Hello - from India

[Hamza]

Hi,

Been a silint visitor here, today I decided to be more involved and here goes my formal introduction.

I am Hamza from India. Architecture student, freelance graphic designer, amateur aritist and photographer are some of my roles outside the hobby.

In the hobby, at the moment am pretty much hooked to aquascaping. I am a DIY junkie as well, I did quite a few successful projects for far.

I got affected again by the MTS and tank number started growing since a couple of months. Currently running a low light scape(180l) for 2 years now, recently started 2 dedicated aquascapes, a shrimp tank and nano with a couple of native indian micro fish.

These are some of my tanks from past..
Beyond(from 2013)

70x40x40cm, (117L nominal)
72w(6500k) PLL lights - was experimenting with low-moderate levels of lighting here
a wild mix of susbtrates including aquasoil, potting soil, compost peat, etc (the night I was working on this I was in such a haste that I put every bit of substrate to get the high slope at back)
CO2 @1bps 24x7
serpentine rocks
filtered by a home-made canister filter
I intended to use just HC, elatine triandra, vescularia montagnei, glosso diandrum, hydrocotyle tripartita initially but later got carried away and added a few stems for fun.
I used a dozen chela dadiburjouri(Indian hatchet fish) initially, very beautiful fish they appear washed out, spooked by external flash in the shot below. Later replaced them by a pair of ramirezi. No algae eating crew in this tank.

________________________________________________________________________________________

Swamp(2011)

Pretty much same specs as this is the standard size I got used to for making high maintenance scapes.
140w of fluorescent lights
CO2 was running 3bps for 12hours on this.
serpentine rocks and malaysian rootwood
Substrate was predominantly natural clay with a bit of soil topped by black slate chips
glosso, hydrocotyle tripartita, blyxa japonica, vescularia ferreri, some badly trimmed rotala rotundifolias and HM and a bit of HC
kerri, glowlight tetras, a chinese hillstream loach, a bunch of otocinclus catfishes and some Indian algae eating shrimps

________________________________________________________________________________________

Wilderness Unexplored(2010) - my first serious attempt at scaping
70x40x40(again same sized tank)
3bps CO2 or 12 hours daily
100w fluorescent lights
potting soil, humus, peat, topped by coarse gravel for substrate
Some local bog/driftwood picked up from a dried river bed.
anubias nana, blyxa japonica, vescularia montagnei, subwassartang, marsilea hirsuta, eleocharis vicvipara, HM, crypt wendtii, windelov and narrow ferns, e.tenellus
mountain minnows, rasbora espei, a few guppies, bolivian rams, chanda ranga, oryzias dancena, lots of indian algae eating shrimps, a garra gotyla, a.blockii(last 5 wild collected fishes)

________________________________________________________________________________________

And some failed attempts, yes I had my share of failures too, thought of mentioning these here as well.

Failed due to bad quality municipal water(sometimes happens when there is scarcity of water), after this experience I started using filtered water rather than stored tap water.
This was an experimental tank with just sand as substrate and water column dosing
hardscape-ADA seiryu stones
HC, staurogyne porto velho, staurogyne repens, lileopsis brasilensis

________________________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________________________

There were wonderful rocks picked up from a beautiful valley. I believe they are basalt rocks by origin but for some reason they leached out very high amounts of dissolved solids which killed the plants within first week of planting. When I got water tested it showed over 1000ppm TDS.
These rocks when acid washed do stabilize and dont leach any further. Bad that I didnt knew that before starting this scape.

________________________________________________________________________________________

I started this with an intention to plant, but I had a bunch of micro fish and shrimps to house urgently so I never planted it.

40x30x30cm
river stones(collected)
a mix of various substrates

biotope attempt that I recently did but soon after ripped it to make a planted tank again

I hope you enjoyed my journey. Theres more to it. Will start current running scapes in separate threads. Please feel free to comment and share your views on my work.

Regards
Hamza

 

[parotet]

Nice scapes Hamza! It is very interesting to know about failed scapes because when you see a final and successful final product you do not always know what kind of adjustments have been necessary. Thanks for sharing

Jordi

 

[Vivian Andrew]

Hi Hamza,

Welcome to UKAPS, I'm also from india, seen you in IAH really you done a good job bringing back your aquarium from algae issues

 

[Ryan Thang To]

Hi,

Been a silint visitor here, today I decided to be more involved and here goes my formal introduction.

I am Hamza from India. Architecture student, freelance graphic designer, amateur aritist and photographer are some of my roles outside the hobby.

