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My Private Island - 240l tank

viktorlantos

Aquascaper
Joined
25 Oct 2008
Messages
1,598
Location
Budapest, Hungary
This week i rescaped my 240l tank. I did not posted the earlier version of the scape here, but to have an idea you can check my gallery:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/viktorlant ... 084697919/

This was one of the best moment of the earlier version i guess.

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I had this tank for 8-10 months approx, but as this had stem plants mainly after a little time i lost control over on it. So i decided to rescape...

Here is the specs:
Tank size: 240 liter (120cm width)
Filters: Eheim Prof 2 2028, Eheim Prof 1 2226 total of 2000lph
Light: Arcadia OT2 4*54Watts
CO2: Pressurized CO2 with glass diffuser
Substrate: ADA Aqua Soil Amazonia 27kg existing + 9 kg added now
Fertilizers: ADA Multi Bottom added to the substrate, ADA Brighty K, ADA Brighty Step 1
Plants: Eleocharis Parvula, Microsorum P. Narrow, Bolbitis H., Ulticularia G., Hemanthius C. Cuba, Echinodorus Tenellus, Vallisneria Nana, Cypherus Heliferi, Taxiphyllum barbieri, Vesicularia Dubyana (Christmas), Blyxa Japonica, Blyxa Auberti
Fish: Cardinia Japonica, Harlequin Rasbora, Standhal Fish, Torocatum, Pleco, Siamese Algae eater

Some of the fish coming from my old tank and i know they are not right for a planted tank but too hard to say good bye for them and give it to somebody. I may will keep them til they live. Like the pleco or the toro and the standhal fish.

Anyway this thursday i started to rescape the tank. This was not an easy run even that i gave most of the plants to my friends before. The full rescape taken 8 hours.

A i got the plants from tropica i started to do the work.

As the aquarium run at that time i had to move out the remaining plants along with the woods, stones and all fishes, shrimps.

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I had a 50 liter plastic barell i put the larger filter in it. I was affraid that it till be too much for this much water but it turned out ok.

As i was not sure how long i will keep the fishes in i added in some anubias a wood and a stone. A really nice temporary flat for them with the best filtration which was possible.

3952943380_1e6a67865d.jpg


For those who had siamese and shrimps in a large tank like this knows that this kind of fishing is not easy :D
So i removed all the plants etc. But tried to not disturb too much the aquasoil. This went well unless i removed the huge crypt which had roots nearly under half of my tank :lol:

I think this was the last point when i've seen anything.

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After that removed most part of the water. But approx 5-10cm left in the tank. Did not had a luck to remove that so later i added in the foreground plants just based on my senses :)

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Showered the Dark Iron woods with hot water as the new Seiryus too. And in the meantime added in all the plants to a bucket with full of water.

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this is how the tank looked like after the removal...

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cloud everywhere. viewing distance zero :D

I had an earlier concept in mind how the scape will look like, but i realized that after cleaning all the woods and stones i was unable to rebuild this in the tank anymore :lol:

3826215243_2e02ab80e1.jpg


Added mosses to the woods and til i worked on the other stuffs i throwed them into the tank.
From the laptop screen tried to rebuild the scape in the tank, but at the end this was just similar not the same. And still not seen the bottom part of it... :wideyed:

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This is how the tank looked like with its own lighting at that time

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I did not had to much time so i felt this is ok now. i may will tweak here and there later on, but now i had to move forward. Still lot to do...

The next step i added in 9 liters new Aqua Soil Amazonia to the back of the tank. And pushed ADA Multi Bottom in every 15cm to the substrate as my old Sera Substrate is a year old under the old soil so that is not functioning anymore i guess.

With the extra 9 liter amazonia i get some depth on te tank.

Throwed in all the foreground plants parvula, HC, Ulticularia, Tennellus without seeing anything as the cloud was still there.

Bolbitis added to the woods with Microsorum P. Narrow.
Cyhpherus, Blyxa added in and to the background all vallisneria nana

After 7 hours i started to fill up the tank with the old method ;)
This was the first time when i've seen how i did on the foreground

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filling up slowly but not so slowly...

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Finally after 8 hours the tank filled up:

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The water was a bit unclear at that time but not as bad as befre with the soil cloud.
The smaller filter started the work. Added in 3 balls of ADA Bacter Ball to the substrate. And ADA Green Bacter to the water. CO2 started. Project completed :lol:

Was funny to see how different it become than i wanted, but i see that already how nice it will be after 2-3 months, so i am not worried. Also i still can tweak later on.

Woods stayed down, new soil not disturbed the water. I am worried the most about is the ammonia level because of the new 9 liter Aqua Soil and that i disturbed too much the substrate with the removals. I also killed the small filter as i stopped this for 8 hours til i worked on the new scape. But my plan was to put back any shrimp and fishes after 2-3 weeks. As usually the plan was to not add any fertilizers just Brighty K in the first 2 weeks....

Well this was a surprise, but turned out, no extra ammonia was in the water level. How? I do not have a clue. :p
Tests showed ok on ammonia, nitrite, nitrate after the fill up. only PH was high, but CO2 started only later so this was ok.

Next day i've checked once again the parameters

3953145706_4b3553db85.jpg


everything seems ok... hmm. so the extra bacterial stuff? or the working substrate immediatelly removed the ammonia? the filtration bacteria stay alive to do the work? do not know but this is worked!

Oh after the setup i've seen that one amano shrimp stayed in the aquarium under the full rescape. he is a real survivor! :)

since every parameter was normal i changed the plan and throwed in half of the amanos to prepare for the early algae battle.

