20H mid-tech "Moonpool" (56k)

2431 Views 9 Replies 2 Participants Last post by henrietta, Jun 12, 2014

henrietta

Discussion Starter · Apr 28, 2014 (Edited)

first tank i've ever seriously 'scaped. whole thing took about 10hrs to put together, mainly because of mistakes and shenanigans.

everything in this tank was found by myself (my dad found the centerpiece for me tho, but that still counts right? :3). agates are hand-picked from my personal collection. all driftwood & agates were collected on the oregon coast near my parent's beach house. i'll spare you pictures of the cleaning processes.

tank: tetra 20H, my dad helped clean up the silicone
stand: antique 6-drawer mirrored french dresser, aka can hold most things aside from small livestock.
substrate: ~45lbs eco-complete black
filter: fluval aquaclear 30 HOB
heater: 100w ViaAqua ceramic heater
lighting: 24" finnex planted+
ferts: excel 3x weekly, flourish 2x weekly.

so here's the tank before i really started doing anything with it. was treating the tank for ich, waited for treatment to complete before re-scaping. pretty much tossed in some driftwood and plants & called it good, moved everything up from a 10g that is now my hospital tank.

impressive, i know. :thumbsdow

added another 20lbs eco-complete over the preexisting ~25lbs.

everything drained, playing with shapes. excuse the gross black construction paper background, the mirror behind it was making photos difficult.

dry start, wasn't that happy with the hardscape but settled. later when i went to flood the tank, the driftwood that had been boiled & soaked and had previously sunk decided to float & just about uproot everything with it.
time to start over again...

2.5 hours of tying rocks to sticks with fishing line later....

i'm very happy with the new scape, it has a depth and flow to it that the other design didn't. i'm actually using 5 pieces of driftwood here; one is being used as an anchor but peaks out from under the substrate in some places. the other one is also an anchor/counterweight for the "bridge" branch. luckily i had agates large enough to serve as anchor stones & still blend in.

half filled & planted. really liking how one end of the driftwood is floating (actually an accident, didn't tie a rock very well...); i like the idea of the scape naturally shifting and settling as the wood slowly sinks back to where it originally was.

gettin' there.

right after filling:

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henrietta

Discussion Starter · #2 · Apr 28, 2014 (Edited)

update from today; moved some plants, cleaned up a bit:

fauna:
betta splendens x1 (carmine)
neon tetra "goldline" x1 (timmy. long story.)
green rasbora (Microdevrio kubotai)
neon rasbora "blue form" (Sundadanio kubotai)
zebra nerite snail x3

hoping to add 2 more green rasbora to make 7, and another 5 neon rasbora to make another 7. these guys are pretty fragile, lost 4-5 during ich treatment. most amount of fish i've ever lost in the shortest time period. will be more careful next time.

would also like to add 3-4 oto cats & ~3 glitter loaches (Schistura aizawlensis).

flora:
java fern (x2, on branches)
hygro sp. "japan"
lindernia sp. "india"
sunset hygro
crypt wendtii "brown" (?)
ludwigia sp. "ruben"
another type of ludwigia, not sure on species.
echinodorus sp. "oriental"

I have a few green gecko crypts & a vesuvius or two in the mail right now. will update as things change. also very open to plant suggestions! currently trying to stick with asian species... ignore the echinodorus

my plants are still melty :C help?

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derbyfb10

· #3 · Apr 28, 2014

Looks nice! Do you have any co2 running?

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henrietta

Discussion Starter · #4 · Apr 28, 2014

thanks derby! at the moment i do not. i'm currently looking into it though, as i've never run CO2 on a tank before & i'm trying to judge how labor-intensive it would be. my KH and PH are also fairly low, and the chart thing says i have "a good amount of CO2", but i am worried about my KH being so low. do you think running CO2 on this tank would be beneficial?

mini-update: dosed flourish + excel last night, woke up to plants being much perkier. my oriental sword looks happier than it ever has... finally getting some growth. wasn't kept in great conditions prior to this tank, aha.

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derbyfb10

· #5 · Apr 30, 2014

Had a large amount of typing ready to go and the Internet dropped out :-\ I'll see if I can summarize.

Excel will certainly help you if you don't have co2, however co2 is one of the single most useful items in the planted tank arsenal. I agree your low kh and gh certainly might make for larger pH swings, but overall I think you might be OK. I have the opposite so I can't really judge. Lol. Do some research and see on your own.

If you're into building your own stuff you might try diy co2 just for something cheap. You'll see an improvement for sure. However you'll certainly be left wanting pressurized after a while. Lol.

What are those rocks you have? I saw some crystal like rocks similar to those at my lfs, was trying to think of a way to scape them. It looks nice though!

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henrietta

Discussion Starter · #6 · Apr 30, 2014

update: outbreak of velvet in the tank, mostly from me being an idiot and not cautious enough regarding quarantine procedures (velvet in my betta tanks, cross contamination, I'm an idiot I know). moved all fauna sans nerite snails into my 13gal QT tank, treating with Quick Cure. 20H is just snails and plants at this point... also having issues with melting due to suspected nitrogen deficiency & my driftwood is floating wayyyyy more than I'd like it to. hmmm, frustration. also, what do I need to do to remove velvet from the 20H?

@derby: hmmm, I will definitely look into that.... I believe my brother still has paintball canisters left over from his paintball phase... will see if I can borrow/steal those.

& thank you! they are unpolished agate! they are from my (cough extensive) agate collection which I chose specifically for clarity/color. found 99% of my specimen on the oregon coast

(i'm secretly a total rockhound cough don't tell anyone)

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derbyfb10

· #7 · May 1, 2014

Sounds like your doing all you can to get rid of it! I've never had it myself so don't have much advice. From what I read it's like most parasites, heat up the water to speed up their life cycle and kill them with whatever will works (various treatments, maybe salt? Not sure...)

Good luck on the paintball tanks. I know it's made a difference for myself!

Very interesting agates

wish we had some around here in Kansas lol. Too much limestone...

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henrietta

Discussion Starter · #8 · May 5, 2014 (Edited)

some more updates:

as things start to sink the landscape starts to shift. moved/wiggled some stuff around. doesn't look as crowded as it did before, i think.

had a melting episode. everything's slowly starting to come back.

i'm fond of the pennywort. more plants coming in an order from mr h4n. will update when those arrive.

btw here's a pic of carmine:

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henrietta

Discussion Starter · #9 · May 19, 2014

update. experimenting with dry-dosing ferts,,, has been very fun. no fauna currently in the tank so one less thing to worry about. still no CO2, i'm going out of town for a week so i'll deal with that when i come back

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henrietta

Discussion Starter · #10 · Jun 12, 2014

cloudy water problems lmao. i think i've pinpointed the source & i believe i have a slight potassium deficiency,,, will be pruning & trimming a bit today

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