adam.zirps
Seedling
My First Aquascape
This is the journal for my first aquascape.......
Please bare with me and forgive me for my camera and photos, the tank was set up in march and ive only recently joined UKAPS so this is a look back at the last 9 months, up to the present day
I spent a good two months online and in shops researching the plants i wanted, planting techniques, hardscape techniques as well as what kind of style i wanted to go for. I knew almost straight away that my first attempt would not reallly follow a style but would probably be closest to the Dutch Style but with space for carpet plants. A nice dense mixture of plants with a good mix of colours, shapes and sizes. I knew i wanted a tank with almost full coverage of the floor of the aquarium and i instantly fell in love with Hemianthus 'Cuba' Callitrichoides. Once i found the tank i was after i traveled around all the fish shops and garden centres in a 25 mile radius, looking for the best piece's of wood, the best rock, substrate etc. to complement the plants.
Here are the vital statistics
Tank Fluval Roma 240l
Filtration Fluval 305 and Hydor Koralia 425GPH circulating fan
Lighting 3x Arcadia Plant pro T5 tubes 34" 39W 2xT5's for 10hrs with 3xT5's on for a mid-point blast 3 hrs
CO2 TMC kit
Water 100% RO 25% water change every week with Dennerle GH/GH+
Substrate Mixture of half and half Tropica Plant Substrate and Tetra Plant Complete Substrate with 1.2-1.5mm quartz gravel
Fertilizer Tropica Plant Nutrition, Easy Life Easycarbo and JBL Ferropol when required
Hardscape Cornish Bog wood and Red Rock
Background I have used a plain black background with silicon adhesive... and a little duck tape
But MOST importantly...
The Plants
I designed the layout of the plants by hand well before i was ready to go. All my plants came in one big order from tropica to Aquajardin who held them in storage for me until i could pick them up. Having picked up 10 x 25l water containers full of RO water the day before and on a day off i could go and collect my order.
Rotala Rotundifolia x 3
Ludwiga Repens 'Rubin' x 2
Rotala sp. 'Green' x 2
Hemianthus 'Cuba' Callitrichoides x 15
Staurogyne Repens x 5
Vesicularia Montagnei x 8
Cryptocoryne Wendtii 'Green' x 2
Nymphea Lotus (Zenkeri) x 1
Pogostemon Helferi x 5
Echinodorus 'Rubin' x 1
Pogostemon Erectus x 2
I had been talking to all the people i knew in my favorite fish shops and taking there advice as well as reading PFK. Armed with the knowledge i had gained from all the research i was doing online, watching videos on you tube etc and reading the forums in UKAPS on 17th march 2011 i was ready.
The first thing i did was to attach the Vesicularia Montagnei to my bogwood
Then i placed the wood and added the substate and quartz gravel
followed by the hardscape and background plants including Pogostemon Erectus, Echinodoras Rubin and Ludwigia
The mid-ground plants, rest of the background plants and Hemianthus were added last with no water in the tank
240 carefully syphoned litres later
6 weeks later
12 weeks later
After 5-6 moths the Hemianthus was thinning out at the edges, i thought it may have been an issue getting the light to penetrate the far edges of the aquarium or a lack of iron but i never got to the bottom of it
It only got worse when an aggressive dwarf cichlid started pulling it all up and i decided to get rid of it altogether along with a lot of the Vesicularia Montagnei, needless to say he made a swift return to the fish shop!
It was then that i decided to have a bit of a reshuffle. I had struggled with the Pogostemon Helferi so that was replaced by a mystery plant from a friends aquarium that grew like crazy
I moved the Ludwigia Rubin and swapped it with Echinodoras Rubin as well as adding Echinodoras 'red diamond' next to it. As a carpet plant i decided to go for Eleocharis Parvula, to start with i planted 8 pots
Then i added a further 8 pots and used the Vesicularia Montagnei i had grown on the upper part of the wood to replace what had been removed
This photo was taken in the middle of october 7 months in and approximately 6 weeks after the Eleocharis Parvula was planted
Photos taken 9 months in after moving the mystery plant to the back left and planting an Anubias Barteri var Caladiifolia "1705" in front in a low light area because of its low light demands
Water Analysis on 28/11/11
Temp 27C
PH 6.8
KH 5 (dKH)
GH 8 (dGH)
NH4 0.05mg/l
NO2 <0.01mg/l
NO3 0.5mg/l
PO4 <0.02mg/l
Fe 0.075mg/l
CO2 32mg/l
Thanks for reading my first jornal so far, i hope you enjoyed it.
