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GA in-store display 120P Iwagumi - Fly above the giant cliff

viktorlantos

Aquascaper
Joined
25 Oct 2008
Messages
1,598
Location
Budapest, Hungary
Cheers guys, i thought i share the following tank with you. We're quite busy setting up a fancy store in my country which some of you may seen before on flickr. This is an aquascaping store fully focusing to planted tanks, but the topic is not about the shop, more about the experiences.

We have a few tanks there already. Some of them started 2-3 weeks ago so we can see some progress already.

One of the tank is a 120P (120x45x45) tank with 10mm opti white glass. Open top with a hanging ATI light.
The 2 weeks progress is significant as you can see below, but before i jump to the photos let me share with you some other details.

The tank created to be a minimal japanese style iwagumi. Fully with Seiryu stone and HC as a carpet plant.
Used ADA Power Sand spec with some additives and Aqua Soil Amazonia and Amazonia powder as a cover layer on top of all the substrate. Fertilizing with ADA ferts. Using 2 Eheim 2075 filters and AM1000 external reactor for CO2.

We're using 4 tube lights from the begining with 8 hours lighting per day. Of course we moved up the light unit a bit as ATI lamps are quite powerful.

The scape started with a 12 hours marathon planting. First the substrate and stones were set up in the tank.

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I had really good experiences with Aqua Soil Powder before as a cover layer with HC. Hemianthus spread extremely good and fast with this small soil.

After the hardscape nearly 50 pots HC were planted. The majority of the time spent on to divide each hc to plantlets and plant them into the tank equally.

The result did not looked good as the plantlets was not that much visible for the first time, but we knew this will look awesome later and the long hours will end up with a perfect carpet on a short term.

This is how it looked 2 weeks before after the fill up:

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Only 7 days after the setup the HC spreaded so fast. First we got some green water because of the light. Used UV for 2 days to eliminate it. Then we got a massive diatom/rizo attack and in 2 days the full carpet was covered by this mess.

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10 days with a massive algae attack

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With daily water changes with full RO water (colder) the HC continued its run. (The water temperature is a bit below 25 celsius on our tanks just FYI, but fresh water is around 18). 50% water change daily. Not reduced the light of course.

Water changes happened with an Eheim pump, but we used an electric toothbrush to help suck out the algae from the carpet. ;)

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Black out was not an option for us and the above method only helped for a few hours with this kind of algae. On the other day the carpet was full with algae again.

So we throwed in 50 amanos (adult ones) to help with the mess.

This was the first time when i've seen amanos working in a team. Probably because of the massive number they worked in a group of ten with different patches. Unfortunatelly the photo not gives back the moment, but i captured one of the group at that time. This was last friday.

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I can tell you next morning that corner was free from algae fully. ;)

From day to day we've seen big improovement on the clean up. Til we've seen the following status today.

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Only 17 days after the setup. Beat the algae attack and completed the carpet ;)

I never had such a quick success with this plant. So i had a thought why we succeed with it.

- Aqua Soil Powder. Much easier for HC to lay down in this soil with its small roots
- Plant with plantlets with as much HC as you can. Yes it takes 10 hours maybe so split the pots and plant it carefully but worth it.
- Full light from start.
- External reactor helped with the optimum CO2 all the time
- Continous water changes daily with colder water. HC just loved this. In overall HC goes much better below 25 celsius.
- Soft water. I guess this helps to speed up the process. At least was my experience before. Maybe would worked with harder water too. But may played a little role here.
- Ferts... not really matter in the first 2 weeks, but we used ADA ones from the beginning. Brighty K, Step 1 only.
- Put in as much amanos as you can. Algae will come, but they helped us a lot to clean up the mess before HC would damage.

This is not the perfect guide of course. It is just those things we used and some of them may played a role to do better.

For now we're thinking about what kind of fish to use in this tank.

But i thought i share this tank with you guys hopefully some of you will like it. ;)

Any feedback appreciated, or assistance with the fish selection.
 
Re: GA in-store display 120P Iwagumi

Thanks for sharing that. Its a great site when the amanos spring into action :)
 
Re: GA in-store display 120P Iwagumi

Very nice, Viktor. I have been following your Photostream on Flickr with great interest!

