# GA workshop scape - seiryu with mosses



## viktorlantos (24 Jul 2011)

We had a workshop session 2 weeks ago, when we set up a new 60P tank with Seiryu and some mosses.

You can find the earlier thread here:
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=16712

The tank is 2 weeks old now and looks like this:










We also finished the workshop video from the event. A bit longer but you can see how the scape evolved.
Unfortunatelly hungarian the voice there.



One of our tank is also visible on the video:
viewtopic.php?f=35&t=15911&start=20
Looks much nicer in flesh, but the video gives an idea. 

Hope you will enjoy it.


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## James Marshall (24 Jul 2011)

The scape looks great after only 2 weeks, love the way the hardscape uses the whole height of the tank.
I bet it will be stunning once grown in.

Cheers,
James


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## Sonnyarba (24 Jul 2011)

Viktor, don't be surprised if ADA stops the delivery of their products to you in the near future. Man, you and GA are becoming competition to their Nature Gallery in Niigata


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## SuperWen (24 Jul 2011)

viktorlantos said:
			
		

>



nice hardscape victor..!!!!   

IMHO, the big rocks at the right side distract the focal point, because it has same size with main rock and has lighter colour comparing to the other. If I were you, I will change that rocks to a smaller one and with same texture/color


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## GHNelson (24 Jul 2011)

Hi Victor
What substrate are you using.
Very nice scape  
hoggie


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## viktorlantos (24 Jul 2011)

hogan53 said:
			
		

> Hi Victor
> What substrate are you using.
> Very nice scape
> hoggie



Cheers  
ADA Saraawak Sand on the front, and as we ran out of Aqua Soil Amazonia we used Shirakura Red Bee Sand on the back where it's needed.



			
				SuperWen said:
			
		

> nice hardscape victor..!!!!
> 
> IMHO, the big rocks at the right side distract the focal point, because it has same size with main rock and has lighter colour comparing to the other. If I were you, I will change that rocks to a smaller one and with same texture/color



Thanks mate, the left rock is much larger in real. Goes above the water surface. We wanted to have a dramatic canyon between the 2 giant rock. On the frontal shot the canyon is not visible that much. But the right one is lighter a bit you're right. We're hoping this will be not distracting after a while.

Thanks for your feedback.


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## Westyggx (24 Jul 2011)

Great tank viktor love all of your tanks, looking forward to seeing this grow in.


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## Tom (25 Jul 2011)

Wow, very bold rockwork  Great sense of depth in the little tank. I think the difference in textures of the rock make it look that much better.

Tom


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## Gary Nelson (25 Jul 2011)

Very nice indeed Viktor - very natural looking too.


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## Garuf (25 Jul 2011)

Out of interest are you running RO on this tank as well or is it just with the big tanks?
Reason I'm asking is I recently moved in with my grandparents for the summer and my tank has become a total wreck instantly despite nothing but the water changing.


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## keymaker (25 Jul 2011)

Thanks Guys and yes Garuf, we use RO on this one too.

BTW more pictures of this tank here.

I'm also a bit concerned about the lighter shade of the rock "B" from right, but we'll see. Might even change it later if it attracts the eye too much. Should be a definite "B" - not an "A-"   (in A-B-C triangle composition terms). Luckily it just stands on the other rocks, so changing it should not be a technical problem. But will leave it like this for now.


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## flygja (26 Jul 2011)

So who was doing most of the talking in the first half and second half of the workshop? I think I recognised Viktor walking around   

Sometime during the scape, when the soil was being topped up the back and the top middle rocks weren't placed yet, I thought the soil mound would look super nice with some HC growing it. There will be a valley of HC coming down the middle of the scape. I would have really liked that look.


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## viktorlantos (26 Jul 2011)

flygja said:
			
		

> So who was doing most of the talking in the first half and second half of the workshop? I think I recognised Viktor walking around



LOL yeah this scape was done by Keymaker (Balazs) above. He is the master of the rocks in our team.  
So this was his round. I walking around because of the live streaming. Chat with the guys online in the meantime.  



			
				flygja said:
			
		

> Sometime during the scape, when the soil was being topped up the back and the top middle rocks weren't placed yet, I thought the soil mound would look super nice with some HC growing it. There will be a valley of HC coming down the middle of the scape. I would have really liked that look



Yup we also had a thought to keep that way, but we wanted to use up the full height of the scape. Hopefully the time will tell we did a bit unique this way.


