CincyScaper
Active Member
Thanks! I just got the Chihiros auto doser and trying to figure out how to fit everything in! I like how you have the multi outlet in the middle which is probably what i am going to do as well.
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Journal Jay's 60cm Brazilian
- Thread starter JayP
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- #22
JayP
Valuable Member
Update time! Water parameters indicated the dark start cycling was complete sometime last week, so I planted Sunday. This is just an initial planting. I have some additional TC Bucephalandra on the way to attach to the foreground hardscape and I'll also likely fill in some areas as the current plants mature and I see gaps. I'm also planning to add some Eriocaulon in a few spots along the sand path. I'm thinking either Eriocaulon Cinereum or Agumbe. I was planning to use Erio Vietnam that I recently got from @Burr740 but I think it will grow much bigger than I want. Most of the plants came from the farm tank except some new TC dwarf hair grass and S Repens. I probably had enough of the S Repens to harvest from the farm tank and showpiece tank but the showpiece tank has bladder snails and while the farm tank doesn't, I only had a couple small plants in it. I've also transferred some select good examples of yellow golden back shrimp from the farm tank so they can help clean up some biofilm. The faux seiryu stone got a lot of biofilm on it during dark start and was smelling rather bad as well. I drained the tank down to the front sand before planting and cleaned well. Also put a bag of purigen in the filter. Smells are gone now...mostly.
One thing I don't think I've done a good job on, is creating a sense of depth by moving from larger in front to smaller in back, both with the hardscape and plant leaf sizes. Time will tell.
One thing I don't think I've done a good job on, is creating a sense of depth by moving from larger in front to smaller in back, both with the hardscape and plant leaf sizes. Time will tell.
CincyScaper
Active Member
I think it looks great. Do you have your background lighted? It looks really nice on the pic. What film do you use for background?
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- #24
JayP
Valuable Member
No back lighting. It's just a frosted white vinyl film. I have two different rolls, one of which came with a used aquarium I bought earlier in the year and I don't know the specific brand. Of the two, this one has a bit more smooth appearance than the frosted film I used on my UNS 30C tank. I think I like this better because it does almost look like a backlight panel. I was thinking about experimenting with some soft LED lighting behind the film.
Your tank looks great!
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- #26
JayP
Valuable Member
We have fish! Espei (Lambchop) Rasboras and Ember Tetras. Like my larger aquarium, I opted to go back to using an Oase skimmer and non-skimmer lily pipes. The Rasbora and Tetras are schooling/shoaling together.
I love the look of Myriophyllum Roraima but wasn't sure if I would like it in this scape. I still may swap it out with something else because it grows at 2-3 times the rate of everything else, although, the Rotala OJ is trying to keep up.
I love the look of Myriophyllum Roraima but wasn't sure if I would like it in this scape. I still may swap it out with something else because it grows at 2-3 times the rate of everything else, although, the Rotala OJ is trying to keep up.
Really cool layout, this is will really come to life when those stems and creepers mature. GREAT fish choice too
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- #28
JayP
Valuable Member
Quick update. Scape is still going through it's early rough stages but looks much better now than it did just a week ago. You can still see remnants of the algae explosion on the faux rocks and Monte Carlo. During that period though, Plant growth was still great. I've been trimming the stems in the back regularly so I can replant and get them nice and bushy. I have a few stems of Rotala OJ I can trim today. The Ludwigia is a little slower so it will take time to get it as full as the others. I also decided to go ahead and remove the Myriophyllum Roraima because it just didn't look right in this layout. I've replaced it with more Limnophila Aromatica Mini and I think having it directly next to the Ludwigia will look much better.
Some observations of new things I've used in this tank:
1) Plastic/Resin stones look good but have some drawbacks (at least this brand). During the dark start, these stones became covered in very heavy biofilm, far worse than biofilm I had in my other tanks. It was a lot of work trying to clean it off and I think there is still some in nooks and crannies. What makes it worse, is the really bad smell that is part bad bacteria and part bad plastic smell. When doing water changes, once the water level drops below the hardscape, it's really bad. Overtime, it has dramatically improved but even now, there still a bit of it. Also, someone asked early if the rocks were hollow, had holes, or were solid. They are hollow but the holes in them are hard to detect, which means they can be slightly buoyant. They do have to be glued to one another to help keep them in place
2)This is the first scape I went entirely with APT Feast in the planting areas. I'm not sure if higher nutrient level in it contributed to the initial algae explosion but I didn't get algae that bad on my showpiece tank early on with Amazonia. But with the bad comes the good. Plant growth took off immediately. Granted, the background stems were cuttings from my farm tank so were already well established, but even the TC dwarf hairgrass and S. Repens are doing great.
3) This is the first tank I've tried my hand-made SS mesh inflow filter guards. The idea, of course, is to keep shrimp fry out. I used #40 mesh, but have learned that is too fine. It was clogging too easily in this tank and my others and even routinely using a toothbrush to clean it wasn't enough. I'll have to retry this with #30 mesh. For now, the guards are off. Below is a photo of how they looked.
Some observations of new things I've used in this tank:
1) Plastic/Resin stones look good but have some drawbacks (at least this brand). During the dark start, these stones became covered in very heavy biofilm, far worse than biofilm I had in my other tanks. It was a lot of work trying to clean it off and I think there is still some in nooks and crannies. What makes it worse, is the really bad smell that is part bad bacteria and part bad plastic smell. When doing water changes, once the water level drops below the hardscape, it's really bad. Overtime, it has dramatically improved but even now, there still a bit of it. Also, someone asked early if the rocks were hollow, had holes, or were solid. They are hollow but the holes in them are hard to detect, which means they can be slightly buoyant. They do have to be glued to one another to help keep them in place
2)This is the first scape I went entirely with APT Feast in the planting areas. I'm not sure if higher nutrient level in it contributed to the initial algae explosion but I didn't get algae that bad on my showpiece tank early on with Amazonia. But with the bad comes the good. Plant growth took off immediately. Granted, the background stems were cuttings from my farm tank so were already well established, but even the TC dwarf hairgrass and S. Repens are doing great.
