# My Road to IAPLC 2017



## Yo-han (6 Dec 2016)

My 1000L tank is running for over 1,5 year now, and everything is working the way I would like to. This combined with the fact that I finally got some time to maintain the tank, did made me think of rescaping the tank for IAPLC (or another contest). I will try to update this journal as often as possible and with DSRL photo's as much as possible, to give you a good impression of my tank. You can find a thread about the build and first scape here: https://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/1000.32902/

Here some specs about the tank:

*Tank: *195x80x80cm (water level roughly 70 cm), optiwhite glass and black glass overflow and backwall, build in the wall.
*Filtration: *Bean animal black glass overflow, with a 450L sump in the room behind. 2 filtersocks, followed by filter mats and 100L Bio Rio powered by 2x Ecotech Vectra M1 (8000L/u, not running full power) do the job.
*Heating: *4x 300W glass heater (if 1 gets stuck on, it won't boil the tank, if one is broken, the other 3 can still heat the tank warm enough.
*Lighting: *4x custumized DSunY LED + 2x20W flood lights on the side. Running for 8 hours bright and 4 hours dim.
*Co2*: Pressurised via 2 home made Cerges Style reactors and a 7,5/15kg bottle pH controlled and a second magnet valve to shut it off at night.
*Aeration: *10 hours a night.
*Fertilzer*: Home made mixes automatically dosed 3 times a day by a dosing pump to keep the water parameters steady.
*Hardscape: *8 large pieces of river wood and about 100 kg of Grey mountain rock.
*Substrate*: ADA Amazonia and and Tropica Aquasoil mixed and decorative sand.

*Fauna*: All current fish: pencil fish, dwarf harlequin rasbora, simulans tetra, dwarf congo tetra's and all the Otocinclus, Hisonotus and L-numbers and different species of shrimp.

*Flora:* This tank will use only plants from the Dutch nursery Aquaflora:
_On the wood:_
Taxiphyllum species
Microsorum pteropus 'petite'

_On the stones and just behind:_
All sort of Anubias and Bucephalandra mixed
Cryptocoryne becketti 'petchii'

_Middle and background:_

Cryptocoryne retrospiralis
Cryptocoryne spiralis var. caudigera
Cardamina lyrata
Pogostemon quadrifolius (octopus)
Proserpinaca palustris 'cuba'
And 1 or 2 Aponogeton

Latest look:


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## Martin in Holland (7 Dec 2016)

Good luck


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## Doubu (7 Dec 2016)

Looking forward to seeing the photos - and WOW. Where did you find those pieces of wood and did it cost you an arm and a leg?!


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## Yo-han (7 Dec 2016)

Doubu said:


> Looking forward to seeing the photos - and WOW. Where did you find those pieces of wood and did it cost you an arm and a leg?!


I work in an lfs in the Netherlands which sells this wood. Not cheap indeed (about €600,- )  but I like it very much!



Martin in China said:


> Good luck


Thank you!


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## Doubu (7 Dec 2016)

So lucky... and yes, that costs an arm for sure LOL. Do you guys ever ship to Vancouver, BC? If so - are you allowed to ship wood and do you know how much the shipping would cost approximately?


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## Yo-han (8 Dec 2016)

Doubu said:


> So lucky... and yes, that costs an arm for sure LOL. Do you guys ever ship to Vancouver, BC? If so - are you allowed to ship wood and do you know how much the shipping would cost approximately?



PM send!


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## Yo-han (8 Dec 2016)

The preparations started... I brushed the wood and started wrapping Taxiphyllum sp. from Aquaflora around the branches with moss cotton. Here some teaser photo's:





Cling foil to keep the moss wet till monday:


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## Yo-han (11 Dec 2016)

400 meter ADA Moss Cotton and 500 gram Taxiphyllum later, I only need to do one more piece of wood (the biggest). Tomorrow is D-Day, or maybe better: Scape-Day. Will finish the last piece of wood and after that start emptying the tank and hope to do some hardscaping. I guess you guys all know how I feel right now #cantsleep!


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## Costa (11 Dec 2016)

This is going to be great! I love your wood pieces, I like tanks with a lot if wood. Following this.


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## Yo-han (11 Dec 2016)

A quick photo before I start. This (and the soil, stones and some plants already in the tank) all need to be in the tank in 2 days. Wish me luck!!



