# Dragon minimal 90P



## viktorlantos (21 Apr 2013)

Cheers guys. Not had a journal for a long time, but i hope this isn't a problem if i will post one or 2 around these days. Maybe helpful for some as i also got a lot of inspiration here too.

This tank was rescaped a few days ago.

90P opti white 90x45x45
Filter: Eheim 2075, Eheim Skim 350
Substrate: ADA Power Sand Special M 6L, ADA Amazonia 2x9L, ADA Amazonia Powder 3L
For hardscape we used Dragon stone. As we never had dragon kind of iwagumi before
Lighting is the same as before: 4x39W ATI Dimmer one
CO2 pressurized with ADA Beetle diffuser

First we put together the stones at the front of our showroom. (Admins - hopefully will not be an issue with the logo if it is please remove it, i did not had clean shot from this phase just the photo montage).
So in photoshop i cleaned the background masked the stones to have the feeling i am after.


Hardscape fun by viktorlantos, on Flickr

Then we added in the soils to the tank and continued the lego work there 


Green Aqua Showroom by viktorlantos, on Flickr


Green Aqua Showroom by viktorlantos, on Flickr

Once the hardscape was done throwed in some Gel plants to see how the planting will look like 


Green Aqua Showroom by viktorlantos, on Flickr

30 min after filled up with water at the end. plants are in place.


Green Aqua Showroom by viktorlantos, on Flickr


Green Aqua Showroom by viktorlantos, on Flickr


Green Aqua Showroom by viktorlantos, on Flickr

The skim removed the floating powder after the installation. And the next day water change cleared up the cloudy water in 100 percent. I thought we will have a few more days with cloudy water, but probably the Purigen cleared up quickly the mess.

Will do a new shot next week how this progress.
Also some plant bits may  need too be replanted as i've seen yesterday as the got floated. I was lazy with the planting especially with the HC and the UG.

Used parvula on the right front and the left back. HC on the left front. Tenellus all the way on the right front of the big stones. UG in the center back - another test i am sure will not stay alive 
Acicularis behind the stones.

This will be a minimal scape as some of our visitors missed it a while ago. Not decided to have this fully a CRS tank or with some nice fishes. Will see.

Thanks for reading the journal


----------



## Manrock (21 Apr 2013)

I love the look of this - that 'stone-scape' is amazing. Keep us posted!


----------



## Antoni (21 Apr 2013)

That is very nice hardscape, Victor! I'm sure this one will turn up really nicely, when fully grown! I hope that the UG will take off, as it will make a really nice carpet!


----------



## martinmjr62 (21 Apr 2013)

Victor, another promising scape, love the dragon stone.

Cheers
Martin


----------



## viktorlantos (21 Apr 2013)

Thanks for your feedback guys. This is far from a contest scape or something new and groundbreaking, but will be a good minimal to look at a bit later.

Dragon will be good. I kind of fed from the stones which makes the water harder. Seiryu, Manten, Nyasa etc. They are great looking stones for sure and sometimes i can't find a replacement, but using a stone which not change the hardness is a bless. We're using soft water on our tanks and the plants shows clearly stresses and bad leaf on these setups. Changing hardness is not good for sure.

So dragon is good..... unless you need ot brush the algae from the rocks. So the challenge is there. Keep it clean


----------



## viktorlantos (21 Apr 2013)

Also since i've seen last year the dragon in Stu's tank that changed my mind about this stone 
Thanks Stu from here too


----------



## Steve Smith (22 Apr 2013)

Looks great Viktor   I love the shadowy feel of the main stone.


----------



## Pedro Rosa (22 Apr 2013)

Viktor, great hardscape (as usual). Your layouts are always a pleasure to watch and i certainly learned a lot from watching your works.
Those rocks look lovely. Very well chosen. It's going to be a big hit.

Only one thought from a very humble guy in this world: the third rock from the right could be pointing a little bit up, so that it doesn't appear to be so straight at the top.

Pedro.


----------



## viktorlantos (14 May 2013)

Wow almost 3 weeks ago when i posted this..... time for some update!

We throwed in some amano shrimps, sakura ones, otocinclus after the 1st week to keep the tank algae free. Luckily the filter had a matured media in it from the previous tank so the start was smooth.

2 weeks after the start and we added in the fishes. 20-30 more will come in a bit later.