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## viktorlantos (6 Sep 2011)

We've not updated this topic a month ago or so. In the meantime we had some progress on this tank, but not as much as on the others. The TMC light unit hanging cable was only a meter long and we thought this will be ok. Turned out this is not enough to move the lamp into the right position. And the scape evolved really slowly.

Well today we've changed the cables so now we can burn the plants as we want.

Also based on your earlier comments, Keymaker rearranged the right side and replaced the strange texture stone to another. I really like the new stone.  

Can't wait to see the HC progress a bit more, so the scape can be finalized and have that look what we imagined originally.









glued mosses stays in place and they grows nicely, like this riccardia. This may need some trimming shortly.


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## plantbrain (6 Sep 2011)

Excellent hardscape.
Since this is mostly moss and a fair amount of the tank is not planted, why not use low light?
This would make trimming and algae issues much less of an issue and less work down the road.

We have a lot of this stone at our local quarry, I've used it a lot on larger tanks, but never was happy, for smaller tanks, I think it works well with a few species of plants, or a mono culture. My worry is breaking the and scratching the glass over time. I do rock groups for reef tanks with live rock and have to do a fair amount of prep, but wood is not an option for those systems. 

Super glue works well on rock for the mosses  
Nice tank so far.


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## andy-mu (6 Sep 2011)

Since replacing the right side rock I do agree the scape looks more natural and has a better balance to it

very nice


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## andyh (7 Sep 2011)

Guys

Really liking this one, ironically without seeing this i have just scaped my nano using similar stuff. My doesn't look as nice as yours though.

The mosses help age the scape quickly making it look natural, how do you decide where to place the moss?

Keep up the good work, and your shop looks fantastic! 
Andyh


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## clonitza (7 Sep 2011)

Looks really nice Viktor, can you tell us a bit about the ferts regime in this tank?

You could buy some Dennerle Nano hose guides for your nanos:
http://www.dennerle.eu/global/index.php ... 80&lang=en
They are transparent not white like in the picture, they also sell clear CO2 tubing, a little bit hard to find though.

Mike


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## keymaker (7 Sep 2011)

plantbrain said:
			
		

> Excellent hardscape. (...) Nice tank so far.


Thank you Tom, your words mean a lot to me!   



			
				plantbrain said:
			
		

> Since this is mostly moss and a fair amount of the tank is not planted, why not use low light?
> This would make trimming and algae issues much less of an issue and less work down the road.


Well, we respectfully choose to go the other way.  All our other planted tanks (there should be about 11 more at the moment in the Gallery and only 2 low-light) go high-tech, high-light and algae issues are minimal - almost non-existent. No exceptions.  Maintenance is regularly made on all of them, we never tire.  

We like to go for the fast growth - high lighting levels, achieving the Vibrating Nature effect. With support of the EI.   



			
				plantbrain said:
			
		

> We have a lot of this stone at our local quarry, I've used it a lot on larger tanks, but never was happy, for smaller tanks (...)


The problem with this stone is that it comes in smaller pieces. Hard to build a balanced, yet mountain-like hardscape with it in a bigger tank. You need to pile them, but then the connections should be covered, planted, etc. It's a building-hiding game at the same time. This is exactly the type of challenge I like... 



			
				plantbrain said:
			
		

> I think it works well with a few species of plants, or a mono culture.


Funny you mention the mono culture thing. This morning I was looking at the new pictures Viktor took and wondered about the same thing. Might consider reducing the number of plants here, but not decided yet...



			
				plantbrain said:
			
		

> My worry is breaking the and scratching the glass over time.


A very real problem with these "rocks-on-top-of-each-other-near-the-glass" compositions indeed. I did slightly scratch about 3 opti-tanks by now.   So I'm trying to handle these really carefully and not let our friend Ati next to any of our piles. He's the breaker in the team 



			
				andy-mu said:
			
		

> Since replacing the right side rock I do agree the scape looks more natural and has a better balance to it. very nice


Thank you Sir.



			
				andyh said:
			
		

> (...)Really liking this one (...) how do you decide where to place the moss?
> Keep up the good work, and your shop looks fantastic!


Thanks Andy. As I mentioned before in this post one purpose of using the moss was to cover the joints. Other than that we put them in the cracks to break the larger rock-surfaces and we also concentrated on the visual balance of the moss-spots (to spread them in a nice way in the tank...  ).



			
				clonitza said:
			
		

> Looks really nice Viktor, can you tell us a bit about the ferts regime in this tank?


Simple. EI. :idea: 



			
				clonitza said:
			
		

> You could buy some Dennerle Nano hose guides for your nanos (...) They are transparent not white like in the picture


Problem with transparent is that it gets white after staying in the water. This was originally transparent...


