Journal of my 20 Long (Watching the Grass Grow!!)

[Church]

So as some of you may know, my ten gallon is now extinct. I thought I'd show a few pics of the very beginnings of my new project. I just finished the hardscape here, and I'm waiting for the Coralife t5's to show up. Once they get here, I'm planting a carpet of [fill in the blank]. I haven't really decided yet, but very soon this tank will be alive. Here are a few pics:

From the front


From the front-left


From the front-right


From the left side:



So stay tuned for more in the very near future!!

[Orlando]

Very nice, what kind of substrate is that? Looks cool
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[mizu-chan]

Nice hard scape
Can't wait until you put plants in.
Subscribed as well!

[jelisoner]

nice hard scape it looks like eco complete orlando

[@marko@]

not my eco. eco is finer and most of the particles are circular.
black flourite maybe?

i like the hardscape, too. the stripey rock looks cool.

any plans for inhabitants?

[Church]

Good morning everyone! Thanks for the comments. So, yes, Orlando, this is Eco-complete, and I agree with those of you who pointed out that Eco is not normally this large. I was quite shocked to see these big particles when I opened up the bags. I don't know if CaribSea changed their formula, or if I got a few anomalous bags, or what... But I figure I'll go with it, since I don't really have much of a choice, and the majority of the substrate was the normal sized particles I am familiar with-- there were just a few larger particles as well. I think they should all settle towards the bottom of the substrate soon enough.

The stripey rock is Zebra rock. I saw it first in an ADA dealer's website, and knew that it was what I wanted, but it was $3.99 a pound, and then there's shipping and stuff. So imagine my happy surprise when I discovered that a LFS had this rock in stock at half price! For $1.95 a pound, I picked up about 30 lbs of the stuff, then came home and spent literally 5 hours trying out different combinations of rocks before settling on this hardscape.

My thoughts on the inhabitants are, so far, that I want a nice school of fish in there, and I already have a small school of Black Neons in my girlfriend's nano tank, so I'm going to initially put them in there. If they don't provide the look I'm going for, then I will move them to the 45 Tall that I am still working on as well, and then maybe go with some Rasbora in here. But ultimately I'm thinking a school of tightly-schooling fish, a bunch of Amano shrimp, and of course, my favorite fish of all time, a handful of otos.

As far as flora, I'm initially going to just start off with just a carpet of something... to get that traditional Iwagumi look. I'm going out today to pick up about 4-5 pots of lillaeopsis brasiliensis, because I liked the way that looked as the carpet in my now-defunct 10 gallon. But if the LFS doesn't have any, or it doesn't look good, I'm going to take that as a sign that I should move on and try a different foreground plant to expand my pallette a bit. In that case, I will go to aquaticplantdepot's nursery tomorrow during my lunch break and get some glossostigma. I've seen some really nice Iwagumi's with just glosso, and I think this hardscape would make that work well.

Ultimately, though, I'm hoping I can get some microsword in here, and just carpet the whole entire tank. As soon as that look gets old to me, I will start adding a few Rotala spp. to fill out the background a bit, and then maybe put a stand of some Rotala 'Vietnam' in there as a focal point. I'm a full-on Rotala junkie now, and I am in love with that Genus. If I could, I would marry it.

I'm open to suggestions, by the way... for plant suggestions, or even livestock for that matter. I mean, I definitely plan on starting it up as a traditional Iwagumi, but that will evolve into other things, undoubtedly.

Stay tuned, because I'm gonna make this tank supersweet, I promise. I still have some hardware to buy in the near future, too. For instance, I plan on getting some glass filter tubes, and an inline heater, to make some of the ugly hardware disappear. Then I'm either going to build a CO2 reactor, or get one of those new glass diffusors over at Green Leaf. That means I'll be talking to you soon, Orlando.

More pics coming soon, hopefully this evening.

[@marko@]

wow, big eco. mine is practically sand. its a good substrate, though. your plants will do great in it (full of nutrients, and almost as much iron as flourite).

good buy on the rock. all my LFSs have is slate, granite, and argonite.

tetras tend to stay near the bottom, especially when there is no thick background to dart into if higher up. so i suggest you put some white clouds (or gold clouds) in addition to the tetras; to have some reason to look at the top of the tank.

may i suggest you also try some Lilaeopsis mauritius? it looks just like the brazilian micro sword (in my 20L i have both and i cant tell the difference). however, it acclimates much faster and grows faster overall.

[rekles75]

I have been waiting on this journal since the 10 GAL fiasco, Glad to see it posted now.


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[fishman9809]

i love the hardscape, but i think you should make the main rock stick out more and the supporting-stone a little more out as well. the rest of the side-stone should be little more pronounced as well.what plants u planning on having in here?

[clwatkins10]

lucky you, you have a blank slate to work with looks good so far
edit: oh yeah, the larger pieces rise to the surface, so maybe you could take out the boulders, and smash them with a hammer to crush it into finer pieces

[@marko@]

no, they dont rise. the smaller ones just fall into the holes inbetween them.

[Church]

Yeah, eventually I will let things settle and scoop out the larger pebbles. I think, though, that Eco kind of breaks down a bit. Because when I go look at the very first eco I ever bought, which is still residing in the now-drained 10 gallon, it looks very fine-- a lot finer than I ever remember it being. So I think the bigger pieces might break down of their own accord. At any rate, I do plan on removing some of the larger pieces at some point, or over time...

Fishman, I see what you mean about the stones' positions. I'm going to hold off, though, before rearranging them, because I want to carpet the tank a bit first. Once I do that, I've already positioned the rocks in such a way that I could "fine-tune" them later, after the carpet comes in and I can visualize better what I'm working with.

Oh, and I'm right now tossing between just carpeting the whole thing with micro-sword, or glosso. Which of those do you guys think would look better? Once I get over the initial Iwagumi look, of just rocks and carpet, I'll try to recreate a similar, rotala-dominant scape to that of the 10 gallon. But for now, just carpeting.

Glosso or lillaeopsis?

Thanks for the comments everyone, as usual!

[@marko@]

my advice:
if you ever have to choose between 2 plants for your tank, choose both.

glosso in the front (and middle). lillaeopsis behind the last row of stones and kinda curving to the sides of the back few stones to kind of hug them and make it look more nartural.
doing this means you will have to trim the glosso well and often, to get rid of the upright shoots that would take away from the nice height difference of the microsword. you will also need to keep it from overgrowing the microsword (it grows irratably slowly, where as glosso grow invasively fast).

[Church]

Thanks for the advice! Also, I forgot to mention, I had already planned on going out and getting a few pots of lillaeopsis, but my LFS was all out. So I'm going to call aquaticplantdepot today and see if they carry it. I don't think I've ever seen it on their webpage, but that doesn't mean they don't have it. I have to get my glosso from them anyway, so hopefully that will work out.

So, anyway, I expected to already have my plants ready to be planted, but I still don't. I'm expecting my coralife fixtures to arrive either today or tomorrow, so I need to get this show on the road!

Stay tuned!

[Church]

I've been reading up a lot on glossostigma today, and I'm almost starting to doubt that I will be successful with it...

Everything I've read seems to agree that it doesn't do well in hard water, whereas the lilaeopsis thrives in hard water. Does anyone know if my fears are founded here? Should I give up the idea of going with Glosso? I mean, i already know that I like lilaeopsis, and it seems to like me, so what do you think? Should I give it a go?