[Jeroen]

Any advice and/or comments would be greatly appreciated!
Hope I'm allowed to call it scaping without buying the really expensive ada in and outlet..

Personally i think the cardinalis might've been a mistake for having bigger leaves. I ordered a mini but I've never seen one so don't know if they sent me the right thing. Will be looking for a replacement. Maybe someting a bit more brownish. Crypto of sorts.

Also still have to move those stems of pinnatifada in front of the left rock. Takes away from it.

Rotala bossii and wallichii will be growing out of the back, hard to see now.

 

[sohankpatel]

I really like the rockwork and the path! Do you use co2?

 

[Jeroen]

Thanks!
Will eventually be a really small path going across in the back.
yea have a diy ca/bs setup hooked onto an inline atomizer but pressurized should be coming in sometime this weekend or monday.

Rocks are seiryu

 

[Jeroen]

There! Added the new lights (yellow and purple) to simulate sunrise/set
also pressurized co2, everything should be off to a flying start.

there's just one thing that worries me..
there's this kind of algae on the biggest rock i've never seen before.
i noticed when i was scrubbing the rocks it had some green stains on one side, i scrubbed extra hard but it wouldn't come off and i didn't think much of it.
now that it's been in for 2 and a half day it seems to be growing a hair like algae thread, anybody?
i added a picture of it

 

[klibs]

IMO it is very difficult to pull off the mix of larger rocks and thin branches of wood. Has always looked strangely unnatural to me.

I think you are off to a pretty good start. I have always sucked bigtime at planning out tanks with hardscape so in my tanks I have always just dealt with whatever I try originally and grow plants in a manner that highlights the best of it. With that said I think how you plan your plant selection, placement of plants, and how you trim / let them grow will really be the challenge here. In a few months you will know what I mean lol

For now I think the rock on the left looks very unnatural as is. Kind of just standing upright and balancing in the back there.. This is not entirely bad because you could grow plants around it to make it look more natural. I mainly mean how the left side of that rock is completely vertical. If you grew plants in to cover up that side of the rock it would look much better IMO. I think the right side looks good - I like what is going on there.

What are you trying to grow in the foreground there? HC?

 

[Jeroen]

Thanks for your input!
Actually never really thought about small or big wood with small or big stones that deeply.
You don't think it gives it something fairytale like?
It doesn't have to be completely natural for me if by that you mean it would be possible to see it like so in nature.

I used to be into graffiti when i was younger and funny enough am finding the same shapes i used to use in that back in my tanks. Was o so excited to finally receive my seiryu stones.

Already beginning to understand your comment about how to plant n such. Especially with the pinnatifada i will have to experiment with this a little and see what it does. My idea was to leap it against the back of the rocks mainly hoping it will take root so i can trim it in to grow compact.

the wallichii and booshi are just plantlings in the back now, think you can see them on the detail shot.
moved the pinnatifade in front of the left rock. as for plants growing on it, i put little stones with moss on top and against the side of rocks, should work out nicely
Better like I'd say with the outer left rock being visible, just to wait now for the pinnatifada to make the big one look more natural

What are you trying to grow in the foreground there? HC?

Echinodorus Tenellus (i think the mini)

 

[Jeroen]

Ordered some pretty special plants pretty excited
Even made a little paint planning.
most of the lobelia is coming out, maybe everything.

ordered 2 bucephalandra needle leaf, 2 crypto flamingo, 1 crypto x purpurea and to top it off 2 schismatoglottis roseaspatha especially these got me really excited

 

[Jeroen]

completely forgot to mention that my shrimp and oto's came in early yesterday morning!
12blue fairies, 6 blue velvets and 4 rili's

Very sad to say I woke up to finding 2 dead shrimp and 1 struggling on it's back.
They had obviously been mauled by my wavemaker put a pantyhose round it to prevent further disaster.

Also redid my approx 15 gallon holding tank into a scape kinda thing with some rotala i had left and plants i had 'floating' around.

Bump: can't see the rotala's yet.
Give it a week or 2

 

[LRJ]

Ordered some pretty special plants pretty excited
Even made a little paint planning.
most of the lobelia is coming out, maybe everything.

ordered 2 bucephalandra needle leaf, 2 crypto flamingo, 1 crypto x purpurea and to top it off 2 schismatoglottis roseaspatha especially these got me really excited

Like the hardscape and layout. I think this is going to turn out really well.

 

[Jeroen]

One week in!
Rotala finally getting visible, ready for the first trim actually..
but.. wanna look at it a couple more days

Any other people having trouble uploading pictures up straight?

