Synogonthas Vichada, Erio Quing, Hygrophilia chai Super Red, Blood Vomit are the things that come to mind.
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Journal Experiment Tank || 90x50x36cm, 39gal, Horizontal Reactor High-energy Aquascape Journal
- Thread starter Naturescapes_Rocco
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I would say focus on creating a scape you haven't done before and decide what plants fit it best. My goal is to create a scape of each style there is.
Edit to add: Some styles aren't well suited to using BDBS . Although creating an Iwagumi with it would be an interesting challenge.
Edit to add: Some styles aren't well suited to using BDBS . Although creating an Iwagumi with it would be an interesting challenge.
Last edited:
- Thread starter
- #103
Day 144: Photos before being "raided" for plants for my new 140 gal inert sand tank
There are quite a few plants in here that don't belong! That's because they're in here for holding and "cleaning" as I work on re-doing my 150p tank.
For example, the square of HC Cuba (or whatever they renamed it to). It was grown emersed, and by putting it in this super-stable, biologically mature, high-ligh-high-CO2-high-ferts tank, I can quickly get it to transition to submerged growth.
Even better, I am absolutely FARMING snails in this tank to feed to my pea puffers. When some of the old emersed HC Cuba growth started melting, the snails devoured the melted plant material and kept it super clean.
It genuinely makes me think of how even now, doctors will use clean medical-grade maggots to eat dead and decaying flesh in a wound. These snails are absolutely HAMMERING the melting HC Cuba, but haven't touched the healthy stuff -- and new submerged growth has begun to explode.
Limnophila aromatica mini
Penthorum sedoides
Staurogyne purple behind some dwarf hairgrass, which is really exploding in growth.
Myriophyllum 'gold' behind AR Mini and Rotala Bonsai
After these photos, I took so many S repens, P sedoides, and AR Mini cuttings to plant my new tank with.
- Thread starter
- #104
151 day update: post-raid, INSANE pearling, swappable hanging backgrounds
Because of the success of this tank, my hubris has led me to try every plant I can get my hands on.
I removed the Rotala Blood Red in favor of Ludwigia Super Red (back left). I also planted this BEAUTIFUL ludwigia ovalis 'pink' (behind blyxa japonica) from @Burr740. Just gorgeous and already 1" taller than when I planted it. Everything is algae-free, even when newly added.
Rotala 'Florida' transitioning from emersed to submerged growth. One unexpected perk of having a stable bio-mature tank is having the ability to rapidly grow-out emersed plants into submerged plants. The transition on rotala florida is insane; from sage green emersed growth, to deep pink/purple submerged growth. I know Dennis Wong says R Florida needs more Ca in the water, but I have ~25ppm Ca and it's growing just fine!
Back: Ludwigia Super Red, Hygrophila siamensis 53b, unknown Persicaria sp from Burr, Limnophilia aromatica mini.
Middle: Penthorum sedoides post-trim, Ludwigia ovalis pink, A few stems of Pogostemon deccanensis
Front: Staurogyne repens, blyxa japonica, crypt wendtii bronze
All of the emersed growth on the HC Cuba mats that was going to die did finally melt, and the snails cleaned it up. The remaining growth is all new, underwater growth -- and pearling like CRAZY. The photo makes it look like there's algae?? but there's none.
I'll be removing this Myriophyllum 'Gold'. It's beautiful, but just not my style. Anyone want a massive, healthy portion? Let me know!
Myrio gold sitting in front of Rotala bonsai
Burr sent me this Persicaria sp. I didn't think much at first, but I LOVE it now. It's branching at almost every internode, pearls like crazy, and maintains a deep jade green despite HIGH lighting strength. Leaves are a bit twisted from 10 days testing higher micro dosing, so I backed off a bit.
It looks like bamboo. Really pretty. Also, it's FLOWERING!! Do you see??
I liked the simple panel background so much, I did one with a black ABS panel. transparent PETG "hooks" for the transparent background, black PETG hooks for the black background.
Literally takes 5 seconds to switch between them:
The black makes this tank's daily pearling "upside down rain" stand out way more.
Which do you prefer?
- Thread starter
- #105
Black, but I really like the idea of quick interchangeable backgrounds.
I love watching the pearling in my tank in the late afternoon.
- Thread starter
- #107
The black looks really good for photos and for plant colors, but the feeling of the tank in the room is so much cleaner/more open with the white.
My partner says "the black looks amazing but feels claustrophobic".
So maybe I quick-swap the black background for certain photos or for competition shots, and swap to the white background for regular use or when company is coming over!