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## Mark Evans (7 Sep 2011)

keymaker said:
			
		

> Simple. EI.



In a moss only tank?


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## Mark Evans (7 Sep 2011)

keymaker said:
			
		

> Simple. EI.



In a moss only tank?


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## viktorlantos (7 Sep 2011)

Mark Evans said:
			
		

> keymaker said:
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Cheers Mark, 
Well you know we have our mixed fert. It is easier to use the same fert regime sometimes then align fert to every single tank. Especially when you have so many to maintain etc. This is different when you have only 1 or 2 to worry about.

This tank would perform well with weaker ferts too. However even mosses looks nice in our other tanks and HC, Parvula which we have in this tank and also behind the big rocks will use some of the extra ferts.

Not used fert substrate in this tank. Just sand and shrimp soil (which not contain any ferts). 

But as you pointed out this is not a must to do especially in this tank.


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## viktorlantos (7 Sep 2011)

FYI we're using ADA, Tropica and EI on our tanks. Keymaker is an EI fan  so that's also a reason why it went down the EI road.


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## JohnC (8 Sep 2011)

i think this rocks.   

best regards,
john

p.s rubbish pun intended.


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## plantbrain (8 Sep 2011)

viktorlantos said:
			
		

> FYI we're using ADA, Tropica and EI on our tanks. Keymaker is an EI fan  so that's also a reason why it went down the EI road.


You should use your own blend, sell and market that if you already do so, they all add the same things, but it will help build the brand and business.

There's such a tiny demand for ferts from moss is not even worth adding much if anything.
Even with CO2, decent light, fish waste is typically enough for most species. EI as a blunt rigid method is not appropriate for such a tank, it would need cut by perhaps 1/5th or even less.


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## plantbrain (8 Sep 2011)

keymaker said:
			
		

> plantbrain said:
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I give credit where it is due, folks spend a lot of time doing something and it comes out nice, *if it looks good, it IS GOOD.*

I'm blunt with praise as I am with criticism :idea: 
Moss tanks tend to be tough for many, they seem to think such systems are very easy, they most certainly can be............which is why I would suggest you explore lower light systems, you will be happily surprised I think. 

I know high light disease is tough to sake off and all  
I do, honestly...........but seeing how low you can go is well worth the effort.

A very brightly lit tank does look better, more eye catching..........and the plants do grow in faster. 
But as you state, both you and Victor spend a fair amount of work doing water changes and work on these tanks.
 For clients and other folks, many are not that willing to do such upkeep.

So being able to control the rates of growth, but get similar results, just longer times for grow in and trimming frequencies is a very useful and good management tool. This way we can scape and chose plants that are manageable for most people, not just the few that wish to do a lot of work. I make my water changes easy and trim and chose layouts I like, my days of playing with high light are long over. I have the ability to increase light 2-3x on most of the aquariums, but rarely even do so. I might for a picture etc.

Many are surprised at the growth rates I still get and nice colors. 



> plantbrain said:
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In your case, this is fine and an informed decision, but many newbies often see high light tanks and do not tend them, but get the high light, then fight the algae and other issues. Then they come asking about algae and how and why. I try to explain to newer folks the care required, some listen, some go looking for people that will tell them you do not need to do any water changes or work etc.

Then they often fail.

Hard to say which way to go with some of these things, but I take each person case by case. This way I can manage low, med or high light. It's rare I suggest high light, but for you guys, this is NOT an issue. Maybe after 20-30 years, you will tire??

Haha......... 



> We like to go for the fast growth - high lighting levels, achieving the Vibrating Nature effect. With support of the EI.



I think a decently feed Shrimp population and maybe 1/5th to 1/10 th EI would be fine for such a tank, but adding more will do no harm either. Moss is very undemanding.

Nerites might be useful for keeping the rock clean also, but noit as effective as large water changes, but the water changes and CO2 are not as good for shrimp, you get higher brood without so many water changes and without CO2. 

Such tanks can still look very nice, this will challenge you to try something out of your comfort level.
Reef tanks, Planted Marine, Rift cichlids, Natives etc.........all these are well worth pursuing.
And add some plants and nice layout, tank, scape etc.

You have the desire and passion, it need not be limited to high light CO2 tanks.
George Farmer embraces this attitude and philosophy. I do obviously.




			
				plantbrain said:
			
		

> We have a lot of this stone at our local quarry, I've used it a lot on larger tanks, but never was happy, for smaller tanks (...)


