Lately I have been battling some BGA and its evident in the pictures. This is pretty much as far as I wanted to go with this set up. I might try an HC foreground to increase the depth but thats more work on this very unstable tank.
I thought I would share with the lovely people on Planted tank and get some opinions on how I can improve in the future. Probably won't do any changes to this tank since I am already planning a new scape, but if your suggestion is good who knows...
Yeah If you zoom in on the first they look blue its just when I sharpened it I lost the blue. I didn't notice until they where online. The bigger pics aren't as bad. They are green neons.
Consistant but SLOW!!! If I use dwarf hair grass again i will try and plant it much thicker and in smaller bunches. I think my problem was the constant battles with algae made it hard for the plants as well.
Nice rock placement. Overall, this tank looks great. The only suggestion I would give is to move the blyxa from in front of the rocks to behind them on the left side.
Its not blyxa. Good guess though since that was the original plan for that spot. It was sold to me as Echinodorus tennellus but obviously its quite large. I think its one of the larger Echinodorus grass like plants not sure which one. Doesn't bush as well as blyxa and as you can see in the picture it sends runners, unlike blyxa which is a stem plant. It wasn't supposed to grow that big but what are you going to do.
Caymandiver75:I got it to grow like that by waiting... Thats about the only trick. Pressurized co2. I only use 2x54w Tek T5. The other two bulbs haven't been used, too much light.
I am hanging a piece of black cloth off the back it works pretty well and I can switch to a different color very easily.
Fresh newby:I only have three plants. Eleocharis parvula, Echinodorus tenellus, and the larger Echinodorus perhaps angustifolius but thats just a guess. There is some riccia, moss, and hc hiding in the grass hard to pick it all out.
I trimmed it twice. It grew in faster in some spots and started to grow taller there. The front left was full quite a while ago. It is a real pain picking all the cut blades of grass off the surface of the tank. They just went right through my net. Took me a while.
Turtlehead: Thanks. Yeah its been slow going. If my original plan to have HC as the foreground had worked out I would have been done sooner.
That is really impressive. I love the gentle slopes and serenity. I followed the link and read the whole thread over at APC - and was truly impressed with the progress, especially over the various algaes. Nice work! You're certainly not a beginer anymore.
I finally redid this tank. The hairgrass was getting to thick and the tenellus/ angustifolius where growing taller and spreading to far in the tank.
I am trying something a little different with this one. I have a kind of hill of substrate in the middle. I noticed some iwagumis had this hill like structure and thought I should give it a try.
This was my first try at the hardscape and its ok. I redid the whole tank and replanted it with glosso all in one night so anything would have looked good when I was done.
I planned poorly and found out to late that I had to go on a college viewing trip and thats what forced me to rush the redo. I might not have time to replant all that glosso for weeks because AP season and State testing is coming up so the hardscape will probably stay basically as is for a while.
I would love some suggestions on the rocks. I am having a hard time visualizing this tank complete even though its just glosso, so any advice will help.
I changed it and changed it and I am trying this scape right now.
My tank a couple weeks ago:
My tank tonight:
My newest scape is my best attempt at copying Amano's scape on page 95 of his first book. It uses black rock instead of the petrified rock he uses. Myine also has a lot more points and texture while his had lots of lines and softer edges. I hope this tank looks decent, and I hope my glosso finally fills in how I want it too...
I like your Iwagumi skills. Somehow I feel you have hit a perfect sweet spot regarding the size of the different boulders. Not too big, not too small. "Lagom" big as we say in Sweden: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagom
Honestly, I really liked the "couple of weeks ago" rockwork better than the Amano-copy. In the newest scape, the largest boulder looks as if it wouldn't be situated that way naturally. It looks "unsettled", if that makes any sense.
That large boulder makes the whole composition since it looks like it's part of the underlying rock and connected to all other rocks. My brain knows that is not the case of course. To me a sucessful aquascape equivalent of "Suspension of disbelief". The only way the large boulder can stand that way is if it connected to the other boulders, making a complete whole. If it was - it's very settled in a very interesting way.
or if you keep the larger boulder there...maybe sticking a taller plant that fills in the spaces as to make it look like they are all connected. like blyxa or a sag that fills in nicely...i prefer blyxa's for iwagumi layouts...i actually like both. They both have a potential to look very nice when grown out.
I have lots of extra tenellus if I want to go that way. You guys don't think the glosso filled in will fix that?
I see the problem. I just ignored it because I couldn't find anything I liked better.
In the old one I really hated the look of the biggest rock. I don't know why. I had to change it it just ate at me.
So the general consensus is to add tennellus aront he biggest rock and that area. If so I would probably have to balance that with a little tenellus on the far left side...
I will think about it. This tank is more me trying to beat the glosso than get a great looking tank. Its beaten me twice now in this tank. I am determined to get it right.
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