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Kayen's 40B - Ferns galore - 12/4/2012

5K views 38 replies 9 participants last post by  Kayen 
#1 · (Edited)
Just moved my 33g up to this guy, and with the help of .Mko. and us finishing midterms and having a 3 hour break between finals and midterms, we went ahead and embarked on this project. Pretty much purchased nothing except the AC70 powerhead and prefilter.

Some pics taken hours after setup and then specs:





Lighting: 1x39w T5HO Hagen Glo w/ Lifeglo bulb
Filtration: Eheim Ecco 2234
Other: Maxijet 400w/ sponge(not attached yet) + AC70 w/prefilter attachment
Substrate: Shultz Aquatic Soil

Plants: C. Wendtii, Java Ferns, Anubias Nana, E. Tenellus, random bits of moss and subwassertang.

Low tech, just flourish and excel 1x a week is the plan, easy maintenence. Looking to add a couple more river rocks and bit more anubias nana, and otherwise denser e tenellus in the back where it is.
EZPZ
 
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#30 ·
Got a pic of the Cleft-lipped Goby :


Also, I totally understand with the modern look, some of the stands with the extra trimming touches look too "fancy" or excessive. Simplicity in furnishings can really be beautiful alot of the times.

As i've learned with hockey goalie gear - sometimes doing it yourself is best (alot of my gear is customized and hand modded by myself to my own likings) - so it can definitely apply to the aquarium hobby as well with some vision applied.
It can definitely be seen with some DIY projects i've seen here in the past when i was more active.
 
#19 ·
The b looks good. And dont worry that many people haven't posted its just that there are so many threads on here it's hard to look at them all. And there really aren't that many ADA obsessed folks, just a lot of people that find a very good value in the tanks and soil they offer. You really can't fund a better value than with the ADA rimless tanks and the line of AS they offer.
 
#21 ·
Easy there, as said many just look and its easy for a journal to get lost quickly behind 3 pages of posts.

I think the manzanita placement for the first tank is excellent, only suggestion would be to get a mid ground plant behind them or amongst them. It will give a subtle transition from the bushy right corner to the open grass area

Sent via Tapatalk; SGH-T589R
 
#23 ·
Ill comment on the scape and hopefully the OP can handle constructive criticism it is 100% something I wish were used more on this site but since this is a very, very friendly and close knit community people don't want to seem brash or appear to be callus or insensitive. Also from what I have found being a member on this and other sites for as long as I have is that in the vast majority of journals where the OP is looking for comments, they don't like hearing that someone has anything to say other than "WOW gorgeous or what a masterpiece". I think it would be a disservice to this site if everyone said that about everyone's tanks, then we would never learn anything. So hopefully you will use what I'm going to say to make your tank a true aquatic beauty concerning the scape. You look to have the husbandry side down alright as your plants all look relatively healthy and are certainly growing well enough.

So this brings up the actual hard scape which is comprised of anything hard like wood or rock and could be categorized as just about anything in the planted tank that does not grow. Your thin pieces of manzanita are overwhelmed/powered by the shear size of this tank. On top of them being not substantial enough they are in a spot, not sure if its due to the shape of the wood (very finger like) or the lack of something hard rooting it/tying it down to the tank instead of just the nice looking grouping of fern that is behind it. It appears that you have read up on some scaping techniques or have at least heard of the rule of thirds but pretty much what the latter boils down to is that whatever your focal point is it needs to be centered (or almost centered somehow) on an imaginary line if you were to divide the tank in to thirds from left to right. I cant explain why it is more pleasing to the eye laid out that way but I'm sure I can rekindle images of tanks with pink or neon blue inert pebbled substrate that had a bubbling skull/bubbling shipwreck/'no fishing' sign or any other myriad ridiculous petsmart/co tank decoration smack in the center of the tank. For obvious reasons the tank looked very bad but for not so obvious reasons we all knew something else was just not right. Well if they had positioned whichever aforementioned aquatic abomination just a bit more than slightly left/right of center at at least the tank would have been balanced.

