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#4 - River shore

parotet

parotet

Member
Joined
12 Oct 2013
Messages
1,695
Location
Valencia, Spain
Hi all

Time for a new layout and for a new journal! My 60 liters tank has been empty during the last 5 months and I have enjoyed very much the layout design for the first time. That means plenty of time to think about what I wanted, for collecting wood, rocks, etc. In other words, enjoying a part of the process that now I realize I have always done much too fast. I will be flooded and planted in a few days. I have some plants in my mind but I also want to take some time to make sure they match with the hardscape. I don't want the wood and rocks to disappear in a few months... I will probably go for carpet plants and mosses.

Hardscape and equipment specifications
60 liters optiwhite tank
T5HO 2x24w with cheap tubes (6500 K)
Filter JBL e901
Co2 Art Lily pipes
8 kg CO2 cylinder with CO2 Art singe stage regulator and bubble counter
Do!Aqua ceramic Co2 diffuser
Collected wood (Juniperus sabina branches... never sink! attached with hot glue to bottom and rocks)
Collected rocks (Bluish-greenish slate from Asturias coast, north Spain)
Enriched soil (mixture of ADA AquaSoil and HELP Advanced shrimps... what I had at home)
Cosmetic soil (JBL Sansibar River)

And the first picture...

20595290438_e8a6567237_b.jpg

Jordi
 
Νice one Jordi! What are your plans for planting? Have you used this type of driftwood in any other setup? By the texture of the big piece on the right it looks brittle but I could be wrong.
 
Sarpijk said:
Νice one Jordi! What are your plans for planting? Have you used this type of driftwood in any other setup? By the texture of the big piece on the right it looks brittle but I could be wrong.
Click to expand...
I have not used this wood before but Cupressaceae (Cypress and Juniper) are known for being very solid and water proof. I soaked the pieces you can see for three months and not a single bit has broken or soften... but it is very difficult to make this wood sink! This is why I had to use hot glue

Regarding the plants, as mentioned, I want to preserve the hardscape texture. Additionally it is very flat, so stem plants would bury the hardscape in a few weeks. What I have in mind for the moment is: on the back left corner I will use Montecarlo, on the back right corner a mixture of H. pinnatifida and Monte Carlo. I was tempted to use Pogostemon erectus on the back right corner, but it will swallow everything, don't you think so? I would like to have some spots of Ranunculus inundatus in different places also in the back and mid ground. The star leaves look very nice among low heigh plants. Mosses (peacock and Fissidens) will also be used among the wood and rocks, but won't be probably attached to wood (to hopefully keep on seeing the wood until the last day of this layout lifetime). Finally, to have a gentle transition between sand and rocks/wood, I will use Eleocharis mini and again mosses.

Jordi
 
Wonderfull setup and very nice wood. Cypress and Juniper? Have to put that on the list of wana haves to keep an eye out for, realy beautifull. What fissidens would you like to use? In my imagination i see a waving patch of the larger native Crassipes doing very nice or the Nobilis. Anyway whatever you put in there this is going to be a very nice river shore. I love to see how the stone colors in the light sand when wet. :)
 
zozo said:
What fissidens would you like to use? In my imagination i see a waving patch of the larger native Crassipes doing very nice or the Nobilis
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It's going to be Fissidens from @MirandaB who kindly donated all the mosses (at least 4 different species!) :)

zozo said:
I love to see how the stone colors in the light sand when wet.
Click to expand...
That's what I like the most, now they look a bit grey but when they are wet they look greenish, even a bit blue. Love it.

Pedro Rosa said:
I like what you're doing :) but I have only one question: What is the height of the aquarium? Don't you think you could use it more?
Click to expand...
Thanks Pedro. It's a standard 60x30x36 cm aquarium. You're right, the layout hardly occupies half the tank heigh (and the picture have been cropped, removing about 10 cm of the tank)... but using the collected wood (2 big boxes) and rocks (40 kg), that's what I managed to do :)
In the future I would like to do something like you did in your last layout or what Viktor Lantos does with its mossy/low plants layouts and now I realize that I will need much more rocks. Probably my 40 kg were not enough as I thought. Anyway I'm going to add some more rocks behind the wood on the right side. Let's see what I can do.

Thank you all for your advice!

Jordi
 
parotet said:
That's what I like the most, now they look a bit grey but when they are wet they look greenish, even a bit blue. Love it
Click to expand...

I thought that already, wasn't sure but it kinda looks like the green slate i have in my tank. Looks grey/green when dry and colors a bit like a very light and shiny turquoise when submersed. It gets darker and a bit more dull over time when a biofilm covers it, looks more natural. Only the color of green algea pops out and contrasts like hell make sure you don't get to much of that. :)
 
parotet said:
Fontinalis
Click to expand...
Oh!? That's a nice large one for this scape, it grows in our rivers like weed they say. It loves colder climate, but if it is from another scaper i guess it also will do allright in tropical temps... I'm realy curious how thats going to work out.. :)
 
Martin in China said:
How is the tank coming along?
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Hi Martin

Thank you for the interest. I'm very happy with the results so far. About 2 weeks with healthy growth and no signs of algae. I was waiting a little bit to update the journal as the plants used are very short (mosses, Eleocharis mini, MonteCarlo... except 3 Bucephalandra and Rotala Bonsai which are my tallest plants) and are becoming to be visible now. Another issue is that I have a large stone on a piece of driftwood that decided to float in the last minute :(
I will probably fix this problem tonight and hopefully upload the first pictures.

Jordi
 
Hi all

I could finally get rid of the ugly stone that was anchoring the buoyant driftwood. I have removed the wood carefully and I have attached a stone behind the wood... not totally invisible but better than having a big stone in the middle of your tank :) Let's see if it works.

This is how it looks after 10 days...

21304378646_3f5cbb2c4f_k.jpg10 days by Jordi Domingo, en Flickr

Of course most of the plants cannot be seen on the picture, it will take a few weeks more to show its potential. Anyway, I'm quite happy, as I have not seen any sign of algae and plants are doing well for the moment (having a relatively low biomass which makes things more difficult IMO)

Here's de plant list:

Rotala bonsai
Ranunculus inundatus
Micranthemum Monte Carlo
Eleocharis mini
Bucephalandra motleyana "melawi"
Fontinalis antipyretica from UKAPS member MirandaB
Peacock moss from UKAPS member MirandaB
Unknown stringy moss type 1 from UKAPS member MirandaB
Unknown stringy moss type 2 from UKAPS member zozo
Unknown Christmas moss type from UKAPS member zozo
Fissidens fontanus from UKAPS member zozo
Riccardia chamaedryfolia from UKAPS member zozo
Monosolenium tenerum from UKAPS member zozo
Unkown Vesicularia moss from my previous tanks

Jordi
 
I like the feeling of shore, somewhere at sea or maybe ocean. Your bright sand seems to still keep warmth of summer, although there is some cold breeze blowing. Beautiful picture.
 
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