Utricularia is gone...   was too light color and not that nice green. So i removed that. All other plants running fine. At the 3rd weeks i see that Acicularis is growing upwards in the back. We had to wait a little to have this taller than the rocks.

Allright time to show off  3 weeks old and bubbling like craaaaaaazy



A still shot


Green Aqua Showroom by viktorlantos, on Flickr

And a macro wonder to the end. Meanwhile i've seen the HC pearls with my 100mm macro i realized that the full scape is mirroring in that bubble. wow looked awesome so here you go 


Green Aqua Showroom by viktorlantos, on Flickr

cheers


----------



## pepedopolous (14 May 2013)

Awesome scape!



viktorlantos said:


> Dragon will be good. I kind of fed from the stones which makes the water harder


So are you saying Seiryu stone etc is a particular problem because your tap water is soft to begin with?

Cheers,

P


----------



## viktorlantos (14 May 2013)

pepedopolous said:


> Awesome scape!
> 
> 
> So are you saying Seiryu stone etc is a particular problem because your tap water is soft to begin with?
> ...


 
Thank you  but it is still early. Will see a few month later 

On Seiryu and others yes. We're running multiple tanks with the same soft water, same ferts and lighting, maintenances regime. And the plants which we have in seiryu tanks not looks that fabulous like others where decors are not hardening the water.

Mosses looks worst, bolbitis and some other species too. This does not mean we're not using seiryu anymore, since there are no real alternate for those beauty rocks, but we know that the plants will not be 100% from the beginning.


----------



## charlie (15 May 2013)

The tank is lookng great Victor. The last shot of the mirrored bubble is superb.


----------



## Lloyd (15 May 2013)

Lovely tank Victor. that macro shot is the BIZNAZZZZZ!


----------



## zanguli-ya-zamba (15 May 2013)

Hi victor 
Again nice work in there looking fowar for more up date !

Cheers


----------



## viktorlantos (22 Jun 2013)

Ops i forgot to update this journal 

Well just before my holiday break i made a quick video and some photos from the tank. This was at the beginning of June.


Green Aqua Showroom by viktorlantos, on Flickr

At that time we had like 80 fishes and i loved how they moved around the stones. So had to capture them in a few seconds 



Since that time the tank grown a bit. Tenellus starts to look better meanwhile the full carpet is done with HC and Parvula mini. Acicularis still not growing taller so may need a bit more time. These are the photos from today....

Lovely lush green tank with soft water, 4x39 ATI light in 7hrs day. 


Green Aqua Showroom by viktorlantos, on Flickr


Green Aqua Showroom by viktorlantos, on Flickr


Green Aqua Showroom by viktorlantos, on Flickr


Green Aqua Showroom by viktorlantos, on Flickr


----------



## Michael W (22 Jun 2013)

Sweet looking tank well done!


----------



## Achintya (23 Jun 2013)

needless to say it is absolutely fantastic.this type of scapes are inspirational for newbie like me.
1 personal opinion though,if you reverse rocks position of left corner(front one and back one) with each other it might look better.also if you put lily pipe outlet,power head and co2 diffuser in same side of your tank then water circulation would be unidirectional.but here a whirling effect can come.


----------



## viktorlantos (26 Jun 2013)

Thanks for the feedback guys 

Today i had to shoot some photos and i also made some fresh from this one.
We had a little algae issues at the tank start mostly because of the plants which changed the leaf and we not trimmed tenellus etc, so we lifted up the light, but now all plants transformed, early issues are gone so we can put the afterburner in again.  


Green Aqua Showroom by viktorlantos, on Flickr


Green Aqua Showroom by viktorlantos, on Flickr


Green Aqua Showroom by viktorlantos, on Flickr


Green Aqua Showroom by viktorlantos, on Flickr

That mum is digging something on the top of the dragon stone and making a nice pose for me for shooting her babies 


Green Aqua Showroom by viktorlantos, on Flickr

So things going well. Acicularis is still not on right height only 10cm or so. In my home tank i have 20cm ones too. I had hoped i will see the same effect here.
But still a lovely tank. Lush green, minimal, easy to maintenance etc. For final shooting i will probably use a trimmed version of the tank so will use less part on the top to make it look nicer.


