[ChemGuyEthan]

Greetings all!

UPDATED PICTURE 11/23/2014
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Thought I would get this journal rolling as I'm hoping to get the tank set up this week!
I have this:


Which is actually the first aquarium I ever bought over a year ago. It's been collecting dust for the better part of that time (I caught the new tank bug pretty quick :icon_lol and I want to revive it to set up as a shrimp tank!

I'm planning on doing a pretty aggressive hardscape with this one, also want some sort of carpet and moss with some smaller plants. We'll see what I can find at my LFS tomorrow.
Here's the full shot, gotta remove that pesky filter holder first...


You can see in the background the lovely box I got this week (if you can ignore the mess that is my room :icon_redf ), I had ordered some Ohko stone that I've been soaking and cleaning for the past few days. Also got some Aquasoil, both normal and powder.

I'll keep this thread updated as I go along with the setup as I've never really documented a tank setup like this before. I'm really considering the dry start method for the carpeting plants, which I've never done before. I've also never kept shrimp, so this will be a fun little experiment.

Going for the mountain scene, big substrate slopes and tall cliffs with the ohko stone. I figured the narrow, tall tank is well-suited for this type of scape. As always, thanks for looking! I should have a preliminary scape set up tomorrow!

-Ethan

 

[ChemGuyEthan]

Badabing! And I want some opinions on my scape please!

Hey everyone,

I wanted to post my inspiration for an attempt like this. There was a thread posted by Dantrasy that I came across about a month ago that immediately made me want to try and do something similar. His tank looks awesome! I'm hoping mine will look even a tenth as awesome. :icon_mrgr

http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/showthread.php?t=461217

So back to my tank, I cut up some egg crate to try and keep things a little more stable.


Filled in the back with some leftover Eco-Complete I had from another tank.


And now...the stones!


Poured in a fair amount of the normal sized amazonia to fill things in. I figured out I could group three similar rocks together to make what looks like one really big peak. If I decide to keep it, I'll hot glue them together a little so they don't collapse at some point down the road.


Or this... I think it looks too cluttered in the back.


And the one I've settled on as of now.


Here's a top-down view. I think if I keep this, I'll pour some amazonia down the middle so I can plant some moss or some other low growing, hanging plant to just creep over the top of my "mountain."


And finally just to complete the post of many images, these are the two stones I have left, not sure if I can use the blocky one, but the one on the left was what I put in the back left corner in the second layout.


I plan on eventually finishing off with a top layer of the powder amazonia for scale. I would greatly appreciate any and all advice on the scape. I'm gonna go see what my LFS has for this little adventure. If I decide to change it, I can always keep the plants in one of my other tanks for a few days until I get this one settled in.

Again, thanks for looking and any advice.

-Ethan

 

[ChemGuyEthan]

Well I'm open for plant suggestions.

I am really only wanted to do low profile plants, nothing to overwhelm the rocks. I guess that would be Iwagumi style or sorts.

My local place didn't really have anything worth purchasing so I think I'll do an online purchase.

Let me know if you have suggestions for something that would look good.

 

[ChemGuyEthan]

Still no plants yet. The scape hasn't changed a whole lot. I split the main peak into just two stones and moved the other to be a smaller adjacent peak.


Top-down


Currently I'm looking to add mosses and grasses. Haven't decided on the kind of moss, I just bought some fissidens, but I don't know if it'll work with this. DHG and blyxa japonica will go in along with some staurogyne repens. That might be about all. If this ends up a shrimp tank, I don't need much more than ground cover.

 

[ChemGuyEthan]

Rocks definitely look great. I'm liking how well you used the eggcrate to elevate the rocks .

Thanks! I think I am settled on this scape. roud: The two that make up the larger peak fit together really well so just a little hot glue is all I'll need.

Wow, you guys get nice rocks in the state. They call those rocks, "Dragon Stone" up here and the price is really high.

Anyways, nice Fluval Chi! Your scape has a "Lord of the rings" vibe to it.

Haha, thanks! I see what you mean with the lord of the rings vibe. It wasn't terribly inexpensive here, I ordered it straight from ADA. But I really like it so I'm happy.

 

[ChemGuyEthan]

Sorry I missed the comment aquarist. Hope you got my reply to your PM.