 

All plants are powered by AquaFlora. For the soil I picked Tropica soil this time, because I was scared ADA would leach too much ammonia, because all fish need to be in there tomorrow again. All ADA soil will be cleaned as much as possible and stay in the tank. Tropica is much richer compared to most other brands IME, and not the ammonia leaching from ADA. Not too much advertisement for Tropica, they didn't sponsor me, haha, but I think this will be a good alternative for me.


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## David Shanahan (11 Dec 2016)

Hi

Looking forward to seeing this develop. Can I ask why you are using both ADA and Tropica substrate? Is there any specific benefit to using a mixture of both?


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## Yo-han (11 Dec 2016)

Planty said:


> Hi
> 
> Looking forward to seeing this develop. Can I ask why you are using both ADA and Tropica substrate? Is there any specific benefit to using a mixture of both?



The benefit is me not having to buy 10 new bags and the old one is still fine. I didn´t want to risk my fish adding ADA soil although I think it´s the best soil for plants as stated in my previous message:



Yo-han said:


> For the soil I picked Tropica soil this time, because I was scared ADA would leach too much ammonia, because all fish need to be in there tomorrow again. All ADA soil will be cleaned as much as possible and stay in the tank. Tropica is much richer compared to most other brands IME, and not the ammonia leaching from ADA.



Will add some photo's later tonight!


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## Yo-han (11 Dec 2016)

500m ADA Moss Cotton later (they should sell sixpacks or something) I finished the last piece of wood.





Neglected tank before emptying:





Plants and spiderwood out:

















Filling up again and emptying to rinse the soil:









Rescaped the soil:





The stones:









See whether the wood fits in:









My wife checking the new scape:





Result after 12 hours of almost non-stop working on the tank:





Tomorrow some final adjustments and planting and filling up the tank.


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## Cor (11 Dec 2016)

Gonna watch this Yo-Han . Toppie


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## Costa (12 Dec 2016)

Looks fantastic!!!!


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## chrism (12 Dec 2016)

Looks amazing!!


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## Dantrasy (12 Dec 2016)

Love the scale.  Keep the updates coming!


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## Yo-han (12 Dec 2016)

Will update with photos later, but I can already say that I've never been so satisfied with an aquascape as I'm with this one. And I haven't even started planting yet


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## Greenfinger2 (12 Dec 2016)

Hi Yo han, Wow Stunning


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## Alexander Belchenko (12 Dec 2016)

Jaw dropping. Fantastic job, I wish you to be satisfied with your work in the first place.


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## Berlioz (12 Dec 2016)

Picks jaw up off floor. Amazing, Yo Han! It reminds me of Amano's smaller wood scape at Sumida.


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## Yo-han (12 Dec 2016)

Berlioz said:


> Picks jaw up off floor. Amazing, Yo Han! It reminds me of Amano's smaller wood scape at Sumida.


Can't say that tank (or to be more precise, the original that stood in the ADA gallery) wasn't one of my favorite tanks of mr. Amano and was part of the inspiration to make this scape

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## Yo-han (12 Dec 2016)

Unwrapping the wood after some final adjustments:










Adding new soil and sand:





Although I'm no small guy with 1.87m, you can clearly see this is no small tank:





Add some water to make planting easier:





Plants for between the stones and just behind them:





Behind that some cryptos:





Background (plus Pogostemon qaudrifolius from my previous scape):





On the wood a few ferns beside all the Taxiphyllum (800 gram!!!):





Feedback is always welcome during scaping:





Happely I new the wood would float so I kept close to the tank when filling it:









Full of water:









Right now all fish are swimming again and the filter is running. Water is almost clear but the lights are already dim so I'll post more photos in the next few days when the water is crystal clear again!


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## AndreiD (12 Dec 2016)

Add fast growing plants , like stem plants , rotala ...etc


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## Yo-han (12 Dec 2016)

AndreiD said:


> Add fast growing plants , like stem plants , rotala ...etc


There are fast growing plants (Pogostemon, Cardamine, Proserpinaca) inside, read my last post. But if you ever maintained a large tank, you know you don't want fast growing plants  

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## Martin in Holland (13 Dec 2016)

I need to see this in person....just wow....
Maybe when I visit Holland next summer I pop over


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## Dantrasy (13 Dec 2016)

Staggering!