I don't know enough about the various competitions but I don't know that I've seen any high rated black background tanks in IAPLC. It seems that most are going for that sunrise or sunset look in their photos. Are there more black backgrounds in AGA scapes? I think it looks good for Dutch style scapes.The black looks really good for photos and for plant colors, but the feeling of the tank in the room is so much cleaner/more open with the white.
My partner says "the black looks amazing but feels claustrophobic".
So maybe I quick-swap the black background for certain photos or for competition shots, and swap to the white background for regular use or when company is coming over!
I think when I can see the pearling, I prefer the black.
When I can't see the pearling and/or a more zoomed out shot, I like the white.
Tank is looking very healthy. As for the backgrounds, my preference is for the transparent/white with one caveat. I find the shadow on the bottom half to be distracting from the otherwise attractive layout. A small light behind the base of the background might create a pleasant gradient.
- Thread starter
- #111
It's the end of the week, and I suddenly noticed a bit of hair algae on some of the leaves. Just the tiniest bit, but enough to catch my attention.
I knew something was wrong because "healthy plants don't grow algae" and all that jazz. I tested the water for NO3 and PO4, and found that I bottomed-out of NO3 and still had some PO4 left. Which is pretty shocking since I'm dosing 30ppm NO3 in one 20ppm recovery dose, and one 10ppm midweek dose. That means that this tank is consuming more than 4ppm NO3 per day.
I DO have the lights set to ~80% (which is a lot for this shallow tank) and the heater is set to 74F, both of which are driving plant metabolism upwards.
However, plant health seems to suffer after a water change, and by the end of the week. Things are fine, but not exceptionally healthy. As I was playing around with my nutrient calculator, I realized why:
With my current setup, a tank consuming 4ppm NO3 per day with a weekly total of 30ppm dosed the way I do, has swings of over 14ppm between water changes:
14ppm swings of NO3 isn't the end of the world, but it's not good.
For reference, here's the same scenario but at 2.5ppm NO3 consumed per day, like where the tank likely was a month ago:
Much more stable.
Now I realize that determining stable dosing really is, primarily, dependent on daily uptake. That's why I love this accumulation calculator I made, to learn about these things!
I've purchased a Hanna Nitrate Checker, and I plan to do the marine-to-freshwater conversions to get a more accurate reading, so I can measure at 10am on Day 1 and 10am on day 2, and learn how much NO3 my tank is consuming. I'll probably do tests through the week to learn about consumption levels.
If you have a tank with only ~1.0ppm NO3 uptake per day, you could just front-load 15ppm per week and be good:
This would work for many low/medium energy tanks, or newly planted high-energy tanks that don't have a lot of mature plant biomass yet.
If the same tank starts consuming ~2.5ppm NO3 per day, you could start adding a midweek 10ppm dose for similar levels:
These levels are pretty common for daily NO3 consumption in many "high energy" planted tanks, especially tanks that have fast growing stem plants that put on a ton of biomass very quickly.
Finally, if your tank is going bananas and consuming >4ppm NO3 per day, you could increase both your initial dose and midweek dose to try to keep levels similar, though the weekly max difference will always begin increasing mathematically, which isn't awful, but isn't great:
The max difference is 12ppm, which again, isn't the worst, but plants will definitely be playing "chase" changing their internal enzyme structures to try to match the nutrient levels, which days days/weeks to get stable.
One way that I speculate keeping levels stable in SUPER HIGH daily consumption tanks (4-5ppm NO3, which is probably only common in heavily planted, high-light, high-CO2 dutch style tanks) is via an initial dose after water change, then daily dosing as close to daily consumption as you can get.
In a tank that consumes ~2.0ppm NO3/day:
Yeah, that would be pretty stable, despite 70% weekly WC! That's thanks to the 10ppm "initial" dose.
What about the same tank, consuming 4ppm per day, but only dosing 3.5ppm per day?:
Again, only a max difference of 3ppm? That's incredibly stable. The initial 10ppm dose basically just determines the average ppm levels in the water.
I think I might give something like this a try; create a macro solution of known NO3 and PO4 (and K) concentration, that is dosed in a large recovery dose after WC, but dosed daily via auto-doser as close to daily consumption levels can be.
I can accurately test daily consumption levels with the Hanna NO3 checker.
We'll see!
