[Francis Xavier]

Last night I was finally able to put together a new scape for the first time in about 6 months or more, so suffice to say, I was pretty excited to put this together.

This past week I kind of had scapers block. I didn't know what I wanted to do with this tank. I was tossing back and forth ideas about softscape only, driftwood layouts, hardscape only, there and back again through the gambit. But, I finally found my source of inspiration.

So, I'm using a new stone type for me (Black Coast), a new plant for me (some kind of lilaepolis (sp), presumably brasilensis), and finally I'm focusing on just one plant type and a predominately sand bed. I used a fine sand grain with some sprinkles of coarser sand to give the impression of sediment and water flow through the channels. The core theme here is waves pounding the side of a rock face and eroding it away over eons.

The specs:

Tank: Mini S
Light: Solar Mini S (27w)
Co2: Pressurized
Filtration: Eheim 2213
Substrate: Power Sand Special S, Amazonia II
Stone: Black Coast
Flora: Lilaepolis Brasilensis (sp?)

I know, I know, yet another Iwagumi by X.

 

[houseofcards]

I'm feeling it, I think you've done a very good job. A 2213 on a Mini-S. Curious are you running it at full power. Also where did you put the AS II. Is it under the sand in the back half of the tank?

 

[Francis Xavier]

I'm not currently running it at full power. I keep it about half torqued. The ideal filter for this tank is along the lines of a 2211, but I'm too lazy to switch them out.

Yes the layer of ASII and PowerSand is underneath the sand layer in the back. The front has only sand as to help encourage the plants to not move forward if given a choice.

 

[VadimShevchuk]

looking really nice. Are those stones expensive?

 

[Francis Xavier]

Thanks for the compliments houseofcards and Vadim.

Vadim, the stones aren't anymore expensive than typical ADA stones, little bit cheaper on average. They are the ADG exclusive stone type.

 

[houseofcards]

Another thing too, with that setup where you have mostly rock right under strong light and so little flora how are you starting off the tank in terms of lighting, maintenance to avoid algae issues? When I do a setup like that, I usally run my lights 4/5 hrs to start, use carbon, seed with mulm and keep up with WCs. Are you doing something similiar?

 

[Francis Xavier]

Right now the plan is running an 8 hour lighting period, Co2 Overdose, and a 100% water change for the first few days. As that goes along I may try adding more plant mass into the scape. It's more or less a play by ear thing for the moment. It's also a little deceiving right now because there is more plant mass behind the stones that's unseen. But overall, the goal is to not let the Lilaeopsis spread to the front, so that kind of limits total plant mass. There will be a sprinkling of some hair grass here and there, but not much.

The challenge with the planting in this particular circumstance is that the final intent is for the Lilaeopsis to curve slightly over the rock, so they all more or less need to be planted in a fairly uniform direction to give that idea of ocean spray (with the occasional sprig of hair grass for the finer mist). So, I'll be very very intently watching the growth patterns.

 

[houseofcards]

Thanks for the explanation. Sounds interesting and challenging, good luck!

 

[DBLSHOT]

( ( skyRaQ N

 

[hydrophyte]

I just ran into this thread. I like the looks of it so far. That is great movement in the hardscape. Do you have any updates?

 

[sapphoqueen]

+1

call me now a iwagumi freak


P.S. I told you I'm found last week some rocks?

 

[bsk]

I love the Hardscape a traditional Iwagumi layout yet at the same time reminds me of a shore line in here in Hawaii.

 

[Francis Xavier]

Thanks for the compliment hydrophyte. Scaping on such a small canvas, I think, I might the most challenging task there is - mostly because standard rules break down and creating impact becomes difficult, where as in a larger tank you have the space for more presence and impact, but the challenge is getting material that's big enough.

I'll shoot a few update photo's tonight when I get home.

Sapphoqueen, Iwagumi is great, glad to have you on board to take up the iwagumi challenge!

bsk, I think with this scape I focused more on refinement of technique than creating something completely unique - but I used elements that were pretty much completely new to me (sand, lilaepolis, that type of rock). Creating a 'traditional' Iwagumi, as I mentioned earlier, on such a small canvas is very challenging to create both a sense of scale, space and layout variety.

 

[Francis Xavier]

Here's some of the updated photo's, ran home on an errand and took some pictures before heading back into work.

I had some trouble with the lilaepolis initially, as it began melting and staying stunted, but it's coming back now and looks noticeably healthier than it did last week.

So far I've been dosing Brighty K and Green Brighty Step 1 with two squirts a day in the Mini, and did 100% water changes everyday for the first two weeks.

Now i'm at about a 50% every few days, using Brighty K, Green Brighty Step 1, and Special Lights, I've also stopped applying Green Bacter daily.

I also got some Crystal Red's that were left over a few days ago and added them into the tank. My first time trying out the new ADA Red Bee Shrimp food and it works pretty well. I was also surprised at the real difference Green Bacter makes in tank cycling.

These photo's were just taken from the phone, so nothing supremely amazing.

 

[DDA]

how much those rock

 

[Francis Xavier]

3.25 a lb I prefer to hand select rocks for people if they're telling me what they're trying to do

 

[Francis Xavier]

I figured I'd post an update to this tank -

Over labor day I had a disaster happen in this tank - well mostly, it's Murphy's Law. I left on Saturday, and when I got back Monday evening, the co2 had run out (which means it probably ran out saturday night), and as a result there was a huge Green Dust Algae bloom -everywhere-.

Some negligence due to busy work schedule made this problem even worse - water changes at night just weren't enough to get rid of this thick, nasty, disgusting amount of GDA. I mean -totally- covered everywhere. Imagine green slime over everything.

The solution? I dropped an Amano bomb (e.g. I added Amano Shrimp). Well technically I scrapped down all the glass with a single, sharp razor blade, did a 100% water change, and then I added about 10 Amano's to the tank. This was friday.

Today, the tank is almost completely clean of all remaining algae. Even the weird funky unidentifiable stuff on some of the Lilaeopsis.

Here's a quick, crappy picture from my mobile phone I took before heading into work this morning.

 

[Outlawboss]

Nice save. Amanos are pretty much awesome.