Boostfed's 1st Planted Journal. Iwagumi & DSM!

[boostfed]

Hello Everyone,

so i've been a long time hobbyist and a first time planted tanker, i've fallen in love with the Iwagumi style and want to mimic that. here are my stats :

Size: 20 Gallon

Lighting: 24'' T5HO 10k

Equipment:Toms Canister Filter w/ Hydor Inline 200w Heater

Rocks: Yamaya Stone

CO2: ADA Archaea CO2 Injection

Substrate: AS Amazonia

Fertilization: EI Method
KH2PO4 Mono Potassium Phosphate
KNO3 Potassium Nitrate
CSM+B

Flora:
HC (foreground)
Micro Swords ( midground maybe)
Blyxa or Hairgrass (background) i heard hairgrass will take over the tank quite easily though

Fauna:
Amano Shrimp
Danios
Galaxy Rasbora
Oto's
Neon Tetra

i've yet to start since i'm still scaping, but i will be doing the DSM soon when i can get ahold of some HC. super excited and can't wait!!! here's what i have so far, hopefully you all can give me some insight! i'm stuck between these setups, any input would help, thanks!




This one may be my favorite


Day 1:


End of Week 4:


Update on progress:
End of Week 1:


End of Week 2:


End of Week 3:


End of Week 4:


end of week 5

[discuspaul]

Where's your pics ?

[boostfed]

just u/l'd them , hehe

[i'm a ninja]

I personally like the last one best, but you'll probably want to get some taller rocks as the shorter ones may get covered up. If you don't mind me asking, you wouldn't happen to drive something with a turbo would you?

[boostfed]

thanks for the suggestion, i chose a lot rocks but unluckily i didnt choose the bigger ones because my perception of my tank at the time wasn't as high as it actually is, heh. i like the last one as well, its starting to grow on me more. at the moment i dont drive anything turbo, but i've owned many cars that have been turbo'd or turned into freaks of nature, i usually build them up, have my fun with them and then move on to the next one... aquaria is easier on my pockets, haha.

[Jaggedfury]

Nice setup, I like the last one also. What ya boostin'
I'm running twin turbo!

[i'm a ninja]

lol i know what you mean about the aquariums being cheaper. I can't hold on to a car either, I get one, get bored with it, get rid of it, and get another. Back to aquariums, I did the same thing and bought rocks too small in the first place. I was short on cash so I decided to try to find something at a landscaping/ rockyard type place for cheap. I ended up getting a little over 150 lbs. of nice, light and dark grey rocks for $5.82.

ninja'd by jaggedfury, what are you running twin turbos on?

[boostfed]

Originally Posted by Jaggedfury

Nice setup, I like the last one also. What ya boostin'
I'm running twin turbo!

my last boosted car was a wrx wagon, fun car! i left turbos for a while and got into some N/A power, i recently sold my LS1 V8 rx7 and just let go of a z06 that was waiting for a blower....lol , good thing i didnt pull the trigger on that one though, i had people interested in buying her, haha.

Originally Posted by i'm a ninja

lol i know what you mean about the aquariums being cheaper. I can't hold on to a car either, I get one, get bored with it, get rid of it, and get another. Back to aquariums, I did the same thing and bought rocks too small in the first place. I was short on cash so I decided to try to find something at a landscaping/ rockyard type place for cheap. I ended up getting a little over 150 lbs. of nice, light and dark grey rocks for $5.82.

ninja'd by jaggedfury, what are you running twin turbos on?

you sound exactly like me ninja, hahah. 150lbs for $5 is a steal, i wouldn't know what to do with it haha, i did my shopping at Aqua Forest in San Francisco and wish i would've gotten some larger ones but its ok, maybe with the next setup, heh.

[Jaggedfury]

I wondered if I've seen that FD3 with the LS1 V8 lol. I've seen several one on CL in the bay area listed. Pretty sweet setup. Very cool.

I'm running two GT675RS Twin turbo on a Nissan 300ZX. Slightly boosted 19 psi. ;D

[boostfed]

holy cow, those must put a smile on your face for sure, hahaha nice!!

[boostfed]

still on the hunt for some HC to grow in cant find any locally and i dont have the time to make the trip to AFA, nuts.

[boostfed]

finally got some HC !!! took a quick trip to AFA and picked up 8 pots of it, great looking plant ! didn't really know what i was doing since it was my first time planting anything with fine roots pretty much , but i got through it. took off all of the rockwool and started stabbing away with my tweezers... not sure if i did it right, but i just stuffed whatever roots i could get ahold of into the substrate and thats pretty much it, hehe.




after about an hour or so here's what i came up with



side tank shot, i left the rear unplanted to fit in some background plants later on.



wish me luck!!! i have the light on for 7 hours, ADA says 6 for the soil and most say 8hrs for the plants so i found a happy median, haha. i sprayed it with just regular faucet water and covered it up with saran wrap, i left a little hole for circulation though, let's see how this goes! if it starts going south, does anyone know how long it'll take and what the signs are? Thanks everyone!

[rickztahone]

Nice! You could have gotten better spread to fill in faster by this way works as well

[boostfed]

i was too lazy to pick them apart so small, haha, i've heard to do small clumps or larger clumps as well so i tried both, theres some smaller bunches in there as well as big ones, so i guess i'll be able to see which one will work better in a few weeks.

cleaned up the front of the tank for some frontal shot, hah.

[rickztahone]

Originally Posted by boostfed

i was too lazy to pick them apart so small, haha, i've heard to do small clumps or larger clumps as well so i tried both, theres some smaller bunches in there as well as big ones, so i guess i'll be able to see which one will work better in a few weeks.

cleaned up the front of the tank for some frontal shot, hah.

I know what you mean. I did the same thing the first time. I planted 3 pots of glosso today and pretty much did it one by one. Came out good though.