I got around to taking a few pictures finally. Its not what I really envisioned and I am not very happy with it but I have had no algae for weeks and I am in shock.:) The problem is the HC kepts getting stirred up by my loach and snails, and the glosso keeps growing up as much as out. If I had enough HC I would plant the whole thing with it and get rid of the loach. The hardscape is not my favorite either but I can't say I hate it to much. I am waiting for this to fill in and complete itself so I can swap out the SMS for aquasoil and probably go for a more traditional scape, maybe even a little dutch... I haven't decided.

Quick Update

I recently rescaped my Mini M and 60g . Both tanks are not exactly what I wanted, but I don't have any better ideas at the moment. The Mini M after this picture was taken had a few adjustments to the hardscape and a thorough cleaning of the filter pipes.:) I was also experimenting with different types of backgrounds and possible backlighting. For some reason I think the pink looked the best. I am not normally a pink person but until the arcuata reddens up the scape is rather dull color wise.

Vacation Strikes Again

I just recently returned from 2 weeks of vacation and 1 week of Sierra Service Project. I came home to a disaster of a 60g. Tons of brown fluffy algae everywhere. My dosing system had a couple quirks and it wasn't dosing as much as it should have. Now I have a forest of glosso covered with brown algae instead of the field I left three weeks ago.

I have decided that I will wait to replant the tank until I receive my ADA aquasoil and pincettes. This might take a little while so I am deciding whether I want to try the same hardscape or go for something different. Leave a comment if you have any suggestions.

The Mini M was struck by crazy amounts of U. gibba. It took over the back of the tank where it gets very diffused sunlight but enough for it to flourish. I also had a little bba and the HC seems to have died at its base. I had lowered the amount of light to slow everything down while I was on vacation and it worked really well on everything except for the grown in HC I think I am going to have to replant it before I can call it a completed tank. Thats a real shame because the rest of the tank has really come along.

The 29g suffered a loss of javafern for somereason the java fern melted. I still have a little bit of both the regular and narrow leaf left but they don't look great. Besides some bga on the glass and some diatoms on the sand it survived pretty well. If only the Java fern had not melted on me.:(

Over all I have had my work cut out for me since I have been back. I don't know whether I should try and save the java fern I have and try and regrow it or buy a couple new plantlets and jump start the regrowing process.

Update on 60g Glosso Iwagumi

I have a few plants floating to add some plant mass and hopefully help with any algae I will develop. The glosso is starting to fill in. It started to grow up because of the way I planted it but it starting to bend over and creep. As you can see there are a few places that the glosso floated up and I haven't been able to replant yet.

29g From start to Now

I started this tank a few years back. I purchased the Petsmart 29g kit and It began from there.

Here are a few pictures tracing its history.:)

This is a couple months after I had started the tank. I didn't know that much about fish but I knew I liked the rope fish in that picture. They claimed it didn't eat fish but every once and a while a danio would go missing. Man thats almost criminal what I am doing to those fish in that tank...:)


This is a little less than a year later. I put anubias in there and had one 18w bulb for a 29g tank. :)


This is about one year later. I just started with plants. As you can see I used a rather unconventional material to tie the anubias to the rocks. Don't make fun of my nerdy pose. I was caught by surprise. I didn't know a couple years later I would be showing it on the Internet.




This is a picture just after receiving my plants from Aquariumplants.com. They came in pretty decent. I got hit by bad green water right away. You can already see it coming. I covered the tank, complete black out for 3 days. Threw some micros, and macros in there, got the DIY co2 cooking and It went away. First algae battle was a success. I only lost the Rotala macrandra v. narrow leaf. This was not a big surprise because it didn't look that great right out of the box.



This is a picture after winning the first algae battle. I lost a few plants and the water is still clearing up.




This next picture is my first attempt at an aquascape. This is before I had learned anything straight from my head, unhindered by the common aquascaping rules and conventions.... So don't go making fun of it.:) Thats glosso in the middle areas. It actually grew quite well for me. Unlike my recent attempts in my 60g.(Read last post)



I know this looks like I had found out about Iwagumi and the art of arranging three stones... Its not. I just had three rocks and I arranged them into a sort of mountain. It also is quite a bit out of the golden ratio. To far to the right. It also has no midground on the left side.



As you can see here I could tell something was missing so i started to try and create a midground. I really didn't know what I was doing I just went with what looked right... I grew the cabomba really dense on the left side and did a decent job hiding the reactor... Of course I never bothered to move the airline...



This is a couple months later I centered my mountain and made a rather symmetrical scape. I was just concentrating on growing the plants and despite only having DIY co2 it grew quite well. Didn't do a good job of hiding the co2 reactor though.


I finally started to learn a little and This tank was supposed to grow into a triangular scape with higher stems tapering to the right. It has a nice fielf of blyxa. I should have had a foreground space inbetween the glass and the blyxa, you live and you learn...


