3 tank

Welp, things haven't been too good on the plant front.

2 foot tank is still it's desolate self. I shuffle around the driftwood and the pot whenever i do a water change, which is weekly. I am itching for lockdown to end so i can redo everything. The anubias and s repens are doing pretty well though, which is gratifying, considering i have done nothing but add food and change water since i ripped everything out.

45p tank has been a total failure. The lily died completely, as i think i pruned it too aggressively. The tank was smelling rotten, and the lily was the source of the smell. The crypts were doing pretty well, then i did a 50% water change and everything promptly melted. All the s repens melted away too, including the stems, so no success there either. The crypts are rebounding, but taking their sweet time.

I'm taking this period of forced inactivity to do lots of reading up on substrates/substrate systems, lighting, CO2, fert dosing etc, as well as thinking about eventual plans. The 45p has shown me how difficult it is to work in smaller tanks without the correct equipment, and by making do with regards to tank placement, hardscape selection etc.

Seeing the change in fish behaviour once i ripped everything out of the 2 foot tank has also made me realise that, for me, tank setup shouldn't be purely aesthetic and should be suited to the planned livestock inhabitants. For instance, the corydoras are far more active now that there aren't any plants that can hide them. Previously they all hid under the crypts and only came out for food. Now they are zooming around almost all the time. Same for the green neon tetras and sparkling gourami. However, the betta has definitely become less active and far more sedentary, spending most of his time sitting on the heater clip of the filter.

The 2 45p tanks will probably end up becoming my plant holding/hoarding tanks, and the 2 foot will become a betta mansion. At a later stage, once i can find a place for it and afford it, i'll probably go for a community tank again, but on the larger side of the scale. I'll grab some photos later

 

Seeing as the world is slowly opening up again, i think i'm going to stop off at the nearby Builders or Chamberlains and see about getting some topsoil, lava rock and small terracotta pots. I'm going to mineralise the top soil, although winter isn't the ideal time for that, and use it as a mid layer in the pots. From bottom to top it would be: Coarse sponge, crushed lava rock, mineralised top soil, aquasoil. At the moment it will just be the crypts going back in. Waiting for the mineralisation to be done should also help them get a bit stronger again after their transplantation and subsequent melting.

I've been reading the Advanced Planted Tank website quite a lot, and this is similar to how he sets up his aquascape. Mineralising the topsoil will minimise its ability to become anaerobic, as there will be very little organic matter left for bacteria to break down while consuming o2. Elevating the pots will also help improve overall circulation, as the pots have a hole in the base too. It's kind of like a dirted tank, except with aquasoil as a cap rather than sand or gravel.

My other plans are to see about returning the panda cories, trilineatus cory, green neons, sparkling gourami and the 3 nerites to the LFS that i originally got them from. All i'll be left with is the betta and 3 amano shrimp. I've found that the nerites are not really doing their job of cleaning algae from hardscape, and the eggs they leave everywhere are getting a touch annoying. Scrubbing glass and hardscape isn't something i mind doing, as it's currently part of my water change routine anyway.

I'm giving serious thought to a CO2 system as well, along with all the necessary pieces for EI dosing. I have found suppliers for everything, just need to pile it all together. There are also thoughts around a DIY planted filter, kind of like an HOB refugium with hidden heater, but there is still a lot of modelling and tweaking needed before that comes to fruition.

 

Plans are definitely in action. I stopped off at my LFS today and picked up some lily pipes, along with 7 different pots of plants. I got:
Cryptocoryne undulatus "Red"
Hydrocotyle tripartita
Hygrophila pinnatifida
Rotala Rotundifolia
Limnophila aromatica
Alternanthera Reinickii "Mini"
Hemianthus Micranthemoides

Of the 7, i've had H. Micranthemoides and H. tripartita before, but the rest are totally new to me. I also got a bag of top soil and some black crush soil. The betta will go into the 30 litre tank where the other crypts are being held while i wait for the top soil to cycle and some of the plants to fill in. I forgot to buy the hardscape though, so that will have to happen over the weekend. The Tidal 55 is going to get boxed up and sent down to @Lowflyer7 today, and the C1000 is going to take over filter duties. The tank is going to move slightly further over to take advantage of the morning sun currently piling through the window

 

Sounds awesome! What is black crush soil?

 

Woops, meant to say black crush rock, not soil

 

Never really realise how dirty the glass is until i need to take a photo...anyway, here's the basic idea. Tubes for the canister still need to get trimmed, and hopefully the hardscape and plants will cover up that heater.

 

Mid morning sunlight:

Camera dimmed it down quite a lot, it's a fair bit brighter. Other tank is almost ready for the betta, just waiting for it to get up to temperature. Once he's in and acclimated, I'll start cleaning this out and prepping the substrate.

 

3 pieces of spiderwood are now soaking in a tub outside. Betta tank is almost up to temp, just need to harvest the substrate and cypts before plopping him in. Also got 3 more amano shrimp, as i have a sneaky feeling i'm going to have an algae explosion in the first week or 2. If the amanos can look after hair algae, I'm happy to scrub the rest by hand. I'm going to do daily water changes for about the first week, then slowly taper back down to my usual 50% once a week. I am going to have to be much more careful with water changes now due to the dirt layer that i'm including, so i may end up scavenging and hacking up a water bottle to help with this

 

I had a busy and pretty fun afternoon scaping the tank. All plants except for the h. tripartita are in, as i just didn't know where to put it. I kinda ran out of space. The s repens in the pot had a monster root system, and had grown down through the filter pad. Here are some photos.

Plants all laid out:


Black crush stone:

I didn't worry too much about getting the tank immaculate first, seeing as it's going to be a dirted tank.

The 3 pieces of spiderwood were combined and placed as an island. From the top:


From the front:


Start of the planting, just s repens in the foreground. I used shorter, single stems in the middle and larger clumps on the sides:


Planting finished:

Foreground is s repens, mid ground is a mix of crypt wendtii green and crypt axelrodi, with the crypt undulatus "Red" placed in front and to the right of the center of the driftwood. In the background, from left to right, is alternanthera reineckii mini, rotala rotundifolia, limnophila aromatica and hemianthus micranthemoides. Driftwood has 1 large piece of needle leaf java fern, a few small pieces of bolbitis heudolitii, 1 hygrophila pinnatifida in the back, and a few small anubias plants dotted around.

View from the front:


Filled up:


Water is still super murky, i suspect from the crush stone and topsoil, but that should clear with time and a few water changes. There is a large piece of dragon stone currently weighing it down, as the wood is still super bouyant. The amano shrimp appear to be pretty happy, so i may be able to add the betta sooner than expected. I also modified the credenza that the aquarium is on so that i can hide the canister filter. I'm not super happy with how the lily pipes are setup, as the stiff hose is pulling them out of place, but it is perfectly functional.

Overall i'm pretty happy with how things are looking. I might need to reattached some of the epiphytes, as i think they moved as i was filling it up, but otherwise everything else stayed put.

Lastly, a photo of my work from home setup:

 

Wow, @fux940510! It's looking really good! Well done! Looking forward to the coming pics once the water has cleared.

Sent from my MAR-LX1M using Tapatalk

 

Thanks! I really hope that using the dirt under the aquasoil doesn't cause everything to go belly up, as i'm really liking this scape and plant selection

 

1 thing i did notice about the s repens is that, while it didn't grow much, it grew super compact. I think it really liked the morning sun and the opportunity for a deep root system. Hopefully with some ferts and a little bit of extra CO2 from the bell diffuser should kick the growth up a notch

 

Good luck with this!!! Can't wait to see it in a few weeks time

 

Thanks, me too!