You are certainly on the right track and as the plants mature things will get even better. If it were my tank I would be on the lookout for a big black/very dark angular stone that would be at a minimum tall enough to reach halfway up the height of the tank (at a minimum, you wouldn't want to risk it being overshadowed by the tank as well if you didn't rim the tank for a few weeks after when you normally do trimmings. In a perfect world this rock would almost hit the surface and if you couldn't find one that was big enough in width, I would seriously try to find one that was skinny and that you could have protruding from the rear like a mountain bursting from the sea!) to put at the the point where the manzanita emanates from/starts moving from the right to the left. I would also get some more of it that was even MORE curvacious and roughly 2x's-2.5x's thicker in diameter than the existing wood and perhaps even would start from the beginning point on the right and would be long enough and bend enough to where it would, at its highest point be about 2/3's tot he surface of the tank. If you could get 3-6 pieces of wood that could do that and put them over the existing pieces that would be amazing. Then under the branching DW hand you could have a nice thicket of crypt parva or any other very low to the ground, foreground plant you liked. Perhaps a parva thicket with a few bushes of Downoi to create more texture...

Couldn't you imagine your angels swimming playfully through the driftwood tendrils as they would in their native Amazonian home but there it would be through the actual roots and under-structure of the forest surrounding that great river? I sure can!
 
#25 ·
Ill comment on the scape and hopefully the OP can handle constructive criticism it is 100% something I wish were used more on this site but since this is a very, very friendly and close knit community people don't want to seem brash or appear to be callus or insensitive. Also from what I have found being a member on this and other sites for as long as I have is that in the vast majority of journals where the OP is looking for comments, they don't like hearing that someone has anything to say other than "WOW gorgeous or what a masterpiece". I think it would be a disservice to this site if everyone said that about everyone's tanks, then we would never learn anything. So hopefully you will use what I'm going to say to make your tank a true aquatic beauty concerning the scape. You look to have the husbandry side down alright as your plants all look relatively healthy and are certainly growing well enough.

So this brings up the actual hard scape which is comprised of anything hard like wood or rock and could be categorized as just about anything in the planted tank that does not grow. Your thin pieces of manzanita are overwhelmed/powered by the shear size of this tank. On top of them being not substantial enough they are in a spot, not sure if its due to the shape of the wood (very finger like) or the lack of something hard rooting it/tying it down to the tank instead of just the nice looking grouping of fern that is behind it. It appears that you have read up on some scaping techniques or have at least heard of the rule of thirds but pretty much what the latter boils down to is that whatever your focal point is it needs to be centered (or almost centered somehow) on an imaginary line if you were to divide the tank in to thirds from left to right. I cant explain why it is more pleasing to the eye laid out that way but I'm sure I can rekindle images of tanks with pink or neon blue inert pebbled substrate that had a bubbling skull/bubbling shipwreck/'no fishing' sign or any other myriad ridiculous petsmart/co tank decoration smack in the center of the tank. For obvious reasons the tank looked very bad but for not so obvious reasons we all knew something else was just not right. Well if they had positioned whichever aforementioned aquatic abomination just a bit more than slightly left/right of center at at least the tank would have been balanced.

You are certainly on the right track and as the plants mature things will get even better. If it were my tank I would be on the lookout for a big black/very dark angular stone that would be at a minimum tall enough to reach halfway up the height of the tank (at a minimum, you wouldn't want to risk it being overshadowed by the tank as well if you didn't rim the tank for a few weeks after when you normally do trimmings. In a perfect world this rock would almost hit the surface and if you couldn't find one that was big enough in width, I would seriously try to find one that was skinny and that you could have protruding from the rear like a mountain bursting from the sea!) to put at the the point where the manzanita emanates from/starts moving from the right to the left. I would also get some more of it that was even MORE curvacious and roughly 2x's-2.5x's thicker in diameter than the existing wood and perhaps even would start from the beginning point on the right and would be long enough and bend enough to where it would, at its highest point be about 2/3's tot he surface of the tank. If you could get 3-6 pieces of wood that could do that and put them over the existing pieces that would be amazing. Then under the branching DW hand you could have a nice thicket of crypt parva or any other very low to the ground, foreground plant you liked. Perhaps a parva thicket with a few bushes of Downoi to create more texture...