I decided to go with that scape, more or less. I think I'll pull out the smaller stones in the front, maybe shift the big one forward a little and higher in elevation, then call it good.

I want to put a nice lawn of grass in front of that bad boy. Off to my LFS I go!

 

[ChemGuyEthan]

Planted!

Just to update everyone,

I got everything set up yesterday and am in the process of getting things how I want them. Here's the tank before planting and filling. Pretty high substrate in retrospect, 3.5 inches in front up to 5.5 in the back, hopefully that's not too high to give me troubles.



Here's halfway through planting, got the DHG down then flooded. Little bits of grass everywhere. I should have rinsed it all off before planting it...



And here it is this morning!





Current list for those interested:
Equipment
Fluval Chi 25L
Eheim 2211 with spraybar
Paintball CO2 at about 1.5 bps with ceramic diffuser
Finnex Fugeray, 10 inch (have a fugeray r that I need to put on it actually)
ViaAqua quartz 75W heater, probably overkill... and I want to replace it cause it just looks awful

Scape
Ohko stones
Amazonia regular topped with powder

Flora
eleocharis parvula
staurogyne repens
blyxa japonica

Fauna (yet to be added of course)
Spotted some blue axelrod rasbora at my LFS yesterday...do want! They look awesome and are nice and tiny to go with the scale of the scape here.
Some easy to keep shrimps (cherries or the like)
Probably some otos for the usual algae assistance
Perhaps a nerite or two, we'll see

I plan on adding some sort of taller plant behind the main rock since that's currently bare.

I also want to get maybe some glosso or crypt parva, or both to add some different leaf shapes to the layout.

Suggestions for the background plant would be appreciated, it'll probably be something grassy...I don't know if I want a big stem plant back there.

Also a suggestion for a quality, small heater that will be less a part of the scape and more hidden would be appreciated. Room temp here usually drifts from 70ish up to 80 in the late summer.

Thanks for looking and for all the suggestions during setup! :thumbsup:

 

[ChemGuyEthan]

Man, I'd heard amazonia leaches ammonia, but wow... :eek5: maxes out the api chemical test. I checked this morning and it was maxed, did a big water change, just checked again and it's right back up there. Nitrite is still about zero, nitrates are also through the roof (showing at least 160 ppm), phosphates are basically nil, and pH is around 6.4 or 6.0.

I think I might be starting my cycle...

I guess I should keep doing water changes daily until things are back to normal?

Also, this is a bit of an ignorant question, but I've never had a CO2 system on a tank that wasn't already cycled. Should I be running CO2 while it cycles, or is this just inviting algae with all the parameters going haywire?

 

[ChemGuyEthan]

Well, thankfully cycling didn't take too long. About 2 weeks. Everything nasty read zero as of yesterday.

Picked up some blue axelrod rasbora (Sundadanio axelrodi, I believe) today too! Along with a couple otos (they have been so hard to find lately).

Pretty excited to finally be able to add some movement to the tank!

I'll keep a close eye on water parameters, but I think they'll be fine.

More pictures will come maybe tomorrow.

 

[ChemGuyEthan]

Unfortunately I've lost 3 of the 8 axelrods. Maybe I should have waited another week, but I was too tempted by a buy one get one half off sale. :icon_neut

Hope to see the other 5 survive. All the tank parameters look normal, so I guess it's a shock sort of thing.

The tank is progressing alright. Seeing a little bit of diatom growth. I'm starting my EI schedule so that should be that. I also have some otos in my other tank and I could transfer a couple over from there.

The s repens is melting some, perhaps a result of cutting back my co2 before adding fish. Anyone else have any thoughts on why else it could be?

Finally, I added a light-diffusing backing and bought some glass pipes, now I'm just waiting on the smaller heater to be delivered.

Here's the picture.


As always, thanks for looking.

 

[ChemGuyEthan]

Well the s. repens decided it no longer wanted to live in this cruel cruel world...


...so I moved it, haha.

In it's place I added some hydrocotyle sp. japan. I received some originally intended for my new tank, but I had enough to add to both! :bounce:

I also received a large semi-random plant package with some mosses and crypts. I took the mini pellia and crammed it into some of the holes of the ohko stone. I think I want to use some of the other moss, christmas moss in particular, to make a tree to go behind the main rock and extend over towards the front. First I need to find some manzanita wood that'll work for that purpose... Here's an updated picture.