----------



## Pedro Rosa (26 Jun 2013)

Viktor, those photos, mainly the Amanos, are some of the best photos of shrimps i have ever seen.
Nice embers also.

Congratulations.


----------



## milk_vanilla (27 Jun 2013)

Viktor,
How did you clean the green algae over the dragon stones? I tried to brush them, but seem doesn't really work out.


----------



## flygja (27 Jun 2013)

Must get me 80 fishes!! Superbly well done once again. My only negative comment is that the first video's music is definitely not "minimal".


----------



## viktorlantos (28 Jun 2013)

pmgsr said:


> Viktor, those photos, mainly the Amanos, are some of the best photos of shrimps i have ever seen.
> Nice embers also.
> 
> Congratulations.


 
Thanks my friend


----------



## viktorlantos (28 Jun 2013)

milk_vanilla said:


> Viktor,
> How did you clean the green algae over the dragon stones? I tried to brush them, but seem doesn't really work out.


 
Need to brush sometimes, but the Neritina snails also helpful and the PO4 what we do add sometimes on the top of the regular fertilizers.


----------



## viktorlantos (28 Jun 2013)

flygja said:


> Must get me 80 fishes!! Superbly well done once again. My only negative comment is that the first video's music is definitely not "minimal".


 
Thanks mate  Yup on the music i usually pick something from Youtube to stay legal 
Unfortunatelly they do not have an "aquascaping music genre"  so depend on my mood i just pick a slow or a more dinamic one.


----------



## Pedro Rosa (28 Jun 2013)

viktorlantos said:


> Thanks mate  Yup on the music i usually pick something from Youtube to stay legal
> Unfortunatelly they do not have an "aquascaping music genre"  so depend on my mood i just pick a slow or a more dinamic one.


 
Music & Youtube - a nightmare 
If you have time you can get Creative Commons Licenced music in freemusicarchive.org.


----------



## viktorlantos (28 Jun 2013)

pmgsr said:


> Music & Youtube - a nightmare
> If you have time you can get Creative Commons Licenced music in freemusicarchive.org.


 
Thanks for the tip. Will check them


----------



## viktorlantos (17 Aug 2013)

Wow the tank is almost 4 months old. We built it on a workshop and now we had another one today about aquarium photography.

This is what we did with the visitors today. The scape is done. Acicularis could have been better, but i trimmed this this week as this was not enough tall.

With original water level:


Photo workshop - final selected images by viktorlantos, on Flickr

and low water level


Aquarium photo workshop by viktorlantos, on Flickr

More photos on the workshop steps here: Workshop series - Aquarium Photography 20130817 - a set on Flickr

The photos are too fresh no really retouching yet. Just contrast and sharpening a little.

The final shots was done with:

ISO 100, 40mm, f11, 1/100
Canon 5D Mark III, Canon 17-40 F4, 2*Bowens 500R, 90*30 Softbox, plastic white background which we backlighted.


----------



## plantbrain (17 Aug 2013)

You can spot treat with H2O2, you can also do a larger water change, add Excel/Easy Carb, that will kill anything, or if not too much trouble, remove the stones one at a  time and scrub, Excel etc them in a sink, then return.
Some report good results with zebra nerites.

A toothbrush and good scrubbing also works for a lot of algae.

The design reminds me of the Gloss Scape from ADA's book 1, nice looking.
UG is a lot of work, you thought the HC was a lot of work if you filled this tank?? The UG is worse.

Likely a wise decision.


----------



## viktorlantos (17 Aug 2013)

plantbrain said:


> You can spot treat with H2O2, you can also do a larger water change, add Excel/Easy Carb, that will kill anything, or if not too much trouble, remove the stones one at a time and scrub, Excel etc them in a sink, then return.
> Some report good results with zebra nerites.
> 
> A toothbrush and good scrubbing also works for a lot of algae.
> ...


 
Cheers Tom,
I am not using H2O2 too much because i had bad experiences with shrimps. Maybe i used too much from the 3% solution, but i lost some Caridina Japonica at that time. Carbo does better for BBA than 3% H2O2 with spot dose.
However we use daily Carbo around 7ml for this tank along with other daily fertilizers.

We have 2 Neritina here which is a nice cleaner, but this week we had to toothbrush all the stones and do 200% water change after that.
This week we had 4 water changes before the photo shoot. Last was on thursday. Not worked with the tank on friday to keep it crystal clear.

