# flygja's 120cm Kaizen



## flygja (9 Dec 2014)

For those in the know, Kaizen is a Japanese word for "improvement". This scape is based on continuous improvement for me. There were 4 objectives:

1. Use river gravel as the main substrate. This was to facilitate easier feeding of my discus. It used to rip up the   grass carpet when the frozen bloodworms fell on them.

2. Multiple levels of plants. Instead of just placing shade plants in the shade and stems in the open, I wanted to try something else, which was to bring the light-loving nearer to the light by planting them higher up

3. More swimming space. Why? Because I plan to get some more discus for my tank. It's gonna be mainly discus in this tank with smaller dither fish.

4. (Hopefully) less maintenance. Stretch goal would be to get water changes reduced to once a month. Intermediate goal is disassociate maintenance from just algae removal.

Onto some specs:
120 x 50 x 50 cm - 300L
2x Eheim 2080 Pro 3 filters
6x 54W T5HO, currently running 2 tubes only 7 hours a day
CO2 through inline Up/Intense diffuser at 5 bps
EI dosing
ADA Amazonia aquasoil where the plants are rooted

I didn't take pics of the setting up. Had to rush a bit while my daughter was taking her naps. Also aren't you guys bored of setup pics yet? 

Here's the hardscape. Only partially managed to create different levels for plants. Couldn't do any better without violating objective no 3.
IMG_20141207_101602 by flygja, on Flickr

And a top video showing the rock formation. You can sorta see the high light areas I've set up at the back and the front. I planned for this to have some light loving plants. Although I'm afraid the driftwood may have been positioned wrongly for this. The sides of the island would have shade for both plants and fish.
IMG_20141207_094043 by flygja, on Flickr

Fish were added back the next day. I was fairly confident I didn't need to cycle the tanks because my canisters were full of beneficial bacteria and I had only used 1/3 bag of new aquasoil. The rest were reused soil from my old setup. Also did 50% water change just to safe. I still have a few handfuls of my beloved Anubias barteri var nana... not sure where to place them at the moment.
IMG_20141208_215916 by flygja, on Flickr

Comments welcome. In the meantime, I'm gonna go rest my sore feet some more...


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## Paulo Soares (9 Dec 2014)

Hello,
It´s very nice indeed. A lot of passion and work in there. Congratulations..

Although i think you just missed a crucial point. The 3D perspective. And i think you´re still on time to fix it. If i were you i Add more substrate in the back to perform a slope.
For those Inlet filter maybe a Hig plant only in the corners to cover it up a little. And after they get higher trim it descending to to the center. A "Pogostemon" for instance or a Rotala Macrandra to coombine reds in corners with the center red in the mountain.

And finally.. imagine a carpet all over the "mountain" 

Just imagine..  what you think?
Love it. It´s damn nice.

Best regards,


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## flygja (10 Dec 2014)

Thanks all for your likes!



Paulo Soares said:


> Although i think you just missed a crucial point. The 3D perspective. And i think you´re still on time to fix it. If i were you i Add more substrate in the back to perform a slope.
> For those Inlet filter maybe a Hig plant only in the corners to cover it up a little. And after they get higher trim it descending to to the center. A "Pogostemon" for instance or a Rotala Macrandra to coombine reds in corners with the center red in the mountain.
> 
> And finally.. imagine a carpet all over the "mountain"
> ...



Hi Paulo. Thanks for your comments. I did want to raise the back mountain a lot higher, like maybe 2/3rds of the height of the tank. Wasn't able to do that without ADA soil sliding all over the front parts. I have a few ideas that I will try this weekend, like using a bit more driftwood to shore up the the sides and front. The driftwood will be used to hide the ugly undersides of the stems as they grow. 

I'm not too bothered about the filter inlets. They'll be removed for any fancy photos anyway. 

Carpet all over the mountain looks great, but doesn't fit the theme of this scape. Maybe I'll get some moss to achieve a similar effect.


