Lego's 20 Long Journal - Rescape in Progress, 11-19!!! (Pic Intensive)

[legomaniac89]

This tank has been set up for a few months, I wish I had taken pics of this tank from the very beginning . Oh well, here it is.

It's a *mostly* South American setup. This is back in Oct. 2008, about a month after initial startup.
By the way, this is at my work at a fish store, hence the mess of bags and mouse cages in the back .
At this point, the plants were:
Echinodorus amazonicus
Cryptocoryne wendtii "Bronze"
Ludwigia repens
Java Fern
Peacock Moss

Fish:
11 Glowlight Tetras
3 Corydoras arcuatus
2 Otocinclus sp.
and a whole lot of Cherry Shrimp

Hardware:
Light: Coralife T5 Aqualight (6700K/Colormax bulb)
Filter: Aqueon 30
co2: Some DIY system I found, can't remember exactly what it is.

Parameters:
Temp: 80F
pH: 6.7, I had to fight our extremely hard/alkaline water for a month to get it to this point.
gH: 150 or so
Nitrates: <20ppm
WC: 50% every week

Not many plants at the time, but I kind of went plant-crazy back in December.

I pulled out the Ludwigia and added
Hygrophila angustifolia
Crinum calamistratum
Anubias barteri var. nana (normal and Petite)
Aponogeton crispus
Echinodorus "Compacta"
-on this, I'm still not sure if these really are Compacta swords or not, if someone knows better than me, please let me know-

More Fish!
1 Albino Bristlenose Pleco
1 Male Bolivian Ram

Finally, this is the tank now, taken Jan. 20, 2009

I placed a couple of Java Fern "Windelov" and a Nymphaea stellata in but that's about it You can see the Hygro in the back right corner really starting to grow out. It came in emersed-grown (like every other plant), so it had to convert over for a while.

Close-up of the Windelov.


The Bolivian Ram

And a berried female Cherry.

We had an old 30" Coralife 2-65w straight pin light sitting around, so I threw it on top of the tank. The watts per gallon are up to like 6.5wpg now. Now that we're up to date on the tank, here's my next idea. I'm going to change it over to a fully 100% South American tank.

I have Indian Red swords, E. tenellus, and Red Rubins on the way so I'm gonna be doing a bit of a re-scape next week when they get here.

I would love any 'scape suggestion you guys have. Let me know what you all think.
Any questions? Comments? Rude Remarks?

[Madfish]

Looks nice does the Ram like to have a shrimp dinner every once and awhile?

[bolivianram123]

Nice tank! the left side is a bit empty but i saw your getting new plants so I'm pretty sure some scaping will be done. The Indian Red Sword is an awesome plant. I have one in my 20L but it grows fast and gets huge. I'm going to move it to my 29. But when it's small it is really nice, especially the transition from green to purple. And i only have 65w, you've got 130w! just a heads up

[monkeyruler90]

it'll look nice once everything fills in.

woot woot. representing South America!!

[legomaniac89]

Originally Posted by Madfish

Looks nice does the Ram like to have a shrimp dinner every once and awhile?

I have noticed the RCS population in a decline lately Ehh, it's alright, they'll all probably get scooped out when I re-scape anyway.

I pulled a few of the non-S.A. plants earlier and sketched up a rough design for the new biotope. I only hope it will look as good for real as it does in my mind. I should be getting the new plants on Wed. (Feb. 4) so I'll try to get most of the planting done and post the new pics then.

[legomaniac89]

Alright alright alright the tank is officially South American now.


You can see the Indian Red to the middle-right side and the Red Rubins all the way to the right.



I pulled out the Glowlights and replaced them with about 18 Neons. That's the great part of working at a fish store; you get bored with the fish in the display tank, just pull 'em and put new ones in.



And here's those *ahem* Compacta Swords. I'm still not sure if that's really what they are.



I'm hoping in the near future to get some Potomogeton gayi and Hygrophila sp. "Porto Velho" for this baby. So that's it for now, I'll keep updating as the tank progresses.
Still open to any scape suggestions anyone has.

[legomaniac89]

Oh yeah, here the super-high tech co2 reactor.



Hydor Green NRG. Awesome, right? My bosses don't give a rat's crap about the tank, so I doubt they'll let me order a pressurized one anytime soon.

The diffuser at work.

[legomaniac89]

Man, trying to keep up with the storm of replies to this one

What I need are scape suggestions. What I'm thinking is on the left side, I have three pieces of driftwood, and I'm thinking of removing the front two. In their place, maybe some Potomogeton gayi or a sword of some kind.

I am looking for some South American plants that would look good along the left side, but am kind of at a loss. There's a lot of swords already, so I'd like something different, but would still flow with the tank (wow, that was vague). I can get the P. gayi from my work's supplier and plenty others, I just need ideas before I do anything.

Suggestions? Ideas?

[legomaniac89]

Don't everyone post at once

The Potomogeton gayi isn't available from my supplier now, or for a while. They're out of Florida, and I guess they lost about a quarter of their plants to the freeze down there.
So I have some Alternanthera reineckii and Echinodorus harbich coming instead. I'm going to remove the front two pieces of wood on the left side and put the Alternanthera there, and probably put a Harbich or two in the front left side.

Finally, the so-called Echinodorus "Compacta". A couple of the plants have now reached the water's surface in record time, so I'm starting to suspect that the Compactas aren't really Compactas. Echinodorus amazonicus? Probably. I definitely don't need more of the massive amazonicus's in this thing, so they're probably gonna go fairly soon.

Once again, scape suggestions? Anyone?

[SeaSerpant]

Don't dispair over spilt milk in this case no posts. Usually this means that everybody is in awe over your tank and there speachless, so they have nothing to say
I think it looks good. Do you have anything other that swords in there?
WHAT DOES EVERYBODY ELSE THINK????LOL, C'MON POST

[kid creole]

I like SA tanks, and I like this one a lot. The big mamba-jamba sword looks like it is begging to be in a 90 instead of a 20L. I like that it strives to be something better.

[kid creole]

BTW, how bad are the water parameters that you are fighting?

[legomaniac89]

Originally Posted by kid creole

BTW, how bad are the water parameters that you are fighting?

The normal Elkhart water from the tap is something like...
pH: 7.8-8.2
gH and kH: can't remember off the top of my head, but they both maxed out on the Tetra strip tests last time I tested them.

As of now, the tank's pH is 6.0, the gH is about 3, and the kH is <100.

[legomaniac89]

Originally Posted by SeaSerpant

Don't dispair over spilt milk in this case no posts. Usually this means that everybody is in awe over your tank and there speachless, so they have nothing to say
I think it looks good. Do you have anything other that swords in there?
WHAT DOES EVERYBODY ELSE THINK????LOL, C'MON POST

Lol yeah, that's it! Everyone's in total awe!

Most everything in the tank are swords, but the grassy plant in the front is Lilaeopsis brasilensis, and there's Peacock Moss on the driftwood in front of the huge Amazon sword. I have Alternanthera reineckii coming next week too.

[kid creole]

Originally Posted by legomaniac89

The normal Elkhart water from the tap is something like...
pH: 7.8-8.2
gH and kH: can't remember off the top of my head, but they both maxed out on the Tetra strip tests last time I tested them.

As of now, the tank's pH is 6.0, the gH is about 3, and the kH is <100.

The tap sounds perfect ... for Africans.