[Francis Xavier]

Iwagumi Mark IV Version II - 10/10/2010 - Current. "The Wild Coast" Houston, Tx

Iwagumi Mark IV Setup - 08/15/2010 - 10/10/2010 "The Black Coast" Houston, Tx

ADA Wabi-Kusa plant 'scape' 06/20/2010 - Current (transferred to Do!Aqua Plant Glass Vase)

Last Iwagumi / up to date equipment list, 12/2009 - 04/28/2010; "Mark III" Seattle, Wa

Iwagumi Mark II Setup 05/2009, San Marcos Tx


I got my shipment of stuff today!

Here's the hardware so far:

Lighting: Solar Mini S
CO2: ADA CO2 Advanced System
Tank: ADA Mini S
Filter: Eheim 2213 Classic; Cal Aqua Lily Pipes
Substrate: Power Sand Special S; Amazonia II
Stones: Seiryu

Although, as with all of my tanks this one seems to have an ambiguous start, right off the bat none of my plant shipments have come in, one's two weeks late right now (the carpet plants) and probably DOA. So for now I'm going to occupy myself making the hardscape. Any plant suggestions are welcome, I'm thinking of a glosso or HC carpet as of right now. The front panel of the ADA also has some small hairline 'cracks' in them, I did the water test and had no leak, and with water they weren't readily apparent, so thank god at least they're not readily visible, that would've irritated me forever.

Here are the photos I shot earlier!

 

[chase127]

very nice thats some shiny ADA goodness.

but, theres cracks in the tank??

 

[Francis Xavier]

They're almost unnoticeable, not not actual cracks - looks like something scrapped the glass. They might be really weird "air" bubbles or deformities in the glass, but I don't know enough about them to say for sure. I just know that they don't leak, and when filled with water they're not really noticeable, they're that small. Just irritates me they're on the front panel, it's like buying a new LCD monitor or TV and discovering you have a blown pixel in the middle of the screen.

 

[ch3fb0yrdee]

OH goodie! Another MINI M. I cant wait till I get to join the club. The Mini M is like the perfect size nano tank!

 

[CL]

Look at that nice equipment and nice stone! I can't wait to follow this journal!

 

[Francis Xavier]

ch3fb0yrdee, I never thought I'd get into small tanks, since I've always gone with bigger size tanks (20 gallon +), but the Mini M won me over into the nano world. The clean ADA design definitely had a lot to do with it though.

clwatkins10, So far, the equipment has been worth the extra cost. I'm still having that syndrome of "whoa, this is actually my tank." At least for me, it inspires me to keep my room cleaner, since appearances have to be maintained, which horribly collides with my normal laziness routine.

The rocks have actually given me a bit of a headache, though not so much as a headache as the stones for Ukiyo; the major difference here for me is the adjustment between the big and the small, scale is so much different. Small stones are suddenly worth a lot more than bigger ones. I did manage to get some big stones that'll go well in UKiyo, and probably bring that design together, but by and large, I'm having trouble balancing the real-estate to rock layout in the way I want it; since the rocks seem like they can only really fit into the tank one way. An interesting challenge. I think i'll post some sample layouts later.

 

[Ugly Genius]

And so it begins.

Have fun!

 

[Francis Xavier]

Some random hardscapes, haven't been happy with one yet:

 

[Fishwood]

I really like your last hardscape. May I ask how much the Mini M was, light included? And what's the wattage on that fixture?

 

[Francis Xavier]

The Tank was $60 and the Light was $195.

I tried some weird things with having elevated soil levels to cover most of this rock in these setups:

 

[Hail]

I really like the texture of the front-left rock. This has the makings of an epic nano!

 

[Ugly Genius]

I agree with Hail. That rock's great.

 

[Camper]

Nice tank!!!! holy I never knew the light cost that much. You baller hahaha

 

[amphirion]

I really REALLY like the first arrangement in your second set. very dramatic and there's a really cool overhang effect going on. Although what I would probably do is shift each (arrangement) further to it's respective side or to the further back corner, so that there's more space in the center.

 

[CL]

I'd go with the last arrangement in the first set. It was the best IMO. Is the sticker on that tank crooked?

