Treants - 155 Dirt build (56K) It's Flooded!

[thefisherman]

Dutch! its awesome to see you in TPT...i responded to your e-mail, i'll try to post pics of the moss tonight. i'm sure all of the gurus in the forum would be able to ID my moss

i'm totally excited about your project and will definitely subscribe ...welcome again!


- thefisherman

[LetThereBeFish]

Oh holy cow! This looks very VERY promising! Can't wait to see this in action! There's only one thing of advice I would add. Follow these instructions: 1. Take out the driftwood. 2. Place driftwood in box. 3. Fill with bubblewrap of package peanuts (your choice). 4. Mail it to me. 5.....well...Thats the improvement....for me.

[wkndracer]

Thanks for posting the build!
Gonna be a kicker for sure.

[Dutchworks]

Week #2 results
------------------
Everything seems to be growing in and getting greener! Added a bunch of Downoi (Pogostemon helferi) today and moved a few things around. Ty for all the feedback!

[Dutchworks]

Week 4 results

I decided to name this week "Lessons learned".
I found out the hard way that I had too much water in the soil, started to see the hc and glosso turn yellow and die. After adjusting the water level to about 1 inch UNDER the top of the cap, things seems to be turning around. I no longer mist (except to squirt the moss on the wood) and I have turned the fogger off.

The fact to impart with those of you wanting to try this method is that the DSM (dry start method) uses the humidity from the soil to keep things moist. You do not have to add water every day, you do not need to mist every day.

Because I had things TOO wet, I got root rot on some of the plants which caused the yellowing and die off. I expect that they will recover, I already see new growth in some of the affected areas.

Full view:


left:
Downoi and Starougyne are really filling in nice.


middle:
Still have some yellow hc left over, but you can see the new growth. Starougyne is filling in and the mini-pennywort in the back is taking over! Fissidens are growing out on the wood.


right:
This was the biggest problem area, you can still see the glosso "dead spots", but it is starting to snap back. Started some xmas moss on the tree here that is taking off good, I have more xmas and mini xmas moss coming next week.


And yes, that is a fly strip in the tank. Seems that gnats love the conditions of a terrarium environment! Guess i could have thrown a frog or 2 in there

Thanks for looking.

[Dutchworks]

Light mods.

I had been toying around with going with LED lighting for this tank, after looking at what's available and what it would take to DIY, I decide to wait a while (not in the budget atm). The problem that I have with my current set up is that the tank is 72in long, and my lights are 60in long. This leaves some noticeable shady area on the ends of the tank.

I had some 48in CoralLife quad fixtures laying around, and had some new bulbs so I decided to adapt them to my setup. Since the tank is only 18in deep on the sides, I will have a little overlap since the lights are 21in. I plan on putting on a background sometime in the future before i flood it, so the overlap will not be too noticeable.

My first step was to cut the lights down to size. I took them all apart, stripped out the wiring and ballasts, and cut the reflectors in half. The lights come apart into two pieces, one for the bulb area and one for the wiring and electrical. I used just the bulb frame and cut this half as well.

To mount all this, I bought some 1/2in aluminum channel, some 10/24 threaded rods, nuts and washers from lowes. I used the channel to make the frame for the setup and drilled it so that I could use the hanging kit to attach the rails between the lights. The rest is self explaining in the pictures.

I did not wire in the fans from the fixtures, the ballasts are mounted on pieces of channel that act as heat sinks.

Each side is able to use 2 bulbs, but that was too much light (130 watts/side), so I'm only using 1 atm per side.

The bulbs are dual daylight\flora or 10K\6.5K in color. I also got some new bulbs for the main lights that I will put into play when I flood the tank. I was not really happy with the bulbs that came with the original fixtures (Aqualine plantgrow)they looked too pinkish, so this time I went with a combo of Geisemann midday and aquaflora powerchrome bulbs.




The addition of these lights really brightened up the ends of the tank. I will need to adjust them when I flood the tank to get the correct par settings.

[Hyzer]

Excellent scape! Your choice of plants is great too.

What type of fish are you thinking?

[Dutchworks]

Originally Posted by Hyzer

What type of fish are you thinking?

Initially going to go with lots of shrimp, cherrys and maybe some reds and some otos.

I'm thinking later perhaps 6 dozen or so cardinal tetras for some color. fish will need to get along with the shrimp, so smaller varieties for sure.
I'm open to ideas if you have any.

Thanks!

[2in10]

Great looking scape. Have you decide what will be in the back yet?

[Dutchworks]

Originally Posted by 2in10

Have you decide what will be in the back yet?

I'm thinking of either a large clump of Rotala roundifolia in the middle or a combo of Rotala Magenta and Diandra. This would add a lot of red color to the tank.

On the right side, I have a large mass of needle leaf java fern that i will place behind that tree.

I'm still undecided on the left side, the scape suggests leaving it all as hc in the corner and filling the "hill" with larger mid and background plants.

I'm open to suggestions

[Miles]

Wow that driftwood is absolutely stunning in and of itself!

[kwheeler91]

Thats gonna be awesome, well more awesome. looks similar to jeromeit's 72 bowfront. Hopefully you wont make us wait as long as him to fill it

[Lil' Swimz$]

It's exciting to see more and more people try the dry start method. Looking forward to updates.

[Dutchworks]

Ordered the rest of the plants today for the back, these will all grow emersed so will have a good start on the root system before the flood:

10 -Diandra (Didiplis diandra)
10 -Rotala Magenta (Rotala macrandra v. 'narrow leaf')
10 -Rotala Wallichii (Rotala wallichii)
10 -Mayaca (Mayaca fluviatilis)
5 -Rotala Indica (Rotala roundifolia)

lots of colors in these, reds, orange, greens.

Also got the mosses tied to the trees, I'll update with pics once everything is in this weekend.

I'm shooting for June 1 for the flood.

[2in10]

Nice collection with a variety of color and leaves