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60P Epiphyte Forest

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60p newbie tank journal
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#41 ·
NanoNoodle said:
I'm really new to planted tanks, and I wasn't sure how plants grew. I thought christmas moss would cover all the wood, but it's seems to prefer growing upward. I'm planning get some weeping moss to cover the rest.

Pinnatifida on the other hand grows so fast, at least compared to other plants I have. I'm actually trying to get it to turn redder, hence the high light and low nitrates. They should shade the low light plants underneath.

I ended up ordering the Twinstar algae inhibitor. I'll try carbon sponges for the Oase prefilter. I prefer less water changes, but it's not really a big deal with double taps on the canister hoses.

My war with algae starts now! :)
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The pinnatifida looks amazing and I think you have a very distinctive, fun vibe going with this tank. Hopefully the twinstar helps w/the algae. Another approach would be an inline UV sterilizer, like the coralife TurboTwist.

If you are thinking of adding some plants near the base of the trees, hygrophila corymbosa compacta might look good there.
 
Discussion starter · #42 · (Edited)
Mr.Submarine said:
Another approach would be an inline UV sterilizer, like the coralife TurboTwist.
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I thought about doing this, but I read UV sterilizers only work with algae in the water column. The twinstar is only temporary. I hope once the tank matures I won't need it anymore.

Mr.Submarine said:
If you are thinking of adding some plants near the base of the trees, hygrophila corymbosa compacta might look good there.
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Thank you for the plant suggestion! I'll definitely look into this. I'd like to get the tissue culture version but sadly it's out of stock at GLA or BucePlant.
Can this plant be attached to hardscape? I don't really have any substrate, it's just a dusting of sand to cover the glass bottom. All my plants are epiphytes.
 
Discussion starter · #43 ·
I dosed 2 ppm of ammonium chloride last week and tested 0 ppm NH3/NO2 after 24 hours. I didn't want to put all that sweet, sweet built up beneficial bacteria to waste, so after a water change I stopped by my LFS.

I picked up 12 chilli rasbora and 3 otto cats. The LFS kept all their fish on city tap, so I had to drip acclimate them to my much softer, CO2 injected water.

All the chilli rasbora instantly hid in the pinna and rocks after adding them to the tank. One otto kept swimming up and down; however, the other pair "schooled" together and started working on the diatom algae. It was lights out after adding the fish, so they had all night to cool down. I dropped lights to 15% and limited CO2 to 4 hours the next day to let the fish get accustomed to the tank. The Twinstar algae inhibitor arrived on Saturday night, so I installed that to hopefully get the fish more oxygen.

The ottos were making quick work on much of the algae, but they didn't touch the hair algae. It's too soon to tell, but I think the algae inhibitor coupled with ottos is really keeping algae in check. I may need to supplement the ottos with algae wafers or vegetables soon. Or pull them out and let them go to town on the Biocube.

I'm so excited to finally have livestock in my tank. I'm even more excited that algae is getting under control. Here are some tank shots.

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Discussion starter · #46 ·
Chilli Rasbora are such beautiful fish, but they're so tiny. I dug up the SLR and macro lens from the storage closet and tried my hand at macro photography again. It's so much more difficult with moving subjects. Many of my shots were out of focus or just didn't look good. Here's a couple shots I'm not entirely happy with but aren't too bad for a first attempt.

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#47 ·
Those look good. The smaller the first the harder it is usually to get good shots. I've personally found a SS of at least 1/160 is usually necessary. Also the more narrow the F stop (larger number) you could go the more detail and larger amount of the fish will be in focus.

Without getting into all the photog stuff the easiest way is to just throw more light on the tank. Otherwise you need to compensate with ISO and F Stop.
 
Discussion starter · #48 ·
I'm shooting aperture priority at F5.6, but I think SS drops slower than 1/100. I think you're right about SS, I need to keep it high at 1/160 or faster. I'll just let the camera compensate by bumping up the ISO. It's a full frame camera and there's a lot of light on the tank, so clarity shouldn't be an issue.

