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CMLaracy's ADA 90P (final photo shoot)

9K views 53 replies 19 participants last post by  CmLaracy 
#1 · (Edited)
**Color corrected photos in updates**

Been a while since I've done one of these, upgraded from the 75P and hand made cabinet to a 90P and an ADA cabinet because I'm a big boy now ha. It's very obviously Iwagumi, I used seiryu stone (30kg+) and HC 'Cuba' exclusively; I'm not going to lie it's my favorite plant. Still using a MH pendant with a 150w ADA 'Green' that's brand new and still needs some time for the green to die down and settle/burn in a little bit. Ask away about other equipment.

Here's some set-up progression pictures. I used hand cut pieces of corrugated plastic board as substrate supports/dams to help the rocks keep the dramatic slope that allows you to see HC 'Cuba' in the background.

Here it is now after some time to clear, filled today.



Okay now we can rewind to the beginning.

The cardboard divider for the river, which was meticulously bent at nearly every corrugation (took hours I'm a nut).



This rock was the right shape but too large so I had it against the glass and propped up with smaller stones, the dirt did a good job eating it up and making it look smaller, and it also helped hold the slope.



Adding powersand advanced



Corrugated plastic supports peaking out before adding powdered AS



River getting filled in



Details coming along



The riverbed detail took many hours and lots of smashing of seiryu stone



Preliminary hardscape, things change from here a little



Planting this took at least 8 hours; I went through about a dozen of these trays and 32 cups.





Densely planting as it is the only bio-load



Filled with a bag with paper towels for wicking to further slow the fill water





Directly after filling


Cleared up a bit with in line CO2 diffusion on so there's bubbles adding to the fog



Off angle with the light in view. That's my tank for now, cheers!

 
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#3 ·
Thanks! I figured with the HC being the only bio-load, I should go heavy for maximum nutrient absorption.
 
#7 · (Edited)
Thank you! And yes actually, you can't hand make something of this precision. It's machined to extremely small amounts of error as everything fits and is shaped too perfectly to be hand cut. Then I'm sure they put it together by hand. It's surprisingly light, but plenty stable; although because my old handmade one was made redundantly strong and did have less wobble if I say push on the suction cups too hard.

Clean setup, the overhead shot really shows the effort you put into this. What filter are you running?

Subscribed!
Thanks! Just a modest Rena XP3 (Don't even think that's the name anymore) still running like new.

Dude, welcome back! How've you been? I've got to admit to being jealous of the old lighting. The 7000K CRI is my favorite and I'm having a hell of a time finding T5 in that range. That's some serious planting; how long did it take to separate and plant all those pots?
Hey man thanks! Life's been good, biochemistry degree, working my medicinal chemistry masters degree, getting married next spring... I did develop psoriatic arthritis though and had to give up 90% of everything I do so there's that. Life is good and life is bad, but I still have a lot to be thankful for.

And yeah I'm dreading the day I have to move on from these MH bulbs, they're just so nice. They also have the perfect amount of shimmer... some LED's I see these days just have too much shimmer it's like a disco in your tank.

I didn't keep track but way more than 8 hours. "Day two" was 26 straight hours of work non stop.
 
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#10 ·
Thanks!

That's going to be lush once it fills in
I think you should add at least one more species of plant though, it'd be a shame not to since there's a lot of potential here. Hair grass usually contrasts nicely with these carpeted tanks
I've actually done a scape or two with just HC and hair grass. Arguably my best scape was those two and those two only. For this I really wanted it to look extremely minimalist and like rolling hills surrounding mountains. I'm also very curious to see what this much HC looks like. Wasn't a decision I made lightly, the cabinet took 2 months to come so I had a lot of time to plan this one.

I'll upload a pic of the inside of the cabinet, which now fits my ballast which is awesome because I can't hear it humming anymore (magnetic ballast).
 
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#12 · (Edited)
Finally got some shots with a proper white balance, my iPhone XS Max washes the photos out in blue quite badly. I messed up the back left corner when my water change vacuum burped water because I decided I wanted to do a water change drunk, not hung over in the morning ha! (celebrating engagement, don't drink and scape people). Managed to fix the slope and add some more soil, replant everything and some more extras I had in the fridge, the area is recovering nicely and everything is beginning to spread.

