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3ft of Uncertainty... Now Planted!

Re: 3ft of Uncertainty... (Stage 3 - Plant Selection)

Not sure about putting tall plants in there - where would you suggest darren?
 
Re: 3ft of Uncertainty... (Stage 3 - Plant Selection)

Tank planted up this evening and now running!

Need to tidy up the cables and sort out a collision between the rear light tube and the filter piping, but I'll leave those until the weekend.

Plants are:

eleocharis acicularis
postgemon helferi
spiky moss
staurogene repens

Comments?

rio.jpg
 
Re: 3ft of Uncertainty... (Stage 3 - Plant Selection)

Looking good mate.
You may find you need to trim the acicularis a bit more to encourage new growth, suck it and see for a few days first, its a PITA to remove the trimmings anyway!
Cheerio,
Ady
 
Thanks Ady - I've trimmed it to half its original size but will take some more off once it has put roots down.

The tank doesn't look like this anymore, the tannin leaching from the soil has well and truly started now!
 
Really really chuffed with the rocks, my LFS got them in!
 
It's capped with black gravel - that said, as expected the tank is now a dark brown tinted body of water. The little Edge that I did last week has now cleared, so I expect this will be around a week or so too.

Thanks for the compliments :).
 
Ok, getting rid of the soil and thought I might do a more iwagumi style scape this time. Only plants will be hairgrass and some mosses.

What are the thoughts on the minimalism below?

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Right, I've planted up, couple of different angles below. I've never grown hairgrass before, so hoping that it will take. The shrimp seem very keen on the nooks and crannies in the rock arrangement. I've got some riccia coming soon, so some (not all) of that gravel will get a riccia carpet. There's a fair bit of growing in to be done, but I think this might look good. There will be a shoal of 50+ tetra or similar going in there too, hence keeping it as quite a "low" scape.

2012-12-02%2015.26.57.jpg


2012-12-02%2015.27.09-2.jpg
 
Hey Rick whats the red substrate at the back ? And how many kgs have you used of substrate in total? Thanks.
 
Moller clay, from Kaizen bonsai. It's the same stuff as cat litter but without the perfume. At a guess there's maybe 10 litres in there, so probably 8kg or so. I just did a bulk order of 60litres so I never need to get more substrate again!
 
LancsRick said:
Moller clay, from Kaizen bonsai. It's the same stuff as cat litter but without the perfume. At a guess there's maybe 10 litres in there, so probably 8kg or so. I just did a bulk order of 60litres so I never need to get more substrate again!

Can you give me a link to the one they bought ? I find their site very confusing. How light did you find it compared to cat litter ?
 
Quite chuffed with how this is shaping up, and the speed with which the hairgrass is growing (had to trim today, there was nearly 2cm growth on some bits!).

I've just added some stainless mesh with java moss at the front right, hopefully that will grow in to soften the open gravel area a bit (plus I'm expecting the shrimp to love it).

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Right, thought I'd update a few pictures on this. The Java Moss carpet looked naff, so I thought I'd move to riccia. The tank is a bit of a "holding" area at the moment, since I'm growing on some of the riccia and weeping moss for use elsewhere, so the middle is a bit cluttered.

Dropbox - 2013-01-25 18.33.58.jpg - Simplify your life
Dropbox - 2013-01-25 18.34.23.jpg - Simplify your life

I also decided to put my spare nano cube to use, since it fits perfectly under the Rio 180 stand. I'm using it to hold surplus plants and grow them on a bit - ele acic sp mini and HC in there at the moment.

Dropbox - 2013-01-25 18.34.35.jpg - Simplify your life
 
That's the plan! There's a set of heavy duty wire cutters on the side for that very purpose :). I'm just letting the riccia fill out a bit more on that rectangle before I do it. Was going to be today's job but I got ambushed by a nap attack....
 
I've followed Paulo's technique for riccia mesh, and have done the entire tank this morning. In a few weeks it should look pretty good!

I've also tidied up the hairgrass a bit, since it was my first attempt at planting it, and I mistakenly did it in small clumps, I've redistributed some of them to speed up filling in the gaps.

2013-02-02%2014.24.10.jpg
 
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