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The Falls - DOOA Wall 60

TBRO

Member
Joined
8 Feb 2009
Messages
947
When I was younger, I once got lost in a Jungle. To make my escape I had to follow a river and climb down several water falls. At the time I just wanted to get back to a road but looking back, the scenery was amazing!

The crystal clear stream was full of little fish and shrimp, the surrounding rocks were covered in a garden of mosses and ferns.

Thus when I saw the DOOA Wall it seemed like a way of emulating that environment. I considered building something myself but in the end decided to spend the money. The wall is very nicely constructed with lots of little features I wouldn’t have thought of.

Eventually it will hang in a 60p aquarium, decided to go for a full aquarium to maximize humidity + give me the option of standard aquarium set up in future.

Twinstar light and Eheim Classic 250, not decided if it needs a heater yet!

I’ve been mocking up hard scape in an old tank in my garage. It’s slightly deeper front to back than a 60p but otherwise the same.

The water will come up to the level of the bottom foam pad.

Scapewise I want to do a deeply concave scape, like a waterfall eroding into a steep volcanic slope. I have some heather wood and lava rock to make a base. I anticipate all the rocks will be covered by moss. When I’m happy I will glue all the wood together, will try and direct some water to flow over the wood.

Plants will help with the concave appearance.

My list so far:

Christmas moss (most of the pads and rocks)
Emergant Hygrophila Pinitifada
Emergant Anubis
Hydrocotyle sp. trailing down the middle
Urtricularia (hope it flowers!)

Here’s what I have so far:

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Should be really interesting project. Thanks for looking. T


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Bit of a slow burner this one! Managed to blend up some weeping moss from my big tank. I used @Nigel’s yoghurt method. I painted the wood and stuck it in a propagator.

I’m gradually trying to transition plants to emersed. Hard keeping a tank empty but slowly does it...

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Following this with interest mate. I'm going to do a similar thing with a 300 cube but was looking at knocking something up out if sheets of acrylic. Didn't realise you could buy stuff off the shelf.
 
They do an all together 30cm system but it’s pricey. Nice thing is if you search on the web there is a free Aquajournal that has details of the system. Might be handy if you go the diy route. Good luck, felt it was beyond my skills


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The plan I had was combining a HM filter with an acrylic box at the top so the water gets pulled through the sponge by a filter and the sprayed into the top where it trickles down some emergent planting like a water fall. Not sure if planting the HM sponge is going to restrict flow too much though.
 
Well I think that’s the beauty of this kind of system. The wall will form a big surface area, very aerobic, trickle filter.

Given the size of the underwater section + a bigish external filter + secondary filtration via lava rock = (hopefully) a really well filtered tank.

One of my concerns is the lack of flow there will underwater.

Should suit species like clown killies etc


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If you look up James Wong Betta on Google Images or Instagram you'll see he's done a sort of Walstad method aquarium with a wall of capillary matting on a sheet of acrylic which wicked up water for plants which are pinned down with floristry pins.If you look up Jane Perrone she has covered this in an article with a podcast.

To me this is much more appealing than buying a £350 DOOA 30 Terra being around 1/2 of the price with the loss of not having the water trickling, light and ADA sticker. Then again you could add a small and cheap pump.

I really like the scape you've planned which is close to how I would scape it. I would be interested to hear your plans for planting.
 
Yes, James Wong’s scapes are really inspirational! I’ve used some of his techniques to get growth on the wood sticking out of my big tank.

I quite like the challenge of growing aquarium plants, emergant. Most are marginal zone plants. No reason I couldn’t use more terrestrial plants like JW. They would essentially be hydroponically growing.

Crazy the humidity some species need to from in air - I’m looking at you Java Fern! Guess some things grow on rocks that receive constant mist from water falls?


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Although I enjoy much of what I see on James Wong's Instgram feed according to Carlos Magdelena he doubts the success of his lily bowl with little light. To me it's unclear as to wether his 'updates' are more 'throwbacks'. Perhaps he simply bought a lily that had already flowered. Anyway, I don't doubt his success with the betta aquarium, the shallow aquarium, light bulb wabi kusa, his window sill pots and planted coffee table. I just imagine it's quite easy as a public figure to gloss over little bits of information or claim some half truths.

Some cool aquarium plants I would try emmersed would be Hydrocotyle Tripartita, Bucephalandras, Anubias Coffeefolia and seeing as you mention Java Fern maybe try some Bolbitis as I've seen people use it emmersed from an aquascape.
 
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Amazing to find some Java fern in a bucket, that’s been in my shed since September! Pretty dark and sub zero temp. Still alive??

Installed it in my bits box. Will use when I scape. Finally got the Pinitifada to start growing emergant

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Got board waiting for cabinet so bought a cheap cupboard from local charity shop.

Nice to finally put the tank with the wall.

One of the quirky features is the inflow takes a 10mm tubing and the outflow 12 mm conventional tubing (that most Eheim filters use).

I picked up a DOOA connector at the same time. I’m not sure how the filter flow will work but usually easy to adjust down with a tap. Maybe that’s the idea of the 10 mm tubing, will evoke poiseuille law?

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Seen some great scapes on the ADA site using this system.

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Also seen some brilliant natural moss scapes while out walking. Some very Hydrocotyle looking plants

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Plenty of mossy inspiration!


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Full scape is going to have to await my Christmas Holidays but couldn’t resist setting up a moss pad.

This will require a lot of moss! I’ve been saving cuttings of weeping moss, so should be OK.

For reference a large Tropica sized moss portion does about 1 pad (12 in total).

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Not quite a wall yet!

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Thanks Darrel, it was growing in a hedge. So yes a dry area, although in a Welsh December dry would be a relative term!


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Full scape is going to have to await my Christmas Holidays but couldn’t resist setting up a moss pad.

This will require a lot of moss! I’ve been saving cuttings of weeping moss, so should be OK.

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Could you not blend/food processor the moss and then spread it over the sponge to 'seed' it, then let it all grow in? You would need a lot less moss
k
 
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