Journal Dutchy Deeds Done Dirt Cheap

[Burr740]

I am worried that there will not be Judge's comments, with them not being displayed on the top tanks of each category im glass half empty we will be getting them.

They will, eventually. Yours was really good except the tiny lily as the focal plant. With a good plant right there it would've been right in the mix.

While this was my first entry I was disappointed by only 1 additional photo. When I submitted I had included the layout but I hit enter trying to create a new line and it submitted the entry before I was finished entering the details of the aquarium, seems like a glitch in hindsight.

Ive talked to Vin since the judging was done, but not since the top 3 was announced (he's had to evacuate due to the cali wildfires). He said what they saw was the main pic and one more. On my entry page there was a field to add the one main pic. Then another field to add up to two "optional" pics. Thats what I did, but I didnt include a diagram pic. In the past there's always been a separate field for a 'floor plan' or diagram pic

Also did you see the unedited photo the second place dutch entry showed for verification? He had lowered the tank's water level before cropping and that left me in disbelief a bit. Since originally Dutch tanks were judged in person and this did not portray the tank correctly. I am curious to what your thoughts are on it.

I aint mad at that, Ive done it too! Most of my entries werent rimless tanks, had the plastic frame across the top. I always drop the water as low as it can go without a line showing. Ive even ran 1 or 2 strips of electrical tape to drop it even further! Cant tell in the pics. This boils down to a photo contest, tricks like that are fair play imo

 

[Burr740]

It's funny how you brought this up as I just noticed it is actually yellow and not pink/red. In my farm tank with a week aqua its pinkish red/gold but in the non co2 cube its actually a greenish yellow. But when I moved a few stems over it was yellow under the chihiro's light.

Yeah light plays a huge role in how plants look. My 4x t5ho combo includes a powerveg red and ati purp for the blue. Plus two iSun led basically full spectrum. When the purple popped (3 days out) had to replace it w a pink super flor. The strong blue balanced everything out, as vividly true to life as it gets. Without it everything has a weird red tint. not blurple, just weirdly red.

It also made the pogo kim look almost the same as the kochi. Kochi souldn NOT look red at all. Its yellow

And to be fair, my tank looks a lot better in that vid than it does in my two (or 3??) entry pics. These are the ones I submitted, apparently they only saw two of them

Another thing that REALLY screwed my pics up is I waited too late in the evening to take the pics, and it was the last day of the deadline. It especially affected the pogo kim and limno in back right. Those two groups look totally different fanned completely out in daytime form. Messed up the kochi a little bit too. Penthorum street, they're all closed up. Alwyas need to shoot the tank when plants are fully open. makes a huge difference

 

[Kwyet]

To my untrained eye, this is the prettiest tank you’ve submitted. It’s true too, that your tanks have a distinctive style. You have no anonymity, lol!

 

[Mr.Shenanagins]

It’s true too, that your tanks have a distinctive style. You have no anonymity

 

[SkaleyAquatics]

Yeah light plays a huge role in how plants look. My 4x t5ho combo includes a powerveg red and ati purp for the blue. Plus two iSun led basically full spectrum. When the purple popped (3 days out) had to replace it w a pink super flor. The strong blue balanced everything out, as vividly true to life as it gets. Without it everything has a weird red tint. not blurple, just weirdly red.

It also made the pogo kim look almost the same as the kochi. Kochi souldn NOT look red at all. Its yellow

And to be fair, my tank looks a lot better in that vid than it does in my two (or 3??) entry pics. These are the ones I submitted, apparently they only saw two of them

Another thing that REALLY screwed my pics up is I waited too late in the evening to take the pics, and it was the last day of the deadline. It especially affected the pogo kim and limno in back right. Those two groups look totally different fanned completely out in daytime form. Messed up the kochi a little bit too. Penthorum street, they're all closed up. Alwyas need to shoot the tank when plants are fully open. makes a huge difference

I actually had a similar problem but not because it was too late in the night but instead had ran out of co2 so my plants hadn't opened all the way. Luckily it didn't effect my plant selection as much as it could have.

They will, eventually. Yours was really good except the tiny lily as the focal plant. With a good plant right there it would've been right in the mix.

