GA workshop scape - seiryu with mosses

[Mark Evans]

Simple. EI.

In a moss only tank?

 

[viktorlantos]

Simple. EI.

In a moss only tank?

Cheers Mark,
Well you know we have our mixed fert. It is easier to use the same fert regime sometimes then align fert to every single tank. Especially when you have so many to maintain etc. This is different when you have only 1 or 2 to worry about.

This tank would perform well with weaker ferts too. However even mosses looks nice in our other tanks and HC, Parvula which we have in this tank and also behind the big rocks will use some of the extra ferts.

Not used fert substrate in this tank. Just sand and shrimp soil (which not contain any ferts).

But as you pointed out this is not a must to do especially in this tank.

 

[viktorlantos]

FYI we're using ADA, Tropica and EI on our tanks. Keymaker is an EI fan 😉 so that's also a reason why it went down the EI road. 😉

 

[JohnC]

i think this rocks. 😀

best regards,
john

p.s rubbish pun intended.

 

[plantbrain]

FYI we're using ADA, Tropica and EI on our tanks. Keymaker is an EI fan 😉 so that's also a reason why it went down the EI road. 😉

You should use your own blend, sell and market that if you already do so, they all add the same things, but it will help build the brand and business.

There's such a tiny demand for ferts from moss is not even worth adding much if anything.
Even with CO2, decent light, fish waste is typically enough for most species. EI as a blunt rigid method is not appropriate for such a tank, it would need cut by perhaps 1/5th or even less.

 

[plantbrain]

Excellent hardscape. (...) Nice tank so far.

Thank you Tom, your words mean a lot to me! 😳

I give credit where it is due, folks spend a lot of time doing something and it comes out nice, if it looks good, it IS GOOD.

I'm blunt with praise as I am with criticism :idea:
Moss tanks tend to be tough for many, they seem to think such systems are very easy, they most certainly can be............which is why I would suggest you explore lower light systems, you will be happily surprised I think.

I know high light disease is tough to sake off and all 😀
I do, honestly...........but seeing how low you can go is well worth the effort.

A very brightly lit tank does look better, more eye catching..........and the plants do grow in faster.
But as you state, both you and Victor spend a fair amount of work doing water changes and work on these tanks.
For clients and other folks, many are not that willing to do such upkeep.

So being able to control the rates of growth, but get similar results, just longer times for grow in and trimming frequencies is a very useful and good management tool. This way we can scape and chose plants that are manageable for most people, not just the few that wish to do a lot of work. I make my water changes easy and trim and chose layouts I like, my days of playing with high light are long over. I have the ability to increase light 2-3x on most of the aquariums, but rarely even do so. I might for a picture etc.

Many are surprised at the growth rates I still get and nice colors.

Since this is mostly moss and a fair amount of the tank is not planted, why not use low light?
This would make trimming and algae issues much less of an issue and less work down the road.

Well, we respectfully choose to go the other way. 😉 All our other planted tanks (there should be about 11 more at the moment in the Gallery and only 2 low-light) go high-tech, high-light and algae issues are minimal - almost non-existent. No exceptions. 🙂 Maintenance is regularly made on all of them, we never tire.

In your case, this is fine and an informed decision, but many newbies often see high light tanks and do not tend them, but get the high light, then fight the algae and other issues. Then they come asking about algae and how and why. I try to explain to newer folks the care required, some listen, some go looking for people that will tell them you do not need to do any water changes or work etc.

Then they often fail.

Hard to say which way to go with some of these things, but I take each person case by case. This way I can manage low, med or high light. It's rare I suggest high light, but for you guys, this is NOT an issue. Maybe after 20-30 years, you will tire??

Haha.........

We like to go for the fast growth - high lighting levels, achieving the Vibrating Nature effect. With support of the EI.

I think a decently feed Shrimp population and maybe 1/5th to 1/10 th EI would be fine for such a tank, but adding more will do no harm either. Moss is very undemanding.