3953146290_5328421fbd.jpg


next day checked the water, still no changes, except that PH is ok too for this time. Since i did not had ammonia, not dangerous nitrite or nitrate levels did not changed water yet. Added in 20 Harlequin a little more amano in the last 2 days. The water become clearer even with the smaller filter. Plants survived still need to wait til they change their leaves. No melting yet.

And as everything is changed, i changed my mind on the ferilization too. From this weekend i add Step 1 to the Brighty K. So normal ferilization started. No algae etc. everything is great, just need to wait til the plants settle in and start to grow...

This pic i shot yesterday....

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I never thought that i will have an easy job in the first week i have now. Also that i will have a clear tank like this after 2 days the way i did.

Will post more photos as it is shaping in the meantime you can check the high res photos here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/viktorlant ... 447886108/

Sorry for the long post, i hope this was not too boring :lol:
I think without my fiance the full task would have taken much more time. She was my savior when the fishes and shrimp had to remove, as i was not so good in that. :clap:

3952163517_e403d2e7ba.jpg


ps: initially i wanted a similar scape than Luis Moniz did before (which is amazing my all time fav), but this is just become a different thing. Let's see how this will look like later on.
 
Re: 240l tank rescape (name coming later)

Another great layout Viktor. if ends up like the previous scape, your onto a wonderful looking scape indeed.

I'm interested to see how the UG, looks in the final images.

I always find the difference from planting to filling with water to be huge, once filled with water, a scape can look completely different to the same tank with no water.

look forward to the updates :thumbup:
 
Re: 240l tank rescape (name coming later)

Viktor

Dont say sorry for a long post! Its great to get all the details, and understand how you put your tank together. It looks great and i cant wait to see what it looks like in a few more weeks! :thumbup:
 
Re: 240l tank rescape (name coming later)

Thanks guys for the nice words. Will post new shots timely to see how this forms.

Tested this morning too. The water quality is great. So the fishes not changed anything. Looking forward to see how the jungle will shape up.

There are many things that i may would do differently if i would not have the large fishes. For example had a pack of nile sand which would look amazing on the front giving some contrast, but i know how pleco and toro would kill that in 2 seconds ;)

worried about the ammonia level and not trimmed parvula and others to avoid algae on plants... :D

my previous scapes looked worst at the begining so i bet it will be better this time.

the bushy previous 240 scape looked like this on the start:
3019381648_70aa6ffae7.jpg

of course i added in some borneo wood later to the left, but if you compare this to the scape what is on the top of this page you would not tell the 2 tank is the same ;)

another nice change:
3605139884_7c6e8744a6.jpg

3 and a half months later:
3879334926_dc6c6d54d3.jpg

not just the lamp changed... :lol:
 
Re: 240l tank rescape (name coming later)

Awesome, this has been really helpful to me too as I'm planning a major re 'scape so seeing the procedure in pictures was great.
 
Re: 240l tank rescape (name coming later)

viktorlantos said:
I think without my fiance the full task would have taken much more time. She was my savior when the fishes and shrimp had to remove, as i was not so good in that. :clap:

3952163517_e403d2e7ba.jpg

very nice, the tank looks ok too! ;)
had it been in my hands, with help like that, the rescape would have taken much much longer! :shifty:
 
Re: 240l tank rescape (name coming later)

11 days after the setup. mosses started to grow with many other plants. water is fine, no heavy algae attack yet. half of the fishes and shrimps are in the rest of the team is coming a little later once the plants will settle.

i had a few really nice small anubias and caffefolia which i thought i could use, but i was not sure. not works that well with the mosses, bolbitis and the grass and the scape i planned.

anyway i had dropped them today. not sure i will keep them, as at some point they looks good where they are, but they also looks a bit off. they hide the stone edges and gives a smoother feeling.

what do you think? should i keep them where they are and just cut them to keep it small forever?
or would you remove them?

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for large version: http://www.flickr.com/photos/viktorlant ... 3/sizes/o/

the water is a bit greenish as i still run with one of my filter yet.
 
Re: 240l tank rescape (name coming later)

I liked it more without anubias ;) looks somehow overloaded
 
Re: 240l tank rescape (name coming later)

Nice one Viktor, the tank is coming along nicely, like George love that nano. Nice to get the missus involved too.

Congrats and keep us posted, thanks for sharing :)
 
Re: 240l tank rescape (name coming later)

Jur4ik said:
I liked it more without anubias ;) looks somehow overloaded

yeah i feel the same thing. will wait a bit to see when the plants starts to grow and may will remove them. they are not in the soil so easy to remove.

George, LondonDragon, thanks for the nice words ;)
 
Re: 240l tank rescape (name coming later)

I'm a sucker for Anubias, I really love them poking out of rocks and crevices, so I vote to keep them! :lol:
 
Re: 240l tank rescape (name coming later)

flygja said:
I'm a sucker for Anubias, I really love them poking out of rocks and crevices, so I vote to keep them! :lol:

1:1

deuce ;)

who will be the person who say the final word? :)
 
Re: 240l tank rescape (name coming later)

your nano looks great , i like a lot this kind of natural look , all in green , the use of may different plants in the foreground and a lot of moss , the use of the wood also seems quite perfect to me , all together this has a very "simple" feeling ...must be quite refreshing to look at :thumbup:

also seems that you have a nice start with the 240L tank , i liked the previous version , the new one looks like it is even going to be better ;)
 
Re: 240l tank rescape (name coming later)

thanks guys for the nice words. will keep anubias then and will see how that goes.

yesterday i throwed in 3 utricularia g. to the front part (front center). hope they will stay alive and form a carpet.

got them in a gel form. this is 100 times better than any other form.
i do not know why HC or other small foreground plants are not cultivated in this form. much easier to handle.

will post a new photo over the weekend ;)
 
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