This is that same tank a couple weeks later when we returned from vacation. I had rigged up an airpump to pump fertilizers into the tank. It worked ok the only problem was I am pretty sure the tank lights never turned off. The timer I used was broken when I returned and I am not sure how long it had been like that. The water had fallen to where the end of the white water marks are in this picture. I am lucky I had a cannister filter that kept running. It kept my fish alive. Well most of them. All of that blyxa died. I haven't kept it since. I tried a few months later in my 60g but it melted.


This was my first scape when I got back to that disaster. This is a couple months after the rescape when i planted some extra Eleocharis parvula from my 60g scape. I ended up using most of it to plant the 60g because the HC I got was destroyed during shipping.





I changed it over time to this.


Then I had BGA problems... So I rescaped it again without stems. It didn't have many plants but I added some more right after this picture was taken.



Finally I got some Crypts from Mike (SCAPE president), some more anubias from Ron(SCAPE member), and I got some moss from Cassie(SCAPE officer). I got the Manzanita wood and a few plantlets of Narrow leaf Java fern from Ed (SCAPE Officer). So this tank is really a club effort. The regular java fern is the same plantlet that can be seen way back over a year ago. It just kept growing through all the turmoil. Same with the anubias. 3/4 of the anubias in the last picture cam from the two plants in my second picture.

2nd and 3rd 60g Rescapes

I was not happy with the the hardscape on the last tank I redid. It also didn't want to grow the glosso the way I wanted it to grow. It kept growing up...


I decided to try something a little different and combine some riccia and tenellus in with the glosso. This also failed at the hand of massive amounts of brown and blue-green algae. The algae forced the glosso to grow up because it shaded it...



This is my 3rd attempt at a Glosso iwagumi. I found a picture in Takashi Amano's book Nature Aquarium World 1. On page 91. It inspired me to try something like that. My aquascape is different in mine uses a much darker and sharp hardscape. Amano used petrified wood that gives a much warmer feel. My rocks instead will contrast sharply with the bright green glosso and hopefully have a nice effect.

Evolution of My M.

Here is a list of pictures showing the progression of my Mini M since the end of March.

Here is a picture of the stand. I drilled it into my concrete floor to make sure it wouldn't fall over. It is very top heavy and the footprint is rather small so I am hoping this keeps me from bumping it over. In the event of a severe earthquake I think I will lose the tank though. :)




I rushed the aquascape a little on this one. I had waited a few months to get everything and assemble the stand so I was anxious. I like the rocks I used, but I don't like the effect. Maybe if I had more rock I could have made it work.




Here is my first planting. This was rushed too. I just used the plants from my 60g Iwagumi and a couple stems I had floating around.




Soon after I went to All About Fish in Long Beach, CA and purchase some Mayaca fluvatilius, and Diplis diandra. This really added a lot to the tank. The Diplis diandra was a little to picky for me and would go green and then back to red. It also seemed to rot at the base when i trimmed the tops. I guess I don't have enough light over the tank.





I then grew the plants in replanting tops and moving things around a little.




A few weeks growing in. One month after start up. 4/28/07



This is the same time just with the background off and from the side with the blinds open.





After this Picture the Tenellus really started to take over. I had to rim it off the HC all of the time and it just kept growing up. I didn't take any pictures this time with a proper background so they all seem a little dark in front. This one is the best because I used the flash. This is the only whole tank shot I have ever taken that looked decent with a flash.


These where the final pictures I took of this aquascape. It is obvious that it is not done but during that next week the tenellus grew much faster than even the fast growing stem plants. It was to much to just try and trim. I was playing around with backgrounds to see what I like and Its inbetween the blue and the red...




This is what it looks like after the re-scape. I took out the rocks and added Manzanita wood. I replanted everything except for the HC in the front. I also really need to clean the intakes and get a glass diffusor this wood one is hideous.

Update: Redid 60g

I finally got around to replanting my 60g iwagumi. I decided to try a complete glosso scape and I planted it last week. I had some technical problems in the beginning and the glosso grew upwards. I am going to have to replant most of it to get the look I am striving for.

I am going to keep the same green neons they still fit the scape well. Not as well as maybe a bright white or red fish but there subtle green will blend with the glosso better.

The hardscape is a little rough but I can't seem to find something I like better. I might turn the largest rock around when I replant just to see how it looks. I will post pics later. If you want to just look at random pics of my tanks here is a link:

http://picasaweb.google.com/William.Reksc/41007

Fresh Start

This is my first Attempt at online blogging and the basis for this journal will be my Planted aquariums. I am still getting used to the whole system and you are bound to find quirks that need to be corrected.

Today I added some Anubias barteri var. nana to my 29g tank. This is my second addition to this tank this week and after a nice period of time I will post updated photos of this tank. Here is an old photo of some nana in my tank just to give you a hint of what it looks like and how useful of a plant it is.(Thanks Ron:))



I am currently sort of trying to breed my Apistogramma biteaniata. I have tried co2, peatmoss, and now regular tap to try and get them to breed. It seems that I will have to invest in a RO/DI unit before this ever becomes a success.