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## flygja (15 Dec 2014)

Last weekend I raised the soil mound at the back and in some places in between the rocks. Also added 2 pieces of driftwood. I'm hoping they will obscure the scraggly bits of the stems as they grow.
IMG_20141214_213012 by flygja, on Flickr

This is from the top. I raised the rear mound,  the one in front with the Blyxa japonica. I had Staurogyne sp and Proserpinaca palustris there previously. I decided to focus on Blyxa there and moved the Staurogyne to my 60L tank. Properpinaca palustris is still there.
IMG_20141214_213109 by flygja, on Flickr

Huge bunch of Anubias barteri var nana unceremoniously dumped into the left hand corner... This is my most prized plant. Sure its not rare at all, but all you see here are grown from just a handful about 6-8 years ago. I'd throw any plant away in a hearbeat, but not the Anubias!!

Closer view of what I hope will be a nice Blyxa mound.
IMG_20141214_212948 by flygja, on Flickr

I also bulked up the soil on the right side, where the Crytocoryne wendtii Green and Barclaya longifolia Red are planted... as 15 month old daughter is pointing out!
IMG_20141214_213035 by flygja, on Flickr

You can see the new growth of the Rotala rotundifolia is green. I'm currently running 54W x2 T5HO. I'm gonna start running 54W x3 with 2 tubes behind and 1 tube in front. See if I can keep them red.


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## Wallace (15 Dec 2014)

Love it, just love it. 

That last pic with your daughter in is the best pic for me as you can really get a sense of scale and depth of this 'scape. 

Well done. 


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## flygja (8 Feb 2015)

I have some updates! Things have been going alright for the past 2 months. Minimal algae - I get some GSA on the glass that I scrub at waterchange and some on the rocks which I just leave be. Plant growth is super slow which is alright, though I wished the ferns and Bolbitis would grow a bit faster. I've been playing around with CO2 dissolution methods, am currently running foxfish' DIY high flow reactor (10" model) at around 3-4 bps. Drop checker is solid green.

But the main reason for this update is...

DSC09533 by flygja, on Flickr

I got some more discus! Now I can really tick one item off my dream list. My discus identification is not perfect and there are so many colour/pattern strains out there so please correct me if I'm wrong. I got myself 2 blue diamonds, 2 red/turquoise leopards (some heckel influence in them still), 1 red melon and my presonal favourite - 2 red checkerboards. This is in addition to the red/turquoise heckel cross I already have.

DSC09537 by flygja, on Flickr

Red melon and red/turquoise leopard



[/url]DSC09547 by flygja, on Flickr

Red melon flanked by blue diamonds.
DSC09542 by flygja, on Flickr

Blue diamond. Their tails have a black mark on them, the breeder tells me this is a new morph being developed. There were no full blue diamonds available so I settled for these.
DSC09529 by flygja, on Flickr


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## OllieNZ (8 Feb 2015)

Beautiful fish


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## nduli (8 Feb 2015)

The raising at the back has made a dramatic difference to this scape, looks great.


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## havok (8 Feb 2015)

Love the discus matey. scapes looking good too!


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## flygja (9 Feb 2015)

Thanks all for the comments and the likes. Here's a video I shot last night. Most of them are starting to feed on frozen bloodworms. I haven't seen the red melon taking a bite yet. And of all the fish, he doesn't look as bulky. Lets hope he's just getting acclimatised and will start eating soon.



That oto is really like David against the goliaths eh? I hope it stops doing that soon. Although otos don't do nearly as much damage as SAEs, I still see temporary scars on my discus.


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## rodoselada (9 Feb 2015)

my first love Discus, wonderful


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## Sonsey (9 Feb 2015)

That is one cheeky Oto! 

Beautiful tank flygja


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## alto (10 Feb 2015)

Brilliant fish & tank ...

but please watch this video & compare respiration rate/feeding behavior of your group (I think the fish are of comparable size) - I'd decrease the CO2 for a few days & observe fish response, you don't mention when you added the fish so it may just be new tank stress but I take note whenever a fish doesn't eat with alacrity, or presents with unexpected behaviours (shyness, inappropriate startle reflex, lethargy, frenetic, increased respiration, flaring of the gills ...)

Can you check with the shop or breeder re food preferences for the group?


