Journal 120cm low maintenance nature scape

Hey Steve! Thanks for the video. It's so relaxing seeing tanks live (well, in motion on video).

Make sure you add this Build Thread to your profile as per the link and get a cool user banner in the process. This way people can easily find your build thread.

What are the details of the tank? I'm a gear guy so I have to know.
 
Hey @Art - this is my lifetime achievement tank, so it has all the bells and whistles. It took years of slowly acquiring everything, but I am a firm believer of buying it once, and buying it right.

Tank is a 120 cm x 60 cm x 50 cm low iron rimless from MyNaturia. It sits on a DIY stand. Lighting is provided by 2 x Chihiros Vivid2 on Chihiros light hangers. Filtration is a GLA Infinite Nature 15L filter packed full of bio rings and is rigged with glass lily pipes. It pushes water through a NilocG CO2 reactor which is fed by a GLA co2 regulator. Substrate is Tropica and the hardscape, consisting of horn wood, was custom designed by the good folks at SR Aquaristic. Fertilization is 10ml of APT complete daily, water is filtered by RO, and remineralized by APT sky at a rate of about 3 tsp per 15 gallons. 50% weekly water changes and careful cleaning/siphoning of the carpet - about 25% of the area every week, rotating throughout so that over the course of the month, everything gets attention.

I recently switched to APT sky after doing DIY minerals forever. I liked the tank, but I wasn't sure I was getting 100% out of everything. Hard to argue with Dennis' work, and so I decided I'd go all in on his line of minerals and ferts to see what this scape could do. I'm pretty happy with the APT sky... and in my first week of using it, I'm seeing a few things I like - especially with a slight nagging green dust alage issue I had.

I measure nothing anymore. I suppose I get somewhere around 1.0 pH drop (7.0 to 6.0ish?? When lights come on), and GH is probably around 6-7, KH should be 0. No idea what NPK is, I just follow the directions on the bottle and hope for the best, LOL! At the end of the day consistency is king!

Plants in this scape were chosen to be relatively low maintenance and be somewhat of a collector tank. I will do my best with the spelling of the names, but I guarantee some are mis-spelled, or I might not be using most current names.

It is dominated by a dwarf hair grass 'belem' carpet, a big clump of Erio Veitnam, and Erio Paske Lao a small E. cuspidatum clings to life. There are a handful of swords including E. opaceous 'Rio verde' and 'rataj', E. iguazu, E. soekenaro, E. 'Purple Knight', E. 'Kleiner Bar', and E. 'Malang pink'. There are a few Cryptocoryne including C. jacobsoni 'pink', C. Nuri 'Rosen maiden' and 'pink line', C. Spiralis 'Tiger', C. sivadasanii and C. Lutea. A few of my favorite stems are included - Hygrophila siamensis 53b, H. araguia, and Physostegia purpurea. There are a few Anubias including Nana 'golden' and 'pinto' and one of the micro-type nanas as well. There are 2 different Crepidomoides including malabaricum and auriculatum. A nice little clump of Callicostellata prabaktiana moss found its way into the scape. A few little odds and ends buce are around too. Finally, I have rounded out the collection with a few Java ferns including Microsorium 'India' and 'coral/mini-trident' and 'wendelov'. Yikes, that list has grown over the past year!

Livestock includes 8ish cardinals, 12ish long finned white clouds, 2 rogue otocinclus, and several hundred wild type caridinia shrimp that were supposed to be Amanos, but have ended up being way cooler!

All in all, this was designed to be pretty low maintenance. Some will know me from the past for doing a stem 'Dutchy Style' in this tank using T5HOs and inert vlack diamond blasting sand... but that was way more work than I could manage with kiddos at home. This scape has been wonderful!

It struggles with some Green Dust Algae and this summer I fell behind and ended up with some Cladophora, Black Beard Algae, and Green Spot Algae. I'm slowly trimming away the leaves most affected by Green Spot Algae, and Spot treating away the worst of the BBA and Clado with H2O2. I did run about a 2 week course of high dose Excel to give the Clado and BBA a good knock before going more manual. Gotta be careful with that, and it isn't a move I'd be too comfortable recommending.

I'm sure there will be more questions, so fire away!

--Steve
 
Last edited:
I can't say enough good about the Sr Aquaristik team and their hardscape capabilities. Without a doubt, this is not an easy price point to get into, but they were very patient with me and sent lots of pictures. There are probably 3 or 4 really different and really nice layouts that could be done with these pieces - so not unlike anything else with a high end scape, it's a buy it right and buy it once kind of thing. It should last a lifetime, and allow me to change things up in the future.

Again, this is the culmination of years of planning, saving, selling trimmings, little side hustles, waiting for sales, asking for gift cards at holidays and B-Day, etc etc. Things like this don't happen overnight to most folks, me included.

P.s. I've since visited the SR Aquaristik store outside of Chicago, and it meets all expectations. Pretty wild selection of hardscape to see in person.

