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Steve's 40cm shrimpy mossy concoction

Steve Smith

Member
Joined
19 Jul 2007
Messages
4,412
Location
Wellesbourne, UK.
I decided to shuffle my slowly declining emersed growing setup to a much smaller tank as most of the plants had died off due to neglect (I'm still using the moving house excuse!) This freed up a little 16x8x8 Clearseal tank which I've had knocking about for a while. I wanted to set up a small low light scape. I have a good selection of hardscape materials kicking about now, so why not eh?

I'm still thinking this one through, but tonight I got the 'scapers itch :lol: I stripped down the emersed setup, cleaned the tank out and started playing about with manzanite wood.

What I'm planning is a scape using crypts, anubias and moss, and maybe some hydrocotyle and staurogyne as accent plants. I'm sort of winging it at the moment though.

Specifications:
11w Arcadia Arcpod light
Azoo Mignon 240 HOB filter
Used ADA AS Amazonia I from another setup
Unipac Zambezi sand and graded gravels
Manzanite wood from the UKAPS group buy last year
Small chunks of Seiryu stone

Ferts - Probably ADA special shade, Easy Carbo also (no other carbon/CO2 source).

This is the hardscape I came up with tonight. I'm going to live with it for a few days and see if it sits right :)

40cm_Low_Light_Hardscape.jpg

(Click for larger image)

If you imagine that the back corners will be filled with crypts and possibly Staurogyne in front, maybe even P. helferi. Not decided yet :)

As always, input/critique appreciated :)
 
Re: Steve's 40cm Low light scape - Planning.

Really like the look of that. Most impressed with the way the rocks sit against the wood; looks very natural.

:thumbup:
 
Re: Steve's 40cm Low light scape - Planning.

Thanks guys :) Before I went to bed last night I had a bit of a play about with the smaller bits of wood and the rocks. I think I need to have a dig about in the garage and get more seiryu stone out to have a play with. I'm going to have a leisurely flick through the Tropica catalogue tonight and pick out some more plants :)
 
Re: Steve's 40cm Low light scape - Planning.

Been playing again :) Ideally, I need to get this full of water tonight!

So, dug out some more seiryu stone and played about with the rocks. Shifted everything right about 2cm, maybe less! Also capped the old AS with old AS powder. Just need to work on the graded gravels next :)

45cm_Low_Light_Hardscape2.jpg
 
Re: Steve's 40cm Low light scape - Hardscape done.

Would 11W be enough for the Staurogyne and the Pogo?

I would think that those two are light intensive, both grow emmerged in the middle of rivers.
 
Re: Steve's 40cm Low light scape - Hardscape done.

ghostsword said:
Would 11W be enough for the Staurogyne and the Pogo? .
I had Staurogyne with low light and no CO2, it grew well, just slower and the leaves were much smaller too.
 
Re: Steve's 40cm Low light scape - Hardscape done.

I've grown Staurogyne under 18w in a 30 litre, with low dosing and it grew quite compact :) Hoping for the same result here.

Thanks for all the feedback guys :)
 
Re: Steve's 40cm Low light scape - Hardscape done.

Likeing the look of this one Steve,
john .
 
Re: Steve's 40cm Low light scape - Hardscape done.

Quick update on this one. Decided that, after planting it up and living with it for a month the crypts were just too big for this tank. They'd started to grow back nicely, at a good rate, but the scale was all wrong. So, I've stripped the tank and the crypts have gone to Chilled for a donation to the forum :)

This has now been re-scaped. It's now a moss/shrimp tank :) I decided to do this after spending last weekend at Paulo's and ogling his shrimp tanks. Paulo was kind enough to give me about 8 different mosses and a couple of pelia species to get me going!

I bought a 5 litre bag of Oliver Knott Nature Soil from Living Waters, London along with some Dragon stone. I spent monday fiddling about and playing with manzi wood and stone. It's not perfect but it's supposed to be simple and low maintenance.

Filtration is the same Azoo Mignon 240 with some Eheim sintered glass media and filter wool, lighting is a 13w clip on light.

Anyhow, I haven't taken any decent pics yet, but this is a shoddy iphone pic:

4555852596_970d4d8e11_o.jpg


The Pelia on the left is tied to a not very aesthetically pleasing piece of fossilised wood, but I hope it will essentially fill out and cover it completely. Didn't want to waste a nice bit of hardscape for something that was going to be hidden! ;)
 
Very nice Steve, really like the dimensions of the tank. That will look great once the moss has all grown in. You keeping the wood moss-free? I'd be tempted to have some growing up the wood emersed 8) . I've got a similar tank but in opti-white and I'm very tempted to have set it up next year on my desk with a little hang-on-back like that.
 
Thanks guys. I'm hoping the moss will seed itself onto the wood. I've got fissidens on the right branch and willow moss on the front right branch, as well as one or two others lower down. I've got Java moss on the middle left branch as well.

The two larger clumps of moss left and right are just that, clumps. They're not anchored to anything. Not sure what the right hand moss is (got it off a UKAPS member some time ago), but on the left it is mostly some scraggy flame moss and spikey moss.
 
Excellent. Good to see it already in action mate. Glad the stay at Paulos was worthwhile. He is very generous indeed :)
 
SteveUK said:
Certainly is. Not only has he got me doing a moss tank, I'm looking into Nespresso machines now! :lol: Hey, did the air pump arrive? Might be tomorrow as I sent it second class :)

LOL I know as well as getting a Podengo and all his all his other bits and bobs lol!

No pump yet :)
 
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