Put this little pic together for my aquatic Instagram account (ady_myers_aqua) the other day, pretty cool to see the hardscape, planted to grown in pics altogether....
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Re-education.....
- Thread starter Ady34
- Start date
Jayefc1
Member
Just followed you on Instagram forgot how strong the hardscape was without the actual plants
What a beautiful tank. Thanks for all the info you have given the community. I'm also looking to purchase the 1500. I went to see Dave at aquarium Gardens so I could see the tank in person. Great place. What a tank!
So... I'm at the very early planning stages. I can install a drain very easily. Also I'll be able to get access to a hot and cold feed So I'm going to replicate your setup.
The only question I have to you sir.
Is there anything regarding the plumbing you would change if were staring again?
Regards.
Alan.
Thanks Alan for the kind words and you won’t go far wrong visiting Aquarium Gardens and speaking with Dave or any of the staff there.
The Aquascaper 1500 there will be a class above as it was aquascaped by Filipe Oliveira and AG look after it impeccably as they do with all their scapes. It is an amazing gallery and I think probably the best showcase for planted aquaria in the uk. The Talawa wood and some seiryu stone along with most of the plants for my own scape were purchased there and I can’t fault their commitment to customer care.
In relation to the plumbing on the tank for me personally the system works well and offers a little versatility for refilling other tanks around the house. I guess depending upon your tank location and surroundings you could put the refill feed direct to the tank and hide the drain away behind the tank. Ideally I’d like a removable sealed top to the drain away, however with a u bend in there is no chance of bad smell return anyway. What I would say is ensure you have the hot and cold feed pipes and valves in the correct position behind the tank (if your putting them behind the tank) where the rear of the cabinet has the clear back gaps. Mine was slight guesswork and where I have positioned the tank hides/overlaps them slightly which makes turning the valves on/off slightly awkward. I don’t know how you will be positioning the tank or if you have the option to have the pipework and drain in a seperate cupboard next to the tank as that would eliminate a lot of precision. if you need any measurements then feel free to ask
Hope that helps in some way.
Cheerio
Ady.
*edit: actually you will likely be getting the new aluminium framed cabinet style and I think from memory they are pretty much completely open backed, but worth looking into if your pipes etc are all going behind the cabinet.
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Go on then, while I’m here I may as well stick a few pics on 
.....
Cheerio,
.....Cheerio,
Jayefc1
Member
Might aswell while your here lol
Thanks for the info.I have a suspended floor and there's plenty of room under the floor to crawl around. I can place the drain when the tank base is installed.
Behind the wall, where View attachment 133882 View attachment 133883 View attachment 133882 View attachment 133882 View attachment 133883 the tank is going there's a walk in cupboard (under the stairs) so I was thinking of putting some my plumbing in there. I might just have the 2nd set of hot and cold taps under the tank. I've not told the wife about that idea yet! Anyway, I'm lucky that I've got flexibility regarding plumbing. The joys of owning a house built in 1925!
Yes I'm sad. The blue tape is the size of the 1500. It's all a plan. Letting the wife know what I'm doing.
Sounds like you have several options there, probably the best one would be to position the tank and then go through the wall exactly where needed from the cupboard.
The blue tape is a great idea of showing the scale. I did exactly the same with my 8ft tank in my old house to visualise the dimensions.
Lovely trogon you have, notoriously tricky to scape but you have used the space well
cheerio,
Andrew Butler
Member
After a little maintenance yesterday.
Needs a trim again to tidy it up, some pretty big bolbitis leaves appearing
Needs a trim again to tidy it up, some pretty big bolbitis leaves appearing
Today I decided that I would enter the tank into the IAPLC to increase uk participation. This is a bit late to prep the tank realistically, however I’ve got a week to try and organise the tank. To be honest it won’t look a hugely different to what it does now and I don’t expect it to place highly at all. It certainly isn’t a competition tank but representing will be nice.
So in basic prep for a photo i am going to increase just about everything this week and hope it doesn’t all go Pete tong! Water changes, ferts, lighting and co2 all up a little. I adjusted my lighting which I thought was already at 60% up a little.....it was only at 55% right hand light and 50% left hand light.....so it’s up to 55% and 65% respectively for a three hour period, not a lot but enough I guess. There is a disparity between lights as the left side of the tank is much more open and light is free to penetrate whereas the right side has greater plant mass with some stems and lots of shade.
I will up ferts from 125ml per day to 150ml per day and co2 will be left on throughout the photoperiod, without the hourly 15min breaks, under monitoring. I will carry out three water changes this week and two sand siphons. I think I am going to drop the temperature a degree or so also to around 73 Fahrenheit. All fish will be monitored during this period of alteration and adjustments made accordingly. Realistically this should have been started 4 weeks prior, but I have only just decided 100% to enter, and I didn’t really consider prepping the tank. It will be quite a tricky tank to get looking good for a photo as the fish load is too great and I always have something on the sand. I don’t like doing water changes and sand cleans for photos as there are too many air bubbles in the tank and on the plants and the sand tends not to look naturally levelled immediately after. This means photographing will be done either the day after maintenance, or two days after, so a light small siphon above the sand may be necessary on photo day to remove any fish waste.
I have done some trimming and thinning today to make small adjustments to the shape and am going to swap out some moss that isn’t doing to great for some small anubias or bucephelandra in two areas.
