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Forest Lament

Dan Crawford

Founder
UKAPS Team
Joined
21 Jun 2007
Messages
3,265
Location
Daventry, Northants
Hi folks, after my trip to Hannover I got inspired and decided to rescape my low maintenance scape and do a new one. I never really photographed my old tank before I ripped it down to take the plants to Germany so this is all i've got...
IMG_0283.jpg

Quite frustrating really as I was just getting rid of algae issues and the plant health was great, after about 7 months of battling!

Whilst in Hannover I bought some "bog" wood off the JBL stand, three pieces at €10 each, it's nice wood and really dense. The water is practically brown so i'm doing water changes every other day which is completely unheard of from me! I'm trying to get this tank to a reasonable standard before the end of March when the race season starts as that then takes up all of my spare time :(

The Tank:80 x 45 x 55 Aquariums Ltd Optiwhite
Lighting: ADA Solar 1
Filtration: Fluval FX5
Substrate: Bleached White Sand
Decor: JBL Bog Wood and Tropica AquaDecor
Ferts: Flow Grow Spezials

So, my studio lighting arrived yesterday so when I got home at 10pm I promptly set about taking some photos, it's going to take some getting used to! I was rushing in my excitement and didn't remove the equipment or sort out the water's surface so i'll take some better ones over the coming weeks, also - I'm gonna try and blag Mark Evans to pop over and give me a lesson :shh:
FTS-1.jpg


As the tank is based around a wild, forest type tree stump I'm hoping to get a carpet of Lilaeopsis, Tennelus and any other foreground plants to try and create a natural carpet like you'd find on a forest floor.

As you can see, the sand is very high contrast and I think it will always be a nightmare to photograph but once I get a bit of a carpet going it should look quite nice. Once real annoyance is that the sand is so light in weight, as you can see it gets picked up and deposited on the wood, i'll take a paint brush to it before the next photos.

Let me know what you think folks :thumbup:
 
Re: My 80cm

Dan I thought you'd vanished!! Looking very nice there.

Whilst in Hannover I bought some "bog" wood off the JBL stand, three pieces at €10 each, it's nice wood and really dense. The water is practically brown so i'm doing water changes every other day which is completely unheard of from me!

I got a nice lump from my last visit to John Allans, but every tank I've used it in has gone a deep brown within the week. I've found it quite soft and breaks down very quickly.

Is that pure white sand? Might be an idea to take 2 RAW exposures and blend them in PS. Tricky stuffs...

Tom
 
Re: My 80cm

Tom said:
Dan I thought you'd vanished!! Looking very nice there.
I'm still here mate, just behind the scenes so to speak :D
Tom said:
I got a nice lump from my last visit to John Allans, but every tank I've used it in has gone a deep brown within the week. I've found it quite soft and breaks down very quickly.
It's been running for about two weeks and it's slowly stopping the leaching, another month and it'll be golden i recon.

Tom said:
Might be an idea to take 2 RAW exposures and blend them in PS. Tricky stuffs...
Definitely worth a shot pal, nice idea, cheers! Has anyone done HDR on a tank? Obviously the fish will cause a bit of a problem...
 
Re: My 80cm

Lovely set up.
I like the contrasting colours but as it matures it will look great. My next set up was going to be somewhat similar but mainly with mosses. Thanks for the inspiration at least I know it can work with what I had in mind.
 
Re: My 80cm

This will look great when it matures mate,i love the tree stump theme, are you gonna add any moss to the wood ?,
I can,t help you with the lighting mate i have never used any,what make did you go for in the end,and also can i come over some time,be good to see ya :thumbup: ,

regards,
john.
 
Re: My 80cm

Thanks folks :D It's nice to be back in the game.

Jonny Boy, corse you can come over, anytime mate!

I've added some moss to the top of the stump and on some of "legs", you just can't see it, I need some more though so i'm just going to wait for the first trim. I've found that with moss, I trim it and just let it float about until it's attached where it feels fit, somehow it feels more natural to me.
 
Re: My 80cm

I can bring you some xmas moss when i do manage to get to yours mate,

regards,
john.
 
Re: My 80cm

Great to see a journal from you, Dan! I know how much work you do on UKAPS behind the scenes, so it's really refreshing to see some of it in the public domain. :thumbup:

The 'scape looks great already. The wood is spot-on - well worth the splinters eh?! Keep up the maintenance and this will make a great IAPLC entry, I'm sure. :D

Congrats on the new lighting too!

When using studio lighting you can use a much faster shutter speed, usually up to 1/250 sec - so the fish remain sharp.

Set the ISO to 100 for max. image quality, use a high DoF to get everything in focus (i.e. f/18 like you have here), then simply use the power settings on the flashes to adjust the exposure.

If the flashes aren't powerful enough you can increase ISO or aperture size (lower f/stop), rather than adjusting shutter speed.

If you get the chance can you show us how you've adapted the FX5 to 16mm fittings, please? I have an FX5 I'd like to use on my latest 240 litre.

Beepdidibeep - "looking forward to another Dan update". :lol:
 
Re: My 80cm

Thanks for the in-depth info into the studio lighting George, very informative indeed!

I'm hoping to get it looking good for the IAPLC, fingers crossed I can keep up the maintenance LOL

I'll do my best to get some shots of the 16mm conversion, it wasn't easy, loads of boiling water and chunks of skin missing from my nuckles :lol:
john starkey said:
I can bring you some xmas moss when i do manage to get to yours mate
Cheers mate :thumbup:
 
Re: My 80cm

Nice work Dan - the wood looks great :) You're gonna have a nightmare keeping that sand clean though, meticulous maintenance required me thinks :lol:

As you say, tricky to shoot it, but shoot in raw with a bit of a bracket and you'll be OK. Blending modes in PS should get you to the right point - let me know if you want me to take a look at it - its the least I can do ;)

Tony
 
Re: My 80cm

Love the wood, I had the same issue with the sand, it's just too fly away, swapped over to unipacs kiln dried river sand and I'm much happier, still a bit fly away if you forget to turn the filter off when you do a W/C though.

Great to see a journal from you, it'll turn into a really nice scape I'm sure.
 
Re: My 80cm

Thanks guys, I was photographing it all last night but i've forgotten to bring my memory car into work!
Garuf said:
I had the same issue with the sand, it's just too fly away, swapped over to unipacs kiln dried river sand and I'm much happier, still a bit fly away if you forget to turn the filter off when you do a W/C though.
I've got a slight issue with the filter, well, it's a bit more than slight I suppose - If I turn it off then it won't turn back on unless I open up the whole thing and put it back together, has anyone else experienced anything similar with the FX5?
 
Re: My 80cm

Dan

Good to see a scape from you !

Loved that first one before you rescaped, the mix of plants looks great.
The second is great, really bold hardscaping.

Interested to see if you can keep that sand clean, i couldn't!
 
Re: My 80cm

ref the fx5, if it wont start i would suggest Imppellar like Stu, then an airlock that you cant see. Once you have checked the impellar and got it running again. Give it a gentle rock a few times see if it coughs a load of bubbles out and then try to restart it.
 
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