Archivarium 2004

vafd · New Members Joined: 30 Dec 2004 Location: london.on.ca

This is my first attempt to create aquascape. I would greatly appreciate your critique.

Couple of close-up shots:

Regards.

Vladimir.

SLACkra

beautiful tank! could we get a list of the flora and fauna of the tank? what equitment do you have on the tank(filtrer heater ect)? do you inject co2, what fertilizers if any do you use? great first scape! only thing I could add is it would be nice to have a tall plant to put in the back right of the tank instead of just seeing black.

andrew
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32g planted community
7.5g Nano Reef
1 four legged wonder napper
2 winged demons

vafd · New Members Joined: 30 Dec 2004 Location: london.on.ca

SLACkra,

Thank you for comments.

Totally agree on the emptiness of the background. Initially I wanted to have some medium sized plants there, on the right side. In fact E. angustifolius is there but it is hidden by overgrown Riccia rocks. Which were redone yesterday, so now I have to figure out how to convert a quart of densely packed Riccia into something useful and/or monetary.

I use EI and dose NPK on weekly 50% WC at 5-0.5-5 ppm, and NP (2.5 and 0.25 ppm) and Flourish (1 mL) on alternate days through a week (so 3 times each). I have DIY yeast CO2 through bell diffuser (rationale being that as the surface area is constant and CO2 production is sufficient to purge chamber once in a while, you can get more stable CO2 concentration even with yeast setup). Also recently I started to dose Excel at recommended dosage and it seems to help. Macros are potassium nitrate, phosphate and chloride.

Fauna:

11 Cardinal Tetras
4 Otos (do not know species exactly)
Lots of MTS and ramshorn snails

Flora:

Riccia
Java moss
Lysimachia nummularia "Aurea"
Echinodorus angustifolius
Hydrocotyle verticillata
Pistia and giant duckweed (Spirodela polyrhiza)

Equipment:

2x23 W Cool White screw-in PC
AC Mini
Ugly white heater from Walmart (it was QT initially, so it was price not looks that decided, would like to get Visitherm Stealth eventually)

Regards.

Vladimir.

Doosharm · Regulars Joined: 12 Apr 2003 Location: Raymond, NH

That's a beautiful little tank. I really wish I could create something that looked anywhere near that nice. I love the wood and the contrast of the wood/rocks on the plants. I also like the plants hanging down from the top. Kind of reminds me of the weeping willows near my house when I was a kid. I know that you are trying to fill up the black spot but personally I like it. Keep up the good work!

Doosharm

nonamethefish · Moderators Joined: 06 Feb 2003

I agree with the others-this is a very nice tank. I agree you should get the back filled in. Maybe it is just me-but it almost seems to "neat" for my tastes. I see what appear to be roots of water lettuce(Pistia stratoides) poking in from above. Those are going to get out of hand without careful trimming but you are probably used to that Smile

Marcos Avila · Moderators Joined: 05 Feb 2003 Location: Hiroshima (JP)

That's a really nice start. I would reposition your piece of driftwood so that it went up diagonally...for some aesthetic reason vertical pieces of wood in tanks don't look so good...
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SLACkra

heres my idea. tilt the piece of wood diagnoly to the right and place a small dwarf anubias on the top of it. so the wood leans into the black space and you have a cool little anubias which will hopefully flower now and then.

vafd · New Members Joined: 30 Dec 2004 Location: london.on.ca

SLACkra,

Dosing schedule is the following:

Sat - 50% WC, add 5 ppm of nitrate in the form of KNO3, 0.5 ppm of phosphate in and KH2PO4 and 5 ppm of potassium in KCl. Add 5 mL of Flourish Excel (DOC source).
Sun, Tue and Thu - 1 mL of Flourish (traces source) and 1 mL of Flourish Excel.
Mon, Wed, Fri - 2.5 ppm of nitrate and 0.25 of phosphate, 1 mL of Flourish Excel.

NPK stands for Nitrogen (N), Phosphorus (P) and Potassium (K).

Sahara22588 · Regulars Joined: 29 Mar 2004 Location: Michigan

Very nice. I like to see people who do something really nice with their ten gallons, instead of just getting bright blue gravel and fake castles (like I have done in the past). I'm going to try and go planted tank with my new 110, but I need some better lights first...

Byez! Very Happy

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discuszeke · Members Joined: 18 Jan 2005

Don't get me wrong, it's a beautiful tank. Even though I know basically nothing about planted aquariums I'll just tell you what I think...

- I love the piece of wood where it's at

- I think your foreground plants look a little ugly together and the way they are positioned

- I think you have too many different kinds of foreground plants maybe?

Anyways, its an overall beautiful looking tank, thats just what I think. Great tank.

-Zeke