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I've been consuming tons of information from this amazing forum and decided its time to start my own journal.
One, to get constructive criticism/suggestions on how to improve which would be most welcome and two, just to show other approaches to starting a new tank as everyone thinks a bit differently and to see other peoples perspective.

I only started using pressurised CO2 about 18 months ago so haven't been in the hobby that long.

The first pic below was of said attempt starting with CO2. The other reason for showing that tank is I'm using the same physical tank and also starting off the new setup with plants from that tank.

Speaking of the tank, as you will see in the first pic of the new build it is an old second hand rimmed tank with less than stellar glass. In my list of planned upgrades one of them will be to order a low iron rimless tank so I can actually appreciate what's inside it. I can never get a photo to show a clear shot of the tank. Its not a great tank but it is definitely clearer than what the photos show. I think the camera really highlights how crappy the glass is lol.

No direct inspiration here apart from including a reasonable amount of hardscape and probably having a more nature style tank, so not so formal.

I've had a large piece of driftwood hanging around that I've wanted to use in a scape. I've used it previously in a larger tank but was a fish only tank. I do know after a year submerged (tied down) it still went straight to the top when released/untied so is basically unsinkable. Not sure of the type of wood though.

I also cut it in half depth wise as it was too large for a 4 foot tank.
After trying to glue it to rocks around it etc I filled the tank...and of course all went to hell. The driftwood wanted to get to the surface so bad it broke away from the glue LOL. So I had to start the scape with a large rock sitting on it and the driftwood in a different position from where it started. Temporary at first but now I plan to cover the rock with epiphytes etc so it should be ok eventually, just not so much right now. One of those it is what it is. I'm only playing around here anyways.

I'll also say, as per the heading of this journal, I'm treating this as an experimental tank, not even close to a show tank. I'll purchase a nice tank when I think I'm at a level where I deserve to bring it justice so not yet. Hopefully this tank will bring me a long way towards that point.

I've only previously used organic soil capped with sand (so the classic dirted tank). That provides good growth for around 6 months or so but if a lot of the organics start rising up and leaching into the water column, its not such a great setup for high tech tanks. Ask how I know!

I've never used aqua soil. I would like to try one day but for now decided to skip that and go straight to inert. Encouraged purely by some of you on here that have been using BDBS. That is what I would like to have used but not readily available in Aus so I'm using pool filter sand for this rendition.

Apologies for the rambling, onto the details.

Started around 5th January, did the full changeover from the old setup

Tank size:

• 122 cm x 47 cm deep x 45 cm high (uhmm so in imperial 48" x 18.5" x 17.5")
• Litres/gallons - 258 litres / 68 Gallons

Filter

• Just what I have on hand and had been using in the tank (Aqua One Nautilus 1100) so around 290 G/H so of course in reality a lot less than that. Only filled mainly with sponges though, limited the bio media.
• I have a perfectly working FX5 sitting in the shed gathering dust but I think too powerful for this size tank. That connected to a Yugang reactor though and one inch lily pipes could be a good combo. Will have to think about that for the future.

Wave maker / power head
- Aqua One 8000 reef sim (apart from obviously to help circulation - was mainly put in here to help with the CO2 distribution - so is now situated at the opposite end of the tank to the filter outlet/inlet) Flow from 528 G/H to 2113 G/H. Have it on the lowest setting and probably still too strong

CO2

• Aqualabs Pro dual stage regulator (recently added this, replacing a cheap chinese one from ebay - about 6 times the cost!)
• Aqualabs inline diffuser
• Gets to around 45 ppm but I need to do some more refined testing ( I only have the JBL CO2 kit but seems to be working ok)
• CO2 starts 3.5 hours before lights start and 4 hours before lights build up to their set level.

Water
- Tap (GH 7 KH 6), PH is around 7.6-7.8 out of the tank - at the moment

Substrate
- Pool filter sand only

Lighting

• Week Aqua L1200 (using Red preset at R - 64%, G - 71% B - 44% and UV - 90%) TBH not sure the UV light does much but it is what it is.
• So the lights aren't on that high, I started off the tank even lower but crept it up to what it is now.

Initial plant list (as mentioned just selecting some from previous iteration of this tank)

• MC as the front carpet
• Hygrophila corymbosa (restricted this quite a bit as it grows too fast with direct CO2 access) so hidden in the opposite corner to CO2 lol

-Blyxa Japonica (one of my favourite plants. Its easy to grow but I wish it would grow maybe slightly slower so it doesn't start to take over it surrounds)

• One amazon sword - I wanted to keep one in here to prove you don't need rich substrate
• Crypt wendtii brown - similar to above
• Ludwigia repens
• Helanthium bolivianum 'Quadricostatus (I think thats what it is or similar. produces runners like nothing on earth but a nice looking plant. Thats the one in the back right corner in the first photo of the new setup)
• AR Mini
• Hydrocotyle tripartite mini
• Limnophila Aromatica

I've deliberately not used what i call starter plants to kick it off as I find they can take over easily in a high tech tank, then you have to gradually rip them all out. I know a higher risk of more algae without them but lets go!

