The Planted Tank Forum banner

6.6g Underwater Bonsai

18K views 65 replies 38 participants last post by  poppyseed 
#1 · (Edited)
FTS:



Let me start off by saying that I started perusing these forums probably over a year ago. The inspiration was unbelievable, and I tossed around ideas for what kind of tank I wanted. I settled on a bonsai-like theme and have been ever-so-slowly accumulating materials while juggling college life and work.

I'm working with a 6.6 bookshelf aquarium
coralife light fixture, 2x14 watts (I'm hoping the close proximity to the substrate will be enough light for the carpet plants I want)
I'll be using DIY CO2 after the tank is filled, but I am going to try a dry start

This is my first serious planted tank :) before this I only ever had an anubias/crypt in a low-light tank.

I put together the hardscape today and am expecting plants probably in a couple days.



This second picture I tried to label but you can't really see as well as I thought.



the purple is blyxa japonica
the small green strokes next to the purple is dwarf hairgrass
the yellow lumps are anubias nana "petite"
the strange green ovals are dwarf baby tears
pink on the tree I made is fissidens
and the purple blotched on the rock is where I may embellish with some moss or riccia
 
See less See more
3
#6 ·
No worries! The tank is just temporarily there until I get my tv onto the wall. I realized after posting that it probably seemed like its final resting place haha.

And about the subwassertang, I had considered this too but I wasn't really sure if it would clump the way I want. In some photos it looked very seaweed-ish but in others not so much. Fissidens, from what I've seen, is that kind of dense tree look I wanted (or so I hope!).
 
#11 ·
Thanks! It's actually from some manzanita badcopnofishtank sold me a while ago. I took a piece I liked and used epoxy putty to put some smaller branches where I wanted them.


If you haven't reinforced the edges with silicone (and you haven't filled the tank yet), I HIGHLY recommend it. I've got three of these tanks and one of them leaks. It's maddening. And if you look at the reviews online, I'm not the only one with a Bookshelf that developed this issue.
You know, I remember reading about this a while ago. I had the tank filled with water for quite a while to see if there were any leaks (and they're weren't at the time). How long did it take for this to happen to you? And do you know where the leak spot was?
 
#14 ·
I got my plants in today!

The baby tears looked nice and green but the hairgrass was a little brown looking and arrived in some hard to distinguish lumps. I don't have any experience with either of these plants, so I'm hoping they are planted correctly.







Please ignore how grimy the tank looks, I think it's a mixture of evaporation lines, sprayed water, plastic wrap and some unavoidable scratches on the acrylic.
 
#15 ·
Great start. I think this tank will look amazing once matured. If you break your HC into many many small peices and spread it out a lot it will fill in much much faster. If you have the patience and time I would even recommend planting 1 stem at a time. It will take a few hours but it will spread 100x faster. Just make sure each peice you plant has a little bit of root and it will take off in no time.
 
#16 ·
A little update here, it's been two weeks since the initial plant and I've seen some growth.

The hairgrass pretty much turned all brown after I planted, but since then new green blades have started poking out everywhere from the ashes. I tried trimming around some of the brown matter, but I'm not really sure how to go about removing it altogether without harming the new growth.

I'm also a little concerned about the baby tears as there is a little bit of yellowing scattered on some of the plants. Is this because the light is too close? Not enough nutrients? I don't know if I should mix some excel or fertz into the spray bottle of water I have or if this might just create an algae issue.

And one more thing. I'm debating on removing the branch on my "tree" that is on the end of it, the one that looks like it's almost touching the gravel. It will probably be behind grass anyway, but I might move it further up the tree or get rid of it altogether.

Any input would be lovely :).
 
#20 ·
And one more thing. I'm debating on removing the branch on my "tree" that is on the end of it, the one that looks like it's almost touching the gravel. It will probably be behind grass anyway, but I might move it further up the tree or get rid of it altogether.

Any input would be lovely :).
I'd remove it. Still love the setup. Can't wait to see it grow in.
 