 

[ChemGuyEthan]

Update: 07/30/14

Hi everyone!

Finally got some pictures. The tank has changed quite a bit. I added some manzanita with some xmas moss, hoping to have it fill in nicely to give the tree effect. I'm hoping the alternanthera reineckii in back will color up to add some nice contrast. Not sure about those random sprigs of bacopa... They'll get moved around or out. I have also changed the heater to a cobalt aquatics neotherm, works great and fits nicely behind a rock, less obtrusive than the previous. I have also dialed in the CO2 nicely, as you can see in the pictures. Aaand, it may be overkill, but I've got a BML (at ~75%) 6300K dutch planted on this bad boy. So far no algae outbreaks, but I'm keeping a close eye on it. My photoperiod is only 6 hours, so maybe that's helping. The axelrod rasbora suffered only one more casualty, so down to 4. I'm hoping my lfs gets some more so I can bring the number back up a bit. There are also some amano shrimp running around and I hope to get some RCS's in the near future...

Anyway, enough talking!:bounce:

Full Monty:






Fishies chowing down :fish:


Thanks as always for looking! :icon_cool

 

[ChemGuyEthan]

Looks very nice! Keep us updated

Thanks! I've been following your 30 gallon thread, looks good! Though it's too bad about the temperature spike. This tank is in the living room of my apartment and even though it only gets morning sun, right now I can't keep the temp below 80...

Haha did you actually need to add any ammonia or did the tank cycle itself using just the Amazonia?

Congrats on the awesome looking tank! :thumbsup:

I did not add any additional ammonia. I found the amazonia poops out enough of it.

And thanks! I'll keep pics coming every few weeks at this point unless something dramatic happens...

 

[ChemGuyEthan]

Wow, hard to believe it's been a month since I updated this...

Well as you may anticipate, the plants have actually grown. Shocker, I know. I mean, they haven't grown much, you can see from this picture they've really just barely done anything...barely...
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...just sad really...
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Ok, in all seriousness, these plants grew like wildfire! And thanks to a healthy dose of neglect from myself in trimming (but not in my fert dosing :thumbsup, things really overgrew the tank. The fish barely had room to swim anymore. So, TRIM TIME!!! :red_mouth



Amazing how different things look. The "tree" is starting to grow in nicely. I like the look of the xmas moss for trees. The mini pellia is also looking good in the ohko. I divided my once, three plants of blyxa japonica into about 15 stems worth! Most of which made it's way into the 40 gallon to supplement what I already had in there. Hoping to get a nice patch grown in on that one. I removed the bacopa that was in there, not really feeling it in this scape. And my final comment is on the alternanthera reineckii, It's really making a nice wall of red in the back that I wanted. I'll probably have to trim that soon too, getting close to the surface.

I had hooked a rig up to hang the light from instead of having it resting on the tank, as I've had some thread algae on the upper most parts of the plants, but then it broke... So I gotta figure something else out.

The final fun little tid-bit. Somehow an amano shrimp made it from this aquarium to the bathroom...still alive at the time...still alive tonight. My roommate called me while I was at work this morning, very confused... as was I, haha. He found the shrimp this morning and cleaned him off a bit, then put him back in the tank for me. I barely believed it until he sent me a picture. At the time, I hadn't done anything to the tank except add some more water to it (it's been so hot here that the water is evaporating quite quickly), I did the trim tonight. I had no idea these little shrimp were so resilient, that's about a 30 foot journey across carpet and tile...a very dry, 30 foot journey. :confused1:

Here's the picture, kinda blurry, but you can tell it's a shrimp!


As always, thanks for looking!

 

[ChemGuyEthan]

And my final update of the night!

Took the AR out of this one. I don't really like how it looks. I kept some rotala trimmings from the 40 gallon and may add them here, but I'll leave this for a night and then decide tomorrow if I want to add them in or leave it. I'm still not satisfied with this scape...the moss has grown in really nice, but the tree effect isn't really hitting me any more. Thoughts on changes would be appreciated. I do have several more pieces of ohko I could add to the back too. We'll see.

Pics.

Before:


After:


I now I have a hanger for the light so it doesn't sit right on top of the tank.


Thanks again for the comments and views!

