Greetings to all! This year I am officially a high school senior :bounce:!!! In celebration and honor of this, I have decided to move all my aquarium and the equipment to my school's biology classroom and do an aquascape there. My goal for this is to have both a capstone to my journey as an aquascaper before college and an opportunity to share this art to people in my school. It will not only be an aethestic addition, but also a teaching tool that hopefully will stir up interest in some younger souls...
The whole project is all in the context of taking a decent two-year break from my last scape, found here. I already have all the necessary equipment ready—only the aquascaping is left.
The hardscape:
Materials List:
Aquarium:
Marineland 90cm*30cm*36cm (L*W*H) Glass Aquarium. Approx. 25g, though with hardscape probably only 20-22.
Don't know anything about the stand, but it fits the aquarium perfectly
Lighting:
36 inch Hagen Glo Dual T5HO
Giesemann Midday and Aquaflora (both bulbs 3+ years old now. I'll be replacing them if noticable problems occur)
Pool fiberglass screen to reduce light
Filtration:
Eheim Classic 2215
Waterplant Surface Skimmer
Marineland Carbon (only early on)
Various biomedia
CPR Biobale
CO2:
Green Leaf Aquariums Nature Beast CO2 Regulator
Viton/Kynar Universal Check Valves
5lb Cylinder
UP Aqua Inline CO2 Atomizer (12-16 mm tubing)
ISTA Max Mix Reactor
Substrate & Scaping Materials:
Twice reused ADA Amazonia
Stone chippings (off a highway in Utah :icon_wink)
Other random rocks
Driftwood picked from the beach (properly treated)
omgosh I would have of never thought of doing an aquascape, at school! im gonna have to remember this for my senior year lol Good luck with your scape and great idea
At that age the bulbs are likely putting out well less than 75% of PAR and the K value is likely shifted as well; if algae becomes an issue this is the first thing I would suspect.
Also the stone chips could easily be limestone which is used a lot as a base material for concrete and asphalt roads; do a vinegar test prior to putting them into your tank.
At that age the bulbs are likely putting out well less than 75% of PAR and the K value is likely shifted as well; if algae becomes an issue this is the first thing I would suspect.
Also the stone chips could easily be limestone which is used a lot as a base material for concrete and asphalt roads; do a vinegar test prior to putting them into your tank.
Yeah the light bulbs are old, but because of my tight budget, unless it causes noticeable trouble, it should be okay.
Good call on it being limestone! Sure enough it reacted to the acid test, but I think it should be fine since only a little bit is in there. The larger rocks you see are safe and Florida tap water is already pretty alkaline. I am already starting a pH test with some RO water and some unused rocks to see if there are any notable difference in pH after a couple days. The rock to water ratio is pretty even so I should see results fairly soon. Thanks for catching that though!
I thought I would add that Aquatic Arts has a promotion that if you are using an aquarium in a school for education purposes they give you a gift card for a certain amount to their website. I don't personally know the terms and conditions but it maybe something you might want to look into.
Very interesting, though after a quick search it seems that it is limited to educators using their products, which sadly doesn't apply well to me. I could maybe get the teacher sponsoring me to do something about this...:thumbsup:
I thought I would add that Aquatic Arts has a promotion that if you are using an aquarium in a school for education purposes they give you a gift card for a certain amount to their website. I don't personally know the terms and conditions but it maybe something you might want to look into.
You are providing the equipment. It is between you and your teacher. But since it is a simple recommendation and could mold the tank and also teach so many students about the biology of whatever you decide to keep or whatever plants you decide to keep...I don't see how this is a loss since it is in your teacher's classroom. He might be actually able to teach the students biology, I.E pearling of plants, mating of shrimp, mating of fish, keeping of high light/low light plants in a contained experiment. Seriously the possibilities are endless and explainable to the board of education.