Nerites might be useful for keeping the rock clean also, but noit as effective as large water changes, but the water changes and CO2 are not as good for shrimp, you get higher brood without so many water changes and without CO2.

Such tanks can still look very nice, this will challenge you to try something out of your comfort level.
Reef tanks, Planted Marine, Rift cichlids, Natives etc.........all these are well worth pursuing.
And add some plants and nice layout, tank, scape etc.

You have the desire and passion, it need not be limited to high light CO2 tanks.
George Farmer embraces this attitude and philosophy. I do obviously.

We have a lot of this stone at our local quarry, I've used it a lot on larger tanks, but never was happy, for smaller tanks (...)

The problem with this stone is that it comes in smaller pieces. Hard to build a balanced, yet mountain-like hardscape with it in a bigger tank. You need to pile them, but then the connections should be covered, planted, etc. It's a building-hiding game at the same time. This is exactly the type of challenge I like... 🙂
[/quote]

This is a common complaint many have in Europe and the USA, poor rock sizing and quality, all the nice stuff is picked off elsewhere. Often, in the West(NA and SA) and Europe/Africa, we place little worth on distinctive rock, in Asia, it is embraced. I can find wood that is awesome, but stone is hard to come by unless I bring a rock saw and go cut some pieces I see out in the mountains here. That is a lot of work.

I have some wood that emulates rock however. So I try to work with what I have that is unique, and not copy using the commonly scaped materials. I enjoy collecting wood and rock, so it allows me far more scaping choices that are unique to my own eye.

This is yet another area, you might consider doing and looking for in your area.
Much like finding different plants, or biotopes etc.........

I think it works well with a few species of plants, or a mono culture.

Funny you mention the mono culture thing. This morning I was looking at the new pictures Viktor took and wondered about the same thing. Might consider reducing the number of plants here, but not decided yet...

A reductionist approach is a good study for ANYONE. Amano has done it many times, then built upon that.
You really get to know and understand each plant this way and learn it's true potential. Adding complexity from there is an interesting challenge. This(adding more complexity) is often where looking at nature helps I think.

I compare this monoculture to painting a blank canvas all black or all white..........then adding your subject/s.

My worry is breaking the and scratching the glass over time.

A very real problem with these "rocks-on-top-of-each-other-near-the-glass" compositions indeed. I did slightly scratch about 3 opti-tanks by now. So I'm trying to handle these really carefully and not let our friend Ati next to any of our piles. He's the breaker in the team 😀

Yes, I hate this. It can break your heart! I think you might do well to use epoxy and super glue gel to keep the rocks in position, much like Reef folks use for their live rock displays, Reef aquarium sites have many good tricks for rock set ups that will not scratch the glass, but this takes much more work, but often, the pay off is well worth it, planted aquarist are often not as willing to do this. Reef aquarist are less willing to do water changes and trim, prune, scrub algae etc. Do not allow Ati to play goalie in soccer!!!

hehe

Tom

 

[SuperWen]

Also based on your earlier comments, Keymaker rearranged the right side and replaced the strange texture stone to another. I really like the new stone.

I've told you... hehehehe
nice tank brother...!!!

 

[keymaker]

Tom, thanks on the Nerites suggestion for keeping the rocks clean. I've been toothbrushing them for 2-3 hours per occasion, back-pain starts to get an issue even with my good condition. 🙂

Great and original idea on using wood as rocks in a composition. Requires special wood-shapes but if you have access to them then it should definitely be done. Love the concept, inspiring.

We do have two low-light partly moss tanks in the Gallery so I know exactly what you mean. We do the same with our clients, go on a case-by-case basis and explain them the advantages and back-draws of high lighting... Also thing is that we have some HC in the tank which did not perform so well with the LEDs being raised... Just across the room there is another HC tank which in contrary does really good - with all other parameters the same except high-lighting. So lowering the light will certainly help us with HC. (Just for the record I'm not saying that HC invariably needs high light - I know you had good results with this plant under low-light conditions before...)