So I've never had a tank start so easily, and I think I came up with a new technique for starting a planted tank without getting diatoms etc. Instead of a 50% WC every day for the first week, I did 50% WC in the AM before the light, AND PM after the light (8 hour photoperiod, will move it up to 10 eventually). I also put a carbon pad in my filter along with the purigen; soon it will be spent/exhausted and will just act as biological media - its only absorbing things in the beginning when you need it to, especially with how much AS I used (not the first time I've had success with charcoal in filter during cycle). Here ya go:

With the cabinet in view:



FTS



Color and white balance corrected cabinet interior shot:



Cheers!
 
#14 · (Edited)
Crickets in here! Here's the full setup from far back, filling in more and more each day and the HC is starting to go flat and spread runners and roots instead of growing up into clumps. I have some trimming of the original vertical stems to do soon once the runners really take off. All of the slope is being held perfectly by the plants and the roots, as the filter was causing mild erosion of the slope. The scape all of a sudden is far less fragile now that the HC is holding everything together, its a huge relief lol. (I must admit, this tank is extremely stressful to maintenance between the slopes, heavy rocks, and perfectly manicured easily destroyed sand river)



60 green neons and ~100 tiny colorless red cherry shrimp (think tiny Amano's, as Amano's would throw off the scale of this scape) are going to be on the way very very soon
 
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#18 ·
Thanks, yeah I love these 8000k 'green' bulbs, I don't use red plants so there's really no LED out there that beats these for me. When I need to use red plants I'll move to an ADA Solar RGB. LED's just can't beat the green these bulbs put out.

It’s looking amazing! If you don’t mind me asking where do you buy your tissue cultures from? I’ve been having issues with companies sending tissue cultures that are melted and probably been sitting on the shelf for to long.
a combination of AFA and Aquarium plants factory, both A++ health, more on that at the bottom of the post.

Hey just subscribed! Tank looks awesome man and it's just in the beginning stages too. I'm setting up a 90p as well and should have it up by this weekend. It will be interesting seeing the difference in style as the tanks progress.

I'm not entirely sure what type of aquascape I will attempt but I know I can't do an iwagumi because I love the look of driftwood too much
Thanks very much. I'd like to think of myself as a veteran in this hobby, and I've never seen anything like this. 3 weeks in and the HC is over 2" in the front, its climbing over rocks, growing in sand like it doesn't care, and I cannot keep the Fert levels up. Anything I put in is sucked up in 2 hours. Also, after 3 hours of the light being on there's at least 1-2 O2 pearls PER SECOND coming up from the HC to the surface. Sometimes 3 per second its insane. I cant even keep up counting them sometimes! The fish are going to love that. The whole bottom surface is essentially an airstone pumping pure O2.

Because the plants were so healthy and I planted so densely, algae never stood a chance, still no signs of anything. Although I clean the tank every day. Still no algae crew.

Also, because I planted so densely the HC is having a hard time reaching the soil because it's getting in the way of itself, hence the thick almost Monte Carlo like growth. So I have to go in there and trim the absolute hell out of it in the next day or two. Stand by for a picture update.

Seriously, this is like the golden tank, it can do no wrong. Never seen anything like this in my 9 scapes and 10+ years. Tissue cultures are awesome that's all I can say...
 
#17 ·
Hey just subscribed! Tank looks awesome man and it's just in the beginning stages too. I'm setting up a 90p as well and should have it up by this weekend. It will be interesting seeing the difference in style as the tanks progress.

I'm not entirely sure what type of aquascape I will attempt but I know I can't do an iwagumi because I love the look of driftwood too much
 
#19 ·
Here are pictures from day 20, not even 3 weeks in. I'm speechless from the growth. And no it's 100% not Monte Carlo, unless I no longer know what my favorite plant looks like and 2 seperate plant culture dealers both messed up and sent me monte? No way. It's super tiny, and 100% HC, but it's growing like monte. Please excuse the bits of orange bacter in the sand that still haven't dissolved lol.

it's looking like the HC from the back will start to drape over the two main rocks. I did not intend this, I won't claim credit, but god damn is it going to look good having HC flowing down over the rocks from the back.