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## flygja (11 Feb 2015)

Hi alto. Thanks for the tips. I turned off the CO2 completely for the first day just to acclimatise them a little better. The next day was with CO2 and they were all free swimming and exploring. Also turned down my filter flow just in case the current was too strong. Everything is back to normal now and they seem OK. The checkers and diamonds were even eating dried artificial food! Something I've never seen with the red/turquoise leopards I had previously. Yesterday they were feeding well, red melon still doesn't have the confidence yet. 

The breeder feeds them a self-prepared beefheart mix twice a day. I'm planning to try beefheart, maybe once a week before waterchange. Haven't researched how to prepare it yet though.


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## flygja (6 Dec 2015)

So this tank isn't going great. Fish are healthy, but plants not doing too well. For the past month or so, most of them have been steadily browning and melting away. Anubias and ferns are browning, crypts and vallis are melting and bolbitis is turning black. The only change I have made in the past month is changing from a leaky Eheim Pro 3 2080 to a Fluval FX-6, and changing from an inline reactor to an inline Up-aqua style diffuser. 

Some of the browning that's happening:








There's also some sorta whitish slime that's appearing on anubias and crypt leaves? Anyone know what are they? They come off when I rub them with my fingers.












This one on the rock looks like calcium deposits. I've since stopped dosing CaSO4 (also known as plaster of paris) for 2 weeks. I was dosing 1 teaspoon a week to keep an Mg:Ca ratio of 5:1. 




For some good news, here are my discus one. One of the blue ones is horribly stunted... reason being because he doesn't take Tetrabits granules while the others do.


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## flygja (6 Dec 2015)

I need your thoughts on something. I'm thinking of either reducing CO2 injection in this tank, or completely turning off the gas and turning it into a low tech. I don't mind doing 50% water changes every week, and just about the only algae I have are some occassional BBA, red rhodophyta and some brownish stuff on the rocks that are very difficult to remove. I want to have healthy growing easy plants like the ones I currently have, and may add stuff like mosses or some of the nicer amazon swords. I also want to change the scape into something that has more swimming space in the front and middle for the fish.

My idea is either to:
1. Keep the river gravel I have now, remove all the aquasoil. Plants with roots will be planted into plastic pots with aquasoil that are hidden behind rocks. I like the look of river gravel, especially with discus. But I really hate soil littering the gravel! 
2. Remove all the river gravel and fill the tank with a mixture of aquasoil and some cheaper similar coloured soil. The middle space won't be planted, just soil. The idea behind this is taken from Oliver Knott here: http://www.pbase.com/plantella/750_liter_layout_by_oliver_knott. With this, I can at least not worry about aquasoil being blown onto the gravel when the discus freak each other out and generate too much current. 

I'm really at odds with myself with which way to go. Reduced injection of CO2, or remove completely? Gravel or aquasoil?


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## Nelson (6 Dec 2015)

Get rid of the frisbees,and turn your co2 up .


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## flygja (7 Dec 2015)

Ya know... I'm also seriously tempted to do just that.


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## Nelson (7 Dec 2015)

Was only kidding mate.
Have you thought about something like these ?.
http://www.cichlid-forum.com/tanks/displaytank.php?tank=21889
http://www.zhuatieba.com/video/XNTEyMDYyMjEy
You could go low tech and put some Java ferns etc in.


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## Iain Sutherland (7 Dec 2015)

compromise maybe.... just cover the aquasoil with gravel to make life easy??
If you keep discus id always go low tech. its a lot to juggle otherwise.  The OK one you linked is really nice and easily done without co2. Could cover gravel and soil with Akadama??


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## flygja (7 Dec 2015)

Hey Iain. I haven't been able to find Akadama soil here. Most bonsai I've seen are planted with normal soil. I could cover the aquasoil with gravel, but that would mean I won't be able to use the gravel anymore if I decided to rescape since it will all be mixed.

Conundrum! 

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## flygja (9 Dec 2015)

Been thinking about Iain's suggestion and its sounding better and better. Take out the rocks, sweep the aquasoil to the back and top with gravel.


