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The Nymph's Spring (EA900)

Hanging it with twine definitely doesn't work, well not in my case. I'm still working out how to do it on my potential new scape but I think a moss pole, wrapped around a solid rod, for it to cling to is the safest way. I might however try it planted behind the tank in a conventional pot and train a couple of the roots into the water.
Even though with only six 2ft leaves, it was quite a small plant, it had grown over 30 long aerial roots which were 20 ft + long in some cases. I had just coiled them round like a hose but you can see why they are able to cling to trees in nature.
One of the monstera in our hallway is suspended at the top of the stairs, it has a 5 meter single root growing down, which it has now planted into the bottom-most pot we have a flor and a half down 😂 Those roots are ridiculous and great, they must grow very high up massive trees where they're from, they remind me a bit of very long finger nails.

Behind the tank you could have a tall, very narrow table and put a selection of pots, or even a windowbox planter the same width as the aquarium right behind it, and you could plant into that + place your moss pole into it for structure, with the roots hanging over. Then you could add some sucker planters on the inside of the tank and/or floating rafts to grow smaller riparium plants in it, that would hide the connection and make it look like a river's edge going out of the water and onto land, which it basically with be. Could be very nice, I would try this if I had the depth space. You could even use some tall aquarium wood as your mossy pole base so it extended the wild feeling with some of that dead but still green moss attached.
 
🌿🍀🍃 Inspiration Post 01🌿🍀🍃

In design I always start a project with a mood board, so this is mine I suppose. Should include a photo of my current 60l tank here, see it on page one.

My walls are painted a soft blue which makes a nice natural backdrop to my tank, and I think naturally lends itself to a light, meadowy tank with lots of grasses and movement, something quite playful and summery. I'm inspired by river banks, and also that bit of the countryside where a meadow becomes a forest, so it's very grassy and soft with small delicate textures, transitioning into something darker and richer. I want to make sure my fish are happy, so there will be a nice bit of sand for my sand sifters (possibly everything will be capped with sand), some piles of dead leaves and different kinds of dense planting to make little terriorities and sight lines, and areas of light and shade. I want it to feel quite naturalistic, so I'll use a lot of moss and small grasses.

I already like the feel of my current tank, I like the mix of plants and will move them all of them into the new tank. However my current tank has no hardscaping other than 2 pebbles hidden at the back - it's all defined with plant growth, with a flat base so there isn't enough variation in height, and of course it's a third of the volume. It's been a great tank to play with and I've learnt a lot, but I'm looking forward to changing it. In this new tank, I'm gonna try out doing hardscape the way that fancy aquascapers do it, separating the soil and the sand with hidden rock walls and dramatic wood. I think the wood is really key, it has to be great and I'll spend some time finding the right pieces. I also think a dry start is important, so I can get that luscious moss look on the wood and rocks, and give it that natural feel. The depth of the tank (50cm) means there's a lot to play with.

I want the wood to have a darker, richer feel, like the beginning of the forest, so I'll use a of mix java ferns, mosses, a few buces and some hygrophila pinnatifida as it looks like oak saplings (I've only just got this plant and I'm not sure how it does in lowtech so we'll see). The below tank has a nice feel of woodland-meadow-y ness to it. With some dead leaves, even better.



Also really like this



I bought this tank thinking it would be high tech, but now I'm not so sure. The big reason I wanted to try CO2 is the colour - in my real job I'm known for being a colour obsessive, I love bold colours and mixing them, and the outrageous reds and blushes and oranges you can get with the CO2 stems is so beautiful. Here is my favourite hightech tank - I really like the use of wood in this, the landscape of it flows nicely with a good amount of dense planting vs open space and a bit coming out of the top, and probably what I will base mine on, I like the arch too. And of course, that red and the orange details are stunning, and the richness and variation of the greens and textures is fantastic. I really like the mix of mosses and grasses as a filler, with little buces and the creeping tripartita. I know I can't get something as thick and beautifully coloured as this without CO2, but I'm hoping I can take some elements to enhance mine.

Personally I like tanks where the back 2 corners are covered, rather than island-style designs. I want it to feel like a special hidden oasis, and I think the fish like the comfort of being enclosed. I'll have a sandy area in the front, going into the back in a similar way this one does (but bigger). I'd like to make the sandy area a bit interesting with wood embedded in it and somelittle detail plants, a bit like daveaqua05 does on Instagram (see further down).