--Steve
 
mn_aquascape said:
2 x Chihiros Vivid2 on Chihiros light hangers
Click to expand...
OK so I can't help taking your pieces apart and asking questions. What do you think of these lights? Are they set it and forget it or how did you choose your light spectrum?
mn_aquascape said:
GLA Infinite Nature 15L filter
Click to expand...
Same with the filter. I've heard mixed things so would love your feedback on what you like and dislike about it.
mn_aquascape said:
APT complete daily
Click to expand...
With Dennis' fertilizer line, where are you purchasing it from? When I spoke to him months ago, he was still trying to figure that out for the USA.

A complete fertilizer line like Dennis', ADA, Tropica, even the USA brands such as Seachem and Brightwell, makes it easy for people. I'm a big fan.

As everyone says, depending on your tank size and your desire to tinker, DIY starts to be the better choice but for nano and moderate tanks, it's hard to beat the good pre-made brands.

What does the SKY have in it?
 
I used the preprogrammed plant setting on the chihiros and tweaked it slightly from there to bring the power down a little. The saturation of the greens and reds is really insane. It took a little bit getting used to it.
Screenshot_20221222_080245.jpg

The GLA filter is a beast. But it takes work to maintain. It doesn't like the lily intake or hoses to be dirty at all. I've thought about adding a second intake to help with that. I believe there is enough negative presure that can build up in the filter that it draws air in from somewhere (I'm guessing the quick disconnects) that it can almost break its prime . It also doesn't like having dirty magnet housing on the pump. Any little crud buildup and the thing makes a terrible noise. In general, mine makes a humming sound that bothers me sometimes. Don't get me wrong, it's a great filter, but its not a set and forget... and it might be one of the most finicky filters I've had. Keep it happy and it will reward you, and that effort has paid off for me.

I really didn't like the oase bio-therm 350 I had previously - much too weak, and the prefilter was a pain to maintain. I've got some ancient Eheims that are real work horses that I love, and on one of my bigger tanks I love the fluval FX6.

I'm buying Dennis' stuff on Amazon. Haven't had any issue getting it. I see you can also buy on his website, but Amazon works for me.

The Sky is a super, super fine powder. It dissolves almost instantly. I mix it in a small container before adding it to the tank. I let the filter intake suck it up, and blow it around the tank. I don't know if that's necessary, but I like the idea of it being dispersed quickly and not making a concentrated cloud in one spot. I suspect it is CaCl and maybe MgCl? It also has some micros in it, and an algae extract (oooo fancy! 😀).

I think I'm getting lazy in my 'old age' efforts now. Buying pre-made stuff has been a good way to stay consistent for me. I just dont have the time to stay current with the latest micro-mixes or do the math to figure out Ca and Mg ratios. I love that guys like @GreggZ @Burr740 do this, but it isn't for me.

I've got an auto-doser that I will setup at some point too, but haven't gotten around to it.
 
I've heard the same thing about the GLA filter. When you say it's a beast, do you mean is contains a large amount of bio material or are you talking about flow through it?

I agree with you about the Oase line and hope that they take the feedback and increase the power on future ones. However, I don't think I would be able to deal with a finicky filter. Would likely drive me crazy that it isn't stable long term. Probably spoiled by the Eheims.
 
Art said:
I've heard the same thing about the GLA filter. When you say it's a beast, do you mean is contains a large amount of bio material or are you talking about flow through it?

I agree with you about the Oase line and hope that they take the feedback and increase the power on future ones. However, I don't think I would be able to deal with a finicky filter. Would likely drive me crazy that it isn't stable long term. Probably spoiled by the Eheims.
Click to expand...

Beast = It holds a ton of media, and moves a ton of water 😁

I will also add that I like the simplicity of the internal design. No baskets that have to fit together, or intakes to make sure are lined up. The GLA team reccomended I grab a handful of media bags, and pack them full of rings - they carry all this, which is nice 1 stop shop. I filled the bags, gave everything a rinse and tossed them in the filter, just gotta make sure the plate on the bottom isn't blocking the inlet. Every drop of water is forced to travel up through the filter media, so it isn't possible to have water bypassing the media.

--Steve
 
I really like Hygrophila araguia. Every so often the clump withers away (probably when I get lazy) and then regrows nicely (probably when I stop being lazy).

It's such a great plant. Cool leaf shape, size and color. Growth habit is nice and low and slow. Easy keeper for me!

--Steve


20221229_202313.jpg
 
Hygrophila siamensis 53b is one of my favorites. I grow this in my main display tank which is rich with CO2, aquasoil supplemented with a root fertilizer, moderately intense lighting and fairly lean Nitrogen dosing. It grows incredibly well for me and I find this one does best when it is simply topped and allow the bases to regrow. It can take a while for it to establish from cuttings. Otherwise this is a rock steady, easy keeper for me that looks great both above and below the water.

--Steve

20230103_201035.jpg
20230103_200421.jpg
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top