I'll also try bumping up to F8, but the real problem is focus. Even with a wider DoF, it's a 105mm macro lens, so DoF is still going to be unforgiving. Moreover, my eyes are sadly not as good as they use to be, so manual focus is very difficult.

It's fun to play with my camera gear again. Especially my macro lens which I hardly ever used.
 
#49 ·
NanoNoodle said:
I'm shooting aperture priority at F5.6, but I think SS drops slower than 1/100. I think you're right about SS, I need to keep it high at 1/160 or faster. I'll just let the camera compensate by bumping up the ISO. It's a full frame camera and there's a lot of light on the tank, so clarity shouldn't be an issue.

I'll also try bumping up to F8, but the real problem is focus. Even with a wider DoF, it's a 105mm macro lens, so DoF is still going to be unforgiving. Moreover, my eyes are sadly not as good as they use to be, so manual focus is very difficult.

It's fun to play with my camera gear again. Especially my macro lens which I hardly ever used.
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Sometimes AI Servo AF mode helps if your having trouble getting the focus on moving fish. So the 105mm macro is pretty big, I've been mostly using a 60mm macro. Are you handholding, if yes does the macro have image stablization?
 
Discussion starter · #50 ·
Asteroid said:
Sometimes AI Servo AF mode helps if your having trouble getting the focus on moving fish. So the 105mm macro is pretty big, I've been mostly using a 60mm macro. Are you handholding, if yes does the macro have image stablization?
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I'm using a Nikon D800. It's old, so the AI isn't that great on focus points. I just center focus, shoot, and crop post-process for composition. Yup, I'm using that and the lens has image stabilization.
 
#52 ·
NanoNoodle said:
Lens: 105mm macro + 1.3x teleconverter = 150mm
Settings: F9, 1/125 sec, ISO 6400

This is the clearest closeup I could come up with, but I'm not happy with the composition.
View attachment 1044555

I love this composition, but I'm not happy with the clarity.
View attachment 1044556
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That's a good shot. The second one is kinda comical looking with them looking at you. At 6400 it's pretty clean. Your probably had to clean it up, unless your camera is really good a high ISO. Composition wise you mean like the gray background, bokeh?
 
Discussion starter · #53 ·
Asteroid said:
That's a good shot. The second one is kinda comical looking with them looking at you. At 6400 it's pretty clean. Your probably had to clean it up, unless your camera is really good a high ISO. Composition wise you mean like the gray background, bokeh?
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D800’s are good at low light, so it didn’t need much touching up.
The first shot is clear, but two dimensional. No foreground, background, or movement. The 2nd shot has depth. I love it when I catch the fish at mid turn.
I’m glad you like those photos 😀. It makes the 200 or so throw away shots worth it.
 
#54 ·
NanoNoodle said:
D800’s are good at low light, so it didn’t need much touching up.
The first shot is clear, but two dimensional. No foreground, background, or movement. The 2nd shot has depth. I love it when I catch the fish at mid turn.
I’m glad you like those photos 😀. It makes the 200 or so throw away shots worth it.
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I hear you on the 200 shots. High Speed continuous definitely helps to catch the fish at a good angle or if it "stutter steps" and slows for a fraction of a moment.
 
#59 ·
NanoNoodle said:
Thank you for the plant suggestion! I'll definitely look into this. I'd like to get the tissue culture version but sadly it's out of stock at GLA or BucePlant.
Can this plant be attached to hardscape? I don't really have any substrate, it's just a dusting of sand to cover the glass bottom. All my plants are epiphytes.
Click to expand...
The hygrophila corymbosa is a stem plant which you would usually plant but most aquatic plants will happily grow without substrate. Your hygrophila pinnatifida is a case in point, it's actually a stem plant but most folks use it like an epiphyte. You could try sticking corymbosa between the crevices of your hardscape and it should grow.
 
#60 ·
The HP looks like it's really happy uptop. I could see some moss around the base of those anubias covered rocks. You could use flat stones and use maybe peacock or christmass. Easiest way is with netting over the rocks.
 
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