Couldn't you imagine your angels swimming playfully through the driftwood tendrils as they would in their native Amazonian home but there it would be through the actual roots and under-structure of the forest surrounding that great river? I sure can!
This is exactly what I like seeing too. Great post should be more like these. :icon_mrgr
 
#24 ·
That is precisely what i was looking for. Great input and comparisons towards what i need to do. The 40B is what i'm looking to scape mainly (the 10 is just something I have to keep the betta happy with).

In an ideal world I easily find a rock like that, but alas i have to keep a look out for - but what you suggested is something I had in mind - I also wouldn't mind a bit of emersed growth as well coming from this tank.

Going to keep an eye out for more scaping materials.
Once again thanks for the great input. Constructive criticism is what helps speed up improvements.

- K.
 
#26 ·
Thanks guys (hopefully, sorry if not!). That's what I was hoping to hear. I have made more than just a few similar posts to people journals and was greeted to either their misplaced anger or their sobs and them saying how they might just end up taking the tank down, etc, boo hoo hoo. I couldn't take it. So to say I was a bit trepidacious about posting true, direct, helpful constructive criticism here would be an understatement. Not only because taking the time to dissect your tank with my eyes and mind is time consuming but also putting the effort to give you my best direction and then typing it out is also not as simple as saying 'nice work, keep it up'!

But I felt that from what I saw you obviously do care about your hobby and aren't just wasting your money on a hobby that will be packed away in the basement in the next three months and joined our site to just post threads with questions that have painfully obvious answers and reject any views/opinions that vary from your own even the slightest bit.

Plus I have a 40b sitting in my basement awaiting its filling only because I cannot find/make a stand that doesn't rind me of a Dr's office or some other sterile environment!

What is yours being supported by?
 
#29 ·
Thanks guys (hopefully, sorry if not!). That's what I was hoping to hear. I have made more than just a few similar posts to people journals and was greeted to either their misplaced anger or their sobs and them saying how they might just end up taking the tank down, etc, boo hoo hoo. I couldn't take it. So to say I was a bit trepidacious about posting true, direct, helpful constructive criticism here would be an understatement. Not only because taking the time to dissect your tank with my eyes and mind is time consuming but also putting the effort to give you my best direction and then typing it out is also not as simple as saying 'nice work, keep it up'!

But I felt that from what I saw you obviously do care about your hobby and aren't just wasting your money on a hobby that will be packed away in the basement in the next three months and joined our site to just post threads with questions that have painfully obvious answers and reject any views/opinions that vary from your own even the slightest bit.

Plus I have a 40b sitting in my basement awaiting its filling only because I cannot find/make a stand that doesn't rind me of a Dr's office or some other sterile environment!

What is yours being supported by?

Want to give constructive criticisms on my tank too? jk you dont have to if you don't want to. I get a lot of "good jobs" and a few tips but not to the degree that you dished out. I'd love that. Me and Kayen both really enjoy the size and depth of the 40B and both would take your points to consideration the next time we work on the tank.
 
#27 ·
About 3 years back, I was supported by a shoestring budget, and what ever i made from selling excess HC in that emersed iwagumi cube i had for awhile.

As for now, nothing really, that 40b was thrown together on spare cash here and there. We were thinking of re-doing the 10 as well, but also the 40. Going to wait for it to warm up a bit up here (actually it's really warm up here - typically there's 3 feet of snow on my lawn at this time of year - this year ... i can see almost all the grass) - and go to a rockyard, see what i can find.

As for a lower lying plants - think downoi would do well in a CO2 free lower lit tank?
If you meant stand - 1" thick plywood painted green. On a home made stand originally made for my 33, but works for my 40B as well.
 
#28 ·
It's amazing what we can out together with little to no funding when we have a goal in mind.

I'm thinking that I'm going to have to employ my father in law again perhaps to make a stand for my 40b. He and I made the ADA style stand that my 60-p is on in my journal in my sig. It's just that it will be in the front den near the entry of my home and across the entry way is our dining room which is filled with very nice furniture and trying to put something together that compliments that room. The problem is that I have a problem with just about every offering I can find for a stand/hood because it is just too country/kitchen table looking IMO. I really like contemporary style when it comes to tank furniture, exposed metal/glass/not all ornate and warm feeling. What to do!?!?
 
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