Operation Dorito

[Sammy I]

Hello people, it's been a couple years since I've lurked around here but I can no longer put off the itch to get my tank back up and running. So I took a nice drive down to Aquarium Gardens this morning to grab some bits and have a play about in the dojo. Happy to have found some great bits of wood to achieve what I'm going for.

I learnt a lot from my first scape, which I based on Filipe Oliveira's scape at Green Aqua. This is how it ended up before breaking it down and putting everything into storage.


So I'm going to make things easier this time (I hope). I am going for a triangular island style, left to right, surrounded by gravel and sand. In my mind this will be optimal for flow and CO2, and the opposite to my last scape, where the layout and plants limited flow and CO2.

The name chosen for this journal is in reference to a satire news report where a woman described a triangular UFO as a "dorito shaped object". 🤣 Here's a rudimental drawing of what I imagine, pointy rocks and wood:


I've had a rummage around and found all my old gear that I stored in my summer house for the last couple of years. The tank and cabinet is back in place with a crazy mess to keep growing for the next couple of weeks.


Tank - Evolution Aqua Aquascaper 900 (original)
Lighting - Twinstar (v2) 900SA + controller
Filter - Oase bio master 600
CO2- CO2art pro-se regulator + aqua rio L in tank diffuser
Glassware - Evolution aqua 16/22 with skimmer
Other - D&D P1 autodoser - small water pump

Hardscape:
Seiryu stone
dragon wood/bogwood
ADA gravel
ADA la plata sand
Dennerle rio xingu

Plants:
TBC:
S Repens
Helanthium tenellum 'Green'
Pogostemon Helferi
Hygrophila pinnatifida
Hygrophila Lancea Araguaia
Rotala H'ra
Cryptocoryne Flamingo
Cryptocoryne albida Brown
Cryptocoryne Nevellii
Cryptocoryne Parva
Bucephalandra Kedagang
Bucephalandra Theia
Anubias Nana Bonsai
Anubias Petite
Microsorum pteropus Trident

Livestock:
TBC - I'm thinking nothing crazy:
X15+ Rummynose tetra
X10+ Corydoras (panda or bandit again)
Orange tiger shrimp and bloody mary shrimp


I will update as I progress, I hope to have the hardscape done in the next week or so and then planted by Christmas. Looking forward to finding some fish, I hope you follow along and thanks for any future input/help I may require 👍

 

[Iain Sutherland]

Looking forward to it Sammy. Please, keep the set up photos coming 🙏

 

[Tankless]

I mainly come to the forum to read journals as you can learn a lot from other peoples experience. There haven't been as many lately. I did follow your original one from a few years back. Looking forward to this.

 

[Sammy I]

Looking forward to it Sammy. Please, keep the set up photos coming 🙏

Will do, hoping to get things progressed quickly.

I mainly come to the forum to read journals as you can learn a lot from other peoples experience. There haven't been as many lately. I did follow your original one from a few years back. Looking forward to this.

Thanks for following, definitely more quiet around here. I've read through a few interesting journals and threads every now and again, but not much has changed in this world 🤣

 

[Courtneybst]

Love the name and concept! Will be following along 🙂

 

[Sammy I]

Love the name and concept! Will be following along 🙂

Nice one, I love the name too 😂

So I've been busy unpacking all the boxes of stuff I put away, it's pretty crazy how much gear we end up needing, everything down to cable-ties 🤔

Found all my seiryu stone in the garden, they had been stored in a crate under shelter, some of them has browned weirdly, I dont think those parts were in the substrate. I gave them a jet wash which didn't make much difference, so I'm soaking them in a light bleachy solution which hopefully will help.


Here's the dragon wood I found at Aquarium gardens, I think i've got what I need to create something impactful and pointy.


Arranged them In a similar way to as they will appear in the scape:

 

[Sammy I]

Things have been going slower than expected as I've had to do things alone and being extra cautious after soaking my rocks in a beach solution. I want to give them another jet wash before I put them in, but the weather has delayed me in doing so.

I managed to add frosted film to the back of the tank again, it was really difficult as I only had enough space to fit my arm behind the tank because I couldn't move it forwards on my own as it sits on a big piece of mdf.



I'm getting there slowly, no idea how I did this before 🤣 I've setup my twinstar light and got my hardscape materials to hand. Put in 1 piece of wood to give me an idea of where I want the triangular island to end. Been trying to get rid of the limescale ring that had built up, used some distilled white vinegar which helped, so I'll probably do another round where I let it actually soak with tissue, rather than just repeatedly wiping over with a magic sponge.

 

[Courtneybst]

so I'll probably do another round where I let it actually soak with tissue,

Citric acid is also amazing for this. I use it generally but also used it to clean my reef tank that was really encrusted with coralline algae and it made it look brand new.

 

[Sammy I]

Citric acid is also amazing for this. I use it generally but also used it to clean my reef tank that was really encrusted with coralline algae and it made it look brand new.

I think i've got some somewhere, how do i use it? Dissolve in some warm water and then wipe/soak with a sponge?

