ADA 60F v2.0

[Wills]

So I got some different sand think it was called Fiji Sand cant remember the brand but not a 'fancy' one. Also got some dragon stone bought way too much! Ended up getting a medium sized bit and smashing it to get whats in here. In the hardscape pic above I havent added the detail and grading but it is in the planted one below.

At the LFS I got the sand from picked up some Lilaeopsis Brasiliensis and some Cardamine Lyrata, which I'm glad I did as the rest would not have been enough to stave off algae. I still need to plant the Anubias and Bucephalandra but its late so will do those possibly tomorrow.

And here is the planted result

Pretty happy with it all in all, bit cloudy at the moment but lets see what its like in the morning. Now for the nervous overnight wait to see if anything breaks! I do also need to get some mature media over here from my other tank which I might do tomorrow? An other update for an other day is to change the outlet on the tank - its super high so the water level needs to be too.

Wills

 

[Wills]

Not 100% clear but looking much better this morning and surprisingly no tannins!

Wills

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

Oh wow, it's absolutely gorgeous!! You have such a great eye for aquascaping!! That piece of wood is perfect... was that luck that it's so perfectly sized for this tank, or did you measure it? The shape is wonderful. Can't wait to see how this grows and evolves!

Let me know how you get on with the liliopsis... I'm still struggling with that despite gluing it to moss, but I think that's only because mine is a cory heavy tank! It's otherwise pretty and has stayed healthy and green - my cory pack just manage to loosten the odd leaf here and there that winds up on the surface. Let me know how and where you plant it, please!

hydrocotyle too - looks a bit bigger than I was expecting but I'll get it planted and set up.

Nice! I love my hydrocotyle tripartita (although my poor plant winds up unrooted and moved a lot, so it's survived for years now, but never really had a chance to truly thrive). I want to experiment with other hydrocotyles at some point, so I'm looking forward to seeing how yours does!

Cardamine Lyrata

This one is new to me, haven't seen it before, it's lovely!

The Buce is a 1-2-grow pot but its not looking that hot in the tub will see how it looks when it comes out and is rinsed.

My buces came from trimmings from another hobbyist, but also looked a bit rubbish when I just had them pinned down loosely in a tank or floating freely, but once I glued one to the hardscape, it immediately put out new leaves and looks much better really quickly! Hopefully yours does too.

I also got a pack of these mesh bags MD style! Ordered them last night here today £5 for 5 black and 5 white which is pretty good, nice small size for this tank too.


@AdoraBelle Dearheart did you use the bags in yours? Hows it been working out?

I did try them, filled with gravel under the sand when I was setting up, but because it's just gravel and sand, they were getting uncovered too easily. It's super hard to create slopes or hills when sand does tend to level out over time without buttressing it with hardscape, and since my tank is mainly for cories and plecs, I realised they'd be uncovering the bags all the time, so I didn't wind up using them in the end. Glad I didn't, because the cories already have the sand evened out!

However! I do still plan to use them in the future, and I know it could work if someone like you is doing it, and you're using soil to cover the bags and then sand. That, along with carefully placing the hardscape (and not having digging fish that like to rearrange the substrate!) I'm sure it can work well! I really want to use soil in my next tank (have a 20g just waiting to be scaped and have my pygmies moved to it, and I'd like a soil area bank/hill for planting, held steady with hardscape, then a lot of fine sand for the cories to eat and hang out. Any recs for soil that works well, but doesn't spike ammonia?


I would love it if you made youtube vids about this project! The whole office planning with the tanks and plants sounds really fun, and I think a lot of us could learn a lot. You know a great deal, but never act like you're an expert either and don't talk down to people. I'd subscribe in a heartbeat.

 

[Wills]

Oh wow, it's absolutely gorgeous!! You have such a great eye for aquascaping!! That piece of wood is perfect... was that luck that it's so perfectly sized for this tank, or did you measure it? The shape is wonderful. Can't wait to see how this grows and evolves!

Let me know how you get on with the liliopsis... I'm still struggling with that despite gluing it to moss, but I think that's only because mine is a cory heavy tank! It's otherwise pretty and has stayed healthy and green - my cory pack just manage to loosten the odd leaf here and there that winds up on the surface. Let me know how and where you plant it, please!

Nice! I love my hydrocotyle tripartita (although my poor plant winds up unrooted and moved a lot, so it's survived for years now, but never really had a chance to truly thrive). I want to experiment with other hydrocotyles at some point, so I'm looking forward to seeing how yours does!


This one is new to me, haven't seen it before, it's lovely!


My buces came from trimmings from another hobbyist, but also looked a bit rubbish when I just had them pinned down loosely in a tank or floating freely, but once I glued one to the hardscape, it immediately put out new leaves and looks much better really quickly! Hopefully yours does too.


I did try them, filled with gravel under the sand when I was setting up, but because it's just gravel and sand, they were getting uncovered too easily. It's super hard to create slopes or hills when sand does tend to level out over time without buttressing it with hardscape, and since my tank is mainly for cories and plecs, I realised they'd be uncovering the bags all the time, so I didn't wind up using them in the end. Glad I didn't, because the cories already have the sand evened out!

