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Crazydaz's Square 200G RIPARIUM Stikes back-The End Teaser shots of new set up 7-24

253K views 848 replies 191 participants last post by  leequan 
#1 · (Edited)
Just finished up with the move from old rental property to new home. Life sure has been hectic lately!

So, the Journal starts over, and as much as I hated to tear down the tank from this:


and this:


To THIS:


and this:


.....but it had to be done. To re-set and try to go with the same aesthetic would have been uncreative and boorish. Everything was sold or given away. Many thanks to Tlyons01 who spent a "fun" afternoon tearing the tank down with me. It only took about 7 hours. :D

Prior to that, the outside of the stand/pedestal was removed. It was made of 2x4's: very solid construction, but the outside was made of pressboard. A terrible choice, in retrospect, for obvious reasons. It had been warped and bubbled, and was a total eyesore. So, I stripped it down and threw it out.

Here are a few pics of the new pedestal:




That is red oak stained with walnut with iron hinges and knobs. We're going for more of a "rustic" old-fashioned look for the sitting room, and I thought that this would look nice. Eventually, the pendant above the tank will be redone either in black, or it will be done to match the pedestal. Probably happen in January. In the new design, I added side doors in order to make accessing the equipment in the back easier to do. It has been triple coated in poly on all sides to ensure water resistance, and almost "water proofing."

The day following the drain and dis-assembly, we moved the tank, lighting, and new pedestal to the new house. This was all done within two hours, which was faster than I had anticipated. The move went flawlessly, and I was ready to re-start the scape. So....

IN went custom made Manzanita branches that came from hydrophyte, plain kitty litter (about 30lbs), and that was topped by MTS made by DogFish. The Manzy branches are semi-poseable that will allow me to move the "joints" as needed in order to access equipment with relative ease, or to alter the hardscape as desired. You will notice screws in some of the future pictures; these are the "joints" I refer to....just a simple screw and nut assembly. Hydrophyte did do a marvelous job cutting the ends of the branches into simple fittings through which the screw passes through and is held on the other side by the nut.

DogFish sent six large Flat Rate boxes of MTS to me months ago, and makes about a two inch layer in my tank. Wonderful stuff!:





Sprinkled on the potash, pressed it into the MTS, and then topped that with some of my old tank's substrate. Added the Seriyu stone and the old stone from CraigThor's tank, and now this is how it looked:





Three rock "peninsulas" are featured in this set up for bucephelandra, anubia, and java fern species; the substrate will feature mostly crypts.

More pictures tomorrow!!
 
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#178 ·
Oh, not that type of false background!! Just a blank partition that will stick out slightly from the wall behind it. It will probably be cream colored only, or maybe it will be covered in fabric or something. No false nature scenes for this guy!!
 
#180 ·
Oh, the ol' "nature pics" from the wife? Hey! This is a family forum!!! Lol

Don, the 3 stems should be no problem. One of them is already growing emersed in my paludarium and the other 2 should be breaking the surface any day now, so your conversion time should be nil.
 
#183 ·
Yes, TGWTF, it is high tech.

Some good news.....I think that I am pretty much set for Seriyu stone. Received a few really nice pieces today in the mail, so I think that my peninsulas are pretty much done being built up. Probably need one last nice-size stone, and maybe a dozen or so small cobbles to polish it off a bit. The buce's, java ferns, anubias, and so on are doing pretty well at binding everything together, so it's coming along and making nice progress.

I have a few more Manzy branches coming next week, mainly for support purposes than anything. I also threw my Korelias back in there as well to get better flow for a while as I was getting some hair algae formation. Minor set back...I'll try to get some more nerites when I get back from Thanksgiving.

Still trying to scratch my head over what to do about hiding the perfectly cut branch ends.....point a tillandsia there of any kind would make it look obvious that I am trying to hide something, and it would make it look too "Dr. Seuss-ish" for me. I open to ideas!

Some pre-"Tanksgiving" pics:







Left Side--






Thank you all for looking and, as always, feel free to comment!
 
#185 ·
Don, you're right, just sticking a plant there would look, contrived, for lack of a better word. a suggestion? my not just take a small pair of pliers or side cutters and break off little pieces to make them look broken, instead of cut. you don't need to take much off of them to acheive the desired look. just remember to cover the tank or you'll be fishing manzy chips out of the tank for weeks.....LOL
 
#191 ·
Thank you Learner!! :D

Some pretty cool news! My wife and I just got some furniture to help get us closer to "completing" the Sitting Room, or "Fish Tank Room"! It's our first "Big Boy" purchase for our house. We bought two matching chairs to view the tank from, and two matching dark, dark, dark brown bookcases to go on either side of the tank. Looks better than I thought it would, and I'm pretty pleased!:





Bookcases:


I purposely lightened the picture to show the bookcases a bit better:


View from one chair:


......and the view from the other:


Tank update....well, going through a hair algae phase right now. I have tried cutting back on my photoperiod, but it really hasn't seemed to help, and with my crypts taking off, I dare not dose Excel. To be honest, I'm not really concerned about it anyhow. I'm starting to get some BBA, which in my experience means that the algae is starting to lose the battle. Algae problems always happen during a new set up.....the trick is to not lose your head about it. Keep doing what your doing, in terms of dosing, keep the lighting about the same, and just increase your plant mass. I'm adding more stems by topping and re-planting stems until my crypts, buces, anubia, and java fern have significantly grown and multiplied. It will take some time, but I already knew it, and admitted it. So, the algae really isn't shocking, and it is of no real concern. It will go away.