 

[Francis Xavier]

I really like the front left rock too, it's cool. However, it's a lot bigger than it looks in the pictures, which is part of my placement problems with it. In fact, it's too big to be in a nano normally, but I decided I could put most of it under the gravel and have the cool part sticking out, so I'm still messing around with it to get it to work right.

Yes, clwatkins, the sticker is crooked :\ I think I got the red-headed step child Mini S!

amphirion I agree, they need to be farther apart, which is part of my frustration with the size of the rocks! they're too big! And I can't decide on a good theme for the tank yet. I have however decided with my recent upsurge in rocks to make a craggy mountain type theme in Ukiyo.

I'm still messing around with layouts to see if I can't hit that golden setup. Drama is good!

 

[hilikus16]

I agree with clwatkins...I like the last scape. However, the first one would be nice if the rock in the back left was burried a bit more

 

[aquaphish]

Forget the setup and arraingment of rocks and substrate, if you have small cracks or defects in the glass you should return it for one without defects. YOu paid good money for your equipment and should not be handed a defected tank.

Imagine if you did get a monitor or TV with a burnt pixel would you keep it? Just think if you bought a DVD player and it continously scratched your DVDs would you keep it? Imagine if you got a high priced tank with small defects in the front would you keep it?

 

[Francis Xavier]

aquaphish I totally agree, I'm tossed on whether or not to go through the trouble of getting a hold of AFA again and telling them about it (and, they're out of stock of Mini-S's apparently now) or trying to repair the glass myself. On the one hand it's a big irritation, I definitely wouldn't want to pay shipping again. On the other, there's something somewhat attaching about fixing the errors and making it work. I'm at a toss up. Maybe UG could bother them for me or something! Some of them don't even seem like scratches, like they're a fine line of silicon or something. Another scratch makes a squiggly line pattern, it's perplexing.

Between the plants and the tank, I'm grateful that the light hasn't imploded on delivery or the CO2 ruptured and lost all it's pressure. I will be calling AFA on sunday at their opening time to figure this one out. If I can get a good shot at the scratches I'll post them here.

On better notes, I really appreciate the feedback on the setups. Still hammering out setups outside the tank.

Update: So it turns out they aren't scratches, they're silicon or something that basically got adhered to the glass. It perplexed me that they felt more like "bumps" than ditches in the glass, although wiping over them didn't remove them. I then decided to inspect my Wabi-Kusa Cube Garden tank and peruse it (I had kept it in it's box because I have to clean some things out first to set it up), and noticed the same flaws in the glass.

These marks usually were around the top corners and near the corners in general. However, I was able to buff them out by taking a clean dry light hand cloth and vigorously buffer the surface. It takes quite a bit of physical effort to get it out, but generally rubbing it with your fingernail behind the towel and going in a vertical motion, then a horizontal motion, slowly but surely removed the marks without damaging the glass or scratching it.

The ADA glass is actually quite scratch resistant I noticed. It takes a little while to get these marks off but if you run into it on your tank, don't panic about it being scratches right away. They're typically on the inside of the tank (which means something didn't knick it in shipping, they do a good job of protecting the tank), except for a few which were the same consistency of the ones inside.

Just make sure the cloth you use to get rid of the marks aren't dirty or have dust particles on them, and make sure you give the glass a once over to remove any residual dust from the air or the like that might be on it. This way you don't scratch the glass by dragging particles along with it and make it a real scratch. Also, a dry cloth works better than a wet one, I had no luck getting these off with a wet cloth when I originally tried (which made me think they were scratches to begin with). Also I liked to keep equal pressure on both sides of the glass panes to avoid any possible problems with the applying too much pressure to one side of the glass since most of these were on the corners. Whether or not there is actually any danger of breaking the silicon on accident, it's better to be safe in my opinion.

But my tank is now "scratch" free. Now if only I could easily fix the crooked ADA sticker~

Lesson here? ADA aquarium or not; KEEP YOUR GLASS CLEAN, even if it's sitting on a shelf waiting to be sold.

 

[Ugly Genius]

I wouldn't trip too much over the crooked sticker. One, no one will notice it. (Except for cl.) Two, if you make a kick-ass 'scape, people will probably try to emulate you and get their stickers crooked, too.