The centre stone is a little dominating to my eye - looks very different to the other stones in terms of texture and position. Was this deliberate?

Keep up the great work mate! :thumbup:
 
Re: GA in-store display 120P Iwagumi

awesome Viktor!

great info on the shrimp V algae :thumbup:

I've seen your images on flicker...the shop looks incredible.
 
Re: GA in-store display 120P Iwagumi

Oh Victor really love your showroom, hope I can visit it someday :)
Thanks for sharing, nice work.
 
Re: GA in-store display 120P Iwagumi

Hi Victor

Congratulations on the algae battle, the HC carpet and the shop - the pics on Flickr look fantastic :)

I love the rockwork, and undulations in the substrate, though I'd probably have moved the centre rock a little to one side or the other - but thats just me :oops:

I look forward to seeing your fish choice. Whilst it certainly wouldn't be new or bold, I cant help think that a shoal of cardinals would look classically great !

Tony
 
Re: GA in-store display 120P Iwagumi

Cracking tank Victor! I have to agree with moving/changing the centre stone but that aside it's a stunner, well, it's still a stunner even with the odd rock!

It's great to see you beat the algae, and to get a carpet in such a short space of time is very commendable - a testament to experience and great product selection IMO.
 
Re: GA in-store display 120P Iwagumi

After 17 days that looks amazing guys, super growth indeed :) I will have to come and see you guys at some stage in the near future ;)

Viktor any change of a photo of the equipment? Would like to see how your AM 1000 is connected, I guess mine is under achieving due to my filter possibly not having enough flow for it to work efficiently.

Looking forward to seeing photos of the full finished shop and tanks, when is opening day?
 
Re: GA in-store display 120P Iwagumi

Lovely tank setup and the photos on Flickr indeed makes one book a flight so see the shop in person. What is the nearest airport? :)

Good tip on the HC under 25C, always learning.
 
Re: GA in-store display 120P Iwagumi

Great scape and lovely journal Victor, thank you very much for sharing!

I'm really impressed with the growth you got from HC for such a short time! Also the amanos showed up to be very efficient for such an algae outbreak! Great tip!

The shop is looking amazing, I have been following the development since the beggining. I will love to visit you soon, besides we have a coffee invitation from Keymaker :D

Keep sharing with us, please!

Regards
 
Re: GA in-store display 120P Iwagumi

Cheers guys, thanks for all of your comments and feedback. I never thought we will receive such a nice comments in this short time ;)

George, you're right about that stone. The thing was that with Seiryu it is rare that you find a larger piece as they usual a kg or a little more in size. Sometimes you meet with 2-3 kg stones, but rare to find something with 4-5 kg or more. We only had 300 kg on stock at that time and we picked the largests. ;)

We knew this will be a point which brakes the balance and will get feedback on, but kept in because of its size.
Hopefully next time we will have a larger selection of stones to use.

Paulo, will check the AM connection for you. But this is driven by one of our Prof 3 2075 filter. Using larger filters most of the flow will loose because of the AM1000 hose size limitation. With large filters i allways recommend to use bypass reactors. Other than that on this tank we replaced the AM balls to mesh.
 
Re: GA in-store display 120P Iwagumi

Issues with AM1000 are these:

1. Due to the 9-12-16 mm decreasing size of its ends, if you plug it to a 16/22 hose it is advisable to cut the narrowing ends to keep the flow, so you basically keep only the 16/22 diameter on both ends of the reactor.
2. You need to use those metal hose-clamping things (whats it called in EN?) to fasten the hoses to both ends, it will leak otherwise.
3. You need to replace the factory plastic "bio balls" (hard to get them out, but it can be done) with something that restricts the flow a lot less (I used the grey anti-mosquito window-mesh).
4. The small degas-tap has to be changed to something of quality - the orig tends to leak.
5. You need to fasten both screws at the two ends. They come loose. :?

Do these and you'll get a much better flow. My conclusion is based on working with 5 of these AM reactors. (A 5-step improvement on a commercial product? Come-on AquaMedic... :( )
 
Re: GA in-store display 120P Iwagumi

Very nice Viktor, its incredibly inspiring. So when are Ukaps making the trip out there :D.

Thanks for sharing.
 
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