Jakes’s Aquarium Re-Scape running commentary

[Jakes]

This is my current setup it hs been running for about two years now and since then it has been ‘surviving’. The wife and todles has gone skiing for a week and I have the opportunity to do a re-scape on this aquarium.

You can see some additional plants that I have purchased to augment and create a ‘jungle’ look for this aquarium.

This is going to be a Echinodorus dominated aquarium the new plants I have are:
E. Rubra
E. Schlüteri ‘Leopard’
E. Rose
E. Ozelot leopard ‘red’
E. Parviflorus

This is going to be a running commentary of how its going!

Current time is 10:47 and the re-scape begins I’ll update during the day... two days when I take a break... my hard stop is tomorrow evening when I need to go back to work so fingers crossed I can get this squared away

Jakes



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[Jakes]

So its 12:14

Most of the fish have been put into temporary bucket accommodation:

Couldn’t catch them all because the plants were in the way so all the plants have been removed:

Leaving me with a bit of a mess...

in there there are two pleco’s, 8 danio’s and 6 ammano shrimp... ill drain most of the water then hopefully i will be able to see them to catch them.

Ever wondered how you know if a plant is a strong root feeder....

E. Rubra ... rosette with massive root system covered half the aquarium

Compared to my stem plants:

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[tam]

Good luck with the catching!

 

[Jakes]

Currently 14:38

Finally caught all the fish and cleaned the aquarium, i have two buckets full of old substrate:

I’ll be using a sparing sprinkling of Osmocote to reinviguare the substrate but also purchased a bag of JBL substrate to augment the sbstrate

For hardscape i have two pieces of spider-wood and this collection of rocks...

Lets see what i come up with!


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[Jakes]

It’s 16:24

This is where I’m at also I have trimmed all the massive root systems and got all the new plants de-potted and ready for planting

I’m taking a break for dinner... kinda worked through lunch while I mull over the hardscape... I do like the two areas one dominated by wood and the other by the rocks.

The wooded area will have the tall E. Bleherii and the rocky area will be dominated by the E. Parviflorus, in between the rocks Ill plant Sagittaria in the hope that it will carpet across the frontal area...

Anyway dinner time..




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[hotashes]

Hi jake, just tagging along as I love the Aqua oak.. You may notice I have 2 of them myself. Be good to see how you build the scape as I'm currently awaiting my CO2 regulator to begin my venture into plants as since I began keeping fish 2 years ago I've not had much joy with plants.



Ashley..
Aqua oak tanks 4'x2'x2' & 5'x2'x2' both freshwater set up on apex Neptune systems.
Mortgage & Protection Adviser Full Time, Peace ️

 

[alto]

Fantastic progress!
You're obviously much more efficient than me

I like the new hardscape & plant list

The osmocote can release considerable nitrates (& possible something else, check Darrel's comments on this) so I'd be inclined to add in some fast growing stems until the new E's are well established

 

[Jakes]

Time now 21:19

So as you can see I have managed to get the plants in, I still have some stem plants that need to go in but after the tank was filled the water was so damn cold I could barely keep my arm in the water.

Now that the water is in there are three plants I want to relocate as their position doesn’t work for me but I will leave it until tomorrow, the heater is currently working overtime to get the water temps up. The fish will stay in their bucket tonight while the tank heats up. I’ve added a Fluval U2 filter to move the water around and a Eheim surface skimmer to get rid of the surface film. Its already cleared um ALLOT this is what it looked like before I added the filter:

You can just about make out the Ehiem surface skimmer in the gloom but now you can see it without a problem.

The next update will be tomorrow when I add the fish back in once the water is up to temperature, I’ll do a 30L water change with the water that the fish are currently in. I have them in a bucket with the external filter plumbed into it as well so keeping the media cycled.




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[Jakes]

Hi jake, just tagging along as I love the Aqua oak.. You may notice I have 2 of them myself. Be good to see how you build the scape as I'm currently awaiting my CO2 regulator to begin my venture into plants as since I began keeping fish 2 years ago I've not had much joy with plants.

Nice, if there is one piece of advice I can give you regarding keeping plans alive is just be patient, someone once told me that in this hobby we are keepers of water, the fish is just a distraction.

If you keep the water parameters inline you should be fine. It took me a while to find the plants that really liked the water of the region I currently live in, effectively liquid rock coming out of our taps. So good luck in your endevours and I’ll keep and eye out for your journal

Jakes



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[Jakes]

The osmocote can release considerable nitrates (& possible something else, check Darrel's comments on this) so I'd be inclined to add in some fast growing stems until the new E's are well established

Hey Alto,

I’ve been reading up allot regarding the Osmocote and went light on the application for exactly the reason you mention. I have a whole bunch of stem plants ready to go in but the water was to cold for me to keep my arm in the water planting all the stem plants so will do the rest tomorrow morning when the water is warmer.

Jakes



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[hotashes]

Nice, if there is one piece of advice I can give you regarding keeping plans alive is just be patient, someone once told me that in this hobby we are keepers of water, the fish is just a distraction.