It's not a world class one, but i am glad another minimal is done and after 4 months it looks like a rock star on photo  We need to look after some challenges. Like the UG or something


----------



## viktorlantos (18 Aug 2013)

Finnaly had time to select 2-3 images from the shooting we had yesterday.

As the camera settings were down i had to adjust a little the photos. Luckily with the RAW format most of the things solved quickly.

The following adistment happened with the images.

Lightroom:

Exposure -0.6
Sharpness 50
Crop
Since we held the backlight bowens in the air, the lamp angle made 2 points darker on the background. So we used Adjustment Brush and exposure correction +1-2 on these points
Photoshop:

The camera tripod head was tilted down a little, we had to correct the lower corners of the tank glass. Transform - Perspective
With RGB curve the contrast fixed
Image resized to 2500 pixel (original was shoot in 3800)
Unsharp Masking added
With these minor fixes the images looked great. Not needed any WB change etc.

picked 3 from the set where the water level was lower.


Workshop photos - Final ones by viktorlantos, on Flickr


Workshop photos - Final ones by viktorlantos, on Flickr


Workshop photos - Final ones by viktorlantos, on Flickr

Amanda fishes were too shy to swim in the upper part, but luckily we had enough of them (80-100 fishes) to shoal nicely with the photo session.
Of course a few minor adjustment would improove the image and i would love to have the same image with 100mm too (we shoot it with 40), but we did not had enough space and we shoot the tank in dark with the strobes 

Hope you enjoyed the journal and the result. I think this is a nice minimal layout with just a minor maintenance. But still looks awesome.


----------



## viktorlantos (18 Aug 2013)

BTW the eleocharis on the front was so dense that i almost was unable to trim it with the ADA Wave scissor which is ridiculous.   This tool is super strong and sharp, but the grass was like a wire.
I think i need a bonsai tool shortly


----------



## Jose (18 Mar 2015)

Lovely tank viktor. Would you say that soft water is better with regards to CO2? Not sure if youve tried hard water.


----------



## Jink82 (19 Mar 2015)

Wow absolutely stunning!!! Could you tell how long you will keep it in this condition before you're going to rescape it approximately?

When I look at you're flickr photo's (stunning again!!) I see a lot of tanks with two filters. From which size tank would you recommend that or does it depend on the kind of scape?


----------



## viktorlantos (28 Mar 2015)

Jose said:


> Lovely tank viktor. Would you say that soft water is better with regards to CO2? Not sure if youve tried hard water.



Used / using both. But surely soft is the way to go in many ways. Not because you need less CO2, but because many plants looks much better and the overall impression will be nicer.


----------



## Jose (28 Mar 2015)

Thats what I thought. Thanks a lot


----------



## viktorlantos (28 Mar 2015)

Jink82 said:


> Wow absolutely stunning!!! Could you tell how long you will keep it in this condition before you're going to rescape it approximately?



We usually keep these tanks in the showroom for 8-12 months. Then a new installation needed to have something new to our visitors.
So it is not because we could not keep it up and going, it is because we want something else.



Jink82 said:


> When I look at you're flickr photo's (stunning again!!) I see a lot of tanks with two filters. From which size tank would you recommend that or does it depend on the kind of scape?



Usually above 120cm width. 2 filters also gives you a backup way if one of your filter goes down (leak etc) which is frequent on many current brands nowadays.
But of course we do use also the larger filters like the 1200xl or the largest classic 2260 with the largest pump (3500lph)

So on a 120cm tank (240L) with high light we do use around 2000-2500lph and the large filter trays filled with bio media only and with purigen.


----------



## viktorlantos (28 Mar 2015)

BTW this tank rescaped a few times since this journal.

The current look is this. So change is good and you can try different things 

Green Aqua Showroom by viktorlantos, on Flickr

Green Aqua Showroom by viktorlantos, on Flickr

It's done by our friends on this event:



We let our board members to rescape most of our tanks once in the lifetime  It was fun.


----------



## Crossocheilus (29 Mar 2015)

Hey Victor could I ask what T5 tubes you use? I am not happy with the colours from what I am currently using.

Thanks

And btw I love all your tanks, although I do find it frustrating how you have so much success with very high light, a glass co2 diffuser and not ideal flow... yet I struggle with med light, inline co2 and overkill flow.

