[DeepDownAbove]

Hey Everyone!

I am looking to keep record of my newly rediscovered love for aquariums. I will be updating you along the way with new plants and lots of awesome photos. The goal with this tank was to challenge the idea of planted aquariums by contrasting the natural curves of driftwood and plants with an open "building ruins" of extremely beautiful natural slate from around the world . You can check out some details here :

4x24W T5
2x Life-GLO
1x Powerchrome Aquablue+
1x Powerchrome Aquaflora

Penguin 350 BIO-Wheel + Koralia Water Circulation Pump Nano

Eco-Complete Plant Substrate

Have an older Fluval CO2 cansiter hooked up right now. Hoping to do a little homebrew sometime soon.

Here was the concept :

And the results in progress :

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Comments Welcome

 

[vtkid]

very nice pictures, is that a crypt blooming?
the slate is not really coming across as ruins, but i think i can kinda see what you are trying to accomplish.

 

[DeepDownAbove]

vtkid,

Thanks for the note.
Yeah I think I have three crypts in bloom right now. I grew them from tubers I purchased cheaply at a pet store. I love the variety in phenotypes that pack gives you.

I think I just wanted to get it set up here and the slate will keep evolving. I have a bunch more and I am going to try to make different sizes etc on a more permanent display ( all affixed to a board or something ).

Thanks for looking

 

[Hilde]

Great start!! You have all of the right plants for the light you have. I think the addition of moss draped over items in the tank will help give the image of ruins. The items, slate, would do better is slightly off the center.

 

[DeepDownAbove]

Thanks for the tips. I am sure this tank will continue to evolve. Moss is in the mail

 

[F22]

try standing the slate up like stone henge and draping the moss over it that way

 

[Church]

Beautiful tank! But the slate is too distracting to me. It seems out of place. Also I agree that it is too dead center, even if I did like the way it looked. Other than that, very good job!

 

[DeepDownAbove]

Abandonscape Revisited. Deep's Latest Creation

Hey Everyone!

I wanted you all to see what I decided to do this afternoon

With yeast generated co2 I just wasnt getting the levels I needed to balance things out and had some serious problems with green hair algae. Switching over to a Red Sea Paintball regulator . I started a quarantine for the healthiest plants and had to plan around the crypts so as not to disturb the roots too much. Here is what it looked like.

I lot of you did not like the slate in the middle and I admit that my vision was not actualized in this attempt but I sure learned a lot and with your help here and reading journals I think this is something to be proud of...

Going to try for a carpet of babytears but we will see what happens. Got some new cardinal tetras and have some cherry shrimp on the way. I was absolutely meticulous when cleaning out the green hair algae and have some suggestions for folks struggling.

1. You can use the narrow side of the siphon to get a more forceful suction that fairly quickly gobbles up loose strands BEWARE do not get it anywhere close to your fish. VERY POWERFUL. ALGAE AND FISH BEWARE

2. While struggling with hair algae I found it helpful to have one side of my tank immaculate. Just removed all of the plants and algae I could find. Lay a thin layer of new gravel after you razor scrape all algae from the glass sides. Now take one plant at a time and clean every bit of hair from the leaves and roots. Major pain but once the first plant is done it goes in the safe zone and you are an inch closer to being rid of the aglae.

3. Do those water changes and vacuum that gravel! 50% per week until resolved. Try to use the best water you can! Even from the grocery store RO water is not very expensive. Those jugs make great containers for siphoned yuckwater too.

Of course is almost always an underlying chemical imbalance in our water causing the outburst in the first place. In my case I could not generate enough co2 with my home made yeast reactor because the general hardness of RO water is so low. Water with a higher general hardness degree require less co2 to achieve same growth results. I know you can get GH modifiers but I felt a regulator and a constant control was easier than letting the yeast die down and algae take over again.


Here is my guppy making nice with the cardinals...

After I took out all of the infestulated java fern but before the rescape....

Building a mountain..

Exactly 74.21 Minutes later....

And as of 11:11 tonight Added clean java fern back in and trashed the rest that were too far consumed by the algae.

So I dont know if there are any botany experts out there but I had an interesting observation between the green hair algae and the roots of the java fern. Is it normal for the algae to attach itself to either the roots or damaged portions of leaves and use the plants roots system to feed? Also when attaching to the roots of the plant it seemed to turn the entire root from brown and fuzzy to green and clean. My first thought was it was turning into a huge rhizome but I don't think I am that lucky. I can take/send photos if you need to see.

Thanks guys let me know what you think!

 

[AlexXx]

glad you kicked the slates, i did not understand the concept of them haha. I absolutely LOVE the large piece of drift wood.