This is the journal for my first aquascape.......
Please bare with me and forgive me for my camera and photos, the tank was set up in march and ive only recently joined UKAPS so this is a look back at the last 9 months, up to the present day
I spent a good two months online and in shops researching the plants i wanted, planting techniques, hardscape techniques as well as what kind of style i wanted to go for. I knew almost straight away that my first attempt would not reallly follow a style but would probably be closest to the Dutch Style but with space for carpet plants. A nice dense mixture of plants with a good mix of colours, shapes and sizes. I knew i wanted a tank with almost full coverage of the floor of the aquarium and i instantly fell in love with Hemianthus 'Cuba' Callitrichoides. Once i found the tank i was after i traveled around all the fish shops and garden centres in a 25 mile radius, looking for the best piece's of wood, the best rock, substrate etc. to complement the plants.
Here are the vital statistics
Tank Fluval Roma 240l
Filtration Fluval 305 and Hydor Koralia 425GPH circulating fan
Lighting 3x Arcadia Plant pro T5 tubes 34" 39W 2xT5's for 10hrs with 3xT5's on for a mid-point blast 3 hrs
CO2 TMC kit
Water 100% RO 25% water change every week with Dennerle GH/GH+
Substrate Mixture of half and half Tropica Plant Substrate and Tetra Plant Complete Substrate with 1.2-1.5mm quartz gravel
Fertilizer Tropica Plant Nutrition, Easy Life Easycarbo and JBL Ferropol when required
Hardscape Cornish Bog wood and Red Rock
Background I have used a plain black background with silicon adhesive... and a little duck tape
But MOST importantly...
The Plants
I designed the layout of the plants by hand well before i was ready to go. All my plants came in one big order from tropica to Aquajardin who held them in storage for me until i could pick them up. Having picked up 10 x 25l water containers full of RO water the day before and on a day off i could go and collect my order.
Rotala Rotundifolia x 3
Ludwiga Repens 'Rubin' x 2
Rotala sp. 'Green' x 2
Hemianthus 'Cuba' Callitrichoides x 15
Staurogyne Repens x 5
Vesicularia Montagnei x 8
Cryptocoryne Wendtii 'Green' x 2
Nymphea Lotus (Zenkeri) x 1
Pogostemon Helferi x 5
Echinodorus 'Rubin' x 1
Pogostemon Erectus x 2
I had been talking to all the people i knew in my favorite fish shops and taking there advice as well as reading PFK. Armed with the knowledge i had gained from all the research i was doing online, watching videos on you tube etc and reading the forums in UKAPS on 17th march 2011 i was ready.
The first thing i did was to attach the Vesicularia Montagnei to my bogwood
Then i placed the wood and added the substate and quartz gravel
followed by the hardscape and background plants including Pogostemon Erectus, Echinodoras Rubin and Ludwigia
The mid-ground plants, rest of the background plants and Hemianthus were added last with no water in the tank
240 carefully syphoned litres later
6 weeks later
12 weeks later
After 5-6 moths the Hemianthus was thinning out at the edges, i thought it may have been an issue getting the light to penetrate the far edges of the aquarium or a lack of iron but i never got to the bottom of it
It only got worse when an aggressive dwarf cichlid started pulling it all up and i decided to get rid of it altogether along with a lot of the Vesicularia Montagnei, needless to say he made a swift return to the fish shop!
It was then that i decided to have a bit of a reshuffle. I had struggled with the Pogostemon Helferi so that was replaced by a mystery plant from a friends aquarium that grew like crazy
I moved the Ludwigia Rubin and swapped it with Echinodoras Rubin as well as adding Echinodoras 'red diamond' next to it. As a carpet plant i decided to go for Eleocharis Parvula, to start with i planted 8 pots
Then i added a further 8 pots and used the Vesicularia Montagnei i had grown on the upper part of the wood to replace what had been removed
This photo was taken in the middle of october 7 months in and approximately 6 weeks after the Eleocharis Parvula was planted
Photos taken 9 months in after moving the mystery plant to the back left and planting an Anubias Barteri var Caladiifolia "1705" in front in a low light area because of its low light demands
Water Analysis on 28/11/11
Temp 27C
PH 6.8
KH 5 (dKH)
GH 8 (dGH)
NH4 0.05mg/l
NO2 <0.01mg/l
NO3 0.5mg/l
PO4 <0.02mg/l
Fe 0.075mg/l
CO2 32mg/l
Thanks for reading my first jornal so far, i hope you enjoyed it.