Screenshot_20210221-185230.png Screenshot_20210221-184542.png



This video shows how the scaper made his tank which is really useful.



I also love this youtube video, the mix of stems is so beautiful it's like a floral bouquet.



Ok one more I love, from daveaqua05 on Instagram, his scapes are really nice, with quite different hardscape which I really like, often the wood appears buried in the sand. The colours he gets from his stems remind me of coral reefs, they're so interesting.

Screenshot_20201214-151303.png

I think I'm going to start lowtech as I'm not sure if I can keep up with the 50% waterchanges yet, I want to wait and see and try it out first, while growing out my baby apistos. If I was doing 100% tap it would be easy, but all my favourite fish are soft water, and living in London my tap is hard af, I think that the fish must come first. I've not done badly at all with my lowtechs, I have luscious growth in all of them and can grow a few extra plants because of the soft water. So I think that's what my first challenge will be - can I make something that has some of the granduer of a hightech, in a lowtech? I'm hoping I can!

If later on I think I can manage the regular water changes with rainwater, then I can upgrade to CO2 with the same scape easily and add stems.

🌿🍀🍃🌿🍀🍃🌿🍀🍃


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I'm hoping to add a few stems which don't mind me, and some which I can attach to a high-up point at the back of the wood to have a small emergent section. I love the emergent part of the ADA scape above with the emergent echinodorus (which I have tried in another tank and works well) and the stems encouraged to grow out. It wouldn't be the focus of the scape as here, but hopefully a nice little area poking out adding some interest.

That's it for now, I'll share more inspo as time goes on and my ideas of what I'm doing inevitably change!
 

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I think you may be ok with some colour without co2. Ludwigia sp red would be a good one to try and can be lipstick red with decent lighting. If not there are enough cryptocoryne and echinodorus that should give you the colour you want. Granted the colours aren't as bold as some of the stems in the scapes you’ve shown but should help give the colour you crave.

It’s always worth giving a pot of whatever you like a go as you may be lucky and get it to grow in your setup, you don’t know until you try!

Cheers
 
I think you may be ok with some colour without co2. Ludwigia sp red would be a good one to try and can be lipstick red with decent lighting. If not there are enough cryptocoryne and echinodorus that should give you the colour you want. Granted the colours aren't as bold as some of the stems in the scapes you’ve shown but should help give the colour you crave.

It’s always worth giving a pot of whatever you like a go as you may be lucky and get it to grow in your setup, you don’t know until you try!

Cheers
Yes I'll definitely be using all the red and orange species I can which don't need CO2, I already keep a red ludwigia and a red/purple lotus which are great. I have an echinodorus rose and red diamond which promised me red and does provide with each new leaf, but when it fades the leaves go a disappointing olive colour, do you have any suggestions for other great red echinodorus? I don't mind the outer leaves changing colour, but would prefer they fade to something a bit richer - my echinodorus hadi red pearl has a rich red on the new leaves, but it fades to a dark rich green which is great, they aren't very big plants though.

Definitely will give more plants a go, previously I tried rotala wallichii which looks so amazing in photos, but sadly it was not interested in growing wider than 1cm, nor taller than 10cm. I have some rotala hra which just about grows well enough to stay, and my hydrocotyle verticillata grows great. I might do some more research into plants that love soft water, they might be a bit more forgiving. I'd love to keep a few stems of ludwigia glandulosa if I can try, what a lovely plant.

Something I do right now is to layer plants to get better depth and colour and make it seem like they're more luscious, so even though I'm not a big fan of something like Alternanthera, it does have a great colour and apparently should be ok with no co2 (but with ferts and good lighting) so that could go at the back with some prettier stems like the rotala hra or ludiwigia ar red in front.

----


My filter came this morning and it is MASSIVE, wow! It's a good 4x the size of my current filter, very glad I got it and a bit afraid of any noise it'll have. I'm planning on setting everything up this weekend for the baby fish, but might need to delay if the filter is very loud and I need to do a lot of soundproofing, our tank is in our bedroom so have to be mindful of that. I've got a bit of play sand for the babies which I'll be washing today, and soaking the random bits of wood and twigs I have to create a little bit of variety so it doesn't look completely boring.