Just a word of warning, the world is full of bellends, and school tanks are often the targets of vandals and angry people. There are strings of articles about it on practicalfishkeeping.
SO, I'm not saying don't do it, but keep it simple and not too expensive.
Thank you for bringing a tank into your school! It's a great idea on so many levels.
Check with your schools science department chairperson about keeping a CO2 tank there. In Maryland it's hard to get permits to keep pressurized gas tanks. I'm not sure about Florida. For my higher light classroom tanks we use metricide.
Just a word of warning, the world is full of bellends, and school tanks are often the targets of vandals and angry people. There are strings of articles about it on practicalfishkeeping.
SO, I'm not saying don't do it, but keep it simple and not too expensive.
Thank you for bringing a tank into your school! It's a great idea on so many levels.
Check with your schools science department chairperson about keeping a CO2 tank there. In Maryland it's hard to get permits to keep pressurized gas tanks. I'm not sure about Florida. For my higher light classroom tanks we use metricide.
iter you should (btw not advertising :l) post this on TropicalFishForums for more advice and help and also here but its already posted here lol confusing, anyway I love this project idea and its great. I think you should totally go out with this idea supporting this all the way lol
I spent four and a half hours after school doing this—it was rather tiring.
Plant List:
Anubias barteri var. nana
Cryptocoryne beckettii 'Petchii'
Cryptocoryne wendtii 'Green'
Eleocharis acicularis
Glossostigma elatinoides
Microsorum pteropus
Proserpinaca palustris
Rotala macrandra
Rotala nanjenshan
Rotala rotundifolia
Really going freestyle with the scape and plant choices, especially with Rotala macrandra, as they are rarely used in Nature Style.
I'm still considering whether to swap out the Cryptocoryne with Staurogyne repens. By God's grace, hopefully there won't be any leaking over the weekend .
Everything is going exceedingly well heretofore. The foreground should be ready to be trimmed and replanted to promote horizontal growth and remove emersed growth by the beginning of next week. The stems are so far not experiencing any significant stem rot that comes from transition issues; only a few stems acquired that dilemma and were easily uprooted and replanted. The rotala rotundifolia will hopefully not be overshddowed by its submersed, already growing macrandra neighbor, which is doing quite fine I will say. I am also considering replacing the Anubias in the middle of the stem with a better-looking specimen, but if it happens to grow well then hopefully it will spare me of that trouble.
It's beautiful! How do your classmates like it? A trim for the glosso would definitely be good, seems like it's growing more vertically than horizontally. Have you thought about added any bits of mosses in some areas? I think it would compliment the wood nicely.
Setting up a tank at school is a great idea, though it probably wouldn't have nearly as well had I tried... xD
So, because of school schedule changes I was not able to get a picture for Week 2, but nothing significant happened. I temporarliy removed the fiberglass screen to encourage horizontal growth for the glosso. Stem rot is minimal and everything is going smoothly and there will definitely be more contour to the stem groupings once I start trimming.
There is a presence of hitchhiker pond snails, but they shouldn't be too out of control. I am still doing 2 water changes a week, and will be going to once a week next week.
I bought seven otocinclus in the aquarium, but one died a couple days ago so I am sadly down to six :crying:. While thinking on the other fish later, I decided to start a tiny fundraiser for any one who wants to sponsor a fish for 1-3 dollars. With this I can both encourage some involvement in other students as well as save a ton of money :icon_cool.
A bit late due to busy school schedules, but I managed to get some shots in. I also attached a picture of my CO2 injection method for all those who are interested.
10/05/2016 FTS:
Java Fern:
Rotala rotundifolia:
Proserpinaca palustris:
On Monday I also got 9 Flame tetras for the aquascape and will post it in the week's upcoming update.
Bump: Also for those that are interested in my CO2 injection method:
The inline diffuser in the bottom left goes into a MaxMix reactor with the propellers taken out due to noise. I turned the original CO2 injection port for the reactor into a valve to release any air stuck in there to keep things quieter quickly. The reactor was used in a project a long time ago, so to clarify I did not buy it for this purpose .