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## flygja (9 Dec 2015)

Nelson said:


> Was only kidding mate.
> Have you thought about something like these ?.
> http://www.cichlid-forum.com/tanks/displaytank.php?tank=21889
> http://www.zhuatieba.com/video/XNTEyMDYyMjEy
> You could go low tech and put some Java ferns etc in.


Those are beautiful. I can't decide whether no CO2 or minimal CO2 injection will be better.


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## flygja (11 Dec 2015)

And then I see this... arrghh!!


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## Nelson (12 Dec 2015)

Decisions,decisions .


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## Iain Sutherland (12 Dec 2015)

flygja said:


> Those are beautiful. I can't decide whether no CO2 or minimal CO2 injection will be better.


depends what your after....  since making all my tanks low energy due to time constraints i really enjoy them all more.  My 4ft runs with just one bubble a second so still 'high tech' but low energy as the lights are very low.  This just helps with algae and stability, i only water change every 3-4 weeks and all is well.  There is middle ground between high tech headaches and slow tech patience  
You could of course go for liquid carbon only for a middle ground also..


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## flygja (22 Dec 2015)

Iain... I'm gonna be aiming for the middle-ground as much as possible. Liquid carbon will end up being a bit too expensive for a 300L tank I think. I only have access to Seachem Excel and other branded gluta.

Last night I tried my hand at making some food for my discus. The squeamish and vegans might want to look away...





1 pork heart
2 medium-sized prawns
5 tablets of JBL algae wafers
1 clove of garlic

Into ice cube trays to freeze.


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## flygja (23 Dec 2015)

Tried one block last night, discus totally ignored it. Other fish also ignored it. Had to suck out most of it after 10 mins or so. That garlic clove I put in was *strong*. Would it affect if fish would take it?


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## chrism (23 Dec 2015)

I can't offer a definitive answer I'm afraid, but when I was reading your list of ingredients the garlic did stand out as odd.


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## chrism (23 Dec 2015)

Edit:  weirdly just read another post and people regularly feed fish garlic.  And even chilli.  Who knew!  (I didn't) 

Green veg etc yes, but I'd not heard of garlic etc.  So I have no idea if that was the problem.

Perhaps try each ingredient individually next time to see what they go for?


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## flygja (23 Dec 2015)

Hi chrism. I subscribe to the digital edition of Tropical Fish Hobbyist and one of the columnists is Jack Watley who is a famous discus breeder in the US. He feeds garlic to all his discus as an anti-bacterial agent. Supposedly reduces the possibility of gut parasites. I just followed his recommendations.

I'm currently mixing half a block of pork heart mix with frozen bloodworms to see if the discus will get used to them and take them.

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## flygja (26 Jan 2016)

4 hours of work condensed into 1 min 45 seconds  Youtube is still processing higher resolution versions of the video. 



I moved the 2-4 year old Aquasoil so it becomes the bottom later, added some Osmocote pellets and then topped with 3-5mm river gravel. Plant selection and position has not been finalised yet. I still have floating bunches of Anubias barteri var nana and will probably load it up with more crypts.

Timelapse was created by the SJCAM SJ4000 action camera. It has a built-in video timelapse feature which takes pictures at 1, 2 or 5 second intervals and then processes them into a video. Not the best picture quality, but I wasn't about to do it manually on my PC.


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## Paulo Soares (26 Jan 2016)

Hello, 
What Osmocote pellets are you using?

Here In Portugal we have these: 

EVERRIS (SCOTTS)  Osmocote Pro 8-9 Months 16+11+10+2MgO+Micro
It includes NPK, o Magnesium and all oligoelements and micro elementes needed. 

12 euros  3 kg


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## Paulo Soares (26 Jan 2016)

I´m using these ones. 
So far so good.


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## Nelson (26 Jan 2016)

Really like it David .


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## flygja (26 Jan 2016)

Thanks for the comments Nelson.



Paulo Soares said:


> Hello,
> What Osmocote pellets are you using?
> 
> Here In Portugal we have these:
> ...


Paulo, I'm using this one - http://www.scottsbrands.com/smg/goprod/osmocote-outdoor-indoor-plant-food/prod70362. I couldn't get the Plus version when I bought it, so its just the normal version without the traces.


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