Iwagumi and Dry start method

So recently I’ve been interested in Iwagumi lately and I went to the plant store yesterday to buy some seiryu stones and I have this following questions:

The tank is 24”x15”x12” the plant is going to be Utricularia graminifolia.
- Background colors; white or black?
- light recommended?
- Stockings! (GH 50ppm)
- How to do a “dry start method”? How much humidity should I go for?
- Is CO2 nescessary?
- How important are Laterite and base layer substrate?
- I need you guys help with the stone placement, this is what I came up with:

Is it abit too much?


Thanks in advance for any help!



@Wills @mbsqw1d
@Colin_T

sorry, no idea what iwagumi is

Seiryu stones can increase your water GH and pH.
They may not be suitable if you decide to keep soft water fish.

I’m going to use ada aquasoil, GH and pH is not the problem (I hope)

Colin_T said:

sorry, no idea what iwagumi is

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It’s a style of aquascaping created by Amano.

Looks good so far, third rock could have been a little taller but you could always build it up with cheaper rocks underneath?

Utricularia is a hard plant to grow, you need a high tech set up and it also benefits from a mature set up as it is a carnivorus plant that eats micro organisms in the tank that wont be there in most new set ups. Co2 will be pretty much essential and good lighting. UG is known for doing well in depleted substrates as they often contain the micro organisms the plant needs to thrive - for example if you have an active substrate like ADA or Tropica in a tank after a year or sometimes a little longer they are depleted of any active nature and you need to add root tabs but some people just set up a UG tank and take it in a different direction.

Iwagumi on the whole is quite hard to do well and in the long term, most tanks only last about 6 months and then people cant keep them balanced or the plants grow out too much or the battle with algae becomes too much.

Have you considered doing a Brazilian style tank? Or at least a mix of the two? If you had the middle section with the rocks you could put some Rotala stems in to help with the plant load and to blend between the stems and a carpet add in some small crypts and something like Juncus Repens? I have Crypt Alibida Brown with some Juncus and it looks really good.

Rather than the UG I'd use a carpeting plant like Monte Carlo or a Marsilea species.

Wills

Wills said:

Looks good so far, third rock could have been a little taller but you could always build it up with cheaper rocks underneath?

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Yep, I have some the store also giveaway some cheap rocks and egg crates, are egg crates really nescessary?

Wills said:

Have you considered doing a Brazilian style tank? Or at least a mix

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Nope, I don’t want to do anything more expensive than this one.

Can you give me a bit of info on the dry start method? The only thing I can find is those 1-2 grow things and is a terrestrial form.

I normally used yeast CO2 and then balanced it out by using drop checker, is it okay if I missed some day without CO2?

Barry Tetra said:

Can you give me a bit of info on the dry start method? The only thing I can find is those 1-2 grow things and is a terrestrial form.

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Try The Dry Start Method - Grow carpet the EASY way!

Thank you @madmark285 and @Wills for your information!

Dry start method and the Iwagumi started!


I will update this aquascape everyday until the utricularia covers the ground.

Looking good - could take quite a while for that to spread out UG isnt known to be a fast grower.

Wills

Today was a very hot day, it is 36C (96F), this makes me worried about UG melting.

If it melts I would probably get hairgrass instead.

It seems like UG doesn’t grow, it’s been 2 weeks and it looks exactly the same, is this because of the temperature of 37C? When can I flood the tank?

@Wills

probably lack of nutrients or the plants are still settling in and recovering from the transplant shock.

When can I fill in the water?

I’ve read that I have to wait 6 weeks to 8 weeks before I can flood the tank.

Its usually a while before you can fill it with water UG is a tough plant though. The temperature could be a factor though I'm not familiar with where UG is from in the wild, but I wonder what carpeting plants are naturally found in Thailand? I bet there are some in the trade you could grow without collecting from the wild.

Wills