 

[frrok]

Looks good for your first "educated" scape. I used to write graff as well. the artist has always been in me... doing this stuff comes natural, just had to figure out how to keep plants alive and learn trimming techniques and science behind growing plants. its always a learning process. I don't know if its just me, but i have never been that fond of sand paths. imo, its hard to pull them off where they look natural. there a very few people that can do it successfully. if i were to give you some advice, i would suggest you keep it simple. your growing a lot of different species, if you do not have experience growing each you will have a tough time managing there growth patterns and making it look natural. what type of soil are you using? why the other orange/brown color?
I really like the right side of the tank, the rocks look like the edge of a cliff with a tree root coming out. i would have liked to see something similar on the left side, its looks a little unbalance to me. I hope this helps ....cheers!

 

[Jeroen]

Thanks again! Nice to hear there's people taking it to the same places.

I deliberately chose nearly all plants that are relatively new to me.
I figured if I'm getting into this I'd need to learn what I can and can't work with.
So far all the plants seem to be doing quite well although i'm still waiting for some of em to come in at a local fish store. Haven't spotted any algae yet neither, just some long threads hanging of a couple leaves which strike me as new substrate symptoms, most of them came of with the first trim the other day anyway.

About the substrate, the idea i had was to use a lot of brownish yellow n pink colors and make it look like a dense jungle so i figured a mainly brown substrate would be nice looking. Is this frowned upon? What do you use and always the same?

I think you (and klips said something similar earlier) are onto something about the left side after me sitting down and having a good look. I've been looking for a way to do it differently but kinda want to let the new substrate settle before moving it again. Might be able to come up with something.

 

[Jeroen]

Exactly 3 weeks in today.

Diatoms started clearing up a couple days ago there's little left now.
Added some amano shrimp (about 10) to help me deal with this.

Also bought 18 blue eyed killifish, sadly 1 didn't survive the trip which left me with 17.
As far as I've read they spawn readily though and their young shouldn't have a problem surviving but we'll see.
All the shrimp that have been in there seem really content and haven't had any more deaths, just empty shrimp casings.

Got me 2 sets of glass in n outflows looks sharp don't you think? just under 20 bucks they cost me

I have considered moving around the rocks on the left according to advice
decided to wait until all the diatoms clear up completely at least before stirring anything up.
Moved a little stone with moss on in between to hope to get the desired effect but didn't help that much imo.
Will be a solution at some point. Ideas welcome

I think the plants are growing in nicely so far, little to no algae neither.
Took the lobelia's out, guy definitely didn't send me the mini's, tank looks bigger already
Sadly I'm still waiting for me plants to arrive at the store, so replacement will take a little longer.
The flamingo's and schismatoglottis should complete my color scheme.
Been thinking about planting some crypt balansae in between the rockwork on the right, have a nice brownish version growing in another tank.
Or do they all get this brownish color under lower light? Anybody wiser then i am?

Also, I really need a new camera, this is the best I've got in the house, a 12.1 mp canon digi cam, my apologies.
I'll read up a little in the photography thread as well.
Anyway, one just before and one just after the daylights came off and a close up of right corner.

 

[Jeroen]

Lights just came on, had to share :bounce:
pinnatifada caught on, rotala's reached the top for the first time

 

[Jeroen]

Did a big trim a couple days back mainly of the rotala's.
Pinnatifada's will need a trim here and there soon and lawn will have to be mowed.
I'm very positively surprised by the HP's and the way their roots just come out the side and grab whatever they can.
Soon I'll be able to cut some of these little plantlings loose and remove their substrate stemmed parents, let the little ones just grow on wood and rock.

Followed up on advice about the left side, took a rock out put 2 back in. Tilted the big one back more.
I'm aware there's a hole now that looks kind of clumsy, I'm hoping the plants should cover this soon enough, also would like to get myself another piece of spiderwood to fit in there, if i can find it.
The little darker rock on the bottom is coming forward but will be very hard to see from the front until the plants set behind it.

The plants I've ordered still haven't come in. The guy at this lfs is starting to piss me off actually. He mucked up my order but there's hardly any retailers here in holland that sell dennerle plants so can't really go somewhere else easy.
Did take all the lobelia's out already, they were starting to root very heavily so couldnt wait any longer.
Decided that the echinodorus quadricostatus will have to go as well. the leaves are getting too long and i don't like the way it has to force itself out from in between the rocks.

 

[Jeroen]

Trimmed the grass, added some buce's, replaced pinnatifada's on the right with yao yai.
A pink crypt was added to the left and one in the back.
Put a piece of wood on the left.

schismatoglottis roseospatha finally coming in today along with some other really neat plants.

Seen the first young of the blue eyes too! Got me excited!

 

[Mattb126]

Trimmed the grass, added some buce's, replaced pinnatifada's on the right with yao yai.
A pink crypt was added to the left and one in the back.
Put a piece of wood on the left.

schismatoglottis roseospatha finally coming in today along with some other really neat plants.

Seen the first young of the blue eyes too! Got me excited!

Update? Really nice tank

 

[BettaBettas]

What's the foreground (grass) plant?