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saintly's "Prairie Lands"

Re: saintly's 120cm iwagumi

LondonDragon said:
saintly said:
forgot to add...i've got my nature soil coming from AE so the hardscape will be 100% in a couple of days.
theres 1 x 10L normal grain and 1 x 10L fine grain plus what's in the tank already.
Will be nice to get your opinion this substrate, looking forward to it. :) Its not cheap though!!!
Yeah, its not as cheap as expected, but hopefully its way better than that ADA rubbish :lol:

Looking good Mark!
 
Re: saintly's 120cm iwagumi

OK, i've now received the oliver Knott substrate from AE....http://www.aquaessentials.co.uk/index.p ... ts_id=2695

i got 1 bag of 10L large grain and 1 bag of 10l fine grain.

first impressions are great. it's great to work with for sure. time will tell the rest of the story

so instead of posting loads of individual images, I've just banged a load on to one page.

my substarte system consists of the following...
The base layer
aquabasis plus x a lot of bags :wideyed: plus powersand,

then some old AS, then the new stuff.

oliver knott 10L normal x 1
topped with approx 5L fine grade oliver knott substrate

the fine grade was added after the stones were put in.

substrate.jpg


and heres the final layout, it's now down to the planting whether this will ook any good or not

finalarrangment.jpg
 
Re: saintly's 120cm iwagumi

Very nice, Mark!

It'll be a tall order to beat your MA display tank but this shows potential already.

In a way it's a shame you didn't use Oliver Knott's substrate exclusively to get a true impression of performance vs. Aqua Soil. It's great to mix stuff though - I think my biggest mix was Tropica, EcoComplete, AquaClay, Aqua Soil and Unipac black in Matt Clarke's tank. It's still going strong apparently.
 
Re: saintly's 120cm iwagumi

Hi Mark,i am looking forward to see what results you get,good luck regards john.
 
Re: saintly's 120cm iwagumi

john starkey said:
Hi Mark,i am looking forward to see what results you get,good luck regards john.

cheers john

George Farmer said:
It'll be a tall order to beat your MA display tank but this shows potential already.

it's in a different vein to the MA scape. the MA scape was intended to be quite "nice" in its look hence the stems, but with this i'm wanting quite a dark feel to the whole thing.

i'm still pondering on what plants to use. theres so many options open to me on this one all with different out comes. i keep borrowing ideas from amano regards the planting.

i'd love just a carpet of acicularis and vivipara in the back, but the better half says NO.....apparently it would look like a un kept lawn :lol: thats the idea, right?

so, HC still may feature but i'm unsure about the end look. argghh...i dunno!

SteveUK said:
It's going to be another Saintly stunner :)

fingers crossed steve 8)

LondonDragon said:
AWSOME DUDE!!! I love it :) bring on the plants :) can't wait

cheers LD

Dan Crawford said:
Lookin' good mate :D

even better with a proper background ;)

JamesM said:
Can't fault that, Mark! Looks sick mate! :D

cheers fella, i cant wait for you to unveil yours ;)

George Farmer said:
In a way it's a shame you didn't use Oliver Knott's substrate exclusively to get a true impression of performance vs. Aqua Soil.

cost mate, this is still a gumi on a budget to some degree.
 
Re: saintly's 120cm iwagumi

I think the hairgrass mixture idea is great - hairgrass is a great plant.

The hardscape looks great too, this should be one to watch as with all the saintly journals. ;)
 
Re: saintly's 120cm iwagumi

Good grief Mark, at 3.99/litre this is even more expensive than Aquasoil @ 1.50/litre! No wonder you couldn't afford to use it exclusively...

I beg to differ with Mrs. E. - the mixed hairgrass would look great. So do it anyway. Of course, that's easy for me to say - I don't have to live with her ;)
 
Re: saintly's 120cm iwagumi

Ray said:
Good grief Mark, at 3.99/litre this is even more expensive than Aquasoil @ 1.50/litre! No wonder you couldn't afford to use it exclusively...
If you can get Aqua Soil @ £1.50 a litre, then please tell us where you get it... ;)
 
Re: saintly's 120cm iwagumi

JamesM said:
Ray said:
Good grief Mark, at 3.99/litre this is even more expensive than Aquasoil @ 1.50/litre! No wonder you couldn't afford to use it exclusively...
If you can get Aqua Soil @ £1.50 a litre, then please tell us where you get it... ;)

I know i want some too! It will be interesting to see the results of it if anyone does use it exclusively. Does it leach ammonia?

Rock positioning looks awesome mate.
 
Re: saintly's 120cm iwagumi

JamesM said:
Ray said:
Good grief Mark, at 3.99/litre this is even more expensive than Aquasoil @ 1.50/litre! No wonder you couldn't afford to use it exclusively...
If you can get Aqua Soil @ £1.50 a litre, then please tell us where you get it... ;)

Yeah, come on Ray - where you gettin' this knock-off AquaSoil? :lol:
 
Re: saintly's 120cm iwagumi

i think ray has the luxury of European buying. he lives in switzerland. i'm not sure of the pricing over there though...

guys, i've got every confidence in this stuff.

look, oliver as we all know is thee best in europe at growing plants, right?.....he's not likely to put his name in big bold letters if it were crap.

i'm redoing my 60cm soon and i plan to use this stuff solely, then we can see how good it is.
 
Re: saintly's 120cm iwagumi

Public apology, I'm spouting rubbish - for some reason although I use the product I temporarily thought 18L are in a sack of Aqua Soil. :oops:
All the exchange rates have shifted. A year ago 9l Aqua Soil in Germany was only 22 pounds (29 Euros) with then Euro/GBP exchange rates. Now it is 27 pounds.
So we have 3.99/litre Oliver Knott vrs 3.33/litre Aqua Soil. I wonder how much the new JBL product will cost and does it include NPK? Of course, there is also the Elos stuff that Filipe Olivera uses, someone should try that out.
I suspect all this is like the difference between Dennerle, Aquafleur and Tropica plants - you can't really go wrong with any of them.
 
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