Due to Hurricane Matthew and other schedule changes, here is the late and the latest update. I completely hacked and replanted the stem plants in the background; some compact growth should be coming up soon. The hairgrass is making a ridiculous amount of wild runners so that I might need some manual control to keep it contained without taking over the glosso, which is growing quite satisfactorily. I will try to post some fish pictures as well.....
Week 5 - 10/17/2016
Week 6 - 10/25/2016
Some staghorn algae appearing, though it is only on the older Anubias leaves. There are also some GSA probably caused by inconsistent dosing, though now that school is back to normal it should be fine. The Thanksgiving break coming up might mess it all up again though...
Late update but here is Weeks 7 and 9 along with some fish shots:
Week 7:
Week 9:
Some moss tied to emergent driftwood, along with some backyard weeds:
Otocinclus and Flame Tetras:
Just cleaned the filter to improve aeration and water movement. There has been a significant amount of staghorn, so I cut the light a bit and increased the CO2.
Thank you very much . Reactions stemmed from "are those real plants?" to "...(silence)..."
All the science teachers love it and often I see students from all ages keenly counting fish or staring intently at it :thumbsup:
I have not yet met anyone (except for the natural history teacher) who had ever seen, heard of, or imagined that such a thing as aquascaping exists :icon_surp. To that I was quite surprised, and I also discovered that there is a really profound and prevalent ignorance on any aquaculture in general, at least in my community. Not many have moved on from the goldfish in the bowl, and for those who did live plants didn't even cross their minds. I am pretty thankful to have done this project, not only to display something worth stopping to look at, but to also teach and show people what's possible.
Wow very nice job, you are talented! I'm a college sophomore and just yesterday had a biology professor tell me that "freshwater aquatic plants" don't have roots. Lol
Not many people know that a thing such as an aquascape exists, I love when people see my tanks for the first time and are so surprised and don't quite understand how it works! [emoji23]
Wow very nice job, you are talented! I'm a college sophomore and just yesterday had a biology professor tell me that "freshwater aquatic plants" don't have roots. Lol
Not many people know that a thing such as an aquascape exists, I love when people see my tanks for the first time and are so surprised and don't quite understand how it works! [emoji23]
Haha that's hilarious! I guess aquascaping doesn't have much of a spectrum; it's either you know absolutely nothing about it, or are excessively obsessive over it .
Oh and I will trim the glosso and some background plants the coming week. I am a bit nervous about Thanksgiving break though; hopefully I can come to the school during one of the days off to feed fish and fertilize.
For the fish I asked my classmates to donate a couple dollars if they want to sponsor a fish, and that worked out pretty well :thumbsup:.
No plans to add shrimps, mostly because I will be shutting the tank down by the end of the school year, so I don't want to have too much animals that I don't know what to do with. There are plenty of pond snails in there however lol.
First off, I got accepted to Vanderbilt University!!! Wohoo!!!
Okay, now for the Week 12 update. The Rotala macrandra is taking a while to mass propagate, but the algae is now under contro. The old GSA is still unsightly on the old Anubias leaves which I can't really trim off yet. If anyone wants a specific angle, section, or shot of the tank, please request!
First off, I got accepted to Vanderbilt University!!! Wohoo!!!
Okay, now for the Week 12 update. The Rotala macrandra is taking a while to mass propagate, but the algae is now under contro. The old GSA is still unsightly on the old Anubias leaves which I can't really trim off yet. If anyone wants a specific angle, section, or shot of the tank, please request!
Give me every angle you got lol! I just started my journey iter, thanks to you my friend! Thanks for the inspiration!! Congrats on vanderbilt bro, thats an awesome college... here is the link to my scape (the plans of it at least) lol...
Thanks all! I will try to take some more pictures tomorrow.
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