If you keep the water parameters inline you should be fine. It took me a while to find the plants that really liked the water of the region I currently live in, effectively liquid rock coming out of our taps. So good luck in your endevours and I’ll keep and eye out for your journal

Jakes



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Liquid rock yes just like I have here in London. I guess I can even pinch a few ideas if we can keep similar plants. Thanks..


Ashley..
Aqua oak tanks 4'x2'x2' & 5'x2'x2' both freshwater set up on apex Neptune systems.
Mortgage & Protection Adviser Full Time, Peace ️

 

[Jakes]

Day 2 09:34

This is where we are at this morning:

There where 4 uprooted plants that had to be replanted and the wood decided to go buoyant during the night Si is now weighted down with a rock and some plant weights:

EVERYTHING is covered in a fine particle dust from the substrate but that will go over time:

I’ve got the CO2 system plumbed in and bizarrely the internal filter is doing a good job of pressing the bubbles down from 3foot away pretty much no bubbles makes it to the surface without being pushed down a bit first, the photo doesn’t quite do it justice:

Just refilled and installed the drop checker, it’s a little blue at the moment, so will see how that goes:

I have noticed though that my canopy is showing some signs of water damage so I’ll be waxing the inside of the canopy before replacing it... might leave it off for a week just to ensure it all penetrates decently before replacing it:

Stay tuned




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[Jakes]

Day 2 at 22:29

All done, the fish have been placed in the aquarium and the filter reinstalled. I have also planted the last of the plants, some left over stem plants and also the new Sagitaria carpeting plants.

They are part of the 1-2-Grow range from Tropica plants and well... a hand full results in...

Allot of really small plants to plant! They have been placed predominantly along the front of the aquarium but because there are so damn many i have also planted a few in different places with different lighting and flow levels just to see where they like best.

What is not really evident is the placement of my spray-bar, i used to have it along the back but it only covered half the tank so I had to use a second pump to circulate water on the other half. This time I mounted the spray bar on the left, flowing to the right. I use a Aqua-manta EFX300 and man it has some decent flow. It has so much force by the time the water reaches the right hand side over three foot that the CO2 bubbles which is diffused on the right makes it about 4cm from the diffuser before being forced back down to the gravel. Some larger bubbles manages to fight their way through but you can actually se their size change as they dissolve into the water.

As you can see from the drop checker which is on the left hand side of the tank... pretty much perfect even if I say so myself... especially compared to how blue it was this morning when I re-installed it!

So I’m away now until Wednesday afternoon so wont be able to update until then so fingers crossed it all runs smoothly!
There were two casualties, one rainbow jumped out of the bucket it was in, it was covered the whole time but I removed the covering to get the filter moved to the main tank and it took a leap then without me noticing. I found it dead, still damp on the carpet. The other was a Ottocinclus (spelling?) catfish... just found it dead, it was over two years old and one of my first tank inhabitants so a little sad, his 4 buddies will just have to do without him.

Regards
Jakes




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[alto]

Commiserations on the losses - poor fishes that leap & fail

Looking forward to seeing this develop

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

I have a whole bunch of stem plants ready to go in but the water was to cold for me to keep my arm in the water planting all the stem plants so will do the rest tomorrow morning when the water is warmer.

You can just float them in the tank.

cheers Darrel

 

[Jakes]

Just an update,

Three days after doing the re-scape i returned to the house just to check, i am currently on a course away during the week and the wife wont open the filters so thought Id swing by to check.

Well good thing I did, there were loads of suspended matter in the tank that the filter has been removing and it was covering EVERYTHING. Seeing as pictures paint a 1000 words...

New filter media vs what is in the filter

This sponge was blue... yesit does discolour usually but you acan always make it out as being a blue sponge... this time it was barely visible...

A before after, again the impeller discolours after two weeks but this was three days... and it has never looked this bad even after two weeks

Cleaned a bit

Anyway all is well now and the tank is settling in, the plans are starting to take and this is what it looked like the past weekend:

There has been some melting but in general things are looking well, some closeups of the plants(p.s. the fish has just been fed):

Side view from the sofa where I usually sit and gaze it:

And the tank in perspective of where it is in the room:

Thats it for now...


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[TomatoandEgg]

Big plants the fish gonna love the cover. I want to see your hard scape arrangement man where did it go?

 

[Jakes]

Big plants the fish gonna love the cover. I want to see your hard scape arrangement man where did it go?

Haha yes... I knew the plants would take over but I never thought they would settle in so quickly... And to be honest I really like the leaves everywhere look, also like you said the fish love it, there has been spawning going on, fry don't survive, if the shrimps don't get the eggs the fish won't let any wriggler pass but I have been finding eggs around the tank here and there. The size of the eggs I'm assuming the rainbows are the spawning 'culprits'.

I'll grab some more pictures tonight as the tank is looking allot different... And you thought you can't see the hardships in the pictures above!!!


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[Tim Harrison]

Looking good, it seems to be developing in to a decent jungle type scape.

 

[Jakes]

Just some updated full tank shots... plants are filling in really well. Their colours are also starting to pop especially the red leafed variants... next weekend when i have time ill take individual shots but didn’t have time this weekend before I had to leave for work.

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