The problem with this stone is that it comes in smaller pieces. Hard to build a balanced, yet mountain-like hardscape with it in a bigger tank. You need to pile them, but then the connections should be covered, planted, etc. It's a building-hiding game at the same time. This is exactly the type of challenge I like... 
[/quote]

This is a common complaint many have in Europe and the USA, poor rock sizing and quality, all the nice stuff is picked off elsewhere. Often, in the West(NA and SA) and Europe/Africa, we place little worth on distinctive rock, in Asia, it is embraced. I can find wood that is awesome, but stone is hard to come by unless I bring a rock saw and go cut some pieces I see out in the mountains here. That is a lot of work. 

I have some wood that emulates rock however. So I try to work with what I have that is unique, and not copy using the commonly scaped materials. I enjoy collecting wood and rock, so it allows me far more scaping choices that are unique to my own eye.

This is yet another area, you might consider doing and looking for in your area. 
Much like finding different plants, or biotopes etc.........



> plantbrain said:
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A reductionist approach is a good study for ANYONE. Amano has done it many times, then built upon that.
You really get to know and understand each plant this way and learn it's true potential. Adding complexity from there is an interesting challenge. This(adding more complexity) is often where looking at nature helps I think.

I compare this monoculture to painting a blank canvas all black or all white..........then adding your subject/s.


> plantbrain said:
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Yes, I hate this. It can break your heart! I think you might do well to use epoxy and super glue gel to keep the rocks in position, much like Reef folks use for their live rock displays, Reef aquarium sites have many good tricks for rock set ups that will not scratch the glass, but this takes much more work, but often, the pay off is well worth it, planted aquarist are often not as willing to do this. Reef aquarist are less willing to do water changes and trim, prune, scrub algae etc. Do not allow Ati to play goalie in soccer!!!

hehe

Tom


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## SuperWen (8 Sep 2011)

viktorlantos said:
			
		

> Also based on your earlier comments, Keymaker rearranged the right side and replaced the strange texture stone to another. I really like the new stone.


I've told you... hehehehe
nice tank brother...!!!


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## keymaker (8 Sep 2011)

Tom, thanks on the Nerites suggestion for keeping the rocks clean. I've been toothbrushing them for 2-3 hours per occasion, back-pain starts to get an issue even with my good condition. 

Great and original idea on using wood as rocks in a composition. Requires special wood-shapes but if you have access to them then it should definitely be done. Love the concept, inspiring.

We do have two low-light partly moss tanks in the Gallery so I know exactly what you mean. We do the same with our clients, go on a case-by-case basis and explain them the advantages and back-draws of high lighting... Also thing is that we have some HC in the tank which did not perform so well with the LEDs being raised... Just across the room there is another HC tank which in contrary does really good - with all other parameters the same except high-lighting. So lowering the light will certainly help us with HC. (Just for the record I'm not saying that HC invariably needs high light - I know you had good results with this plant under low-light conditions before...)



			
				plantbrain said:
			
		

> Do not allow Ati to play goalie in soccer!!!


He actually claims to go out playing every Wednesday with some folk, just not sure what position he gets in and where.  Need to make sure...


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## viktorlantos (30 Sep 2011)

An update>

The tank is 2.5 months old now. Plants looks better around this time. We have some hair algae issues, because the increased light, but we will solve it shortly. This is how the tank looks today.






I guess this start to look a real mountain. If we remove the pipes and CO2, the tank would look much bigger than it is.

Cheers guys


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## Gary Nelson (30 Sep 2011)

That is absolutely stunning Viktor, well done


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## Sonnyarba (1 Oct 2011)

This is great my friend, a school of tiny fishes gives a great prospective


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## viktorlantos (8 Oct 2011)

Cheers guys, we had a bit of a shooting session today and captured this tank too, as it is 3 months old now.  

Still there's a bit of a hair algae here and there and some tweak needed, but the tank already looks completed.
So the current photos was a test to see how it looks with some lighting and background. 

Pipes etc are not removed, because this was a test only before the final shooting.

2 shots now. One with some mirror effect on the surface. 
And the other where we blow the surface from both sides by mouth  









Next i will capture this only after we removed the algae


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## clonitza (8 Oct 2011)

Madre de Dios!! you've got some algea in there  buuut the tank looks fabulous ...
BTW you can give EasyLife Algexit a try   , a little bit slow but it worked for me.


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## viktorlantos (8 Oct 2011)

clonitza said:
			
		

> Madre de Dios!! you've got some algea in there  buuut the tank looks fabulous ...
> BTW you can give EasyLife Algexit a try   , a little bit slow but it worked for me.



