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60P Iwagumi - First Try

47K views 121 replies 53 participants last post by  TexasCichlid 
#1 · (Edited)
EDIT - TANK RETIRED 9/2013


Starting my journal for this tank. Whenever I tell my wife that it's "Iwagumi" style, she looks at me and asks if I said ooeygooey. Now she just thinks it's funny. Oh well. :hihi:

http://youtu.be/1Zu7Z5huTWw

Finnex Fugeray
ADA 60P, slightly used
6L Amazonia New, Normal Type
2L Amazonia New, Powder Type
Seiryu type stones from PC1
Eheim 2075
Hydor 200W
eBay lily pipes ( 17mm )

5# AquriumPlants.com CO2 tank
Victor HPT 272
Burkert solenoid
Ideal 52-1-12 needle valve
JBJ style bubble counter
Sera Flore 1000 Reactor

Latest Picture




Initial Planting






Original Hardscape



Inspiration/Goal for the tank

 
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#7 ·
I am a huge fan of the "mountains" on both sides, rather than a center focus on the hardscape. I really think you nailed the hardscape, though it may bit a bit hard to keep the HC low enough to not cover them.

I have seen your inspiration tank so many times. It's a great tank but I would consider skipping the blyxa on your scape. The reason is you have a really good layout that mimics mountains (in my eyes). Putting anything that grows taller in back will diminish the scale of them, making them look small. They look very "powerful" being the tallest part. I know it's your tank, just giving my opinion.


Anyway, very nice, I have seen this journal a few times, just haven't had time to comment. Look forward to it.
 
#13 ·
Filled up the tank today. 2028 filter output is not as much as I expected. Also, my two month old Catalina 2x24w apparently has a dead bulb. Hopefully just a bulb. I plug it into my digital timer and the timer makes a clicking noise over and over with no light on. Plug it directly into the wall and no light still. Weird. How long should I wait to trim the HC after the switch? It was already getting pretty tall.







 
#16 ·
Looks good!!
The guy over at Catlina told me his bulbs were warrant for a 1 year and ballst for like 5 years or something, just give him a call.
I've notice there bulbs arent that great anyways... I plan on upgrading my evenutally.
 
#18 ·
First day of the transition went fine it seems like. The HC pearled all day long very intensely ( so many bubbles and so big, you could not even see the plants anymore ). I thought it was fake pearling at first, but seems like it wasn't. I figure I will keep the CO2 cranked for the next week, then slowly bring it down. I will trim it down after that.
 
#22 ·
Well...bad news today. Broke my eBay intake lily pipe in half trying to get a screen on it. Barely any force. Ugh. Jury rigged the suction cups for my inline CO2 diffuser to hold the intake pipe down while I try and find another 17mm intake somewhere...

I planted some Blyxa from Tom Barr. I severely overestimated the amount of Blyxa I would need, or severely underestimated the amount/size Tom would send. Most of it went to waste. I was going to RAOK it, but I had the plants out while the glass shattered so I left them out too long. Pardon the low water level and the dirty tank pictures, cleaning up anything aside from glass was not high on my list this afternoon.

General Updates

Mowed the lawn -- Butchered the HC last weekend. Trimmed back all the old growth pretty much. Got a little algae development. Adjusting CO2 and with the new LED and cleaning crew, I am hopeful it's under control.

New fauna! - Turtle Nerite, never had one, very cool. A few Batiki and Tri-color nerites, and 3 amano shrimp.

New light! - Went LED. Bought a Finnex 24" Ray II DD LED setup. I am hugely impressed. Plants are pearling like crazy, and the thing is so low profile and attractive. The shimmer in the water is beautiful. I will never go back to normal lighting.

Disaster strikes...





 
#23 ·
It's looking really good and very close to the inspiration tank, if you added just a couple of Oto's to clean up that algae the tank would look great. Are you familiar with Racheal from Invertabrates by Msjinkzd, she has some Orange Oto's that are super cool looking and rare, at least hard to find, but they would be a nice addition and thier hard workers.

I had to steal her photo to show you, they are so unusual looking.
 
#25 ·
Update.

Fish have been in for a few days.

15 Espei Rasboras
5 Orange Zebra Otos

Everyone seems happy so far!

Blyxa had a partial melt ( still some melted leaves present ) and I have refrained from overly cleaning the glass for the otos. Blyxa has actually grown quite a bit since I got it last week. CO2 has been up and down and I am fighting a tad big of algae now, but it's under control. BGA is gone. Installed a Sera Flore 500 to replace my inline CO2 atomizer. Difference is night and day. No more soda water!!! CO2 is nailed down now. Trimmed the HC a couple days ago so it's bouncing back.

On that note -- anyone have some tips on managing HC trimmings? It's a frigging mess. Right now I am using a net, but it's very time consuming. Is this just the modus operandi?

Short Video

http://youtu.be/WQbO1IvT2rk





Oto cat and his new buddy.
 
#27 ·
Update.

After adding a couple handfulls of Amazonia New to even out some slopes, I had a nitrite spike overnight a few weeks ago and lost 5 of the 6 orange zebra otos. I also lost some cherry shrimp, my turtle nerite and my amanos. Bummer =(

Week after that, rhizo began to take over my HC. Tried hydrogen peroxide dosing, Excel overdoses, limiting light. Nothing helped. Trimmed back the HC to the bone last week and added 5 regular otos and 3 more amano shrimp. Reduced photperiod to 5 hours. Algae problems are now completely gone. Slowly upping my photoperiod to 8 hours. At 7 hours now. HC is bouncing back from being trimmed down to almost nothing. Pulled some up in the process, but it is starting to carpet again.

Blyxa is growing like crazy. Will need to trim soon. Not sure how to go about trimming it properly.

Lessons learned -- Always pre-leach Amazonia when adding even a very small amount to a tank.

 
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