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## CooKieS (13 Dec 2016)

Awesome! I'm following this with interest...very nice pièce of Wood and scape!


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## Yo-han (13 Dec 2016)

Photos from this morning, only two plants floating, too bad the big rocks on the wood take up so much attention...


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## Costa (13 Dec 2016)

Beautiful! 

Is the CO2 really needed for these plants you went with?


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## Chris Jackson (13 Dec 2016)

Very classy! Has a great balance between looking "scaped" and "wild" which is only going to improve as it grows in... Dare I ask budget?


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## Kezzab (13 Dec 2016)

This looks fantastic. Impressive scale.


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## Yo-han (13 Dec 2016)

Chris Jackson said:


> Very classy! Has a great balance between looking "scaped" and "wild" which is only going to improve as it grows in... Dare I ask budget?


Haha, thank you! Budget from this rescape or including the aquarium and all?

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## Yo-han (13 Dec 2016)

Costa said:


> Beautiful!
> 
> Is the CO2 really needed for these plants you went with?


Probably not, the Proserpinaca might be the only one, but all plants grow better, more bushy, with CO2, and I like that compact look. I do add less than with me previous scape though. 

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## Doubu (13 Dec 2016)

Can't wait to see how everything fills out! Love the pieces of wood. 


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## Chris Jackson (13 Dec 2016)

Yo-han said:


> Haha, thank you! Budget from this rescape or including the aquarium and all?
> 
> Verstuurd vanaf mijn E6653 met Tapatalk



Well both would be interesting but it was the rescape I was thinking about...
cheers


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## Yo-han (13 Dec 2016)

Chris Jackson said:


> Well both would be interesting but it was the rescape I was thinking about...
> cheers


This rescape was not that expensive, I reused most of the soil and the stones. In Euro's, 80 for soil, 20 for sand, 30 for Moss Cotton, about 600 for the wood and the plants got sponsored by Aquaflora which was about 600-700 retail. The entire tank could have been a small brand new car, haha!


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## Yo-han (14 Dec 2016)

The wood on the right side doesn't float anymore so I removed the stones. So here a closer photo from the right side:


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## Alexander Belchenko (14 Dec 2016)

Fish are ready for final shot, right from the beginning! Good luck!


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## CooKieS (14 Dec 2016)

What an awesome nature aquarium...


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## Manisha (14 Dec 2016)

Beautiful!


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## Yo-han (20 Dec 2016)

The wood has sunken, plants and moss is growing, so far I'm happy:


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## CooKieS (20 Dec 2016)

This is awesome!


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## Martin in Holland (20 Dec 2016)

get your scissors out


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## Yo-han (20 Dec 2016)

Martin in China said:


> get your scissors out


Scissors? You think It's already overgrown? 

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## Martin in Holland (20 Dec 2016)

Yo-han said:


> You think It's already overgrown?


No, but you better get them ready, by the look of this growth you will need them soon...


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## Adam Chambers (20 Dec 2016)

Amazing, just so amazing. Very jealous of that layout. I hope one day I can have something like this  

In regards to trimming, I like the balance it has now in terms of growth but each to own


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## Yo-han (21 Dec 2016)

Adam Chambers said:


> Amazing, just so amazing. Very jealous of that layout. I hope one day I can have something like this
> 
> In regards to trimming, I like the balance it has now in terms of growth but each to own



Thank you! I don't know how full I want the plants, I do want to try out letting all the background plants grow to the surface and trim them in a curve to emphasise the path in the middle. If I don't like it, I can always trim them back to this height.


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## Adam Chambers (21 Dec 2016)

Yo-han said:


> Thank you! I don't know how full I want the plants, I do want to try out letting all the background plants grow to the surface and trim them in a curve to emphasise the path in the middle. If I don't like it, I can always trim them back to this height.



Sounds like an excellent plan of action. Look forward to seeing how that ends up


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## Yo-han (25 Dec 2016)

The water does turn a little yellow despite the active carbon and purigen. So I replaced the carbon, perhaps It's already saturated. 
Also some diatoms at the sand, but notering to worry about. And the Otocinclus are eating the Cardamina, so I hope it will grow a little faster, so it grows faster than they eat. 