I'm planning on setting up the tank on Saturday with sand + tap water + water from a 50% wc in my 60L, 40L & 23L (which has lots of tiny bugs in it I think they'd like to eat), will seed the filter with 50% media from the 60L tank. Will also add some sand and rocks from my current tank, and some leaves, as well as lots of new dead leaves to create a more interesting habitat. Then will do a 50% wc on Sunday with rainwater so it ends up being 50/50, and will then add the baby fish. Does this sound like a solid plan? Will they be ok if I do frequent small water changes? Usually I would do the 6 week wait thing, but this tank has no soil and the babies are there just to grow out. Technically they are about 50% of the bioload of the current tank, but that also has a lot of plants. I will also get some extra floating plants, so ideally almost all the surface is covered to help, I might be able to just pull out some extra vallis and crypts and just plant them in some sand for now as well.
 
Watching this right now and wondering if I should do what he suggests which all sounds quite logical and reasonable. I do have my own ceramic media to replace with at least.


 
Hi all,
what he suggests which all sounds quite logical and reasonable.
Ah the <"PondGuru">, he gets a <"few mentions on the forum">. I'll copy in @MirandaB as I know <"she is a fan of his">;).

Personally I think his advice is a mixture of <"the good">, <"the bad"> and <"the downright ugly">.

He has a <"product to sell">, it is different for us, we don't <"have anything to sell"> so we can recommend products (or not) based on our experience and thoughts.

cheers Darrel
 
Hi all,

Ah the <"PondGuru">, he gets a <"few mentions on the forum">. I'll copy in @MirandaB as I know <"she is a fan of his">;).

Personally I think his advice is a mixture of <"the good">, <"the bad"> and <"the downright ugly">.

He has a <"product to sell">, it is different for us, we don't <"have anything to sell"> so we can recommend products (or not) based on our experience and thoughts.

cheers Darrel
Thanks for this, just gone down a UKAPS rabbithole once again reading these these threads and being led into more! I thought the layering of the sponges sounded good, but looks like I will just replace the given plastic media with a bag of eheim media I have left over and that's it for now. Wondering if the main filter needs a lot of sponges, or if I might remove them for extra flow. You're so good at returning me to the righteous path of fishkeeping @dw1305! 😅
 
I've not read the links but what I've seen in some of his videos is that he likes a few stages of mechanical filtration and then crams in as much biological media as he possibly can. My take on this (and from what has been said here it seems similar) is that this will massively impair flow through the filter making it less efficient at both mechanical and biological filtration. Knowing what we do about the water filtering capabilities of plants and archaea, for me biological filtration isn't as much of a concern especially if you have emergent growth. Personally I tend to use filters more for their mechanical filtration than their biological capabilities but if you were going to utilise them for biological filtration, I'd put a medium to coarse sponge on the intake strainer in the tank and then have biological media in your trays. This should give you some mechanical filtration to avoid your biological media becoming clogged up quickly and while it will reduce flow, your biological media will remain cleaner for longer. You can easily access the sponge on the filter strainer to clean it regularly, rather than having to open the canister filter to clean the mechanical sponges to maintain flow.
 
Hi all,
replace the given plastic media with a bag of eheim media I have left over and that's it for now. Wondering if the main filter needs a lot of sponges, or if I might remove them for extra flow
I think @Wookii was after the plastic media?

If people don't have an alternative, I actually quite like the Kaldnes K1 type <"floating cell media"> and I wouldn't have any reservations about using it.
Wondering if the main filter needs a lot of sponges,
Same as @ScareCrow for me, if you have your sponges in the pre-filter you probably don't need any in the filter body. We have a <"few threads about these"> where people have drilled more holes in the intake and swapped the pre-filter ones for a coarser grade of sponge.
then crams in as much biological media as he possibly can
Is that the very expensive premium grade media he sells, I wonder?

cheers Darrel
 
Thanks for this, just gone down a UKAPS rabbithole once again reading these these threads and being led into more! I thought the layering of the sponges sounded good, but looks like I will just replace the given plastic media with a bag of eheim media I have left over and that's it for now. Wondering if the main filter needs a lot of sponges, or if I might remove them for extra flow. You're so good at returning me to the righteous path of fishkeeping @dw1305! 😅

The only thing i did from that video is drill extra holes in the prefilter tube, no idea if it improved things as i did it before i started using it, but i imgine it would help a little.

I have a blue sponge in the bottom tray, then a couple of baskets with a little bit of seachem matrix and fluval ceramic rings, each tray is about 1/4 full. Then the top basket is the orange (finer) foam, flow is decent.
 
Is that the very expensive premium grade media he sells, I wonder?
Yeah, essentially Gucci alfagrog.