#21 ·
I removed the lower branch, but I think it'll bother me if the tree is completely branchless underneath. I think I'll move it closer to the trunk later so it won't be so close to the substrate. The little tub to the left has some riccia that wasn't doing too well in my lower light aquarium.



Here's a picture that shows the yellowing I mentioned. I added some Plantex CSM+B to the water bottle I use, so I hope that helps. Not sure how much growth there's been, but the picture I posted of the original planting had the rim on the tank and a lot of plants were out of view, so it's hard to tell.



And here's a random thing that I've found twice on some baby tears. It looks like one little bud swelled to 5x its size. Either that or I have some sort of weed going on :(.

 
#22 ·
I ended up breaking up the HC into smaller pieces and picking all living HG out of the decaying material and replanting.

This is the initial replant:



And 3 weeks of growth:





Sorry for the out of center shot, I was trying to avoid flash on the very dirty acrylic.

I was getting impatient with the emersed growth, but comparing the two photos is became pretty obvious that it had filled in quite a bit.

Meanwhile, I'm trying to figure out where I will put the excess riccia I have. I was going to put some anubias nana petite between the two rocks on the left, and blyxa beyond that but I need to find somewhere to put the riccia since it won't grow in my other aquarium. Also, I'm considering throwing in some vallisneria nana behind the blyxa, but I'm not sure if this will look strange flowing at the surface compared to the height of the tree.. but I really like that plant *pout*.

And one more note, I know I need to get a background for this. I'm not in a huge rush, but I'm not really sure I want a black one. Platinum used a window film in his scape http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=23242&d=1283195553 and I thought it looked pretty cool, so I might go with that. There is also a darker blue variety that I was looking at.

ANYWAY, long post but let me know whatcha thiiink.
 
#26 ·
I ended up filling the tank with water in order to kill some tiny bugs I spotted. Right now the plants actually look healthier than when it was emersed (I have two DIY CO2 bottles going to prevent a melt) but I'm considering doing emersed again for a few reasons:

1. algae. I was a little unprepared for the algae bloom that has come over my tank. I was going to ask for a legit CO2 setup for my birthday (May 6th, so not too far away.. and my 21st in case anyone was wondering ;) ) in hopes that this would fend off the algae better. I may also need to find a way to raise my lights up a bit (the legs I ordered for it ended up not fitting).

2. I disturbed a lot of the HC on my little "hill" when I filled the tank, resulting in hours of frustratingly tweezing pieces back in place only to have more float away. I was thinking I would go emersed again in order to get the growth more rooted in that area.

3. My driftwood is also a part of the disturbance of HC on that hill. It is easily knocked around when I try to maneuver in the tank, and I'm thinking I should just rip it out, attach a big old rock to it, and rebury it.

I think that's all :).

I'm thinking I need to redo the riccia rocks I put together as their growth was fast, but it doesn't seem quite full as it is long coming out of the mesh.. not sure how to fix that.
 
#29 ·
Plants came in (thanks to joraan!) and everything's set up. I'm just gonna let everything grow out for now and green up before I trim. I'm hoping the fissidens will grow out nicely for me.

Here are some pictures, I'll take better ones later at some point.







I have my light sitting on a couple blocks at the moment, I am planning to build some sort of frame for it with legs. I will probably make it rimless and get an eheim along with lily pipes too.

I know for fish I want a few CPDs, not sure about what else. I love the look of scarlet badis, but they seem really high maintenance. I'm also a sucker for bettas but I wanted to keep the fish rather small to keep the scale of the scape looking right.
 
#32 ·
Thanks! Scale was a big thing in creating this scape, I really wanted it to look like an underwater world :).

I had not thought about a rod for the light. I originally bought these clear plastic legs that were supposed to fit all aqualight fixtures, but not mine apparently (it was a discontinued item, so I was taking my chances with them). I was planning on resting the light on a small wood frame and just screwing the legs into it as they have screw holes anyway, but the rod is definitely something to consider.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top