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French tony's 60 cm tank.3

french tony

Seedling
Joined
29 Jul 2009
Messages
22
Hi all
I am relatively new here although I have been lurking a while.
The following is my attempt at aquascaping. The tank was given to me a long time ago by a friend and was first home to a couple of fancy goldfish. After moving in my present house 3 years ago I decided to go tropical and very quickly the plants grabbed my interest. Recently I took the plunge and decided to overall the tank and give myself an opportunity to achieve the tank I always wanted. We'll see if I get there eventually...
Constructive criticism and helpful advice of the UKAPS massive will help me get this project to it's full potential I hope.

The tank is 60cm x 30 x 35. The filter is Eheim classic 2213. I also have a small eheim power head for circulation. the light is Arcadia T8 luminaire (2x15W). I use easy carbo for carbon and ------------- as fert at the moment. I am thinking about going EI at some point. I have used carbon before, albeit cheapo fermentation, and I'd rather keep growth rate down hence the liquid carbon.

Substrate is 1" layer of JBL aquabasis + balck sand. Wood and stones come from my LFS.
Plants are tropica except the christmas moss which I bought online (got far too much, keeping excess for potential shrimp + moss tank)

The tank has been set-up for 3 weeks, and apart a significant melt from the Glosso everything is going fine, just waiting for the plants to grow and fill-up the space a bit.

Fauna: 6 CPDs, 6 ember tetra, 6 X-ray tetra (to go as soon as I catch them!), 2 ottos, so overstocked at the moment.

Flora:
Microsorum pteroporus 'Narrow' on wood
Anubias BArteri var. nana
Glossostigma elatinoides
Pogosemon Helferi
X-mas moss


Here's a couple of pics:
dscn3853e.jpg


dscn3850s.jpg


All the plants are doing great except the Glosso, which I hope is slowly establishing itslef. I have thought about going for another form of CO2 for a while to try to help it but I don't want to fluctuate levels too much so I'd rather not.

The stone were placed to hold the wood in place so I might move them at some point. Once again I'll wait to see the glosso's progress before disturbing anything.

All in all I am pleased with the tank. It's a step forward towards what I'd call a nice tank. I'll get there one day!

Thanks for looking

PS: apology about the photography, I only have an old compact and an awkward tripod....
 
i know very little about aquascaping...............
but i personally like it, i'd say thats a pretty impressive first start dude!

one thing for me tho is the sticky bit thats vertical near the centre, it just seems to draw my eyes to it too much.
 
I like it too. I concur on the assessment of that vertical stick there in the middle. Can you move it? THis will look nice when it grows in some more. With some asking around I am sure you can find help with that Glossostigma--I have never grown it--or some alternative carpeting plant.

Nice work!
 
I like the scape!

Just a quick note i tried to grow Glosso under 36w of light with no co2 and Easycarbo, it grew, but very slowly and took quite a while to get established, give it chance! :thumbup:
 
Thanks all for your kind words.
Baron von bubba and Hydrophyte: Now that you mention it this part of the root system, the vertical stick, does seem out of place. I wonder how I hadn't registered it until now! I will have to do something about it at the next water change.
I'll probably try to rearrange the stones too.
I shall post a photo then.
Andyh: that's encouraging. I'll keep my fingers crossed.
 
Quick update. I moved the stones a bit and bent the offending root out of the way.
The glosso is looking better, at least to my eye, especially since I opened a new bottle of Easycarbo, does the stuff go off after a while?
The moss is doing great too.
For some reason the water looks a little cloudy after this WC, I guess I disturbed the substrate quite a bit.
Here it is:

dscn3860yjy.jpg


Cheers
 
Hi tony,
welcome to ukaps, it think it's very impresive for your first attempt,
when it all matures it will look very nice,
wel done john.
 
Hi Tony

Your tank looks lovely. I think the wood arrangement looks great now youve moved it. I spent hours just fiddling about with just 2 bits of wood trying to decide which looks position looks best. i wonder how long this took :) .

I agree with Sam about the p.helferi. I really like how it rises up at the right. Is that going to be a little path next to it, or are you hoping the carpet will fill out?

Julia
 
Thanks all for your comments and encouragements, I'm liking the tank more everyday. The moss is still growing fast, and everyone in the tank seems happy.

Julia: I was lucky, the wood arrangement was simple, I shoved it in anyway it would get in and I was quite please with the result :D
I think I will let the carpet join most areas, although I am thinking of pulling the Glosso out of the triangle formed by the wood leading to the back left corner. It's like a little cave and the CPDs love hiding in there.

Here are a couple of pics I took today:

dscn3868.jpg


dscn3871c.jpg
 
Well,
not much new, the glosso doesn't seem happy, but the Xmas moss is thriving.Thinking about more mosses, maybe as carpet.
The big news though is that I have spotted a baby shrimp! It's only cherry shrimp and they breed easily but still, chuffed I was able to give them a nice enough environment to grow.

I will post pics if I can can something decent.
 
Well the glosso didn't like it in there. Everything else is doing fine. The Christmas moss continues to be doing well, and I also have found a couple of other mosses growing with it. The Cherry shrimp are doing excellent, lots a little ones running about. I have added 2 CRS last night, they have been seen grazing so I hope they are acclimating ok.
I will be switching to FE CO2 soon in the view of having some slightly more demanding plants. Also I am know using TPN+ as plant food.

image141z.jpg


Photo is from my phone sorry :( :(
 
Any more updates to this mate, my tank is very similar to yours albeit a bit smaller, will have some pics in the next week or so.
 
Thanks for the kind words guys.
I've nearly gone down the FE route. The reg I had broke after two days so I have been dosing EasyCarbo again. No new photos, but I intend Putting some Blyxia Japonica and maybe some shorter grass type carpet plant.
I'm still very pleased with the look of the tank. All plants and critters seem very happy. Lots of little cherrys about. I will try to get a decent pic sometime and post it here.

wbaguesty: looking forward to see your tank!
 
No photos today again, Just a quick word to say that I have been battling a little green spot algae. The Regulator I bought from ebay had to go back to Taiwan and I will hopefully get a replacement promptly enough. Until then it's back to EasyCarbo. I've also replace my very noisy eheim 2213 with a 2215 I got second hand. no more noise and no need for circulation pump... :D
 
Shame that your glosso didn't work. would almost suggest to use your javamoss as a carpet and nothing elso to keep the peace full atmosphere.

Br, Maurits
 
Maurits said:
Shame that your glosso didn't work. would almost suggest to use your javamoss as a carpet and nothing elso to keep the peace full atmosphere.

Br, Maurits

I have been thinking the same. I have two little patches of Riccia Fluitan growing nicely at the moment so I think I will use the cuttings to propagate and have a bigger area covered with that. I might give some blyxia japonica a slot once my CO2 setup is running again.

Also I got lots rocks from the beach today. I feel another tank coming on!
 
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