Thanks mate  Yup i posted this to show we also have algae issues sometimes.
On this tank if we had the LEDs higher, then the HC not looked good. If this was lower, the HC was super green an lush, but the hair algae appear.

So now we moved up the light a bit and hopefully with the multiple cures the hair will disappear shortly. Algexit need a 4 weeks cure as i know. We will solve it quicker with more natural methods. But thanks for the tip mate


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## clonitza (8 Oct 2011)

Well I had to cure cladophora from my tanks after struggling a year with it. Just dosed that, removed the algea as much as I could and after two weeks it never returned. The most annoying thing was that it was covering my mosses and I had to move them regularly into my low light tanks to keep them clean. I wish I had the option to throw them away and buy clean ones but unfortunately here if you have a plant you have to stick to it cause they are very hard to find. I do have amano's but they couldn't compete with its growth.

Best of luck with your issues. Hope you don't rescape it 'cause it's a nice tank.

Cheers,
Mike


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## Antoni (8 Oct 2011)

Great captures, I personally like the one with the blown surface


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## viktorlantos (2 Dec 2011)

Quick update on this one too:

The scape is almost done. Need some refinement and time for shooting. Here is is without the light background.


Green Aqua - Showroom by viktorlantos, on Flickr


Green Aqua - Showroom by viktorlantos, on Flickr

cheers


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## a1Matt (3 Dec 2011)

Looking good. Keymaker definitely has hardscape layout skills   



			
				clonitza said:
			
		

> I wish I had the option to throw them away and buy clean ones but unfortunately here if you have a plant you have to stick to it cause they are very hard to find.



I'm happy posting mosses across Europe.  Only costs a couple of £ more and they tend to arrive in under a week, which is fine for the moss.


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## viktorlantos (8 Jan 2012)

Oh just seen we've not posted on this a while ago.

The tank become 6 month old around this time. And after several trimming we call it completed. Will have a final photo session next week for future contest, but the tank got it's final form by now.

We used ADA ferts on this tank with soft water and the 2 TMC 1000ND. This tank was a test to the TMC LED Light and it turned out great as we expected from what we've seen on George's tank earlier.

Here is the in situ shot from hand which i just captured yesterday.  


Green Aqua - Showroom by viktorlantos, on Flickr


Green Aqua - Showroom by viktorlantos, on Flickr


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## keymaker (10 Jan 2012)

There's still a lot of time to the deadline but the scape looked ready - so I just finished shooting for IAPLC 2012:


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## keymaker (10 Jan 2012)

More images...


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## Stu Worrall (10 Jan 2012)

thats looking amazing!  Love the fissidens in the cracks


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## AndersH (10 Jan 2012)

Absolutely brilliant.

You really get the feeling of a mountain range.

I love it.


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## viktorlantos (28 Oct 2012)

IAPLC 2012 entries Rank #155 by viktorlantos, on Flickr


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## Nathaniel Whiteside (28 Oct 2012)

I really love this Viktor! Beautiful and very different to what I have seen before.

Well done on all the IAPLC placements


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## Nick_593 (29 Oct 2012)

Brilliant layout. What glue was used to attach the Fissidens to the rocks?


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## nduli (29 Oct 2012)

My guess superglue. Make sure surface is dry and moss patted dry with paper towel else you get white streaks everywhere.


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## Antoni (29 Oct 2012)

Congrats Victor! This is very fine "mountain" theme scape! From day 1 I knew it will be a winner


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## clonitza (1 Nov 2012)

Told ya you shouldn't strip the tank, it turned out really well


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## viktorlantos (1 Nov 2012)

Antoni said:
			
		

> Congrats Victor! This is very fine "mountain" theme scape! From day 1 I knew it will be a winner



Thanks my friend. This was a creation of Keymaker (one of my partner)
The nice thing was that we grew this under TMC LEDs. We built this on a workshop and turned to be a competitive tank for contests.  



			
				clonitza said:
			
		

> Told ya you shouldn't strip the tank, it turned out really well



Thanks my friend. Well after a time it was too hard to maintenance because of the mosses. And the stones had to be cleaned timely.... and in this tank we a lot of them   

-- tried to send you a pm but no pm and email is available


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## clonitza (1 Nov 2012)

I wonder if there's a way to keep them clean without any intervention. I'm working on some theories right now but I didn't fully test them yet.

PM should work now Vik, I replied you while you were writing this post.

Cheers,
Mike


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## Ben22 (1 Nov 2012)

very different layout, reminds me of some local scenes on dart moor, the way the rocks jag out and look unplanned is something you don't often see.


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