Ferts

• DIY Macros and micro mix - Rexolin APN (dosed for water tank volume)
• Started 9/2/20 now 10/2.5/20 (yes I know quite low for an inert substrate compared to most and will gradually increase this in time)
• Front load around 50% Macros, then the rest dosed throughout the week - only just started this method to try and limit the swings during the week
• Micros dose evenly throughout the week adding up to 0.45 fe / week

Water change
- Currently around 55% weekly (I will be refining this a bit more too. I have a TDS meter now so will be working out exact water change volume using Rocco's TDS method which will also help with refining the fert dosing)

Current fish list

• Around maybe 15 Rummy nose
• 4 SAE's
• Couple of oto's
• 4 Corys
• 6 Crimson spotted Rainbows ( i received these in a swap, plants for rainbows )

I plan to gradually increase the rainbow collection a bit too over time. Love the Boseman's

Other miscellaneous stuff

• Fluval SK400 surface skimmer (seemed like a little toy when I first set it up but does an ok job actually)
• Aqualabs pro skim lily pipes, and added quick release to the filter hosing to get to these easily. They are glass.
• Inkbird wifi heater control

Upgrades planned

• RO/DI - Just received but need a few more bits and pieces then I'll introduce the RO water over a 4 week period (25/50/75/100). I plan to remineralise to around 5dGH (4:1 for CA:MG), wont be adding any dKH, again following you guys lead here. I think this will be a huge upgrade as my tap water is sourced from a creek and is inconsistent. PH varies between 7 and 8 and KH has risen from 4 to 6 over the last few months.
• CO2 reactor - Looking at the Yugang of course. This will also I think make a big difference compared to inline diffusers. When setting up the tank I put in some work to try and determine the best flow to maximise CO2 distribution but still think I haven't got it right.
• New tank - as mentioned above
• Possible auto fert doser for the next tank

Ferts uptake and adjusting over time:

• The NO3 seems to provide a consistent 10 ppm before each water change which is the same amount I'm dosing now. Coincidence or is it only using what's readily available in the system. I know with slower growing plants and not a huge plant mass the uptake is obviously less.
• PO4 - similar story, test (which I'm not sure how accurate it is) seems to provide a consistent result of 2 ppm, again similar to what I have been dosing.
• I'll gradually increase both and see where I can find the sweet spot but may wait mainly till after the RO/DI is running.

My initial aim is to try and avoid the infamous diatom stage by using a slightly reduced light schedule and ferts to start the tank.

First impressions for me is the driftwood is too large for this tank but it is a different piece so will persevere whilst in this tank.

Anyways the pic of the tank before I pulled it down;


Start of the new scape.

You can really see the crappy condition of the tank here with the scratches, water stains etc. I'm not too bothered though. It will make me more look forward when I eventually get a nice tank.

Just after filling up and initial planting. You can see the big heavy rock on the right. Without it, the driftwood shoots all over the place.

Noting that entire lot of MC melted soon after this, it wasn't in the best condition when it started though. Hoping it will eventually start up again. I'm patient, uhmm kind of!

It is really weird when a Dutch tank has this particular problem. My friend faced this problem for some weird reason.

Here is tank info

• 40*35*35
• 1.4 W/L ( using mostly red/blue light) 8 hours lighting continously,
• CO2 "green" ( it is not possible to measure CO2 level but the indicator is lime green, m
• pH is 6.5, kH is 3.4
• Temp in avg is 27
• Nitrate level unknow (Probably low). Ammonia 0

Doses EI at 1/3 rec doses daily ( the bottle recommend weekly dose of 2,)
- Water changes in Sunday, 30% with RO

Except Elatine Triandra, ALL of his plant is developing really well meanwhile ET develops serious sign of nitrate deficiency despite everything else, so i am very confused.

Hi to all!
I clean only my front glass weekly. I just let algae (GSA and a bit of GDA) and biofilm grow on the other sides. I am a bit lazy and moreover I wanted to leave some free food for snails and now for my Otos. They were so skinny when I bought them, now they are pretty fat, they look like tadpoles! But the thing is I am getting BBA too on the rear and side glass recently.
About plants, GSA and BBA are only growing on old leaves, mainly of the slow growers. I keep removing those leaves, I remove organics from substrate etc and I am working on my CO2/ferts/lights things. But, excluding aesthetic reason, letting algae grow on the glass makes them "stronger"? I am afraid that it might make me harder to grow plants with little or no algae on their leaves if I have a colony on the glass.

