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60 Ltr Rescape

SmallestFrog

SmallestFrog

Member
Joined
15 Sep 2012
Messages
78
Location
Hemel Hempstead
Hello all,

First post here.

Decided I wasn't happy with pretty much everything in my Arcadia Arc II tank, so I started to work on ideas for a rescape.

This is how it was up until about 5pm yesterday.

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I removed all the fish, painstakingly cleaned out the old substrate. Put the petrified wood back in.

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Then the JBL substrate and rocks

2012-09-20-1392.jpg


I built up a ledge on the left to give the petrified wood a sort of cave like feel to it.

But then this happened when I added water.

2012-09-20-1393.jpg


I did many water changed, added plants, it would go cloudy again, so I did more changes, etc but pretty much put all plants in blindly. It worked out well though!

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Hard to see but the ridge on the left is built up fairly high. I'm looking forward to adding some shrimp in the future. Also I promise to clean the glass next time!

Hope you all like it!
 
are those small red and black fish harlequin tetra? also whats your opinion on the jbl substrate? it looks very fine? what rock is that? when you filled the tank up did you fill the tank with newspaper or anything to stop the water mixing up all the substrate? I have a feeling the substrate on the far left where you built it up may eventually level up if you did not push in any sort of substrate supports?

Your rocks and fish are really nice... would like to know what they are :) looking forward to seeing what you do with the substrate... PLEASE DONT take this the wrong way but when i saw the photo of the rocks and wood and substrate layout I LOVED IT. it looks class!!! has potential for an amazing iwagumi for instance, but I think the plants that you have chosen may have over powered the overall class of the hard-scape...

still love the layout though. looked amazing so dont think im being nasty! lol :)
 
Yeah, I think it may be sansibar. I can't recall exactly, it was a bit of an impulse purchase.

Jack - I would actually tend to agree with you now I think about it. Part of the problem was planting blindly, which perhaps wasn't the best move. The other problem is while I'd love to take out more plants, I've taken out so many already and have felt a bit annoyed at myself for buying them in the first place. Perhaps I can re-arrange slightly and give it some more depth. I do love plants though and love keeping them. I'll work something out I'm sure :)

I didn't use newspaper, but tin foil instead, and used a plastic bag to diffuse the water from the syphon. Alas, still ultra cloudy. But all is fine now at least, and no fish casualties.

It hasn't caused a mini-cycle either, which I was worried about mainly with this undertaking. Fish seem happy - 10 Harlequin Rasbora and 5 assorted types of Danios. Speaking of which, I forgot one major factor when I embarked on this re-scape - the time it takes to catch tiny, very fast fish. It was a good 45 minutes of swearing and making noises like Homer Simpson.

As for the name of the rocks, I don't know. "Rocks - £5.00 each" is the best I can do! I know my local MA sells them as well but can't find them on the site.

Shrimp are next - but not until I've given it all a while to settle down, keep checking the water, and so on.
 
Not sure but I think you have a non-aquatic plant in there. The one with the white nervures...

Nice it cleared out. looks quite natural! Good job

GM
 
gmartins said:
Not sure but I think you have a non-aquatic plant in there. The one with the white nervures...
Click to expand...

You're right. I had trouble finding its name before, but now I know it to be a Fittonia, and non-aquatic. I've removed it, and actually, the tank looks better for it. I've also moved and slightly trimmed the longest grass that was blocking the vertical rock.
 
Well almost a month later and a few changes. Echinodorus will be coming out for sure. Going to go low tech and add more flame moss, and carpet up the side where the Echinodorus was with Riccia, most likely. Haven't fully decided yet.

As I have a second, bigger tank on the way, I've decided this will be a shrimp and Harlequin Rasbora only tank once that's arrived. The Danios are just too aggressive. I also managed to lose 5 Rasboras in the space of 2 days, with them sadly jumping through the inconvenient gaps in the lid that came with the tank. So I got rid of that, and have covered the top with an extremely tight fitting mesh. Fingers crossed, no more suicides! I'm hoping to replace the Danio's, and the departed Rasbora with some Black Harlequins. I also want a better clean up crew. I have Amano's now too, and they do a good job but certainly could be better. Any suggestions welcome! Not sure what I could get that won't eat baby shrimp.

I've also taken more plants out and its looking much better now. My red cherry's are loving and breeding in the Flame moss.

I have how-ever decided that as nice as the JBL substrate looks... its too much of a pain with it clouding the whole tank if you move even a small amount of it. So, next tank will be with a different substrate. No idea what yet, will post a thread closer to the time to get some suggestions.
 
I was actually reading a piece from one of Takashi Amano's book and it had written a whole paragraph on shrimp.. when he was in japan living in the mountains he went through a process of collecting many many shrimp and monitoring them over some time. H e found the best cleaner shrimp was the Yamato shrimp (Amano) He said he had never experienced shrimp with such cleaning capabilities. Saying this I have never found them quite pretty enough, regardless of how decent they are at working.. I guess if you have enough of one sort you will be ok. :) when dealing with shrimp substrates and hardscape need to be thought about. :)
 
I do really like Amano's, they are very interesting to watch!

Echinodorus has come out now, drop checker in and at a good green, tiny tinge of yellow, so I'm happy. I've got DIY yeast CO2 running during the day and also dosing with liquid carbon.

Substrate is a real problem though. No matter what, if moved, it will cloud the tank to a degree, and thus its almost impossible to syphon out detritus on the bottom. I would like to take out the substrate and try a different one, but have some misgivings about this, as I'm concerned about killing the shrimp while doing this, particularly the red cherry's as they are going to be extremely hard to catch.
 
...and my lighting is now dead. Teeny, tiny bit of cheap plastic holding the Ellipse luminaire on, snapped. Light itself? Straight into the tank. Luckily, all is fine as it was not plugged in, so no deaths. But with build quality like that, Arcadia can go take a running jump.

Time to change my name to GrumpyFrog, grr!
 
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