I've finally decided to AQUASCAPE a tank. All these years I've been raising jungle grow out tanks, no aquascaping to speak of.
The inspiration for this tank is from my fishing trips in rivers and lakes around Cincinnati. A couple of the plants in this tank are actually from the local area.
I'm going emersed right now. I'll add fish that will definitely tear up the hair grass so I want to give them a change to establish. And the established roots will hold the slopes together too.
tank: 75G
lights: 3 t5 HO, 2 rosettes, 1 daylight
substrate: flourite, mineralize soil, paver's sand
hardscape: black soap stones... The ph isn't affected but the GH will probably go up but what stone won't.
plant: dwarf hairgrass, giant hairgrass, ludwigia sp.
So you are actually going for the Excel, huh? I am wondering how many people that are 'algae free' also use a product like Excel. Would be an interesting study. The emersed growth is fantastic, are you going to give us a full tank shot or is this all we get, mistergreen? As strange as this sounds, BBA is very pretty in its own evil sort of way.
Everybody's tanks look so good lately, so I feel a bit envious.
The BBA has been defeated.
This tank is now running a UV 24/7. My tank can't go without it without getting taken over by brown and that black diatom algae that's not BBA. I'm not sure but growth is better ever since the BBA is gone, all parameters being the same, coincidence?
Full tank.
The dragon bones (rocks) are showing through. I'm playing this a smaller plant, Staurogyne sp. 'Porto Velho' on the front right. Hopefully they'll take off for me. Is Staurogyne repens another species from this?
The idea on making this design unified is the use of plants whose leaves are the variations on the spear shape. Forgive the Java Fern stuck on the rock. I'm growing it for my sister.
Maybe because you were adding the excel, the extra carbon source was what improved the health of the plants? I am not sure, but that is interesting if it is continuing and you are no longer adding excel. Maybe BBA is a major nutrient sucker? I like the tank, and I am glad you are moving out the java fern. I was going to tell you it was a little out of place.
Plants are looking great. But I have to agree with an above post; more trimming! I really loved the original hardscape and would love to see more of it come through. Looking great though!
Really great plant growth. My only problem with the scape is that the plants took over and theres nothing unique about it now. The very first picture in this thread is so awesome and I was expecting just grassy type plants surrounding the rocks.
But that's where I would have taken it. It does look nice now but I still would have preferred the rocks as more of the center piece.
It turned into a jungle grow out tank..
How about pulling out all the... tall stuff and just doing whatever your foreground is (or something else entirely, maybe microsword or lilaeopsis mauritiana or brasilensis) and something like Blyxa as background plants?
Just my personal opinion. roud:
Or at the least maybe put the tall plants only on the sides of the tank, leave the middle open.
The hardscape is beautiful! If I were to make a second tank, this is exactly what I'd go for. Just without the jungle - can you have too much of a "green thumb?"
It's due for a rescaping. I'm not planning to tear the tank down but only to trim, add sand, wood, and new plants.
I'm growing some plants (glosso, HC, DHG) right now to add into the tank. The plants are grown in wabi-kusa balls of sand and osmecote; no dirt to keep down the mess.
I was planning to transplant the whole wabikusa into the tank rather than each plant individually where the fishes might rip them up.
Start: 7/29/12
update: 8/4/12
As you can see, plants grow amazingly well in this setup. This is outside btw.
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