Hello everybody im new here and wanted to introduce my tank,

The tank is a 350 liter Juwel rio (120x50x60)
Pretty high tank but wanted to have 50 cm wide

Lights: 3 daytime onex (1x plant 2x colour)
Good for 180 par at the bottom, 1.5 hour build up/5 hours full and 1.5 hour build off

Co2 by Inline with a co2art series pro dual stage regulator dropping 1.4 in ph

Filtration: 2 external filters (1x crystal profi 900, 1x tetra ex 1500 on a spraybar) and a eheim skim 350

Substrate: mastersoil black powder with masterline root tabs

Fertilizer: apt e

Fish: cherry barbels, siamese algae eaters, kuhli, ottociclus and some bloody mary shrimps

Plants: rotala macandra, anubias tinto, reineckii mini, reineckki rosenarvig, rotala blood red, ludwigia repens super red, bacopa carolinia, lobelia cardinalis, crypto flamingo, crypto rosen maiden, staurogene repens, spiralus tiger, ludwigia inclinata meta, samolus parvifloris red.
Might have forgotten something

Currently battling algae and unhappy plants due to nutrient inbalances and a no3 tester that was not correct.

Under a pic of the current state and the state it was a little better in balance (not as it should tho)

I have always liked Rotala florida as plant due to its strongly colored leaves, but realized that I haven't actually aquascaped much with it - meaning to integrate it as part of a layout and not just growing a bunch of it in farm/collector style tank. Using plants in a layout in tighter bunches, and in competition with surrounding plants/hardscape is much harder than growing it farm style in a single patch - it also means be able to shape/trim the bushes to match the overall curves of the layout.

Back in 2016 or so when I first received Rotala florida samples from north america, I could only grow it in sparser bunches. It looked nice in macro photographs but I could not envision using it an bush that would show off well as part of a layout unless I can grow it much denser. In the recent years, there were two main discoveries that I found in my experimentation, the first is that it grows better in moderate GH (5 dGH+) compared to super soft water (say <3dGH), and that it grew better in certain soil mixes (I experimented with different garden soil mixes when engineering the composition of APT Feast). Eventually I integrated some of the soil data into APT Feast's composition, and paired with the higher power lights readily available today, I find that I could finally grow the plant the way I envisioned as part of overall layout. I could prune it dense, as the base stems were healthy enough to sprout dense side shoots after trimming - and the secondary/tertiary shoot tips were as fully colored and sized similar to a primary shoot tip that hasn't been subjected to topping yet.

As a midground stem, it works very well due to its slower growth rate vs other colored stem plants.

Against the deep purple of Rotala florida, I found that Golden white clouds worked quite well. So now they are the main inhabitants of the tank.

Tank this week (25/6/2025)



Tank started out like this:

A week or 2 after initial planting (5/5/2025). I reused old aquasoil from the previous scape, so I planted all plants up front rather than waiting more time for the tank to stabilize, with the idea that I could out-grow any algae issues. Initially wanted to add H. Chai but it really didn't fit the overall color scheme, and the bushes by the side were too invasive to be compatible with having a chai patch I think.

Since it was going to contain Rotala florida, I thought I might as well throw in other high demand troublesome species such as the Red Eriocaulon quinguangulare, blood vomit. I settled on Rotala tulunadensis for the background as I wanted something dense and shapeable.

Tank specs:
60x36x36cm
Filter: Oase biomaster 250, all sponge media
CO2 injected through inline atomizer
Substrate: APT Feast
Water column: APT Sky to raise GH to 5dGH, 2ml of APTe per day.


Light distance. Interestingly, not crazy high PAR - just around 200-250 umols PAR at the substrate level.



Trimming and shaping: Most bushes were shaped by cutting individual outlier shoots one by one. Only Rotala blood red and the Rotala tulunadensis was straight trimmed across the entire top once.


This is how the Rotala tulunadensis looked like after a straight trim on 29/5/2025. About 3 weeks from when the top picture at top of this page was taken. It took the plant a whole week + to show new shoots. It seems straight trimming slows down the plant quite a bit, but allows for a very dense & neat canopy afterwards.



There are some interesting plants stuffed here and there. Some Eriocaulon caulescens? bolivia? that local hobbyists passed on to me. Carved out a patch for Syngonanthus vichada - slow grower, but the couple of babies that came have doubled in size so I think they should be alright. I think I will move them to a larger tank with more space.









Only discovered the color combination with the Golden white clouds when the tank matured, but its one of my favourite fish-plant combinations now. I think that while some of the species are a bit picky about growth conditions, one thing I really like about this tank is that most things have moderate/slow growth rates, which makes maintenance with regards to removing excess growth less tedious.
Elatine triandra is used as a low growing green filler plant - it does this role well. As it does not root very deeply, I can easily cut and pull off excess growth easily. Its the fasting growing plant in the layout that requires frequent removal of excess growth.