However! I do still plan to use them in the future, and I know it could work if someone like you is doing it, and you're using soil to cover the bags and then sand. That, along with carefully placing the hardscape (and not having digging fish that like to rearrange the substrate!) I'm sure it can work well! I really want to use soil in my next tank (have a 20g just waiting to be scaped and have my pygmies moved to it, and I'd like a soil area bank/hill for planting, held steady with hardscape, then a lot of fine sand for the cories to eat and hang out. Any recs for soil that works well, but doesn't spike ammonia?


I would love it if you made youtube vids about this project! The whole office planning with the tanks and plants sounds really fun, and I think a lot of us could learn a lot. You know a great deal, but never act like you're an expert either and don't talk down to people. I'd subscribe in a heartbeat.

Thanks I'm pretty happy with it quite cloudy today! I may not have cleaned the sand enough.... Going to try and get a water change in over lunch time today.

I've got the Liliopsis in small clumps just in between rocks and wood rather than trying to make a carpet or anything, will let it spread out if it goes though. Last job I've got is to tie on my Buce and Anubias but going to be a few days before I do that. Even though its mini coin it is quite big so hoping it wont spoil the scape?

Wills

 

[Wills]

Still cloudy but realised I've set my filter up totally wrong! When I shut it down I've stored the media loose in there and not put the walls that you get back in. I've realise I just did this as storage and it was not how I actually had it set up. Will have to get some time this week to fix it.

Wills

 

[Wills]

This is the tank tonight (angle is just due to the photo lol), it looks cloudier in the photo than in reality and possibly clearing as I write this but the wood is spitting out a lot of biofilm at the moment and I think its a bacteria bloom? I did the first water change tonight which I was a bit nervous about as it is so full lol but it went ok. I also had a good chance to take my filter apart as I had definitely stuffed it up. The Filtosmart is like a bucket and you get three dividing panels that slide in and out and I had left them out and just had a bucket of media with a sponge on top that meant water probably went straight in and then straight out. With the panels in it makes the water run through the whole filter and thanks to a Pond Guru video I got it set up properly and top down it now looks like this, with the sponge on the right guiding the water in then the water runs underneath into the bio media in chamber 2 and 3 and then back into the tank through the middle sponge. I also have a bag of Purigen in the bottom of chamber 1 but will have to see how that goes.

Really glad I got to grips with the filter as it means I'm happier to transfer live media from my other tank to this one in order to get fish in.

Wills

 

[Jitsz]

... thanks to a Pond Guru video I got it set up properly and top down it now looks like this, with the sponge on the right guiding the water in then the water runs underneath into the bio media in chamber 2 and 3 and then back into the tank through the middle sponge. I also have a bag of Purigen in the bottom of chamber 1 but will have to see how that goes.

Haha I actually watched the same video the other day I think was very useful! Tank looks really good dude, the final arrangement of the hardscape looks really nice and it's always more exciting when you see the plants in too

Really cool use of the mesh bags too. Would have never thought of that or realised you'd done so!

I did actually cram my mechanical media in to a bag then put that into the filtosmart, though no one else seems to do that so now I'm wondering if I'm just restricting the flow too much there I guess we'll find out.

 

[Wills]

Haha I actually watched the same video the other day I think was very useful! Tank looks really good dude, the final arrangement of the hardscape looks really nice and it's always more exciting when you see the plants in too

Really cool use of the mesh bags too. Would have never thought of that or realised you'd done so!

I did actually cram my mechanical media in to a bag then put that into the filtosmart, though no one else seems to do that so now I'm wondering if I'm just restricting the flow too much there I guess we'll find out.

I always tend to oversize my filters just so I can put more in them if I need to

Things seem to be going ok at the moment, quite a bit of biofilm on the wood but easy enough to get rid of. Actually noticing quite a bit of plant growth from the Cardomine which I'm so glad I got! Its pushing the water surface now if it breaks through I'll be pretty happy, I've seen pictures of it in the wild growing emerged and it would fit this style of tank. Comparing the first photo to the latest the Hydrocotyle has gained an inch or so too, so in a good place considering its been set up less than a week - slight concerns about fast growth in a small tank but will also quite enjoy it, if it becomes a pond style I'd be quite happy. Would like to see a bit more growth from the Red Root Floater but I think it took mine in the other tank a week or two to settle in and now its covering the top nicely.

The tank is much clearer today so the filter reassembly has worked, unfortunately some of the plants have quite a bit of dust/debris on which I need to fix soon. Bit of an issue with my water conditioner that I mentioned in my other thread but have ordered a little pot of API which should fix that.

Only other issue I have with the tank is I tried to be clever and cut the outlet pipe down to suit the look of the shallow tank so the water level has to be high and in warm weather I'm loosing to evaporation so I've got a little trickle - when I've got the dropper now but I do want a new outlet at some point, it only adds an inch but in an 8 inch tall tank I think that might be the answer.

