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Tropicana Paradiso - 30 litre Opti-White

GreenNeedle

Member
Joined
19 Jul 2007
Messages
2,750
Location
Lincoln UK
Technical Specs:
30 litre Opti-white aquarium (L 40cm, H 30cm, D 30cm)
Eheim 2211 (Classic 150) external cannister filter
AquaEL Leddy Smart Plant 6W Luminaire (8 hours per day)
Gush O bubble glass outlet and generic 13mm glass inlet.

Fertilisation 0.5ml Lush Max daily

Plants: Ammania Bonsai, Microsorum Pteropus 'Narrow', Proserpinaca Palustrius, Bolbitis Heudelotii, Fissidens Fontanus, Heteranthera Zosterifolia

Substrate: Pool Filter Sand
Hardscape - Slate Gneiss layered rock pieces.

After saying it was nearly time to take Approaching Snowdon down I think I talked myself into doing it sooner rather than later and so we have Tropicana Paradiso.

Forgive me for the rubbish name. I needed a name to file the photos under and to get this journal up and I wasn't feeling that inspired in terms of names.

As usual the aquascape hasn't cost me anything at all apart from the new light I bought. I didn't need a new light but I liked the look of the light so I had to get it.

The Sand is left over from previous scapes. The rock / stones are the ones that came out of Approaching Snowdon. The plants are from my own stock or pinched from other tanks I have.

The pictures below show the stages of 'building' the scape and yes the time on the oven clock is 9:11pm when I started and 1:29am when I was about to move the scape to its position. I like to aquascape through the night when the wife and kids are out of the way. Less distraction for me and also less disturbance for them. It was about 5:30am when I left the tank and went to bed.

First I put the sand in and sloped it. Then you may see I drew lines with my finger in the sand where I wanted my 'islands' to be. Then I basically dropped most of the stones onto these areas saving some to tidy up the visible sections.

After this I got a lump of bogwood that had a load of Bolbitis on it from another tank. I trimmed off some parts and attached them to another piece of bogwood and placed these on top of the slate islands.

The last part was to tie some Fissidens to some of the saved slate pieces and then position these at the front of the scape. I hope that these will soften the appearance of all the stones and make it look more natural.

Needle Fern plantlets were stuck to some pieces of slate behind the Bolbitis. They will grow to a similar height and add some leaf contrast I hope. The Ammania and Proserpinaca were added in little spots to just do their own thing and the Heteranthera was finally added in the rear.

The photos below were taken before the Heteranthera was added and it isn't visible yet as the Bolbitis blocks it.

Overall I am very happy with the layout. The 'pathway' is a little more central than I had planned but not totally central and I think it looks nice and clean. The light is really cool and I'm glad I bought it.

In terms of livestock I am going to add some Pygmy Corys (Pygmaeus) or if I can find them some dwarf Corys (Hastatus) and I will be transferring my Caridina Simoni Simoni to this tank.

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Thanks Roy. Will update with Shrimp pics later.

5678 - It's a custom made opti-white I bought from DC aquariums a few years back. The lid is just a piece of acrylic I routed to stop kid's toys becoming aquarium ornaments :)
 
Thought I would just add some pics of the Simoni Simoni shrimp and the Heteranthera added in the rear.

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Thanks for letting me know! Did you make the brackets for the lid or did you buy them?

I'm in need of something similar!
 
The aquascape is now 2 weeks old and as with all non CO2 setups it hasn't really grown much however it still looks nice and clean and I have now installed my backlighting.

The backlighting is 4 x RGB 5050 30/m strips. It is pretty flexible in that you can choose loads of colours and adjust the brightness and I have settled on this sunrise/sunset option as I like it.

You can see just how much more efficient the high power LEDs are than these strips as the strips can't compete with the Leddy any further than the first 4 or 5 inches directly above them.

This is why you can't use these strips as simple alternative main lights. Or at very best you would need to use the 60 LEDs per metre versions and have 20 or so strips of them just to have a chance of being at the low end of lighting levels.

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