Some more close-ups.








I'm trying to replicate concepts of this layout (slowing growing bushes) into my 4ft tank.

I haven't done this since February. It was well received, but I forget to keep it up. We're all busy. Anyway....

Ever wanted to ask a question or just make a random comment about something but not start a whole thread for it? Do it here with me. Let's chat. I'll start.
Honestly you should feel free to start a new topic if you want, but if you're like me sometimes, you feel silly for starting one for something basic.

1. Some of us chatted before about a shrimp guard for the Eheim 350 Skimmer. Has anyone ever tried THIS one? I tried THIS one but it didn't float so great.

2. Anyone with a HOB have trouble with the shrimp getting into it? How do you get them out?

3. Do you think a UV filter is useful for algae. I know it's not going to cure it, but as part of a multi-pronged strategy in addition to trimming, topping, replanting, etc.

Apparently we are supposed to discuss nutrients? NUTRIENT TUNNEL VISION....
I think the audience gets to ask questions, though you can do the same here any day ha.

Welcome to ScapeCrunch, @derekward!
We would love to get to know you. Please tell us about yourself. What tank do you have?

Well I’m done talking about it, it’s time to get this journal started.

I have been really out of it the last year or so in terms of maintaining my own tank, mainly out of frustration with time constraints and inconsistency with dosing etc. However, I have now acquired a dream tank, rimless and with low iron glass like I’ve always wanted. While I loved having a sump and prided myself on putting it together, I’m past that desire. The AIO allows the same benefits with hiding equipment, and overall easier maintenance without climbing in and out of cabinets. Now onto the details of this build.

Tank: Planet Aquariums Tideline 62 Gallon AIO Lagoon

Filtration: (2) 250gph pumps on either side of the tank with center overflow into socks (I’m going to punch holes in the socks for now and stuff with polyfill, reviews state the socks clog way too quickly and there is no replacement sock as the insert is not the common round style). The baffles will be stuffed with the poret foam I have already from my sump for extra mechanical/biological.

Substrate: The bottom layer will comprise of bagged pond soil/peat/earthworm castings/ STS. This will be a thin layer and will mainly act as filler to raise up the cap of APT Feast. This is similar to a substrate setup I did when I first started back up in 2020, And that tank did very well. While capping with sand and relying on the dirt to feed the stems worked well, it did require a little more effort on my end with dosing. I don’t trust myself to be as diligent as some members on here are with their inert subs, so I’m taking the mulligan and using aquasoil as a cap, hence, “dirty soil.” This will be another island style layout, and the surrounding substrate will be comprised of Caribsea Carolina Creek Sand.

Hardscape: River rock (local hardscape center sourced) and malaysian driftwood. I have recently acquired another large piece of wood and I’m sourcing new stone this week, as what I have just isn’t meshing with my current vision for the tank.

Plants: …. I have not solidified my vision of what this scape will look like just yet as I haven’t been able to setup the hardscape to outline the island. The plan is to use a good amount of colorful stems, epiphytes, and potentially moss.

Lighting: I will be ordering the Week Aqua Z400 this week and am excited to test it out.

That’s all for now, more pictures and details to come. I should hopefully have the hardscape setup by the end of this coming week after acquiring more stone and wood.

CO2: Almost forgot, for Co2 injection I have made a DIY Yugang with a locking food storage container. It will be stored in the cabinet and the hook will feed into the return pump chamber on the right. I initially was bummed that I had to sacrifice storage to fit a 5lb CO2 tank under the stand, which also meant getting rid of of the 20lb tank I’ve only been having to fill twice a year. @GreggZ Will appreciate this, my awesome father in law suggested that I hide the co2 tank in the pantry closet which is directly behind that wall and just drill a hole for the co2 line. Since my father in laws word is pure gold in my wife’s eyes, that suggestion was approved! He’s just as much my dad too so I appreciated him supporting the project

I have been sitting with hardscaping this UNS 90u tank (35.43”L x 22.”W x 22”H) for about 5 weeks. It's tall and deep and I have a perfect view of it from my office desk at the perfect height! The plan is for a high tech, heavily planted tank. I have a big load of different varieties of bucephalandra and anubias arriving in a few weeks that should go great on this hardscape and I am building my plan for the other plants. Here are my final 3 drafts on the hardscape. I am afraid the upper middle quadrant of the tank may have too much empty space being held with leggy stem plants growing towards the light. #1 and #3 seem to be the best choices, with #3 seeming the best. I need to finalize and get this tank filled with water! Any critiques from this experienced bunch?

Substrate: Gravel with root tabs
CO2: Yes
Light: Chirios WRGB2 Pro 90
Hardscapre: Dragon Stone and Driftwood
Filter: Oase Biomaster 2 600 (already fishless cycling on 20 gallon tub from home depot)


I appreciate the feedback.