Well this makes me feel 100x better. That was just thrown in last minute because of the rearranging I had to do because of the hygro corymbosa.

I aint mad at that, Ive done it too! Most of my entries werent rimless tanks, had the plastic frame across the top. I always drop the water as low as it can go without a line showing. Ive even ran 1 or 2 strips of electrical tape to drop it even further! Cant tell in the pics. This boils down to a photo contest, tricks like that are fair play imo

Okay fair enough I guess I just didn't realize that was a trick and will have to keep it in mind in the future. I also used electric tap to cover up the ugly corner seals. I guess great minds think alike

 

[OmidNiav]

Ive heard people bitching about the 2nd place tank but its a pretty good dutch. Needs better space between groups, and a little more contrast in heights.

Im really surprised at the first place tank. The back stem groups are all equal rectangles and also the same height. There's no midground to speak of, no focal point at all. Honestly I dont see how in the world it scored higher than the 2nd or 3rd place tanks. Like I seriously cant wrap my brain around that lol

@OmidNiav 's is good too. The one big mistake is the grass to the right of the macrandra being in front of another green, essentially disappears. Also its very similar to the curtain beside it. Two big no-nos right there. Imo that probably cost you a place or two whether the judges mention it or not

Personally Id put the 1st in 3rd place and move the other two up. Then itd be a close scorecard between those two

I was thinking of putting the cyperus INSIDE the street but then decided to not give you a heart attack The truth is that towards the end I was so burnt out that even with something that obvious+using the same plant for the curtains, I just wanted to get it done and submit. I could not for the life of me get anything to grow tall as a curtain on the right side. Even a regular jungle val did not want to grow tall so I just said f this haha

Regarding ranking and who should be where: this is a hobby for me! I've created something that is decent enough to be on some website and get me some meager street cred (maybe), so I'm fine with that! I know I would suck at a nature scape so I think I should stick with Dutch for now.

ALSO, are those guppies! ugly guppies in a Dutch? Blasphemy.

 

[Burr740]

@OmidNiav I totally get the burnout! I go through the full range of emotions making these scapes. All the way from 'this is gonna be the best Dutch the world has ever seen!' to 'Fk this garbage not even going to submit it!' lol

The Cyperus woulda been better right in front of the mac, with the mac scooted back a little bit. That would've made a striking focal point. As it is might as well not be there. A green in front of another green will always disappear, no matter how much the leaves contrast

Use tall grass as a curtain, in the very back, or in front of a bold color

 

[Burr740]

Nostalgia'd hard today thinking about budget builds. Around 2013 is when I set up my very first "second" tank. Til then it'd had the one 75 gal, and had just gone to pressurized after spending a year or so running DIY CO2. Back in those days I didnt have much extra money to spend on the hobby. If there was a low-budget way of doing something, best believe I was all about it

So with that in mind I decided to grab a 20 gal 'tall' from one of PetCo's famous $1/gallon sales. Then it was blasting sand substrate, Aquaclear 20 HOB, 2x clamp on dome lights with 5000K spiral cfl bulbs, and DIY CO2. With all said and done the entire set up came in just under... $120!



Here you can see the top of the DIY CO2 bottles



The CO2 line runs straight into the Aquaclear, pre-diffused with a chopstick. Its a pretty solid method due to how water flows through the Aquaclear media, from bottom to top (other hob that go back to front dont work, off-gas too much)



Solid PAR and decent color from the 5000K bulbs. What Im using is a LUX meter with a different sensor on the end that reads par, made by og user Hoppy







Even though its small having a second tank to put stuff in turned out to be an absolute game changer. Scape life immediately became 10x easier

Continuing this stroll down memory lane, here's that first 75 with DIY CO2. Starting out I just wanted to see what kind of difference CO2 would make before dropping a few hundred on a pressurized system. It was my first ever experience with it. Wound up running it probably a year and a half



Same chopstick method going straight into a powerhead. Wasted a ton Im sure but surpisingly effective



Peep that Ammania gracillis...sand sub, 5-6 dKH and diy CO2. Hard smard, lol

 

[Burr740]

Proserpinaca palustris aka Mermaid Weed



This is about when I switched to pressurized co2, and see if I could step my scape game up





Note the strong Barr influence with the wood. At the time he still had that 180 smoking. I wanted to be like that..






