Meanwhile the tank in it's past form is in the top 200 at IAPLC around this time i changed the scape a bit.
The original form was amazing in person, but meanwhile i worked on that to make the stem forest denser, i got to a point when i lost the control over on them. So the only option was to trim heavily the stems. And i knew this will take at least 2-3 months again to get to the same level.
As i wanted to change the layout at the end of this year to something else, i thought i give a quick update to the layout for the next 6 months.
Removed all the wood pieces, stems, mosses. Kept in the soil with all the stones i had. Added in some more stones and filled in 9L fresh Amazonia on the top to have a connection between the left and the right side and make the sides higher.
It was so inspirational to see Amano's tank with the creative rescape just like George ones in the past year. So i gave a shot to this
😀
The tank is 5 weeks old around this time.
This was the earlier scape. This isn't the IAPLC photo so i can publish it here
the mid phase after removal..... man it's like on the moon
😀
I am a lazy guy did not even cleaned the stones. I left it for the tank to kill this algae after the start.
This is how it looked 1 weeks after the planting
And the current status from yesterday the tank is 5 weeks old now.... this time i shoot from hand so the quality is poor. Also the tank was before maintenance. So the glass etc is dirty but i kind of wanted to put this to the record.
As you see this has some hair algae. I thought i will hit by diatom too, but this was not there in the first weeks.
One of the reason why i posted this tank to see what kind of issues i am facing with.
The tank is running by a powerful filtration. 2x2075 Eheim Prof 3. This is a 223L tank.
Running 4x54 Watt light from Arcadia (not as powerful as ATI ones so this is ok)
CO2 external reactor injecting the CO2. Now i am running with ADA ferts.
Soil is Amazonia.
I do use RO for water changes. 100% pure RO approx 100-120 liter per week.
The TDS is 150-170ppm after water changes. However after a week the hardness goes up to the tap water level which is 330 ppm.
Yeah Seiryu stones.... around 50kg of them in place.
Parvula and Acicularis do not care about fluctuating hardness level. They grow just like they would in soft water.
But Hemianthus Cuba and Elatine Hydropiper isn't doing well here.
So i try to think about what shoud i do to keep the hardness level lower along the week between the 2 water changes.
Added in softenizer as we had them, but this isn't enough for this tank. Now i placed in a soft water resin to the filter too and doing another test for this week. Chemicals not helps at least the few i tried as the stones pushes heavily the hardness level.
Any idea suggestion i could use? Doing 2 water changes per week would be doable, but i would hurt on other part with that on long term so this isn't an option.
Sorry for beeing long. I usually photo these things and publish it to have it on record and learn from it.
Thanks for reading it, your comments/tips are welcome
