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(a little) Dutch on Rocks

Patrick Buff.

Patrick Buff.

Member
Joined
11 Jan 2015
Messages
55
Hello everybody. I'am Patrick, 46 years old, Dutch and a long time reader on this great forum. Now it's me time to contribut and show mine scape. I always thought i wasn't good enough to participate with mine scape's on forum's (has more to do with me photografic skills, i know now). That changed when the Vivarium show 2014 came and i saw that there was a contest organized by Dennerle called '' the Dennerle Scapers Tank Contest''. The announcement for the contest was 8 weeks before the show and i had to bring everthing by myself from plants to hardscape and the rest (only the tank, light and substrat was there). I wasn't even for sure of i was to to join the competition because i was nowhere know. Luckely for me i could come after some pictures of mine preparations for the contest. Now for the rest is history because i won and could keep the tank and the rest as price.
I wish to thank everbody who voted for mine scape at the show as the best! Thank you all, because i now there are a lot of Dutch people over here on the forum!

the tank at the Vivarium show.

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Now you ask yourself, what has that to do with a journal? I'am goining to show how i came from the start to were the tank is now.

Patrick
 
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impressive tank! Looks very healthy and the colors are amazing... I'm following your journal now and hopefully will learn a lot from it.
 
Lovely Patrick!

I was just wondering what is the standard way of keeping Dutch tanks traditionally that is. Is it like quite like EI method? 30 ppm CO2? How do you guys measure CO2? Water changes? Is there a good book with detailed info on Dutch scapes? Is there a guideline for the ammount of light? ...So many questions I know:geek:

Anyway your tank is beutiful.
 
Thanks for the reply's guy's.:)

@ Jose. The Dutch style for aquariums is just a style of keeping plants and fishes. There are rules to follow if you want to to participate in contest over here and there are aquarium clubs were a lot of information is shared. There are no secrets about it and I believe that there is on UKAPS also information over it. The question's you ask about the rest, is over here just as good or maybe even better then on the Dutch forum's. If you want to read about the Dutch style, look at the site NBAT (only in Dutch I believe, you have to use a translator).

@ Alexander I have not been using it jet on a aquarium . It was only for the show, together with the aquarium, at home I'am using a different lighting for it. I'am going probably trying it out on a cube.

Patrick
 
I apologize for my English, I haven't been writing it for more then 20 years now and I really need time to figure it out again.:p

So back to the journal.
When the announcement was made for the contest at the Vivarium show, I already had a next scape in me head (I just finished a 15l tank) and I thought "what the heck, I'am going to give it a try" mainly because I wanted to have the experience and learn from the contest.

The contest itself, existed in scaping the tank a day before the show opened, the dennerle (the new) scaper's tank 35 Liter with light, cornerfilter was already there and the rest I had to bring in by myself. Because I had already plans for a new scape with a 45L tank this wasn't going to be a problem ( I do mainly nano tanks, which makes my wife happy, instead going for 100l+ tanks) in size.

Dennerle scapers tank 35 liter tank dimension: 40x32x28cm.

Still I had only about 7-8 weeks before the contest and I had to start from scratch.
So I setup a breeding tank of 40x25x25cm (about the same size of the tank at the contest) for the start and filled it with the plants I was going to use.
The method I used, was cutting up old plastic planttrays for gardens (measured for the distance and height) and filling them with Flora base soil.
The plants came from other tanks and propagators in which I keep me plants alive until needed.

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This is one of them in the window.

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The plants in it for about a week.

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from a different angle to show the trays.

This is it for now.

Greetings Patrick
 
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Hi Ed, yes there is water inside :lol:, the reason why it looks so clean is that you can shift the trays away and around for cleaning.

Still I needed to go into turbo mode for the contest and for that I used a trick which I learned in the past.
carbonated mineralwater
When you want really fast growing plants this is a easy way to do it. I'm using this method only on a start-up with no residents inside (you will kill them otherwise) and it is also keeping algae at bay because of the natrium inside mineralwater (the water becomes also very clear because of this).
I'm using a mineralwater which is the cheapist I can buy with the largest amount of mg. to it (there are also a lot of other traces in it).
Keep in mind that this is a way in which I can also destroy everthing and thats why I do a lot of wc because of the natrium built up. I poor it in just before the lights go on.
The amounts I'm using depends on how the plants react to it and how much bio-mass there is.
When I see that there are no bubbles anymore on the glass and plants, I put some more in.:D

c02c909d-d252-42a1-ba10-683233e7ce9a.jpg


Here you can see the co2 sticking on the glass.
This is a picture in week 2 I believe (I didn't put a date with the pictures but I can see it because of the Repens trim) and after the first trim.

Patrick
 
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Very nice Patrick, great scape. I like the scapers tank, I was looking at the light the other day. Very bright such a small unit and the colour is nice too. If I can get a bigger version I'd drop the razor. More pics please.:)
 
@ Jose- I needed the plants to grow quick and this is a easy way to do it for me.
@Greenfinger2- Amano is the master and I'm just a apprentice next to him.
@ Kirk-Pics and rest are coming.
@Edvet-Lidl is trouwens beter, minder zout. (Lidl is better, less salt)
 
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@Greenfinger2- Me to, always learning.;)

In week 3 I bought some nice stones for it in the right size. I did measure the size so I could use the trays with plants without planting them into the substrat at the show and re-use them afterwards (the paper is the size of the tank). I made the lay-out and arrangement this way.


DSC_0629.jpg


This time in a tank with substrat which I was going to use (caviaar sand it's called overhere).

DSC_0732.jpg

The distance with the trays was right and I could see the streets for the plants without trays.

Next thing to do was going from the breeding tank to the 45l tank to give the plants more space, quitting with the mineral water and going over to pressurised c02 with solenoid.
I added more types of plants to it ( just incase).

3 weeks
DSC_0783.jpg


tank: cocoon 7 -45x30x32 cm
plants:
Alternanther reineckii mini
Blyxa japonica
Hemianthus micranthemoides
Rotala rontundifolia
Rotala rontundifolia green
Rotala sp. nanjenshan
Pogostemon helferi
Staurogyne repens
Anubias nana bonsai ( different purpose)
Micranthemum monte carlo
filtration: Eden 501
lighting: easy-led 18 watt
heating: 50 watt easy-heater
fertilisation: E.I. daily both macro and micro ( I have my own regime)

I don't measure anything from my water, I just watch the plants and there behaviour.
When algae show up the first thing I do is watch my co2 and turn it up (most of the times).

Patrick
 
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