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New scape "Rocky Moutain"

Aquamaniac Fishtanks

Aquamaniac Fishtanks

Member
Joined
7 Oct 2013
Messages
46
Location
London, United Kingdom
Hi

I just joined this forum,even though i have been following it for quite a while.
I would like to share my most recent project.
This scape took a month to plan and to collect all the stuff i needed. It was planted friday so the photos i have to share are day 1. But first let's go to the setup.

Setup:

Tank: Fluval Roma 240

Size : 120 cm x 40 cm x 50 cm ( Aprox. 240 liters)

Heating : Fluval Mirrored M

Filtration : Fluval 305 + All pond solutions EF 1000 plus 9 watt UV sterilizer (APS filter is still running in another tank to keep my cycle running, until i decide to add fish to this tank).

Wavemaker : All pond solutions WM- 2500 (2500 liters hour)

Lighting: All pond solutions unit 4x 54 watts ( only 2x 54 watts during 6 hours for the first few weeks).

Co2 : Pressurized co2 with a 3kg bottle. It starts 2 hours before the light and goes off 1 hour before light shutdown.

Substrate: Tropica plant growth ( 5 kg) capped with unipac black sand ( 40 kg)

Hardscape: TGM blue stone

Plants: Eliocharis parvula

Here are the photos:

oeht.jpg



ddqj.jpg



4m47.jpg



evd4.jpg



vh9n.jpg



79v3.jpg



pymh.jpg



yvbx.jpg



p346.jpg




ktzg.jpg



fouf.jpg


Hope you guys like it.
 
Looks brilliant , a couple months and will look very good !! Looks very good now but even better when grown in . I always like the ' one plant ' tanks simplicity in its beauty form :)


Sent from my mobile telecommunications device
 
Nathaniel Whiteside said:
Love it mate, Rock placement is Fantastic!

You just keeping the Eleocharis Parvula only? Will Look really well when it all grows in.
Click to expand...



Thanks.
Yes. I will only keep parvula. Wanted to keep it simple and this is how i imagined it since i had the idea to do a mountain scape.


sa80mark said:
Very nice idea, quite simplistic and understaded, it should look very effective once the hair grass has grown in, keep us updated with its progress :)
Click to expand...


Thanks. Simplicity was the goal. I wanted the hardscape to be the star here.
I admit during planning stage there were moments where i got ambitious and planned for a more complex plant choice. But in the end simplicity seemed to be the right way to go.


Samjpikey said:
Looks brilliant , a couple months and will look very good !! Looks very good now but even better when grown in . I always like the ' one plant ' tanks simplicity in its beauty form :)


Sent from my mobile telecommunications device
Click to expand...

Thanks. I can hardly wait to see it grown in.
I figured that with too many plants the beauty of the hardscape would be overshadowed.
One plant style was the way to go. But not any plant, it had to be the right one.
Other carpets plants would be suitable but the fact that parvula is easy and flexible made it the definite choice for this.



tim said:
Really nice rock layout good start :thumbup:
Click to expand...


Thanks.
I worked hard on this rock layout. I would say it was easily 75% of the job done thanks to it.
After the rocks arrived i filled my tank with some old substrate i had lying around and turned the tank into a sandbox. This way i designed the entire layout before the tank was setup.
When i finally got to the final assembly there was just a few adjustments to do, and still i kept the tank just with the rockscape for a few weeks to see if there was something i wanted to change.
The rock formation by itself looked impressive already, plants just came to make it look better.


Samuran said:
Really like this scape, hope it grows well :)

Ben
Click to expand...


Thanks. I really hope so. It looks amazing already but i really want to see it to it's full potential. Fully grown.
 
TOO said:
Nice. Now, you can just sit back and wait for it all to grow in. Will look impressive in a couple of months time. Make sure to get small fish to create a sense of scale.

Thomas
Click to expand...


That's the idea.
I was using angelfish on my previous scape, it was a jungle look so they looked cool and i love them,
But during planning stage for this project it became obvious that small fish will make this scape look even better.
The angels will go to another tank. I do have a school of rummynose tetras in the tank were the angels are going now. I am thinking of moving them into this scape. They are not that big and will look nice swimming all together with the mountain as a background.
 
great looking scape and great rock placement, I love the idea of only 1 plant will look great swaying when fishes in tank

keep us updated mate
Dean
 
Hi again

Time for an update

Here is a week ago:
hm0c.jpg



Here is today:
965e.jpg


During this week i added:

14 rummy noses
20 Gold mountain minnows
18 neons

I was able to do this by moving in the cycled filters i kept working on other tanks during the build.

The plants seem to be spreading and growing. Two days ago i did put the lighting at full power.
That's 4x54 watts T5 for 240 litres. I might have made a mistake by doing it.
What do you guys think?
It seems now that increasing the light hours from 6 to 8 or even 10 would have been more reasonable that putting the light at full power.


I want to try it for a couple of days and then make a decision. For now the plants are spreading fine but since the extra light the amount of runners popping from under the substrate has multiplied greatly.

I do have some brown algae on the glass and rocks, but i was having them even before the extra light.

The other thing is even though the plant is spreading and new runners are healthy the original clumps i planted are turning brown and ugly.
Is this normal?

I am not dosing fertilizers yet, i am still using my fertile soil has source of nutrients.

More fish will be added soon,the tank still looks empty.
 
Hi

Time for a long overdue update on this project.
Last time i mentioned having some minor algae issues. Unfortunately they were not so minor as they looked.
Despite the plants still spreading and growing they were all covered in brown algae at first and some cotton like algae later.

48le.jpg


I cut down the light to 5 hours, overdosed easycarbo and removed as much as possible with every water change but things did not look good.

So i asked for help here on the forum in the algae section.

Here is the thread:
Brown algae | UK Aquatic Plant Society

With the help of some forum members it was established that my algae problems where probably due to an inefficient flow and bad distribution of co2 around the tank.
My outflows and wavemaker were all over the place, they were actually cancelling each others.

This is how they were setup:
ngnw.png
And this is how they are now:
whrv.png


Basically all flow is now going in the same direction. I also have my Co2 diffuser close to one of my filter intakes to force the co2 through the filter to help it dissolve better in the water.

After all this changes i needed to test it, i don't have a drop checker, broke the last one, so i had to do PH testing from co2 coming on to lights off.
On the first day might results were disappointing,it took 6 hours for my PH to decrease from 7.6 to 6.6.
I increased the co2 dosing and the next day from co2 on to lights on the tank when from 7.6 to 6.6.

Satisfied with the results i know needed to get rid of the algae already in the tank, some algae eating fish were discussed in the thread but in the end the decision went for a blackout, so i am currently on day 2 of a 3 day blackout.

I hope the plants survive and the algae don't.
I guess that in two days we will know.
 
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