I did lose 24 horned nerites that I paid for, which annoyed me. I received the shipment in from a supplier on Aquabid, and when it arrived, the box was damp. I opened it up, and the bag was open and leaking. He rubber-banded the top closed, but didnt' tie it. So, the rubber band snapped, and the bag leak, and the snails didn't make it. Guess I won't be ordering from him again!

I have the last of my rock arriving tomorrow (I think), and have additional plants and critters on the way. Mainly Olive nerites and Amano shrimp. More branches are coming in as well as some more Staurogyne repens to help fill in the foreground a bit more. I ALSO GOT TWO NEW LIGHTING FIXTURES! Two 8x54watt HO T5's TEK Elite systems, for a total of 16 bulbs. I LOVE the lights that I have, but it looks too homemade, and it's time to upgrade. New Geisemann bulbs are on the way, and I will probably try to get two Red Sun bulbs before I leave for Christmas vacation.

Anyhow, click to enlarge the pics, as always. Feel free to comment, and thank you for looking!

Front:


Just the tank:


Just the top:


If you look at the bigger view, you can see the crypts are becoming finger-lickin'!:


Probably my favorite shot of the pics I took....water is clean, and the Seiriyu stone "peninsulas" are really getting the look that I sent out to get. It only took 400lbs+ to get it:


Top view looking down:
 
#202 ·
Thanks Aaron! I am dosing modified EI to the water column as well. I do have some stems in there that probably need the extra "oomph," as well as keeping everything else looking colorful. I'm also feeding riparium plants too, so they need the nutrient load to be a bit high as well.

16 lights isn't so bad....it's only four more than what I have up there right now. But I needed the upgraded lighting to fit the aesthetic of the room better than the "DIY" feel of my current pendant "Star I". It works great, and I hate to get rid of it, but it's just time to move onto "Star II."

Toksyn--Thank you, kindly!! The plant is Alternanthera "Variegated." I bought some from Jojo a while back, and has done very well for me. It provides a nice contrast in the tank, while tying in the colors of the plants above, and also within the room itself now (with the reddish-orange chairs). It also has a variegated pattern similar to what you find in Hygrophila polysperma "Sunset." Very cool plant....nice color, spreads laterally, and grows fairly slow.

Ryan---thank you, Sir! I hope it will be an improvement over the last one! The top part is nice....and bottom is at least trying to catch up a bit now! :D Time will tell!

MarioMann72--Yeah, I haven't used them for a few years, but I really haven't needed to. Now, I'm just waiting for Arizona Aquatic Gardens to send me my stuff, man! I ordered it Sunday evening, and still haven't gotten any word yet regarding the shipment. It's causing me to clench my jaw a bit. I've ordered 24 Amano's, 30 olive nerites, and 6 Bamboo shrimp....and I was hoping that they would be here by now. Anyone else have dealings with them? Is this normal?

Tyler--LOL! "Primo"! Nice! Thank you very much! I hope that you are enjoying the thread, and maybe getting some inspiration and ideas of your own to try out. I've seen some Tillandsia species popping up on other threads as well, which has been interesting. Always neat to see others with the same ideas, and still others who take an idea and improve upon it!

Bill---HEY! I WAS THE ONE the picked out the furniture, I'll have you know! It's my room, and my wife told me to have at it. ;) She was along when I picked them out, and she OK'd them, but I picked them out! LOL! I assure you that I paid for them...you can believe that!! Yeah, it's nice to be able to sit down in that room now, do some work, and listen to some music. Sonic Chill podcasts from 107.1 out of Ann Arbor, MI. You simply cannot beat it!

Keith--Thank you, buddy! It very nice to have your support, and I hope that you can find this thread useful and/or enjoyable! And, if you hate it, I would expect that you would tell me that as well!!

Looks like our lunch or dinner in Lexington will have to wait....I'm going to Alabama the week after next, and that will likely be the end of my travels until January. I do need to get back there in January, so maybe around the middle of January, if you aren't too busy, we could meet up again!!

Frank---IS THERE ANY OTHER WAY?!?!? :D HAHA!! I had to match the furniture to the Alternanthera "variegated," so I had to see if it was going to first make it or not, yes?? :hihi:

Well, it certainly is MUCH better now. The only time where I would spend any time looking at it was when I was working on it, which was the same issue I had before back at the last house. That's no good! So, the chairs are a welcome addition!! The bookcases will be useful, but now I'm kinda at a crossroads with those: if I load them up with impressive texts from my college years, will the spines be too distracting? I feel like I need to buy some sort of leather-bound encyclopedias, or something, to match. Likely, I'll just throw some kind of books in there. I held onto those damned college texts for a reason....it's about time to put them up and impress "would be" dinner guests, hypothetically. You know, in case the tank doesn't do that for them already.

Marko---That's hilarious! Spoken like a true college student!! :D Too funny! It wouldn't work for me, though. I like to slouch, so it would be very uncomfy for me!!

BeachBum2012---Hey, thank you bud! It's been an effort, and it is nice to get compliments! I find it equally amazing that so many people have been kind enough to say so! I didn't expect that, so I am truly and sincerely flattered!! Thank you!!
 
#214 ·
Keith--Thank you, buddy! It very nice to have your support, and I hope that you can find this thread useful and/or enjoyable! And, if you hate it, I would expect that you would tell me that as well!!

Don, the one thing I hate about your thread is that it makes my tank look like child's play lol..... Really, you are a very good 'artist' + 'farmer' + 'landscaper' all combined in one.Your journals have always provided plenty of opportunities for me to learn and absorb.

When you coming to Lexington bro?
 
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