[endgin28]

Current state as of 2/6/13

Completely rescaped. Did the hardscape reboot about 2 weeks ago-it hasn't fully carpeted yet, and is one of those organic tanks- I did not really plan the tank as much as dropped a bunch of plants into the mix and will see how it turns out. No livestock other than some tough RCS.

So I have had this tank for a year now and after a generous christmas gift of aqua soil multi, I decided to redo the tank in an iwagumi style. Unfortunately, I never got any shots of the original scape, which was a mix of manzanita, and siryu stones, with a smattering of Anubias nana and C parva with africana soil and a white sand foreground. I housed sterbia cories who promptly destroyed the sand It was pretty cool, but I had some real challenges with CO2 and the cories took the brunt of it Now that all but one are gone, I decided to break in the new year with a new look.

I found a neat rock store in southern Utah that had some obsidian stones with great character, bought about thirty pounds of it to play with. I had four bags of Amazonia multi, a bag of power sand special. I picked up a couple of pots of HC, and I have a line on some eleocharis "Belem" that I would like to use in the scape. I have a historical tendency for collectoritis, but I am going to try to keep this simple.

The tank is really fun to work with, but the length is kind of a challenge from a logistic stand point. For instance, I originally ran a XP 1 on the tank, and the filter just wasn't circulating enough water to reach the far side. I eventually put an old fluval 404 on it and the seems to have enough reach, but I will probably do something different once I put water in it. (It is really old and noisy) It also is a challenge to supply co2 as well. I have been running an inline atomic diffuser and have had serious flucuations with fatalities. The large surface area and shallow depth means serious out gassing, and I haven't gotten great results from diffusers. We will see if I stick with the inline diffuser, or make a switch.

Equipment list
GLA 91-B tank 36"x 8.3" x 9.4"
Aquatic Life T-5 fixture 78 watts geisemann powerchrome
Fluval 306 canister filter (changed my mind 306 is too powerful, will use a Eheim 2026)
Archea regulator w/ 5lb CO2 tank
Hydor inline 200 watt heater
Ista Mix Max CO2 reactor
Hand made acrylic lily pipes, intake outtake

Hardscape and substrate
Aquasoil Amazonia Multi w/ power sand special
Obsidian stones

Plant Species list
Hemiathus Callitrichoides
Elocharis sp "Belem"

The initial stage will be an emersed growth period of about a month. I am probably going to add additional DIY co2 to speed it along.

 

[endgin28]

Oops, bad post

 

[endgin28]

Ditto

 

[endgin28]

one more try

So I have had some difficulty uploading photos to this thread but I am going to give it another try. This is the original shot of the tank during the cycling I did last year. It changed a lot over time and the cories total destroyed the foreground sand but this was essentially the first incarnation of the tank.

 

[Nubster]

Love the rocks. Personally I would love to see them almost in a huge mountain top like mound...maybe with layers. But the way you have it setup is really nice as well. The tank is pretty neat too. Are you able to get more stones like that?

 

[endgin28]

So here is a little bit of a step by step of where I went with the rescape. After I moved the stock into a holding tank (plants, amanos and the last of the cories) I drained the tank and started digging out the substrate. After I got the bulk of it bagged, I refilled the tank a few times and vacuumed the remaining sand/substrate into buckets. Then I did some fine cleaning work with a magic eraser (awesome BTW), a razor and a little bit of vinegar/ lemon juice to clean off the carbonate stains. I flushed it one more time.

I took a break after that and got back to it the next day. I laid down a base of power sand special, then put down a shallow layer of ADA Amazonia multi.

 

[endgin28]

I started working on the hardscape and the slope. The obsidian is a really cool stone material, but it is downright dangerously sharp at times. According to wikipedia they still chip scalpel blades out of the stuff) Hopefully I got the placement right. The sloping of the substrate has always been difficult and with the narrow dimensions really require a serious slope to attain a sense of depth. Soemthing that was sorely lacking in my previous attempt with this tank. To prevent the inevitable slipping of the substrate I stole some concepts from the concrete guys, namely re-bar. I laid toothpicks parallel in the tank between the the hardscape pieces as a laid down one layer of aquasoil after another. As the depth got greater, I would insert toothpicks vertically and/ or angling backwards into the substrate to reinforce the slope as it got higher. I figure that if I can put them in my mouth, they should be safe in the aquarium, even though they will eventually rot. By then the root system should be providing additional support for the slope. I hopefully buried the vertical toothpicks deeply enough that the settling will not expose them, but the should be easy to remove if necessary. In this picture you can see a few toothpicks I laid into the AS.
(BTW, I apologize for the poor photo quality- I will borrow my friends DSLR when things progress).