Ordering Green Neons for a small schooling fish and some blue contrast. Any recommendations on school size? originally I was thinking large, like 60, but I'm thinking too large a school might det5ract from the simplicity. Someone who knows fish better than I do please chime in, I'm not a fish guy.
 
#20 · (Edited)
Tank got its first haircut today at day 21. Came out well, going to need to hit it aggressively again soon to keep it flat. It was planted so densely it was in it's own way and could not spread along the ground. So while it may be puffy the roots are still extremely vital. Many repetitive trimmings probably each week will be needed to get it flat like I want it.

After a 7 hour photoperiod post trim (down from 8 for the day) the HC really became much tighter and closer to the dirt. I'll let it root further for a week and then take it down even farther. It's not well rooted enough to take it any farther than this, any time I try the sprig starts to exit the aquasoil.

I ended up with more than a softball worth of HC trimmings!



Here it is about an hour post trim, took 55 minutes of bending over it was not fun.



Fish are being ordered on Sunday - 60 green neons, as I can't afford those other cool green fish at like $20 a fish...
 
#21 · (Edited)
I'm trimming almost a golfball worth out each day, can't keep up with nitrates and phosphates either despite 40l+ of brand new aquasoil... blown away by these tissue cultures. They have changed the game.

60 green neons ordered and 20 green Neocaridina, on their way. Here's the FTS (trimmed again since taking this shot last night)

 
#24 ·
60 green neons and 20 green jade shrimp all healthy and well, 100% survival! Final photo shoot coming up within the week, stay tuned!
 
#26 ·
Thanks so much! I've found the key is high light, CO2 as high as your livestock can handle, aquasoil powder on top of the regular AS, keeping your water soft, and not overdosing N or P as HC gets most of that from the soil. However it gets almost all of it's K from the water column, so dose lots of potassium. It seems to like a GH of 5 or less and KH of 3 or less. Good luck mate!

Oh and trim any stem that isn't running along the ground once you have enough mass to trim.

With these seiryu stones I have to do a 50% WC every other darn day to keep the GH and KH acceptable. Major PITA.
 
#28 ·
Looks so great. My 90L is going through some pains with staghorn and algae on the rocks :/
 
#32 ·
We did the “final photoshoot” with livestock, we just have to edit the shots in post due to exposure and color balance etc. My fiancé does this for a living and we will be doing it tonight, updates are coming tonight or tomorrow!

As of right now it’s very overgrown, as my arthritis has limited my ability to constantly trim the carpet.
 
#33 · (Edited)
Here ya go guys! Full sized JPEG in all its glory. Still some light and color balancing to do but almost there. The scape is done! Will have a final photo within a few days, along with some close up shots!
 

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#36 · (Edited)
For anyone wondering, I upgraded that old xP3 to a Oase biomaster 600 thermo. Really nice to not have an inline heater anymore.



I only call myself the HC guru :hihi:, it's my absolute favorite plant and I've learned every in an out of how it responds to EVERYTHING. if you have ANY questions at all, shoot, I can answer them. I've grown HC on rocks like people do with 'Monte Carlo' as it didn't exist back in my prior scaping days.

That right there could be found on the cover of a magazine! Bravo.
It amazes me the skill people here have and the ability to create such dynamic and pleasant scapes whilst also getting great plant growth.
I seriously need to reconsider how I keep planted tanks...it seems I'm doing a lot wrong.
Wow thank you! That's a heck of a compliment. It takes a lot of forethought before ever putting anything in the tank. I designed this tank in my head for 3 months before actually starting it (had to wait on the stand) but because I did it came out better than I had hoped. Take your time, and never be satisfied with your vision until thinking about it brings you joy, THEN you're ready to start your design.

Oh and hardscape is the most important thing in making a successful tank once you learn to grow plants easily. Its really all about the hardscape and complimentary plant selection. Best of luck! You'll get there!
 
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