What ever it is that makes you so successful, keep doing it and showing us the pics!


----------



## viktorlantos (29 Mar 2015)

Crossocheilus said:


> Hey Victor could I ask what T5 tubes you use? I am not happy with the colours from what I am currently using.
> 
> Thanks
> 
> ...



Cheers 

We usually use Osram or Sylvania 865 THO tubes. Sometimes add a little reddish like Grolux or Giesemann proflora.
Lighting is on for 7hrs every day. Showroom has shaders on all windows. This is quite important. Many has light room at home which cause algae problems even if the tank is far from all windows.

The success with high light is to give the most to your plants. As you may know we're using soft water in our showroom on all the displays.
Only RO sometimes adding in GH boosters, but TDS is around 100-120ppm usually.
Daily fertilizers. This is important if you have so much light. Less room for errors.
Water temp is around 22-24 celsius. Never above that. We just started to use air conditioning again for this season as room temp is getting warmer now.
Good filtration fully loaded with bio media.
CO2. No matter if this is diffuser or reactor or in-line. You need to keep the diffuser clean (weekly max bi-weekly cleaning) to be efficient. Also less surface movement with Lily pipes.
Of course weekly maintenance. 30-40% water change with RO.

For us this works quite well. We have algae issues mainly at start (diatom), but we're not the slow starter guys. So we shoot the lights with full power from the beginning and do more maintenance in the first 2-3 weeks rather than start slow and risk that some of the plants may will not have enough light.

The reason why we goes on the high light way to eliminate all limitation on plant selection. Then we can focus only on the scape.


----------



## stefanprisacariu (15 Apr 2015)

This is a very usefull journal.
Thanks!


----------



## Noman (13 May 2015)

Brilliant tank. Why isn't your acicularis growing longer.


----------



## Marius_20 (26 Sep 2015)

Nice tank. I like it


----------



## viktorlantos (26 Sep 2015)

Noman said:


> Brilliant tank. Why isn't your acicularis growing longer.



Trimmed back on the back to have a nice shape/form.



Marius_20 said:


> Nice tank. I like it



Thank you


----------



## viktorlantos (26 Sep 2015)

This journal is kind of messed up and i am not too active these days sorry about that. The tank is still up and running in many different form. 

Currently this one

Green Aqua Showoom by Viktor Lantos, on Flickr

Green Aqua Showroom by Viktor Lantos, on Flickr

This week shot. The water was cloudy a bit right before the weekly water change, and plants will be trimmed this week again to stay low and compact

Green Aqua Showroom by Viktor Lantos, on Flickr

we built this to have a tons of color in there

Green Aqua Showroom by Viktor Lantos, on Flickr

Stil use the same equipments, co2 injections, lighting hours etc.

This is how it looked like 1 hour after the setup on july 9th. So now this is 2 months 2 weeks old. And we're trimming frequently 

Green Aqua Showroom by Viktor Lantos, on Flickr


----------



## Dantrasy (27 Sep 2015)

The colours really pop. So vibrant. Well done!


----------



## Chris Noto (6 Oct 2015)

Love that close-up, Viktor. Wonderful work, as always, on the tank, and on the photography. 
Many thanks for sharing your work in such detail.


----------



## Paulo Soares (6 Oct 2015)

viktorlantos said:


> Wow the tank is almost 4 months old. We built it on a workshop and now we had another one today about aquarium photography.
> 
> This is what we did with the visitors today. The scape is done. Acicularis could have been better, but i trimmed this this week as this was not enough tall.
> 
> ...



Good Evening,

What do you put behind the glass to make that grey effect?

And what bulbs do you have in this layout and photoperiod time?
They are 4 T5 of 39W but in what colour reference? 6500K 4000 ?

Thanks

EDIT: 
Never mind. The answer is before  
So many Congratulations on your work. 

My actual set up of lighting is just equal to this.


----------



## Paulo Soares (6 Oct 2015)

What do you put behind the glass to make that grey effect?


----------



## viktorlantos (8 Oct 2015)

That is a white background which looks grey if you not illuminate it. Part was as i pushed the light backwards but not equally. This was a test shot only before i shoot with more light


----------



## Stormy (8 Oct 2015)

Reading your journey is always so enjoyable!


----------