I knew something was wrong because "healthy plants don't grow algae" and all that jazz. I tested the water for NO3 and PO4, and found that I bottomed-out of NO3 and still had some PO4 left. Which is pretty shocking since I'm dosing 30ppm NO3 in one 20ppm recovery dose, and one 10ppm midweek dose. That means that this tank is consuming more than 4ppm NO3 per day.
I DO have the lights set to ~80% (which is a lot for this shallow tank) and the heater is set to 74F, both of which are driving plant metabolism upwards.
However, plant health seems to suffer after a water change, and by the end of the week. Things are fine, but not exceptionally healthy. As I was playing around with my nutrient calculator, I realized why:
With my current setup, a tank consuming 4ppm NO3 per day with a weekly total of 30ppm dosed the way I do, has swings of over 14ppm between water changes:
14ppm swings of NO3 isn't the end of the world, but it's not good.
For reference, here's the same scenario but at 2.5ppm NO3 consumed per day, like where the tank likely was a month ago:
Much more stable.
Now I realize that determining stable dosing really is, primarily, dependent on daily uptake. That's why I love this accumulation calculator I made, to learn about these things!
I've purchased a Hanna Nitrate Checker, and I plan to do the marine-to-freshwater conversions to get a more accurate reading, so I can measure at 10am on Day 1 and 10am on day 2, and learn how much NO3 my tank is consuming. I'll probably do tests through the week to learn about consumption levels.
Examples of ways to keep levels stable (inlcuding a large weekly WC):
If you have a tank with only ~1.0ppm NO3 uptake per day, you could just front-load 15ppm per week and be good:
This would work for many low/medium energy tanks, or newly planted high-energy tanks that don't have a lot of mature plant biomass yet.
If the same tank starts consuming ~2.5ppm NO3 per day, you could start adding a midweek 10ppm dose for similar levels:
These levels are pretty common for daily NO3 consumption in many "high energy" planted tanks, especially tanks that have fast growing stem plants that put on a ton of biomass very quickly.
Finally, if your tank is going bananas and consuming >4ppm NO3 per day, you could increase both your initial dose and midweek dose to try to keep levels similar, though the weekly max difference will always begin increasing mathematically, which isn't awful, but isn't great:
The max difference is 12ppm, which again, isn't the worst, but plants will definitely be playing "chase" changing their internal enzyme structures to try to match the nutrient levels, which days days/weeks to get stable.
One way that I speculate keeping levels stable in SUPER HIGH daily consumption tanks (4-5ppm NO3, which is probably only common in heavily planted, high-light, high-CO2 dutch style tanks) is via an initial dose after water change, then daily dosing as close to daily consumption as you can get.
In a tank that consumes ~2.0ppm NO3/day:
Yeah, that would be pretty stable, despite 70% weekly WC! That's thanks to the 10ppm "initial" dose.
What about the same tank, consuming 4ppm per day, but only dosing 3.5ppm per day?:
Again, only a max difference of 3ppm? That's incredibly stable. The initial 10ppm dose basically just determines the average ppm levels in the water.
I think I might give something like this a try; create a macro solution of known NO3 and PO4 (and K) concentration, that is dosed in a large recovery dose after WC, but dosed daily via auto-doser as close to daily consumption levels can be.
I can accurately test daily consumption levels with the Hanna NO3 checker.
We'll see!
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- #113
Tried my old 90mm macro lens today:
Ludwigia ovalis 'pink'
Rotala bonsai
Some freshly planted Bacopa colorata, with new growth showing some of that salmon coloration!
Blyxa japonica
Freshly planted Lobelia cardinalis 'mini' from @Burr740
CPDs
Ruby Tetra
Ludwigia ovalis 'pink'
Rotala bonsai
Some freshly planted Bacopa colorata, with new growth showing some of that salmon coloration!
Blyxa japonica
Freshly planted Lobelia cardinalis 'mini' from @Burr740
CPDs
Ruby Tetra
My new 100mm Macro arrived today. Looking forward to testing it out.
Are you using an insert for this or some sort of waterproof sheeting? I think I saw you mention silicone in another thread, but I'm not certain.
- Thread starter
- #116
Nope, I just primed with a good primer, used waterproof painter's caulk for all the corners, let it dry, then hit it with 3-4 coats of thick waterproof latex paint!
@BenB As I was studying Rocco's posts, I noticed your signature:
"The pincettes choose the scaper, Harry."
I had asked about pinsettes a couple weeks ago and it caught my attention, feels like a hidden easter egg
"The pincettes choose the scaper, Harry."
I had asked about pinsettes a couple weeks ago and it caught my attention, feels like a hidden easter egg
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