My Ei 15 Gallon - Rescape

[nry]

Err, so, err...my plan of removing the crypts tomorrow is not good in your opinion I was going to leave the slightly off-centre one, my aim is to open up the front left of the tank, and plant out the front right, the crypts are (in my opinion!) not quite right where they are, even the slightly off-centre one is too central....I could move one or two over to the right...might just do that actually, could work well

 

[nry]

Why is it that you spend ages moving things around, planting new plants, then put the lid back on and think hmm, wish that was there and this was here! Leaving it until next weeks water change though, let things settle.

Took some pictures before (with a borrowed tripod), I'll take some 'after' shots tomorrow after water clarity has picked up after the water change etc. I think I really know where the tank is going now, which is a good feeling!

 

[Dave Spencer]

Why is it that you spend ages moving things around, planting new plants, then put the lid back on and think hmm, wish that was there and this was here!

I can`t remember the last time I had dry sleeves.

Dave.

 

[nry]

Ahh, 12" tweezers plus a small tank, never really had that problem

I mentioned earlier in the thread about one crypt being too central and what did I do? Move one directly into the centre!

 

[nry]

Moved the crypts away from the front left, added some rotala nanjenshan to replace the cabomba from the front right, and added some h.c. to the front left aswell:

 

[lljdma06]

Moved the crypts away from the front left, added some rotala nanjenshan to replace the cabomba from the front right, and added some h.c. to the front left aswell:

Looks really good. Any plans for that empty back space the right? What do you want to achieve with this scape, since you seem to be entering this stage with this tank? How long has it been planted, not just setup?

llj

 

[nry]

The empty space will be filled once the rotala nanjenshan (which is about 3" tall at the moment!) grows, only planted it this week.

It has been planted since day one (about 10 months ago) but only started to come into fruition recently. Not after anything specific, I am aiming to leave the front right open with a ground covering of h.c. with some p.helferi around aswell with the front right fairly heavily planted. No major plan, I am just after something that I like: I think I am only left with replacing the r.macranda and cabomba now to get to a reasonable goal: I am unsure if I will continue with the nanjenshan across most of the background or go for something else.

I guess the general impression is a high rear-right sloping into a low front-left. I am still basing things partly on what my fish like: danios like open space, tetras like hiding and swimming in between the plants, corys like some open areas for forraging in.

 

[lljdma06]

I am still basing things partly on what my fish like: danios like open space, tetras like hiding and swimming in between the plants, corys like some open areas for forraging in.

IMO, that is one of the best ways to aquascape and has yielded good results for me. Should yield good things for you as well.

llj

 

[nry]

A D-D pressurised CO2 setup went in on Thursday. It came with a pump and nozzle instead of a diffuser so I used my existing ceramic diffuser instead: the pump etc was way too big for my tank. Don't think my diffuser is the best for my tank as it is too big, I have a Rhinox 1000 ordered via eBay which is a much better size. The D-D set came with a solenoid, needle valve and bubble counter, a nice setup for £100.

Running a shade over 4 bubbles per minute at the moment (based on Tetra strips saying I am around 4dkh which is probably way off!), today I got the 4dkh water from AE, so I have set up my drop checker with this and some bromo blue. It certainly is blue, it will be very obvious when it is green! I'll be monitoring this carefully over the next few days to ensure my bubble count is giving me 30ppm.

 

[Liam]

Looks excellent, like it a lot!

 

[nry]

Currently awaiting a Rhinox 1000 diffuser from eBay (and one from a fellow forumite!), the diffuser I have now is way too big for this tank, I get 1 or 2 streams of large bubbles and not a mist. I will use the 2 Rhinox in rotation with one being soaked in a bleach solution whilst the other is in the tank.

The 4dkh water arrived from AE, I am running a fairly high bubble count to get to 30ppm, somewhere around 15bpm which I think is related to the poor performance of the diffuser.

Stripped out a good bit of the cabomba stems which were getting covered in hair/fuzz algae. I'm hoping this is as much to do with the unstable CO2 levels I've had due to the previous DIY CO2 and now trying patiently to reach 30ppm via pressurised. You can tell when you start getting close to the 30ppm figure as pearling increases noticeably, though I am still not getting vast amounts of it with 2.5wpg, not sure how much I should get though!

The h.c. is growing steadily, no issues growing any of my current plants. I have a tiny bunch of rotala wallichii salvaged from the poor plant I received a few weeks ago, can't really see it at the moment hiding behind the large white rock to the right of the tank.

 

[nry]

Ripping out the algae covered cabomba seems to have triggered a slight algae outbreak. I have a green fuzz/hair algae covering on some of the older leaves on many plants and decor, CO2 is now stable with a nice green drop checker Algae growth peaked last week and seems to have slowed down considerably over the past few days. I am pulling out any major chunks of it.

I added some further plants to replace the space left by the cabomba that was removed: Tropica Rotala Rotundifolia (2 pots) which were superb specimens, masses of stems from each pot, and 1 pot of rotala nanjenshan. For some reason the past 2 pots of nanjenshan have not been too good - the first pot of this I got was a really nice specimen and has grown really well. The further 2 pots have been a bit stunted and are taking their time to pick up.

The r.rotundifolia is noticeably shooting up even though it was only planted on Monday. It was initially hidden behind the mopani wood but is now a good inch above it. Significant pearling from all plants now. The H.C. is growing but it may well struggle in my pea gravel - time will tell, for now I am trying to leave it alone and not distrub it much during water changes to let it get a good start.

For now I am letting things develop. I won't be buying any more plants for a while to let things really settle down. I am debating major change of fish stock, maybe going for 3-4 oto's, some small loaches, 5-6 amano shrimp and a reasonable shoal of captive bread galaxy rasbora. I am unsure whether I may decide to do a complete tank strip-down and go for some dark sand and possibly try for an iwagumi style layout.....we'll see, for now I am hoping to enter the current setup into the PFK competition if things continue to go well.

 

[john starkey]

hi nry, i think this has got the making of a nice setup when things fill out, imo i think you should let this tank develop fully before you rip things out but then thats only my opinion. regards john

 

[nry]

Yep, no plans to do anything for ages anyhow, not touching anything until this setup has had time to show it's potential

 

[nry]

No major changes at the moment. I am trying with a small peice of mopani pushed flat into the gravel at the front-left, though not sure if it is too imposing: the background r.rotundifolia is beginning to pick up after planting a week ago, once it fills the gaps it may hopefully balance out the new mopani.

The H.C. is growing OK but it doesn't seem to be liking the gravel, can't seem to root well - not really unexpected, the main thing I don't like about this tank is my substrate, I would not use gravel again.

I have also had to get rid of my danio, all developed some form of ulcer/dropsy type symptoms, no other fish affected which is lucky as I have just added 3 otocinclus huaorani which are lovely zippy little things - wild caught which I am not entirely keen on but doing well so far. I also have 6 amano shrimp being delivered tomorrow, hopefully these and the oto's can help get on top of the hair algae which does appear to be slowly reducing now CO2 is stable.

I have now tried a Dymax ceramic atomiser instead of the Rhinox 1000 - it does give a better stream of smaller bubbles than the Rhinox did so far. I will monitor things with the aim to see if I can reduce bubbles per minute from the stupid numbers I had to use to get 30ppm for this tank.

Once the r.rotundifolia picks up in height I will post some more pictures