In the hobby, at the moment am pretty much hooked to aquascaping. I am a DIY junkie as well, I did quite a few successful projects for far.

I got affected again by the MTS and tank number started growing since a couple of months. Currently running a low light scape(180l) for 2 years now, recently started 2 dedicated aquascapes, a shrimp tank and nano with a couple of native indian micro fish.

These are some of my tanks from past..
Beyond(from 2013)

70x40x40cm, (117L nominal)
72w(6500k) PLL lights - was experimenting with low-moderate levels of lighting here
a wild mix of susbtrates including aquasoil, potting soil, compost peat, etc (the night I was working on this I was in such a haste that I put every bit of substrate to get the high slope at back)
CO2 @1bps 24x7
serpentine rocks
filtered by a home-made canister filter
I intended to use just HC, elatine triandra, vescularia montagnei, glosso diandrum, hydrocotyle tripartita initially but later got carried away and added a few stems for fun.
I used a dozen chela dadiburjouri(Indian hatchet fish) initially, very beautiful fish they appear washed out, spooked by external flash in the shot below. Later replaced them by a pair of ramirezi. No algae eating crew in this tank.

________________________________________________________________________________________

Swamp(2011)

Pretty much same specs as this is the standard size I got used to for making high maintenance scapes.
140w of fluorescent lights
CO2 was running 3bps for 12hours on this.
serpentine rocks and malaysian rootwood
Substrate was predominantly natural clay with a bit of soil topped by black slate chips
glosso, hydrocotyle tripartita, blyxa japonica, vescularia ferreri, some badly trimmed rotala rotundifolias and HM and a bit of HC
kerri, glowlight tetras, a chinese hillstream loach, a bunch of otocinclus catfishes and some Indian algae eating shrimps

________________________________________________________________________________________

Wilderness Unexplored(2010) - my first serious attempt at scaping
70x40x40(again same sized tank)
3bps CO2 or 12 hours daily
100w fluorescent lights
potting soil, humus, peat, topped by coarse gravel for substrate
Some local bog/driftwood picked up from a dried river bed.
anubias nana, blyxa japonica, vescularia montagnei, subwassartang, marsilea hirsuta, eleocharis vicvipara, HM, crypt wendtii, windelov and narrow ferns, e.tenellus
mountain minnows, rasbora espei, a few guppies, bolivian rams, chanda ranga, oryzias dancena, lots of indian algae eating shrimps, a garra gotyla, a.blockii(last 5 wild collected fishes)

________________________________________________________________________________________

And some failed attempts, yes I had my share of failures too, thought of mentioning these here as well.

Failed due to bad quality municipal water(sometimes happens when there is scarcity of water), after this experience I started using filtered water rather than stored tap water.
This was an experimental tank with just sand as substrate and water column dosing
hardscape-ADA seiryu stones
HC, staurogyne porto velho, staurogyne repens, lileopsis brasilensis

________________________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________________________

There were wonderful rocks picked up from a beautiful valley. I believe they are basalt rocks by origin but for some reason they leached out very high amounts of dissolved solids which killed the plants within first week of planting. When I got water tested it showed over 1000ppm TDS.
These rocks when acid washed do stabilize and dont leach any further. Bad that I didnt knew that before starting this scape.

________________________________________________________________________________________

I started this with an intention to plant, but I had a bunch of micro fish and shrimps to house urgently so I never planted it.

40x30x30cm
river stones(collected)
a mix of various substrates

biotope attempt that I recently did but soon after ripped it to make a planted tank again

I hope you enjoyed my journey. Theres more to it. Will start current running scapes in separate threads. Please feel free to comment and share your views on my work.

Regards
Hamza

i have to say this is amazing. Well done

 

[Hamza]

Nice scapes Hamza! It is very interesting to know about failed scapes because when you see a final and successful final product you do not always know what kind of adjustments have been necessary. Thanks for sharing

Jordi

Thanks!
Is this Jordi Pelegri from spain?

Hi Hamza,

Welcome to UKAPS, I'm also from india, seen you in IAH really you done a good job bringing back your aquarium from algae issues

Thanks Andrew! Which one in particular are you talking about? I have posted quite a few journals there on iah.

i have to say this is amazing. Well done

Thanks mate!

 

[parotet]

No... Jordi Pelegrí is a very good aquascaper. I am just a newbie, also from Spain

Jordi

 

[Vivian Andrew]

if i remember correctly The tank which u planted HC without planning a scape, am i right it's long back