This is where the obsidian went into the scape.

I hope you like the placement, the obvious downside to the toothpicks is that it would be challenging to move the hardscape pieces if I want to change it.

 

[Geniusdudekiran]

How much does this tank cost with shipping?

 

[endgin28]

So on new years day, I got down to the hard work of planting the HC I had picked up at my LFS. It really does take a lot of work put it all in, and frankly the crappy tweezers I had did not really do me any favors. After slowly breaking the pots of HC into pieces and planting it I got the tank ready for the long wait.
This is where I ended up, sorry about the condensation, I had been spraying as I planted and didn't really get the glass cleaned up at all.

Here is a sideways shot of the right side slope. If it stays in place when I fill it, I will do a crazy war dance.

I have some Elocharis 'belem' on the way that will be added into the mix around the hardscape this weekend. The tank is set for a few weeks of emersed growth, and the HC is already getting after it, and showing new growth. Here is the current state of affairs, three days later. It is hard to see, but their is new leaf growth.

 

[bastage]

I love the tank dimensions.. & The rock formation is awesome as well.

 

[endgin28]

Love the rocks. Personally I would love to see them almost in a huge mountain top like mound...maybe with layers. But the way you have it setup is really nice as well. The tank is pretty neat too. Are you able to get more stones like that?

My friend picked them up at aqua forest aquarium when he was in California. They are in storage right now for my next project. The hardscape was always a little jumbled. I wish I would have gotten pics of the tank before I tore it down for the rescape, it looked a little better.

 

[endgin28]

How much does this tank cost with siopping?

If I remember right the tank was about $90 and the shipping was about $25-$30 from Florida to Utah. Pretty reasonable. GLA is awesome, and the tank is really interesting to work on.

 

[endgin28]

I love the tank dimensions.. & The rock formation is awesome as well.

Thank you, I hope is looks even better with water in it.

 

[Geniusdudekiran]

Just realized that I typed siopping instead of shipping lol. Stupid iPad.

 

[endgin28]

Love th iPaad. iT funn to typ on.

 

[Geniusdudekiran]

lol

 

[endgin28]

Got some serious work done today. Got a glass cover cut locally that fits like a glove, and did some serious DIY lily pipes and some drop checkers. Not my first time cooking acrylic, buy certainly my best work.

 

[endgin28]

One intake in this photo was a victim of man handling when testing for fit and some are going into the other secret project I am working on, but I always like to have back ups just in case. I didn't break tne hacksawed one so I didn't cry to badly. Went nuts on DFS and picked up new 306 fluval to drive the system and a pair of the new Ista reactors to try out, as well as a Hydor inline heater for the other project while I was at it. The blurb they had on the 306 said all the right things, and while 300+ gph may be a lot for a 12 gallon tank, I love to have more capacity than I need rather than needing more than I have. I could have DIY'd a reactor, and have done so in the past, but I like to try new things and they were cheap. Not sure if I will use the reactor or my inline Atomic yet, but I have always disliked the misty look of the Atomic. May just use it on my grow out.

 

[endgin28]

So after getting some Elocharis "belem" from a forum member today, I added it to the scape and it really seems to be coming together. Now it is just the waiting part which is hands down the hardest part of the whole ordeal. Here a few shots of the current state of affairs. First a cropped FTS. Sorry I didn't clean the glass.

A couple of detail shots.

Anyways, that is where we stand now. My family keeps asking what fish I am going to put in it (actually they mainly ask why it doesn't have water in it...) but I still am not sure. The usual duo of otto's and amano's once we get there of course, but I am still mulling the live stock options. Any suggestions?

 

[OiZO]

I have the same tank. since you have a lid (wish i had one) i would do 10 or so Clown killifish or furcata rainbow. The furcata's are my favorite fish and they love the swim room on this tank and if you only keep furcata's they will breed for you. Another fish i have loved in this tank is ember tetra's. Feed them food with carotenoids in it like cyclop eeze or similar and watch them turn deep deep orange/red.


p.s. Would you mind sharing the specs and rough cost of your lid? I need to get one made fish really like to jump with this tank.