 

[Courtneybst]

I think i've got some somewhere, how do i use it? Dissolve in some warm water and then wipe/soak with a sponge?

You can do exactly that.

My reef tank was more stuck on so I filled the tank with water, dumped a bag of citric acid in and ran a powerhead overnight to keep the water circulating. Everything literally just fell off.

 

[Sammy I]

You can do exactly that.

My reef tank was more stuck on so I filled the tank with water, dumped a bag of citric acid in and ran a powerhead overnight to keep the water circulating. Everything literally just fell off.

Cool, i might give that a go. Would it be better to use citric acid rather than vinegar? Not keen on stinking the room out again, but if it's stronger then might have to

 

[Courtneybst]

Cool, i might give that a go. Would it be better to use citric acid rather than vinegar? Not keen on stinking the room out again, but if it's stronger then might have to

In my opinion yes, citric acid doesn't smell of anything and I would say it works better than vinegar.

 

[Sammy I]

So I finally got all my bits together and have started on the hardscape. Pretty happy with it so far, definitely is turning out like I had hoped and imagined. Still trying to figure out a few things such as the rock work on the left, there's a massive slope where soil can fall down to the front where the small piece of wood is, this is what I've got so far:



This being my first triangular scape I realised the limitation of my planting area, this has made me think harder about the plants I want to use, and try visualise where I can actually place them.

 

[Sammy I]

I have finalised my hardscape and glued it all down. I made sure to do a good job as this wood is extremely dense, a lot of the hardscape is connected together so it's pretty solid (I hope).





Really happy with the way it's turned out and can't wait to plant it now, but I've still got loads to do regarding setting up the filter etc and I'm also going to add frosted film to the left side of the tank to hide stuff behind it, so I think that will really help.


This area under the wood creates like a cave area which i'm really loving, I can already imagine my future corys hanging around in "cory cave" 😂

 

[Sammy I]

Had another productive evening trying to get rid of all the soil that had made it's way to the front, but luckily I don't really have anywhere I need to plug with filter floss.

I added ADA gravel around the base to plug any small crevices and built up a border. I then poured in ADA la plata sand followed by scattering some dennerle rio xingu along the border.






I'm very happy with with the way this has turned out and I can't wait to get it planted and filled! I've always been drawn to triangular layouts in particular for some reason, every time I visited Aquarium Gardens I was always envious of the triangular scape(s) the most.

Having a real hard think about my planting plan, and I have nearly decided on what I'm going to use. The planting area is pretty limited so I need to choose wisely. But I'm a little disappointed as I don't see/imagine a place for my favourite plant Pogostemon helferi, but I might be able to squeeze it in somewhere..... 🤔

I have been doing my research on fish and I'm looking forward to going to Maidenhead aquatics in St Albans to have a mooch about. Can't decide between what Cory's I want, but the Adolfoi and orange Venezuelans have caught my eye and will look good against the sand. Other fish I am considering are pentazona barbs, I use to have them in my old 125L tank and they were really interesting, but I suspected them of eating some plants at night. Would love a pair of vibrant apistogrammas but I would also like to keep a shrimp colony 😂

 

[Sammy I]

Little update:

I have selected and ordered my plants which I will be collecting on Thursday, so looks like this scape will be planted Thursday night 😁 the plants I have selected are:

S Repens
Hygrophila pinnatifida
Vesicularia ferriei 'Weeping'
Cryptocoryne Parva
Pogostomon Helferi
Rotala Orange Juice
Rotala Blood Red
Cryptocoryne Wendtii Brown
Cryptocoryne Wendtii Green
Cryptocoryne albida Brown
Cryptocoryne Nevellii
Bucephalandra Kedagang
Bucephalandra Theia
Anubias Nana Bonsai
Anubias petite
Microsorum pteropus Trident

 

[bazz]

Could be a late night on Thursday!

 

[Sammy I]

Could be a late night on Thursday!

Will definitely be a long night, I don't plan on starting until like 10-11pm 🤣

 

[Sammy I]

So things didn't go to plan, I felt like crap all day Wednesday and had a proper cold sweaty night so couldn't collect my plants on Thursday. Luckily I felt much better by Friday so went and collected my stuff and have just prepped, planted and filled the tank, didn't take that long maybe 2.5 hours total.

Really pleased with the outcome, I ordered a couple more plants than I actually needed so had a hard time fitting them in again. But it was only a couple of pots so no big deal and it is only going to help me (i hope). I also added some moss badly, which isn't in the photos so I hope that works out as I have never grown any moss. Also happy that I got to add my favourite plant Pogostomon Helferi (bottom left) so excited to grow that again!





Got a few things left to do, mainly the programming for lights, Co2 and auto doser but that won't take long. The oase biomaster started up and didn't leak which was amazing, ordered some new gaskets/seals just to be safe. But I'm already hating the skimmer on the intake, that might get replaced soon, and I'll add a secondary skimmer/pump that isn't annoying 😂