All equipment will be removed for the photo, and although I won’t go to the lengths of professionals regards surface movement and ideal fish placement, I will be attempting to reduce all reflections within the room and try to utilise a tripod with my phone or maybe a borrowed camera to get the best image I can.
One thing I am undecided upon is wether to add some detailing rocks/gravels to the base of some of the substrate rocks. It really isn’t a detailed tank, but that has been more for my personal ease of maintenance. I don’t know wether the heavier nature of planting will overpower detailing rocks and make them seem a bit futile? Any thoughts are welcome 🙂
after a little maintenence today:
Anyone else entering this year?
Ady.
So in basic prep for a photo i am going to increase just about everything this week and hope it doesn’t all go Pete tong! Water changes, ferts, lighting and co2 all up a little. I adjusted my lighting which I thought was already at 60% up a little.....it was only at 55% right hand light and 50% left hand light.....so it’s up to 55% and 65% respectively for a three hour period, not a lot but enough I guess. There is a disparity between lights as the left side of the tank is much more open and light is free to penetrate whereas the right side has greater plant mass with some stems and lots of shade.
I will up ferts from 125ml per day to 150ml per day and co2 will be left on throughout the photoperiod, without the hourly 15min breaks, under monitoring. I will carry out three water changes this week and two sand siphons. I think I am going to drop the temperature a degree or so also to around 73 Fahrenheit. All fish will be monitored during this period of alteration and adjustments made accordingly. Realistically this should have been started 4 weeks prior, but I have only just decided 100% to enter, and I didn’t really consider prepping the tank. It will be quite a tricky tank to get looking good for a photo as the fish load is too great and I always have something on the sand. I don’t like doing water changes and sand cleans for photos as there are too many air bubbles in the tank and on the plants and the sand tends not to look naturally levelled immediately after. This means photographing will be done either the day after maintenance, or two days after, so a light small siphon above the sand may be necessary on photo day to remove any fish waste.
I have done some trimming and thinning today to make small adjustments to the shape and am going to swap out some moss that isn’t doing to great for some small anubias or bucephelandra in two areas.
All equipment will be removed for the photo, and although I won’t go to the lengths of professionals regards surface movement and ideal fish placement, I will be attempting to reduce all reflections within the room and try to utilise a tripod with my phone or maybe a borrowed camera to get the best image I can.
One thing I am undecided upon is wether to add some detailing rocks/gravels to the base of some of the substrate rocks. It really isn’t a detailed tank, but that has been more for my personal ease of maintenance. I don’t know wether the heavier nature of planting will overpower detailing rocks and make them seem a bit futile? Any thoughts are welcome 🙂
after a little maintenence today:
Anyone else entering this year?
Ady.
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Been posting on insta, thought I’d share them here too 📷........
aquascapes are cool 😎
aquascapes are cool 😎
AqueousJungle
Seedling
Great photos! 😎
Good luck with your IAPLC entry. I know you said you weren’t expecting to place highly etc but I personally believe you do deserve to as I have admired this tank for a good while now. There are too many dioramas appearing in the high rankings in my opinion, anyone else agree?
If I was going to do some detail rocks I would want to use a rock of the same type broken up personally - given the short timescales involved this would likely not look right as the patena/darkening that comes with age on the types of rocks will not have had chance to form. I’m not a fanof using different gravels as a transition personally asI think they look unnatural. I think I saw Juris use Marino moss glued to rocks prior to a competition photo before and this looked good so may be something you wish to research/consider.
Good luck with your IAPLC entry. I know you said you weren’t expecting to place highly etc but I personally believe you do deserve to as I have admired this tank for a good while now. There are too many dioramas appearing in the high rankings in my opinion, anyone else agree?
If I was going to do some detail rocks I would want to use a rock of the same type broken up personally - given the short timescales involved this would likely not look right as the patena/darkening that comes with age on the types of rocks will not have had chance to form. I’m not a fanof using different gravels as a transition personally asI think they look unnatural. I think I saw Juris use Marino moss glued to rocks prior to a competition photo before and this looked good so may be something you wish to research/consider.
1
14548
Guest
Good luck and congrats for entering IAPLC mate, with the comeback of the NA style, your beautiful aquascape has all chances to get a nice ranking! 🙂
As for the sand, just leave it like that, it goes well with the style of the rest of the tank. 😎
As for the sand, just leave it like that, it goes well with the style of the rest of the tank. 😎
Ah thank you both. Yes I think you are right about the graded stones/gravel not having time to age. I think they would be too fussy for this heavy scape so will enter as is.
My planned preparation for the tank hasn’t gone to plan as I got cellulitis in my knee last week so was a little incapacitated. I haven’t yet taken a final image and am not completely happy with the flow of the scape but trimming and thinning some buce now may look too unnatural. I will get an image as it is and enter though. I too am not a big fan of the diorama styles of recent times but do appreciate the skill in putting them together. This tank and myself are more lifestyle than competition, it looks to me at least a lot more balanced in real life than on an image which is great 🙂
Little maintenance and small water change tonight in hope of taking an image tomorrow evening.
Cheerio,
Jayefc1
Member
Not sure what's happened but havnt had notifications on your thread mate and missed a bit congrats on deciding to enter the comp mate tank looks amazing as always
LondonDragon
Member
Shared on the UKAPS FB page 🙂
Thanks Paulo.
