Y0uH0's 100 Gal <warning 56K>

[fresh_lynny]

Originally Posted by fresh_newby

What is the plan for the new scape? Looking forward to it.

Yeah ignore that....I saw the layout and thought it was your old layout...sorry. But as we all know our plans change when reality sets in, as I am finding out quickly. This seems to be an ever-evolving process that seems to attract perfectionisys with insatiable apetites...lol I know that is me anyway.

[Y0uH0]

Originally Posted by fresh_newby

Yeah ignore that....I saw the layout and thought it was your old layout...sorry. But as we all know our plans change when reality sets in, as I am finding out quickly. This seems to be an ever-evolving process that seems to attract perfectionisys with insatiable apetites...lol I know that is me anyway.

yeah you are right,my plans for the layout really did change a little but most of it is still about the same. Hmm,i feel that we need not neccessarily change our plans just because we are perfectionists..most of the time,i feel that t he plans were changed because the situation made us do so..like in the case of my scape which you will notice after i post some updated photos,changes were made because i was unable to obtain the plants i wanted,hence i had to make amendments to get everything right. but at times,i have to admit that we change because things aren't gdoing as well as we wanted them to be.

[Y0uH0]

Hey guys,here are some updated pics of my tank which includes the set-up process as well as pictures of the completed scape. All comments are welcomed=).

Planning stages for the driftwood arrangement


In goes the JBL Aqua basis base fertilizer


Followed by the ADA amazonia aqua soil(notice the marker drawings on the aquarium glass? those were used to compute the golden ratio for my tank)


Rock scape has been arranged so for the next step,in goes the water till it just covers the substrate to fascilitate planting.


Shot of the tank a day after set up:


Another center shot of the tank.If you notice,the intended focus of the tank derived from the golden ratio calculation is meant to be on the red plant as shown in this picture.Not sure if i got it right though.


More pictures will come along as the water continues to clear up. I will also be posting a final plan of the tank layout in the next few days. Had to move and swap some plants because some plants i ordered did not arrive. However,i still stuck to a very large portion of the inteded plan for my tank.

[Y0uH0]

Fauna in my tank:

1 snow white discus
6 turquoise discus
6 leopard snakeskin discus
1 angel
8 glass catfish
3 chinese algae eaters
1 SAE
4 leopard corys
7 black mollies
6 zebra danios
2 freshwater puffers
7 otocinclus

[yoink]

Great start, can't wait to see it fill in. Make sure to post a new pic when the intial cloudiness subsides.

[Y0uH0]

Here is an update of my tank one week after initial set up. As you can see,my foreground is suffering a little. I am considering replacing the HC with hairgrass which is already growing behind it.The water is almost crystal clear except for a very mild cloudiness due to a water change which i had performed prior to the pictures being taken.

Also you can see how much the centre of the tank has grown in from when the tank was just set up.

[fresh_lynny]

Looking good! I love the glass cats schooling too. Nice job ~

[attack11]

looks great.

[Lil boy blue]

Its cool to see glass catfish in a planted tank....i havent really seen that before.....nice tank

[Y0uH0]

thanks guys for the compliments,i hope things will go on find in time to come. for now,it has only been one week since the initial setup and it is still too early to say how things are going to be eventually. My foreground needs a little tweaking and i will get back with a further update as things progresses.

as for the glass catfish,i am really crazy over them. just love the look of being able to see through them. my relatives are also amazed at such fish,probably because we seldom see them at our local LFS.

[Y0uH0]

I encountered a little problem with my HC foreground. Things don't seem to be going the way i had wanted it to be. Apparently my HC are not carpeting like the way i had hoped they would. Furthermore,some parts of them seem to be melting off. One of my planted tank enthusiast friend actually told me that the melting part is normal for HC when they have just been newly planted into an aquarium as they will need time to root and during this period of time,parts of them will just melt away however they will eventually bounce back. Is that true? If it isn't,does anyone know the reason why they are in that state? My PH is around 6.5 while my KH is 1. I don't think it has to do with lighting because my hairgrass are doing fine and they are supposedly high light plants.

[Y0uH0]

I checked with my local LFS regarding my HC problem. Apparently,the HM that i bought also melted away. So i was wondering,should i leave the remaining HC that are struggling to survive in the tank? Or should i uproot them and try planting a new set of HC again? Or should i just change a new foreground plant entirely?

[jart]

I am not sure what species I had, HM or HC. However, IMO, it may not be the best choice for the foreground. Perhaps best for the midground. Mine struggled for a while (~3 weeks), then it really took off. Main issue you might have with it is that it requires a fair bit of pruning, perhaps twice a week, to keep it neat. Then once you pruce, it takes a few minutes to fish out the pieces. That's why I think it may be best in the midground; you might be able to let it go for a few more days without pruning without it drawing as much attention.

[Y0uH0]

Well,it's been a month since my tank was set up and i must say alot of changes have taken place ever since then.The following is a list of changes that have been made..
1)Replaced 2 of the 40W T8 tubes with 2 80W T5 tubes bringing the total wattage of my tank to 280W or about 2.8W/gal.
2)Replaced the HC foreground with hairgrass and another plant which i am trying out,need ID please.
3)Replaced the hygrophila polysperma,myriophyllum hippuroides and gymnocoronis spilanthoides midground with blyxa japonica.
4)Rearranged the left side of the tank a little so that the low light slow grow plants would now be covering a larger area of the tank.
5)Added some bolbitis heudelotii and anubius coffeefolia as well as increased the number of anubius nana and javafern to the left side of the tank.
6)Shifted the position of the E.parv(tropica) so that it would play a more central role.
7)Added some tonina amongst the wood with taiwan moss attached to it.

As you can see,alot of changes have taken place and along the way,i had encountered some algae problems of my own. Not long after the tank was set up,i encountered green water in my tank and not long after,i noticed some BBA growing on weaker plant parts as well as on some hardscape.For the GW problem,i went with the water change solution as a UV sterilizer was far too costly for me.I also reduced the fertilizer dosage for the tank as well as increased the CO2 levels for the tank. The GW problem has now been solved and the BBA is currently under control with no new growths sighted.I will continue to update the thread in time to come. As for now,thank you all for all the inputs and comments.

[Cardinal Tetra]

Very nice tank. I can't wait to see how it matures. That plant you got there is Marsilea.