ADA Mini-M: Source

[ddtran46]

Originally Posted by clwatkins10

I like it! It compliments the rock really well.

+1.
Your plants look really healthy lol

[legomaniac89]

UG, I miss you!

[Ugly Genius]

The algae in Source is still pretty bad. Growth is slow. This + that leads me to believe that I've got to start paying attention to dosing now that I'm getting back into this game.

That said, I like how the tank's coming along.

[CL]

It's great to see updates, man! What happened to that cool rock?

[Ugly Genius]

Thanks, cl. You should have seen the rock before I trimmed just now; it was almost completely obscured by Mini Microsword and Pearlgrass.

I added some plants since I last posted here, but I can't recall what they were. Purple Bamboo's one. The other is, I think, Mini Rose Moss.

[CL]

Oh, I was talking about the rock that hung on the glass.

[ZooTycoonMaster]

I love the rock formation in the back! It reminds me of a cave

[Ugly Genius]

Have you ever fallen in love with a person who's bad for you? Someone you shouldn't love because they have some bad qualities and they simply do not make your life any better by being in it.
Maybe they don't respect you the way you deserve. Or they drink too much. Maybe they cheat on you. Whatever it happens to be, this person is no good and you would be better off leaving them.
However, knowing this fact -- and to you it is irrefutable and without question -- you just can't let them go.
Because:
You love them.
We could go into the reasons why you love this person that you shouldn't, but why bother? In the end it always comes down to the same thing: even if you know why, it doesn't change the fact that you do.

It's like that with this tank.

Source is bad for me. She's got perpetual hair algae. Her growth is frustratingly slow. She kills all but the hardiest of shrimp. And, I will finally admit, aesthetically, she's a mess. Yes, I will admit that right here and now, Source is ugly.

Her balance is all off. The DW "swoop" of which I was initially so proud is gimmicky and ostentatious. The colors are boringly monochromatic and the textures of the plants clash. The overall effect of all of Source's flaws is that something's off.

But when I lean on my forearms on the kitchen counter and my breath presses against her 4 mm. glass, her beautiful details revealing themselves to me, I know that I love her.

I know, irrefutably and without question, that she will one day be the tank I know she can be.

So maybe sometimes love is just invested faith. Faith that may or may not pay off in the end.
Sometimes love -- no matter the kind -- is not about you. Sometimes it's about that which you love; about making something besides yourself better.
Maybe of all the people in the whole of time and space, only you can love with the specificity required to bring those details to a beautiful and complete whole and that's the purpose of it all.

Or maybe you're just a sucker for punishment.

Hard to say.

[Ugly Genius]

Oddly, by reducing the bps to one from two I have increased the amount of pearling in Source.
My thinking is that by reducing the pressure through the diffuser, the CO2 is is expelled slower and can spends more time in the WC as it's not being shot to the top like a bullet.
Just me thinking out loud, though.

Added Narrow Leaf Java Fern and Bolbitis to the back of the tank.

[hyphination]

I love your mini microsword FG! how long do you leave your ott-lites on for? and does this plant stay low even in shaded areas?

[dawnstrider]

I have been reading through the threads for quite a while in this forum and i must say that yours are by far my favourites Mr.Genius! The way you create your 'scapes and comment on them is really inspirational.

I hope you keep it up!

Greetings from Turkey

*mumbles something about the lack of ADA products in his country*

[Ugly Genius]

Hey, hyph. The lights stay on about eleven hours. Ideally, I'd do less, but I don't keep any of my tank on a timer so they get turned on by hand about thirty minutes after I wake and go off about half an hour after I get home from work.
Here's the thing with Mini Microsword. In high and low light tanks, it stays pretty low, but it can, on occasion, get as tall as two inches. In the shaded areas of high light tanks, however, it can get really tall -- as tall as four inches.

You can kinda-sorta make out the taller MS to the right of the rock.

Yesterday, I was feeling nostalgic for the days when I first learned about this hobby. Back then, ADA stuff was not available in the US, HC was just a rumored cool new carpet plant, and CRS, believe it or not, were a lot cheaper than they are now. This was six years ago.
Back then, the store for me to go to was Nippon Goldfish Company on Geary. They closed in August 2005. Not shortly thereafter, AFA opened on Fillmore, but by that time, I was out of the planted tank game and I never stepped foot into AFA until right before page one of the Riven journal some four years later.
Nippon Goldfish Company was a cool store. A two-story wood building a few blocks up from the also-now-gone Coronet theater where George Lucas is said to have loved to watch movies. (It's also the theater where those dudes waited in tents for forever to see The Phantom Menace. Suckers!)
Back then, I saw my first planted tank. So beautiful. I remember details flying at me with rat-a-tat-tat rapidity. It's so green! A lawn in a fishtank?! Bubbles on the plants! Are those shrimp? Talk about ADD. I had trouble pinpointing exactly what it was about this planted tank that so fascinated me.
Thinking back, that which struck me most was the water. It was crystal clear.
As a matter of fact, today still, I am not content with a tank I've built if the water is not crystal clear. I don't care how solid the layout is; I don't care how good the plant growth is; I don't even mind algae all that much so long as the water is crystal clear. In my mind, the most important aspect of a planted tank is crystal clear water. To me, it's indicative of a system that is balanced. It means I've tuned the various aspects -- light, filtration, ferts, fauna, and flora -- ideally.
In any event, I brought up my nostalgia because yesterday, feeling as such, I bought a bag of my first planted tank substrate, Flora Base.

It's my intention to use this in a new tank that I'll start building today. I can do one of several things. I can build a twenty-five cm. cube; a 45-F; or I can rebuild Elements. Right now, I'm leaning towards rebuilding Elements as I want to correct the mistakes made when initially setting it up. (Also, it's got really bad clado, and there is no beating that algae with blackouts, CO2, or what-have you.)

I'd dry-start Elements with an as-of-yet undetermined carpet. Glosso maybe. Rocks only, I'm thinking. But I'm just thinking out loud. I'll stop by AFA later and see what strikes me. If a new tank is in the cards, I'll do that. If I find a hardscape piece that fits Elements, I'll go that route.

EDIT: Thanks, dawn, I appreciate that. And don't worry about the lack of ADA stuff in Turkey. Like I said earlier, six years ago ADA stuff wasn't available here, either. This hobby's starting to take off. Given time, I think even the non-plant geeks will know about it.

[corporate p]

how funny. Nippon gold fish was the store that go me hooked on this hobby too. are you referring to the planted tank about 20 to 30 gallons on the second floor counter?

[Ugly Genius]

Hey, p. That's probably the one. Nathan, a cool guy who worked there, set up that tank. It was a Truvu tank, that much I remember. It had a Glosso carpet that pearled like nuts. I really wish I could see that tank again. It'd be neat to measure against what it looks like in memory versus what it actually looked like.

I got a Do!aqua Cube Glass 25 and some driftwood from AFA today.

This is just the bones, but as the driftwood fits in the tank in only so many facings, the final hardscape's not going to look too much different.
I'm probably going to do a Glosso carpet, but I'm not ruling out MM, either. I'm open to suggestions, of course.
Light's going to range from thirteen watts up to eighteen. I'll decide that once I figure out my carpet plant.

Anyway, here's the start of yet another.

Oh, I don't know what kind of wood this is.

[prototyp3]

What are the dimensions of that new cube? The wood looks very similar in shape to the redmoor wood they have overseas. Have you tested to see if it sinks without a soaking? That piece is definitely centerpiece potential!