Do not allow Ati to play goalie in soccer!!!

He actually claims to go out playing every Wednesday with some folk, just not sure what position he gets in and where. 🙂 Need to make sure... 🙂

 

[viktorlantos]

An update>

The tank is 2.5 months old now. Plants looks better around this time. We have some hair algae issues, because the increased light, but we will solve it shortly. This is how the tank looks today.



I guess this start to look a real mountain. If we remove the pipes and CO2, the tank would look much bigger than it is.

Cheers guys

 

[Gary Nelson]

That is absolutely stunning Viktor, well done

 

[Sonnyarba]

This is great my friend, a school of tiny fishes gives a great prospective 🙂

 

[viktorlantos]

Cheers guys, we had a bit of a shooting session today and captured this tank too, as it is 3 months old now.

Still there's a bit of a hair algae here and there and some tweak needed, but the tank already looks completed.
So the current photos was a test to see how it looks with some lighting and background.

Pipes etc are not removed, because this was a test only before the final shooting.

2 shots now. One with some mirror effect on the surface.
And the other where we blow the surface from both sides by mouth 😀





Next i will capture this only after we removed the algae 😀

 

[clonitza]

Madre de Dios!! you've got some algea in there buuut the tank looks fabulous ...
BTW you can give EasyLife Algexit a try , a little bit slow but it worked for me.

 

[viktorlantos]

Madre de Dios!! you've got some algea in there buuut the tank looks fabulous ...
BTW you can give EasyLife Algexit a try , a little bit slow but it worked for me.

Thanks mate 😀 Yup i posted this to show we also have algae issues sometimes.
On this tank if we had the LEDs higher, then the HC not looked good. If this was lower, the HC was super green an lush, but the hair algae appear.

So now we moved up the light a bit and hopefully with the multiple cures the hair will disappear shortly. Algexit need a 4 weeks cure as i know. We will solve it quicker with more natural methods. But thanks for the tip mate

 

[clonitza]

Well I had to cure cladophora from my tanks after struggling a year with it. Just dosed that, removed the algea as much as I could and after two weeks it never returned. The most annoying thing was that it was covering my mosses and I had to move them regularly into my low light tanks to keep them clean. I wish I had the option to throw them away and buy clean ones but unfortunately here if you have a plant you have to stick to it cause they are very hard to find. I do have amano's but they couldn't compete with its growth.

Best of luck with your issues. Hope you don't rescape it 'cause it's a nice tank.

Cheers,
Mike

 

[Antoni]

Great captures, I personally like the one with the blown surface 😀

 

[viktorlantos]

Quick update on this one too:

The scape is almost done. Need some refinement and time for shooting. Here is is without the light background.


Green Aqua - Showroom by viktorlantos, on Flickr


Green Aqua - Showroom by viktorlantos, on Flickr

cheers 😀

 

[a1Matt]

Looking good. Keymaker definitely has hardscape layout skills 🙂

I wish I had the option to throw them away and buy clean ones but unfortunately here if you have a plant you have to stick to it cause they are very hard to find.

I'm happy posting mosses across Europe. Only costs a couple of £ more and they tend to arrive in under a week, which is fine for the moss.

 

[viktorlantos]

Oh just seen we've not posted on this a while ago.

The tank become 6 month old around this time. And after several trimming we call it completed. Will have a final photo session next week for future contest, but the tank got it's final form by now.

We used ADA ferts on this tank with soft water and the 2 TMC 1000ND. This tank was a test to the TMC LED Light and it turned out great as we expected from what we've seen on George's tank earlier.

Here is the in situ shot from hand which i just captured yesterday.


Green Aqua - Showroom by viktorlantos, on Flickr


Green Aqua - Showroom by viktorlantos, on Flickr

 

[keymaker]

There's still a lot of time to the deadline but the scape looked ready - so I just finished shooting for IAPLC 2012: