ADA Mini S: Sanctia X

[Francis Xavier]

I really like the front left rock too, it's cool. However, it's a lot bigger than it looks in the pictures, which is part of my placement problems with it. In fact, it's too big to be in a nano normally, but I decided I could put most of it under the gravel and have the cool part sticking out, so I'm still messing around with it to get it to work right.

Yes, clwatkins, the sticker is crooked :\ I think I got the red-headed step child Mini S!

amphirion I agree, they need to be farther apart, which is part of my frustration with the size of the rocks! they're too big! And I can't decide on a good theme for the tank yet. I have however decided with my recent upsurge in rocks to make a craggy mountain type theme in Ukiyo.

I'm still messing around with layouts to see if I can't hit that golden setup. Drama is good!

[hilikus16]

I agree with clwatkins...I like the last scape. However, the first one would be nice if the rock in the back left was burried a bit more

[aquaphish]

Forget the setup and arraingment of rocks and substrate, if you have small cracks or defects in the glass you should return it for one without defects. YOu paid good money for your equipment and should not be handed a defected tank.

Imagine if you did get a monitor or TV with a burnt pixel would you keep it? Just think if you bought a DVD player and it continously scratched your DVDs would you keep it? Imagine if you got a high priced tank with small defects in the front would you keep it?

[Francis Xavier]

aquaphish I totally agree, I'm tossed on whether or not to go through the trouble of getting a hold of AFA again and telling them about it (and, they're out of stock of Mini-S's apparently now) or trying to repair the glass myself. On the one hand it's a big irritation, I definitely wouldn't want to pay shipping again. On the other, there's something somewhat attaching about fixing the errors and making it work. I'm at a toss up. Maybe UG could bother them for me or something! Some of them don't even seem like scratches, like they're a fine line of silicon or something. Another scratch makes a squiggly line pattern, it's perplexing.

Between the plants and the tank, I'm grateful that the light hasn't imploded on delivery or the CO2 ruptured and lost all it's pressure. I will be calling AFA on sunday at their opening time to figure this one out. If I can get a good shot at the scratches I'll post them here.

On better notes, I really appreciate the feedback on the setups. Still hammering out setups outside the tank.

Update: So it turns out they aren't scratches, they're silicon or something that basically got adhered to the glass. It perplexed me that they felt more like "bumps" than ditches in the glass, although wiping over them didn't remove them. I then decided to inspect my Wabi-Kusa Cube Garden tank and peruse it (I had kept it in it's box because I have to clean some things out first to set it up), and noticed the same flaws in the glass.

These marks usually were around the top corners and near the corners in general. However, I was able to buff them out by taking a clean dry light hand cloth and vigorously buffer the surface. It takes quite a bit of physical effort to get it out, but generally rubbing it with your fingernail behind the towel and going in a vertical motion, then a horizontal motion, slowly but surely removed the marks without damaging the glass or scratching it.

The ADA glass is actually quite scratch resistant I noticed. It takes a little while to get these marks off but if you run into it on your tank, don't panic about it being scratches right away. They're typically on the inside of the tank (which means something didn't knick it in shipping, they do a good job of protecting the tank), except for a few which were the same consistency of the ones inside.

Just make sure the cloth you use to get rid of the marks aren't dirty or have dust particles on them, and make sure you give the glass a once over to remove any residual dust from the air or the like that might be on it. This way you don't scratch the glass by dragging particles along with it and make it a real scratch. Also, a dry cloth works better than a wet one, I had no luck getting these off with a wet cloth when I originally tried (which made me think they were scratches to begin with). Also I liked to keep equal pressure on both sides of the glass panes to avoid any possible problems with the applying too much pressure to one side of the glass since most of these were on the corners. Whether or not there is actually any danger of breaking the silicon on accident, it's better to be safe in my opinion.

But my tank is now "scratch" free. Now if only I could easily fix the crooked ADA sticker~

Lesson here? ADA aquarium or not; KEEP YOUR GLASS CLEAN, even if it's sitting on a shelf waiting to be sold.