In terms of fish I might go at the weekend and do a media swap from my other tank, going to take it slow and just add a few at a time. I'm not sure which way I want to go yet, its down to either the Platies or the Emerald Rasboras, possibly with a Badis or Dario species if I can work out if one comes from Lake Inle which I'm not sure of at this point. I will likely get Amano Shrimp in here and I may get some Cherries too?

Wills

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

I always tend to oversize my filters just so I can put more in them if I need to

Things seem to be going ok at the moment, quite a bit of biofilm on the wood but easy enough to get rid of. Actually noticing quite a bit of plant growth from the Cardomine which I'm so glad I got! Its pushing the water surface now if it breaks through I'll be pretty happy, I've seen pictures of it in the wild growing emerged and it would fit this style of tank. Comparing the first photo to the latest the Hydrocotyle has gained an inch or so too, so in a good place considering its been set up less than a week - slight concerns about fast growth in a small tank but will also quite enjoy it, if it becomes a pond style I'd be quite happy. Would like to see a bit more growth from the Red Root Floater but I think it took mine in the other tank a week or two to settle in and now its covering the top nicely.

View attachment 162743

The tank is much clearer today so the filter reassembly has worked, unfortunately some of the plants have quite a bit of dust/debris on which I need to fix soon. Bit of an issue with my water conditioner that I mentioned in my other thread but have ordered a little pot of API which should fix that.

Only other issue I have with the tank is I tried to be clever and cut the outlet pipe down to suit the look of the shallow tank so the water level has to be high and in warm weather I'm loosing to evaporation so I've got a little trickle - when I've got the dropper now but I do want a new outlet at some point, it only adds an inch but in an 8 inch tall tank I think that might be the answer.

In terms of fish I might go at the weekend and do a media swap from my other tank, going to take it slow and just add a few at a time. I'm not sure which way I want to go yet, its down to either the Platies or the Emerald Rasboras, possibly with a Badis or Dario species if I can work out if one comes from Lake Inle which I'm not sure of at this point. I will likely get Amano Shrimp in here and I may get some Cherries too?

Wills

I really love it! It's looking so good, and you can almost see how it's going to look as it grows in!
Totally should get some neos too - depending on what colour the other fish you choose are, you could go for a matching or opposite colour with the neos. Some red platies with blue neos for example.


I'm so jealous of your red root floaters! I wanted some so badly for my new tank, but twice now I bought an in-vitro tub from Pro-Shrimp, and it died back instantly When I tried talking to customer service they were no help, just said that it's the trickiest floater, which sucks since the sales site info from them and from Tropica labels it as "easy". I'm too nervous to buy it from another source since I have shrimp, and so many other places import plants grown abroad that have been sprayed with shrimp-killing pesticides.

 

[Essjay]

Red root floater goes mad in my tanks, especially the shrimp tank. I wonder if it's due to the difference in our water - mine is soft, yours is hard?

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

Red root floater goes mad in my tanks, especially the shrimp tank. I wonder if it's due to the difference in our water - mine is soft, yours is hard?

Maybe!
I've kept water lettuce, frogbit and unfortunately unwillingly, duckweed, all have done well in my tanks.
Tropica have started packing some in-vitro plants in liquid rather than the jelly like stuff, and the red root floaters arrived in that, with no real roots, just some leaves. First time I've had a plant that was in the liquid rather than the jelly.
ETA: I wonder whether the plants also got too hot while being posted, since the weather has been hot and it takes a few days for them to arrive...

I wonder if I could get some larger, rooted plants from somewhere, maybe they'd have a better chance. Will have to check ebay for shrimp safe listings I guess?

 

[Wills]

I have Red Root Floater in my other tank and its doing great, pretty much full coverage. It is a bit slower than some other floating plants but it suddenly takes over. I did it from 1-2-grow and they did look a bit worse for wear to start with but it came back.

Wills

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

@Essjay @Wills
When I got my first tub of red root floaters, I had amazon frogbit on one side of the tank, and the red roots on the other, but they melted down to nothing within days. The second lot I still had frogbit on the other side of the tank, but put the red roots inside a net breeder box on the side of the tank away from the filter, so the surface wasn't disturbed there, but it still melted away right away. Think I should have removed the frogbit altogether? That it might have out competed the red roots in terms of nutrients?

I had already added root tabs and liquid ferts though and tank fully stocked, so I'm not convinced about that theory.

 

[Essjay]

I've had red root floater and frogbit together in my main tank; I've now got red root floater and water sprite. With the frogbit it grew very well, but now there's water sprite in there it's a bit slower. At one point, after I'd removed all the frogbit but hadn't yet got the water sprite, it covered the entire surface of a 180 litre tank.

 

[Wills]

The diatoms have arrived... Did a water change yesterday and got rid of a lot of the biofilm on the wood but its still coming out. Definitely going to get some fish and shrimp by the weekend.

Wills