# Forest’s Edge (60 litre) a retrospective journal - IAPLC 2013 #158



## James Marshall (11 Aug 2013)

*Forest**’s Edge *(60 litre) - IAPLC 2013 #158

















*Tank:*  60 x 30 x 36 cm
*Volume:* 60 litres
*Hardscape:* Redmoor Root, Cornish forest stone
*Plants:* Hemianthus callitrichoides, Eleocharis parvula, Staurogyne repens, Lilaeopsis brasiliensis, Microsorium pteropus ‘dwarf’, Anubias nana ‘petite’, Hemianthus micranthemoides, Vesicularia dubyana ‘christmas’, Vesicularia ferriei ‘weeping’
*Animals: *Hyphessobrycon eques, Cardinia japonica
*Lights:*ADA solar 2 (2 x 36W Power Compact Fluorescent) & 24W T5 backlight
*Ferts:*ADA Brighty K, ADA Brighty Step 2, ADA Green Gain, ADA Phyton Git
*CO2:* 2 bubbles per second
*Substrate:*ADA Power Sand Special S; ADA Aqua Soil Africana
*Filter:* Eheim pro 3e
*Water change: *60% once a week.

1 week



The system was mature and stable when I started this scape, and began with just a few plants from the previous scape, whilst awaiting a delivery from Tropica. 20 cherry shrimps kept the low plant mass clean for the first week.

2 weeks



The rest of the plants arrived and I planted them with the tank almost full.

3 weeks



All plants are growing well, but started to get some staghorn algae on the wood, I spent 10 mins a day removing it with tweezers. Although they don’t eat staghorn algae I added 10 amano shrimps to keep the tank a bit cleaner in general.

4 weeks



Plants still growing well and the staghorn, although still present, is starting to subside, I think perhaps the brand new wood needed to mature a bit. The HC and E parvula had their first proper prune.

There’s a bit of a gap in the photos here as I was away on holiday. Although the tank was left unfertilised for a period of 10 days the plants suffered no reduction in growth rates, thank you Aquasoil.

7 weeks



As the scape was starting to fill in and I had no real algae issues I added 10 Serpae Tetras.

8 weeks



All plants except the moss get pruned to various extents.

9 weeks




10 weeks



A selective pruning of the moss was done.

11 weeks



Lily pipes removed for final shot.


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## flygja (11 Aug 2013)

Superbly done James! The growth rate was quite astounding. Congratulations on your placing in the IAPLC!


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## Gary Nelson (11 Aug 2013)

Very nice indeed James, the sense of scale is superb! The fish look fantastic too and compliment it very nicely.  Big congratulations in your place in IAPLC as well... Really well done


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## Lee Sweeting (11 Aug 2013)

Very nice, congrats for placing in the IAPLC.


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## tomh (12 Aug 2013)

A stunning tank, also I love the Eques Tetras I have some and they really set off the greens of the plants


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## Andy D (12 Aug 2013)

Great result and great looking tank!


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## hydrophyte (13 Aug 2013)

That is wonderful!


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## Curvball (13 Aug 2013)

Nicely done Marshall.


Posted from the comfort of my iPhone...


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## aliclarke86 (13 Aug 2013)

Extremely nice yet again. 

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk 4 Beta


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## LondonDragon (9 Sep 2013)

Nice to see a journal of this one  great tank James  congrats on the placement too


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## Deano3 (30 Jul 2014)

Wow excellent scape and growth was amazing how were you injecting co2 ? Inline diffuser on inlet or outlet ? 

Thanks for sharing dean


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