[Ugly Genius]

I wouldn't trip too much over the crooked sticker. One, no one will notice it. (Except for cl.) Two, if you make a kick-ass 'scape, people will probably try to emulate you and get their stickers crooked, too.

[CL]

Originally Posted by Ugly Genius

I wouldn't trip too much over the crooked sticker. One, no one will notice it. (Except for cl.) Two, if you make a kick-ass 'scape, people will probably try to emulate you and get their stickers crooked, too.

I'm changing my sticker as I speak

[Francis Xavier]

I have to say guys, it's really the comments that keep you going through the head-banging experience of staring at combinations of rocks for hours on end and seeing what fits and works out. Probably because you think "well! at least someone else is as insane as I am to appreciate it!" Cause normally non-aquarists don't see the potential until after it's 'done.'

I was mostly joking about the sticker too~ I like it, it adds character. Or at least reflects someone being like "oh my god, I hate my job, screw it, I don't care anymore...sticker sticker sticker sticker...Just kill me now...hmm I'm gonna mix this up a little bit...crooked sticker, straight sticker, vertical sticker, crooked sticker...hehehe"

Here's some more tinkerings with the aquascapes; as always input is more than welcome:

[Francis Xavier]

A couple people have asked me, so I'm going to derail for a post, and put up a couple photos of the trips to Japan I've been on. Maybe some inspiration will hit after looking through these again:

[CL]

Beautiful photos!!

[Francis Xavier]

Thanks clwatkins, luckily I got better at photo taking by the time I went back a second time, and half of them weren't all blurry.

One final setup attempt (I think this one's promising!) for the night/morning/whatever, if I go with something along these lines I've got the perfect name: The Terrace. I tried to maintain the overhang effect aquaphish pointed out, while still utilizing that same stone that just screams to be used somehow.

[hilikus16]

I like that last scape but there's something about the large stone in the back left corner that makes it overpowering. If you have a smaller stone or if you can bury that large one more I think it'd look great. Your definitely on the right track so keep of up. I'll definitely be watching this tank evolve.

[chase127]

it looks good, but try grouping the smallest rock with the largest rock, and having the medium one by its self. things might balance better. you dont really want straight lines when you scape and the rock on the left is parallel with the left wall of the tank.

[Francis Xavier]

Here's the skinny. I really liked the terrace idea, but there are two problems that have arisen. One the tank isn't big enough. Two, the rocks are too big. The rock I was using as a terrace simply takes up too much of the tank (I think this things ground cover takes up nearly half the tank's space, hence the reason the 'terrace' arose to begin with). So basically, regaining the ground lost with the terrace means the next biggest rock can only occur on top of the terrace.

This left me with a couple options with that setup. Mostly that either the rock had to be alone (leaving the tank kind of bare on the hardscape), or combined with other rocks on top of it and to the side (if a big rock was on the right it crowded everything out) and the scape ends up being one sided either way. So I had an issue of too much or too little.

This has driven me to scrap the terrace idea for this tank for the time being at least, and go back to one of the original scapes I had put together (but not posted). I think it actually works out a lot better than the scapes I had put together to one up it. I guess that gives credence to the "go with the first hunch" theory. Therefore, I now humbly submit that scape to be placed under the scrutinizing eye of my fellow aquarists (which I'm thankful for, something about scaping a lot that makes you blind to your own errors in an attempt to say "to hell with it!! this will work!!!" and end up with something subpar.



This scape is what I'm going to call an "unconscious Iwagumi" since I set it up almost exactly to Iwagumi principles without even thinking about it. There's the main stone, the small worship stone at it's base, and then the third stone "bowing" to the main stone.

[Craigthor]

I like the one with the night lights I think you should do that in this tank.

[Dollface]

WHOA, go with that one, maybe just add a tiny bit more aquasoil around the base of the stones and you'll be set.

That is seriously one of the best iwagumi nano hardscapes i've ever seen.