Fiona's --Green Widow Forest--; lowtech Seaclear System II

[caykuu]

UPDATE: 3/21/13
...after SOME said trimming.



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UPDATE: 3/16/13
needs a serious trimming.



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Hello peeps- I was going to only post a journal a few months later when the moss has grown in and the look is finalized, but that isn't much of a journal anymore... so, here we go:

Just rescaped my entire 55gal a couple days ago with Taiwan moss, a couple temporary amazon swords, and some manzanita wood. I'm going back to my second year in college in a week, so this was pretty last minute!

There's some rather distracting, floating plants at the moment, but will be taking those out when the moss has grown in!
The scape is unfinished- still planning to add in some java ferns to attach to the manzanita to get a more wholesome forest look. But here it is for now:

8/28/12:



Some attempted photos of my male guppies while scurrying... BAD IDEA? They move too fast for anything great. :s







The work table...! :s Cleaned already. I should have taken a photo of the TRUE aftermath. And AP prep books on the side from high school lingering around for forever..




And finally, a random shot of mid-process, with hard dot algae all over the acrylic and all:



And for the record, the magical way to get hard algae off of acrylic cleanly without leaving scratches is scraping with an old credit card (or any plastic card).


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Tank: 55gallon Seaclear System II
Filter: built-in wet dry
Lighting: T5 36", one bulb
Heater: Eheim Jager
Substrate: Ecocomplete mixed with some leftover play sand and white gravel
Hardscape: Manzanita driftwood, random rocks
Flora: Taiwan Moss, Amazon Sword, Cabomba, Wyteria, Water Sprite
Fauna: Cardinal tetras, fancy guppies (snakeskin/cobra hybrids)


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Here are some shots of my past scapes for this tank within the past year and a half, from earliest to latest.

First aquascape + planted aquarium of my life, right when it was set-up ... the start of a long hobby!
5/15/11 (somewhere around that date)











Second scape (basically the first, but with some major move-arounds... and some major hair algae).
scaped in 1/15/12
photo taken 7/15/12



Alrighty, that'll be it for now. Time to keep track of this thread myself the next few months!

[flowerfishs]

looks good

[BoxxerBoyDrew]

COOL SETUP!!!

It will be very cool once the moss grows in! I really like the arrangement of the wood!

How did you get the wood to stay in place?

Guppies have some VERY GOOD colors! Best I have seen in a while! I wish I could find nice guppies like that around here, but most of what I can find locally, while having some good color, are NOT healthy at all! Most die from move from LFS to home! VERY SAD TOO! A tank full of beautiful guppies is a awesome thing to me at least!

The previous sacpes were nice too!

Keep up the COOL tank!
Drew

[dhgyello04]

Wow.. not to get off topic, but I gave the same bird cage as you in the pic of your work table. I have a green cheek conuore. What do you have?

[caykuu]

Originally Posted by BoxxerBoyDrew

COOL SETUP!!!

It will be very cool once the moss grows in! I really like the arrangement of the wood!

How did you get the wood to stay in place?

Guppies have some VERY GOOD colors! Best I have seen in a while! I wish I could find nice guppies like that around here, but most of what I can find locally, while having some good color, are NOT healthy at all! Most die from move from LFS to home! VERY SAD TOO! A tank full of beautiful guppies is a awesome thing to me at least!

The previous sacpes were nice too!

Keep up the COOL tank!
Drew

Thanks!
I stuck the base of the wood pretty deep into the substrate. A couple of the branches are also supported by the rocks, and a few of them are leaning against the sides.

I was really lucky to find these guys posted on craigslist locally, actually! The guy was quitting the hobby, and I got this beautiful strain from him for dirt cheap.

[caykuu]

Originally Posted by dhgyello04

Wow.. not to get off topic, but I gave the same bird cage as you in the pic of your work table. I have a green cheek conuore. What do you have?

Awesome- I have a female lutino cockatiel. All she likes to do is cuddle though, no cool tricks like other parrots.

[sapphoqueen]

nice tank ! looks like a tropical forest

[caykuu]

One week in

Problems with hair algae and all other kinds of algae... I looked down and realized that I accidentally set my photo-period to 12 hours. *facepalm* Too much for a tank just starting up, especially with slow stuff like moss and a couple swords.

Soooo just now, I changed light hours to just 3 hours per day. I'll keep at it a few days and see if all that moss disappears.

And progress photos (with algae and all)... added some java fern plantlets all over the place.

(my cardinals are all dark-colored, because I turned the lights back on in the middle of them getting ready to sleep. )



Side view



Wheee, acrylic distortionnn...

[andrewluciano]

Looking good!

[DBridges]

Very nice looking tank. Once it grows in some more, I bet it will look even better. I also like the guppies. Very hard to find nice looking guppies like that in my area.

David

[ANBU]

Nice, it looks good.

[caykuu]

Thanks guys!
I wish I could fast forward the growing process, so the moss won't look so stringy for so long.. and same for the java ferns.

I heard java ferns take a few months before starting any visible growth in a new tank. Sigh.

[bitFUUL]

Great looking tank! Yup, or you could wait years to see any real growth on your java ferns too. Beautiful plants though.

[caykuu]

Haha, I do hope it's not years!
This is my first experience with java ferns... don't fail me now, plantlets.

[xenxes]

They are slow growers but they're hardy.

Loving this scape