to buy more of the sparkling gourami. They are just awesome.

 

[Aqua Hero]

nice thread, I like the scape

I'm also battling small outbreaks of staghorn algae etc, I'm discovering just how balanced these high tech planted tanks have to be!

Thanks man

I have actually got my staghorn issue under control. I cleaned my tubing, increased my water changes and filter maintenance. Also I increases my flow and co2.

I also bought an inline diffuser for better diffusion

 

[Aqua360]

Thanks man

I have actually got my staghorn issue under control. I cleaned my tubing, increased my water changes and filter maintenance. Also I increases my flow and co2.

I also bought an inline diffuser for better diffusion

Good to hear! I'm debating increasing my flow, I already have around 40x tank circulation already lol!