James Marshall
Member
- Joined
- 14 May 2009
- Messages
- 316
Forest’s Edge (60 litre) - IAPLC 2013 #158
Tank: 60 x 30 x 36 cm
Volume: 60 litres
Hardscape: Redmoor Root, Cornish forest stone
Plants: Hemianthus callitrichoides, Eleocharis parvula, Staurogyne repens, Lilaeopsis brasiliensis, Microsorium pteropus ‘dwarf’, Anubias nana ‘petite’, Hemianthus micranthemoides, Vesicularia dubyana ‘christmas’, Vesicularia ferriei ‘weeping’
Animals: Hyphessobrycon eques, Cardinia japonica
Lights:ADA solar 2 (2 x 36W Power Compact Fluorescent) & 24W T5 backlight
Ferts:ADA Brighty K, ADA Brighty Step 2, ADA Green Gain, ADA Phyton Git
CO2: 2 bubbles per second
Substrate:ADA Power Sand Special S; ADA Aqua Soil Africana
Filter: Eheim pro 3e
Water change: 60% once a week.
1 week
The system was mature and stable when I started this scape, and began with just a few plants from the previous scape, whilst awaiting a delivery from Tropica. 20 cherry shrimps kept the low plant mass clean for the first week.
2 weeks
The rest of the plants arrived and I planted them with the tank almost full.
3 weeks
All plants are growing well, but started to get some staghorn algae on the wood, I spent 10 mins a day removing it with tweezers. Although they don’t eat staghorn algae I added 10 amano shrimps to keep the tank a bit cleaner in general.
4 weeks
Plants still growing well and the staghorn, although still present, is starting to subside, I think perhaps the brand new wood needed to mature a bit. The HC and E parvula had their first proper prune.
There’s a bit of a gap in the photos here as I was away on holiday. Although the tank was left unfertilised for a period of 10 days the plants suffered no reduction in growth rates, thank you Aquasoil.
7 weeks
As the scape was starting to fill in and I had no real algae issues I added 10 Serpae Tetras.
8 weeks
All plants except the moss get pruned to various extents.
9 weeks
10 weeks
A selective pruning of the moss was done.
11 weeks
Lily pipes removed for final shot.