Ahhh the good ol' days...

These last pics were probably 2015 or so.

 

[Phish Tank]

DIY CO2 sure makes me appreciate a nice regulator and co2 tank. I messed with both yeast and citric acid based DIY years ago.

I’ve never heard of the chopstick diffuser. Do you recall how often you had to change/clean it? My current system feeds co2 into my uplift tube as large bubbles, then it gets chopped up by my power head. I’m curious if a simple diffuser like your bamboo chopstick would improve things by having smaller bubbles hitting the powerhead impeller.

 

[Unexpected]

Ha! Awesome to see the early days of Joe Harvey. How cool.

 

[OmidNiav]

Wow! You definitely have the brains for this stuff!! Beautiful setups/plants. I started in 2016 and I'm so happy to not have any photos of my early tanks.

 

[GreggZ]

Joe great post above and brings back a lot of memories.

That 75G journal was the OG!! I read the whole thing at least three times front to back.

I am sure it inspired loads of people to get into the hobby, and then helped them to improve their planted tank skills.

You were setting the bar high back then, and still are today my friend!!

 

[Mr.Shenanagins]

Note the strong Barr influence with the wood. At the time he still had that 180 smoking. I wanted to be like that..

This was my first thought when I saw that picture, Barrreport was bumping at the time with you guys.

 

[OmidNiav]

Could someone direct me to the OG 75G thread? I might have read it a long time ago but can't remember

 

[Mr.Shenanagins]

I believe this is it from TPT, correct me if I’m wrong @Burr740

https://www.plantedtank.net/threads/a-75-gallon-journey.592313/

 

[TRyan]

Your tanks are looking great, Joe! Makes me want to go back and re-read you and Greggz' journals again.

Are you still working on getting your Burr Aqua website up and running?

 

[Burr740]

Your tanks are looking great, Joe! Makes me want to go back and re-read you and Greggz' journals again.

Thanks bro! And well good luck re-reading Gregg's because those assholes deleted his whole journal. Still cant believe how incredibly butthurt that mod had to be over something totally unrelated. The hobby lost a valuable resource right there

Are you still working on getting your Burr Aqua website up and running?

Yes indeed! As Ive been saying for the last 3 years, its just around the corner lol. Seriously though should have it open in a matter of weeks now

The hold up, for the last year or so Ive been running small variances in the macro recipe to make sure its the absolute best one possible. Done with all that now, just finalizing the retail packaging. The thing is I sell plants as fast as I can grow them already. Its the ferts I really need the site for and honeslty Ive just been lazy about it

It'll have all my plants too of course, 120+ species with what I hope is useful info on their respective product pages that you dont see anywhere else. Plus informative content such as blog articles on growing and also scaping for Dutch and garden styles

For anyone who hasnt done it already, go to burraqua.com now and enter your email to get notified when it opens, plus a nice discount code to use. That email list will be the first to know before the general public

 

[TRyan]

Yes indeed! As Ive been saying for the last 3 years, its just around the corner lol. Seriously though should have it open in a matter of weeks now

Awesome, Joe . Can't wait!

You got any more of that magic juice? Haha , I'll place an order with you soon!

It'll have all my plants too of course, 120+ species with what I hope is useful info on their respective product pages that you dont see anywhere else. Plus informative content such as blog articles on growing and also scaping for Dutch and garden styles

This is going to be so cool! With your micro mix, plant selection and articles, your website will be a hit for sure. Looking forward to it!

Thanks bro! And well good luck re-reading Gregg's because those assholes deleted his whole journal. Still cant believe how incredibly butthurt that mod had to be over something totally unrelated. The hobby lost a valuable resource right there

Truly unbelievable that that happened. But, maybe better things may have come up for Mr. Greggz as the result of that unfortunate event? This forum is loaded with some wonderful people. Some of the smartest and most experienced people in the hobby are on here, and he is now the moderator, so perhaps he got the last laugh!

 

[Kwyet]

I’ve tried to put my email in, but as far as I can tell it hasn’t taken it. Is there a particular browser needed?