Yep, another 12 gallon long thread. After seeing what everyone was doing with theirs and the cool shape of the tank I had to get one. I just got my other tank set up too, its been less than a month and Im already dropping down too much money on this new tank, oh well life is short.
Still trying to decide what I want to do with this tank, I haven't kept fish in a while, so I definitely am leaning towards minimal iwagumi with more swimming space and really short foreground plants.
Just got bored and set up a hardscape quickly just so I could snap some photo's. These are probably the stones Ill end up using but not the final hardscape layout, still working on that.
I think the stones are a perfect size! Looks amazing. Though i do think that due to the length of the tank, you need some more stones on the right to balance it out. I'm all for negative space but i think for this type of tank you really need something on the right side. The arrangement is also very nice.
Nice layout of the rocks. If it were me, I'd make a big slope/hill in the middle of the tank and put the rocks there. And maybe 2 or 3 smaller ones laid out somewhere else.
I like the layout too, but I agree that there should be a couple small ones on the right side. Do you know what you're using for filtration? I debated on getting one of these tanks, but the lighting and filtration intimidated me. I ended up with a 25g cube instead.
I disagree. I think once the lawn grows out the "flatness" in the right will look pretty good. The rock on the very very left looks a bit out of place tho. It also looks kinda like a frog to me.
Picked up my stand today and its the perfect size, maybe a half an each leeway on both sides, picked up locally for $40 bucks, definitely got lucky there. It does need to be repainted, but I may get lazy and not repaint it.
Redid the hardscape a bit, I dont know about that rock on the right still, I may move it to the back right behind the 2 main rocks, and leave it perfectly flat on the right.
Should be getting my e. hydropiper in tomorrow from tom barr, and I got some more coming in later this week too from another tpt user, man 2 golfball portions set me back $70 bucks.
Picked up my stand today and its the perfect size, maybe a half an each leeway on both sides, picked up locally for $40 bucks, definitely got lucky there. It does need to be repainted, but I may get lazy and not repaint it.
Redid the hardscape a bit, I dont know about that rock on the right still, I may move it to the back right behind the 2 main rocks, and leave it perfectly flat on the right.
Should be getting my e. hydropiper in tomorrow from tom barr, and I got some more coming in later this week too from another tpt user, man 2 golfball portions set me back $70 bucks.
I like it like this. As you can see it is thought provoking of "why is the stone alone"? We can be alone and not feel lonely... Some of the best photographs don't follow the rules... or may be I just need to go to sleep already.
Scape looks 100% better than the first pic. That seiryu on the right does look out of place. If you're going to do the scape like that, I'd remove the right stone and just plant there.
I really like the left rock grouping, it looks really perfect IMO. I think the right rock looks a little weird though and somewhat unsettling...why is it all alone? Is it lonely way out there??
I think that you can balance it by using taller plants on the right instead of more rocks...perhaps make a little hill over there and have DHG or something taller, with HC in the middle flats.
Just my opinion
Man I really want to get one of these tanks though, they are so cool. Looking forward to the progression on this badboy, good job!
Went home for lunch and there was a package from Tom sitting there, I finally got my first batch of hydropiper. I wanted to start planting it, but it will have to wait til after I get home from work. It does look like its gonna be a pos to plant, it has super long roots, perhaps even longer than my substrate is deep, I heard its a good rooter, but wow its root structure is so nice, for such a tiny leaf, it looks like it has erio style roots.
Dusted off my macro lens so I could take some pictures. My soil grain is average 1mm just to give you a size comparison. Some pictures of e. hydropiper:
The substrate was kinda pricey at 46$ plus tax for a $15 pound bag, but I have about 1/3 of that bag left, but I had just bought some for my other tank and I really liked it. I think its better than amazonia, its a lot harder to crush and turn to mud (holds its shape better), it does still break down if you crush it between some tweezers as I found out, but still holds its shape much better. Amazonia turns to mush within a year, I can see this stuff outlasting that. Also it doesnt leech ammonia like crazy like amazonia, I was able to cycle my other tank in 3 weeks or so.
I like it like this. As you can see it is thought provoking of "why is the stone alone"? We can be alone and not feel lonely... Some of the best photographs don't follow the rules... or may be I just need to go to sleep already.
Lol, it was perhaps too thought provoking for me and I just moved it to the back right of the arrangement so I could have a nice flat grass field on the right, it did look too lonely out there all alone.
Getting a little bit of melt from going from submerged to emerged, also getting a bit of mold/fungus where those dead leaves are, guessing a little bit is fine, it hasn't spread and the rest of the stuff looks green. Will take pictures weekly while it grows in. Got a second golf ball of hydropiper, havent planted it yet, but its going on the mountain side.
Not much to report, more ug sprouting up, everything else spreading nicely, i added some h. japan to the left side, gonna keep pressing it down to the substrate hopefully have a nice low patch in that corner, but i may try e. triandra in that corner once i flood, dont feel like trying that one emersed.
cool rock with a split right down the middle, has a nice little valley that you cant really see from this angle.
some mini fissidens growing in slowly, right in the middle of the picture, had to break out the macro for this.
i think this is mini pellia
i love the way UG spreads
And this was really cool, so i saw a dead decomposing leaf, and out of that leaf a whole string of plantlets was growing out of it. It looks like how invitro stuff grows out, anyone know what this is called exactly?
Progress looks great! Are you running both bulbs on it? It doesn't look like too much light for an HO and you wouldn't want to burn out your plants. Or you might be shooting at f20 for your aperture.
For the first few pictures I was using a 50mm 1.8 with a shutter speed of like 640, for the macro, its a 100mm 2.8f and i probably set the shutter speed to 200-300 range maybe higher, its hard to hold that sucker still on a long exposure.
Also, the light is a bit dimmer, its hard to tell in the pictures, but I started using a layer of parchment paper on the acrylic glass of the t5ho light, this diffuses the light and the reflectors. And there is no risk of burning since parchment paper goes into ovens and doesnt burn. My plants WERE burning/yellowing before i did this. After I did this, i got to see a lot of good horizontal growth, and no yellowing.
I just ordered 2 new giesmann bulbs for this fixture though, the aquaflora and midday 6800k, both of those should really help with growth. These cheap oddesea fixtures are nice, but the bulbs they ship with just promote algae growth once flooded. Hoping this will both speed up the dsm time AND i should have less algae issues once i flood. I plan on making a hanging light out of it doing the bent conduit piping thing.
Cool! I have both of those lenses. Are you still using the xt? I still have mine and loved using it day light. The camera's now days try to cram too many megapixels into their sensors except for full frame ones.
I may also pick up a T5HO one of these days... Maybe. Keep up the good work!
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