Overall, I'm still very happy!


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## Martin in Holland (26 Dec 2016)

Yo-han said:


> The water does turn a little yellow despite the active carbon and purigen


Probably the wood, it will get less in time as I'm sure you know.


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## Yo-han (26 Dec 2016)

I know it's the wood, but I used this type of wood before in another scape (see picture below), but this was a considerable smaller amount of wood off course. A small amount of carbon was enough to keep the water crystal clear in this tank. So I hope this will only be for a short while, we'll see.


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## CooKieS (26 Dec 2016)

Lovely setup too


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## Yo-han (28 Dec 2016)

One piece of wood is still floating a little. It stays down when I push it between 2 other pieces. But goes up now and then, so hope it will sink or need to attach a rock to it...


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## Berlioz (28 Dec 2016)

Love the little tank too! What size is/was it (Mini M?)?


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## Yo-han (28 Dec 2016)

Haha, It's not so mini, It's a 60H (120L)

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## Berlioz (28 Dec 2016)

Yo-han said:


> Haha, It's not so mini, It's a 60H (120L)
> 
> Verstuurd vanaf mijn E6653 met Tapatalk



Ooh, gosh, fail. I was going to say something larger because the fish were so numerous and looked quite small, but everything else looked so tiny, quaint and cute.


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## Alexander Belchenko (28 Dec 2016)

Woah, I was wondering about tank size as well, it is definitely not the standard 60P due to form factor, but I failed to think it could be 60H. Gosh, Maya the master of illusions.


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## Yo-han (28 Dec 2016)

It's actually a very nice size for scaping. Especially the 45cm front to back. I made this tank for the booth from our store Diebo at an exhibition in the Netherlands. It was well received, but it stands in our shop, not at my house unfortunately... The light is a Twinstar 600ES, funny thing is that the CEO from Twinstar came by to see it as well. Really nice guy!

Me with the Twinstar CEO, his friend and Jorg Buhlmann (ADA Germany CEO):


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## Alexander Belchenko (28 Dec 2016)

Yeah, 60x45x45 iiuc, looks great from the side.


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## mikehookipa (29 Dec 2016)

Tank looks amazing. 

Btw, how do you transport tanks to exhibitions and such?


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## Yo-han (29 Dec 2016)

This size: water out, transport, water in. The scape is flat on purpose, so it won't be destroyed during transport.

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## Yo-han (1 Jan 2017)

Some small problems with the dosing pump. The phosphate pump dumped in way more than I wanted and the nitrate pump was stuck, so was almost zero resulting in a little algae in the moss right below the light:






So I bought an ARKA dosing unit, love it!! 
Another problem is that the algae eaters love the Cardamine a little too much, maybe I need to swap it for another plant:


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## Akua. (2 Jan 2017)

Yo-han said:


> Another problem is that the algae eaters love the Cardamine a little too much, maybe I need to swap it for another plant:



Had the same issue with reineckii mini just a few days ago. There appeared to be to little algae for my massive amano's. Providing the algae eaters with more alternative food sources (think zucchini / algae pellets) has solved the plant nibbling untill now.
Just thought i would share


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## Yo-han (10 Jan 2017)

The damage to the Cardamine is less since I doubled the amount of green food. Moss is still having a tough time. Only emersed and right in front of the filter outlet with the CO2 reactor it's nice and green. I raised CO2 a little to check what will happen.

And off course, a journal can't contain only nice photo's, so here some photo's from the trouble:


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## Martin in Holland (12 Jan 2017)

Moss is a strange plant sometimes, one day it's growing fast lush and green, the next day it's brown, grey and unhappy.


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## Yo-han (19 Jan 2017)

The moss is recovering, and the algae is losing ground:



 

I'll add some extra rocks, because right now, my L-numbers are digging holes under the stones all the way to the soil (you can see the L240 in the right front digging).


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## Doubu (22 Jan 2017)

Looking great and feeling very envious... would love to be able to work on a huge tank like this one day!


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## Yo-han (22 Jan 2017)

Doubu said:


> Looking great and feeling very envious... would love to be able to work on a huge tank like this one day!



Thank you! I feel blessed every day!


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## Yo-han (7 Feb 2017)

Latest picture. I entered a Dutch competition where they pay house visits, so the judge will come to my house next week to grade my tank. Looking forward!