 

[ChemGuyEthan]

I've had this happen to me several times...only once did I catch an amano surviving out of the water. The others, well, they met they're timely demise . Anyways, I think they jump out most when breeding, they'll be more active and jumpy as they try to play around with each other. The only other time I had them jump out was when something went really wrong with my tank, so they tried to climb out and then jump out. Just be careful on how things go!

Yeah, it may have been the heat, not sure. I don't have a good way of cooling the tanks down, unfortunately. Should be about done with the heat wave out here though. Haven't had any more climb out or any casualties though, so I think this is just an adventurous little shrimp, haha.

 

[ChemGuyEthan]

Considering I don't really like where this scape has gone, I'm going to change things up!

Picked up a few cool pieces of wood. The first is a log-type piece that is pretty cool, it's hollow in the middle and has lots of little nooks and crannies for me to stuff plants into. The second was bought to accent the first, just has two long branches that are about the same length as the log. I'll move the fish and shrimp out and keep them out for a week or so after rescaping while things settle back in.

The pieces are both about the same length as the tank, so with substrate, they'll stick out the top of the tank.

I plan on using both the mini xmas moss and the mini pellia on the wood. I also want to get some anubias nana petite in there and some of that hydro japan. I want the hydro to climb up and out of the tank, ideally... The blyxa will stay and I might add some AR mini for some color.

Here are pictures of the wood. I've got it soaking now. It's not too floaty, so probably next weekend I'll be able to set things up, assuming I have the time and motivation.

 

[ChemGuyEthan]

Hey gang, update time!

Here is a picture. Obviously not done yet, and clearly these aren't the glamour shots, haha. Just wanted to show you all the updated layout. I took the picture this morning as things were quite cloudy last night after refilling so I just didn't do any more work on it.

Got all the fauna out and tore up all the plants. Took a large amount of the substrate out as I think it was too high. Glued/tied some moss to the wood (which took a surprisingly long time...). Replanted the blyxa in the back and got some hydrocotyle tripartita in there around the base of the largest log. It should do well filling in the back corner and kinda spilling out around the base. Unfortunately, the smaller wood piece in the back is deciding it wants to float sometimes, I'll have to tie a rock to it.



Here's a shot of the wood sticking out the top of the tank.


Here's where I'm a little undecided. Aside from "dusting" things off and leveling the substrate, I'm not totally sure what I want to plant in the foreground. I'm leaning towards glosso (if I can find any). I thought about HC, but decided against it. I want something a little more leafy since the wood is so dominating. I would also consider some s. repens as a carpet, since it's a little larger. I don't think I want to replant the grass (meaning I'll probably sell it!), it was a lot of work keeping it trimmed and near the end I just didn't care.

I'll clean things up a bit tonight after work. Should also be getting some buce in the mail to tie onto/glue onto the wood as well.

Any thoughts on the carpet plant would be appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[ChemGuyEthan]

Greetings all!

Just thought I would continue to keep you updated on the progress. Got some plants in this week. Barto got me some foreground plants, rotala mexican goais (which I'm hoping will turn red even at this depth) and some limnophila mini vietnam. Also got some buce from EricJ. Got those tied or glued to the wood and I think the tank is starting to come together! Now the waiting game as things grow in...

 

[ChemGuyEthan]

Hello everyone,

Been feeling pretty under the weather all weekend, but I made some changes to this tank today. I swapped the rotala and limnophila out for some downoi. Hoping the downoi will take off and compliment the leaf shapes of the buce. The others were getting pretty leggy and the rotala was never going to color up at this depth.

Apologies in advance for the phone pics.

Here's the full tank:


And you may notice a little something on the lower right, I call it "Mini Buce Island!"
Got a few different mini buce species and decided to tie them all to a small piece of lava rock to make a little island. Got some (naming from left to right) "hyperion," "mini belinda," and some "lamandau mini." The first two are courtesy once again of EricJ and the last is from Ryantube. Really great plants from both guys!

Here's a closer picture:


Sorry for the crappy phone pictures, I'm not sure where my camera went...I tried to touch them up a little as my phone has a hard time dealing with the light.

You may notice too I added some floaters. Been getting some algae so trying to keep the light a little bit more diffuse.

Haven't figured out fish yet, this tank has such a tiny footprint it's hard to find something that'll be happy here. I'll get some amanos and cherries in soon though.

Thanks for checking it out, comments welcome!