If you're really sad (like me) you can line all the media up so that it restricts flow as little as possible. It's two layers of what I think is Fluval ceramic media. The most concerning part is that this wasn't done to while away a few hours of lockdown, I did this years ago.
IMG_20210304_135841.jpg
 
I've not read the links but what I've seen in some of his videos is that he likes a few stages of mechanical filtration and then crams in as much biological media as he possibly can. My take on this (and from what has been said here it seems similar) is that this will massively impair flow through the filter making it less efficient at both mechanical and biological filtration. Knowing what we do about the water filtering capabilities of plants and archaea, for me biological filtration isn't as much of a concern especially if you have emergent growth. Personally I tend to use filters more for their mechanical filtration than their biological capabilities but if you were going to utilise them for biological filtration, I'd put a medium to coarse sponge on the intake strainer in the tank and then have biological media in your trays. This should give you some mechanical filtration to avoid your biological media becoming clogged up quickly and while it will reduce flow, your biological media will remain cleaner for longer. You can easily access the sponge on the filter strainer to clean it regularly, rather than having to open the canister filter to clean the mechanical sponges to maintain flow.
Yes he does seem to cram it in! I think your take is right, that it's better to have just a bit of media for filtration, but to keep in mind that flow is v important, I won't stuff the filter!

Hi all,

I think @Wookii was after the plastic media?

If people don't have an alternative, I actually quite like the Kaldnes K1 type <"floating cell media"> and I wouldn't have any reservations about using it.

Same as @ScareCrow for me, if you have your sponges in the pre-filter you probably don't need any in the filter body. We have a <"few threads about these"> where people have drilled more holes in the intake and swapped the pre-filter ones for a coarser grade of sponge.

Is that the very expensive premium grade media he sells, I wonder?

cheers Darrel
Oh that's interesting, when I set mine up @Wookii can have it I think, I need to check that I have enough eheim small balls and big penne first, but I think I should have enough already.

I'll look into drilling the holes, that bit does make sense for flow, though I might try to buy an extra pipe for it. Glad to see there's an easy consensus on this here to make it nice and simple. Don't know why I ever look at anything else 😂

The only thing i did from that video is drill extra holes in the prefilter tube, no idea if it improved things as i did it before i started using it, but i imgine it would help a little.

I have a blue sponge in the bottom tray, then a couple of baskets with a little bit of seachem matrix and fluval ceramic rings, each tray is about 1/4 full. Then the top basket is the orange (finer) foam, flow is decent.
Great!! Thanks for describing the way yours is set up, I think this will be my plan too. Do you clean the prefilter weekly?
 
Yes he does seem to cram it in! I think your take is right, that it's better to have just a bit of media for filtration, but to keep in mind that flow is v important, I won't stuff the filter!


Oh that's interesting, when I set mine up @Wookii can have it I think, I need to check that I have enough eheim small balls and big penne first, but I think I should have enough already.

I'll look into drilling the holes, that bit does make sense for flow, though I might try to buy an extra pipe for it. Glad to see there's an easy consensus on this here to make it nice and simple. Don't know why I ever look at anything else 😂


Great!! Thanks for describing the way yours is set up, I think this will be my plan too. Do you clean the prefilter weekly?

Yup i clean the prefilter weekly, usually the day after a water change as this gives the prefilter a chance to suck up any detritus i didn't manage to suck up during the water change. Also gives it a chance to suck up any plant bits after a trim.

I clean the tubing and glassware every 3 weeks, just as it develops a slight brown film. I clean the filter and media itself every 4 weeks and make sure i clean and lubricate the seals too.
 
Hi all,

I think @Wookii was after the plastic media?

I am indeed! :wave:👀

Oh that's interesting, when I set mine up @Wookii can have it I think, I need to check that I have enough eheim small balls and big penne first, but I think I should have enough already.

That would be very kind! I could swap you for a tray of Eheim balls if you like, pre-seeded with bacteria!
 
This is a picture of my latest monstera cutting that's currently sat in a bucket waiting for me to get on with the new build. Not as big as the last one yet but coming along, apart from a little tatty leaf edges. That's a 30cm ruler for scale and it's just beginning to get nice fenestrations. Sorry the pics are dark but it should serve as a warning for people who want to add emersed growth to their nanos :oops:

20210303_132438.jpg
20210303_132416.jpg
20210303_132315.jpg
 
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