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## mikehookipa (8 Feb 2017)

Great scape. What fish do you have in there? Never seen some of them before


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## Yo-han (8 Feb 2017)

mikehookipa said:


> Great scape. What fish do you have in there? Never seen some of them before


Most fish are quite common. Otocinclus, Trigonostigma espei, Paracheirodon simulans, Nannostomus marginatus and the little less common Alestopetersius caudalis and Hisonotus leucofrenatus. Lots of shrimp, some Panaqolus to keep the wood clean and some other L-numbers because I love them (a group of L136c and a L240).


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## Yo-han (12 Feb 2017)

Made an extreme HDR today, by making a picture during the day from the 'cabinet' and from the aquarium this night. A little photoshop (which I'm not good at) and this is the result:





#iIlikeit


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## zgmarkozg (13 Feb 2017)

Great scape, that moss on branches is awsome!


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## Yo-han (24 Jun 2017)

A long overdue update. 
At the closing date for the IAPLC I thought the tank didn't look mature enough. So I enterred the contest with an iwagumi 90P which looked fine at that moment. 
I did enter the Dutch NBAT contest with this tank. So I received multiple housevisits from judges to see how the tank was doing and made it at least to the last 12, but need to wait till end november for the result. This was how the tank was looking when the judges came:


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## CooKieS (24 Jun 2017)

Very nice! Wood placement is top notch! 

Too bad that moss looks in bad shape, what are you dosing? Do you got enough flow?


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## Yo-han (24 Jun 2017)

CooKieS said:


> Very nice! Wood placement is top notch!
> 
> Too bad that moss looks in bad shape, what are you dosing? Do you got enough flow?


Thanks!

The moss is in almost perfect shape. The Congo tetras are taking bites now and the, but I just took most of it off. It took me 3 hours every few weeks to trim a bucket full off. Besides that I wanted to expose the wood a bit more.


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## Yo-han (4 Jul 2017)

The Pogostemon quadrifolius in the back is growing so fast that I want to replace it for something that grows slower. Any suggestions?


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## Yo-han (5 Sep 2017)

Made a box last week which holds my Apex computer and all Powerplus and cables. I can open the front of the box and access everything if I need to. I installed a DJ switch so I don't need to pull cables out anymore and I bought a cheap 8 inch tables which I use to display my Apex measurements instead of the ugly display that comes with it. The tablet is connected with Velcro tape so I can take it off and use it to show ideas to customers.


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## Yo-han (14 Sep 2017)

Changed the background plants. Trimming a bucket full of Pogostemon every week was no longer my thing. I was looking for a bright green plant but all of them seemed to grow quite fast. Till I stumbled upon Cyperus helferi, so I bought a few dozen of those to swap the Pogostemon out. Still a little small but it looks more tranquil already. What do you think?


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## Daveslaney (14 Sep 2017)

Gives a much better sense of depth to the scape imho.


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## EdwinK (14 Sep 2017)

Cryptocoryne wendtii green might look better instead of C. helferi. Crypts would add some 'aged tank' effect.


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## Yo-han (14 Sep 2017)

EdwinK said:


> Cryptocoryne wendtii green might look better instead of C. helferi. Crypts would add some 'aged tank' effect.



You know this is a 1000L tank right? These Cyperus are 40cm high right now and barely make it over the wood. Wendtii would disappear behind the wood. But I do have balansae in between the Cyperus for a little aged look


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## EdwinK (15 Sep 2017)

Actually didn't notice that however as you might know that there are lot's of big green cryptocoryne species.


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## grathod (17 Sep 2017)

Balansae behind the cypress is a top idea, am adopting this, your tank is an inspiration bud


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## Yo-han (2 Nov 2017)

Made a video after the rescape. Let me know what you think about the scape and about the video!



1200L Aquascape Plandora


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## Leesey (2 Nov 2017)

Looks awesome


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## Tim Harrison (2 Nov 2017)

Superb


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## Yo-han (7 Jan 2018)

Took all Cyperus out. It did die slowly. No to very little growth. Probably not enough light because in the middle it did do best. So I'm looking for another plant in the back. Thinking about Eleocharis vivpara or Vallsneria nana. I'm scared the val will grow too fast and Eleocharis will look too wild/messy...


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