3) This is the first tank I've tried my hand-made SS mesh inflow filter guards. The idea, of course, is to keep shrimp fry out. I used #40 mesh, but have learned that is too fine. It was clogging too easily in this tank and my others and even routinely using a toothbrush to clean it wasn't enough. I'll have to retry this with #30 mesh. For now, the guards are off. Below is a photo of how they looked.
Holy S**t, those buce are beautiful and add so much to the tank. Where did you get them/what variety are they??
- Thread starter
- #30
JayP
Valuable Member
This reminds me, I was going to make a 4th point under observations: 4) I'm done with TC Bucephalandra! My batting average on having TC Buce not melt is barely above 0. I had some in here at first and it turned to mush in no time, same as the TC I started with in my nano shrimp tank and some I put in my farm tank. So.....
This is mature Buce that came from my showpiece tank. I was hesitant to pull much out because I don't plan to tear that tank down for a good while and don't want to rob much from it. I was getting ready to order some potted Buce from Etsy but chose to just do this for now until spring gets closer and temps rise a bit.
As for what this variety is...Hmm, good question LOL! This would have been from one of my early orders from BucePlant when I planted my first tank a year ago. Unfortunately, part of that Buce came as a starter pack and I didn't do a good job at documenting the names. I do kinda remember the names and based on leaf shape, this is likely a variety with blue or purple in the name or perhaps one of the "Brownies" if that helps. The others I got, are entirely different leaf shapes like Godzilla, Catherinae, Velvet, etc.
It's stunning. I'd pay a lot for those buces if you could ever grow enough to sell a decent amount. Great work, the scape is awesome.
- Thread starter
- #32
JayP
Valuable Member
I just went over some old photos and found one of the initial plant order with everything laid out. One of the Buce in the starter pack was Black Pearl. I'm pretty sure that's what this is. I have thought about setting up an emersed Buce farm in my basement but it's pretty far down the to-do list. I've watched a bunch of Youtube videos though.
- Thread starter
- #33
JayP
Valuable Member
Mini update. There's some good and bad.
The good: Plant growth is going great, although, maybe not bad but also not great, is my background stem plant choices. As you can see in the photo, the Rotalas on the left are growing much faster than the Ludwigia and Limnophila on the right, so it's going to be awhile before things look balanced. Patience is hard
.
The bad: Still struggling with the early algae. It may not look too bad in the photos but it's definitely there in the Monte Carlo and even in the hair grass. I'm working on it. The bigger problem though, is the bad smell I mentioned in previous posts. I can no longer just write it off as a bad plastic smell from the faux stone. As long as the tank is filled, there's little smell, but as soon as I drain for a water change and the hardscape is exposed to air, it's quite bad. My theory is air pockets in the stones became filled with biofilm during the dark start just as the outsides of the stones were also covered with heavy biofilm. Because these stones aren't open like I remember the UNS Strata stones, that bacteria is trapped inside and isn't getting a chance to recirculate and get out of the system. The only holes in these stones are very, very tiny (bad design). I've decided to try drilling much larger holes in inconspicuous spots during one of the next water changes so that there can be a better exchange of water and I can even inject some H2O2 . Keeping my fingers crossed.
Lastly, neither good nor bad, you might notice I made an equipment change yet again. The Oase skimmer is gone and the lily pipe intake skimmer is back. I change my mind more often than the Buffalo Bills lose in the post season
. I decided to give the lily pipe skimmer another chance after deciding to forgo the SS mesh filter on the pipe. That made a big difference. The pipe skimmer works much better now, so hopefully, I'll stick with this.
The good: Plant growth is going great, although, maybe not bad but also not great, is my background stem plant choices. As you can see in the photo, the Rotalas on the left are growing much faster than the Ludwigia and Limnophila on the right, so it's going to be awhile before things look balanced. Patience is hard
.The bad: Still struggling with the early algae. It may not look too bad in the photos but it's definitely there in the Monte Carlo and even in the hair grass. I'm working on it. The bigger problem though, is the bad smell I mentioned in previous posts. I can no longer just write it off as a bad plastic smell from the faux stone. As long as the tank is filled, there's little smell, but as soon as I drain for a water change and the hardscape is exposed to air, it's quite bad. My theory is air pockets in the stones became filled with biofilm during the dark start just as the outsides of the stones were also covered with heavy biofilm. Because these stones aren't open like I remember the UNS Strata stones, that bacteria is trapped inside and isn't getting a chance to recirculate and get out of the system. The only holes in these stones are very, very tiny (bad design). I've decided to try drilling much larger holes in inconspicuous spots during one of the next water changes so that there can be a better exchange of water and I can even inject some H2O2 . Keeping my fingers crossed.
Lastly, neither good nor bad, you might notice I made an equipment change yet again. The Oase skimmer is gone and the lily pipe intake skimmer is back. I change my mind more often than the Buffalo Bills lose in the post season
. I decided to give the lily pipe skimmer another chance after deciding to forgo the SS mesh filter on the pipe. That made a big difference. The pipe skimmer works much better now, so hopefully, I'll stick with this.
Looks good in the picture. I hope you can figure out the faux-rock bad smell.
CincyScaper
Active Member
Looks great! Bummer about the smell and hopefully it is transient. So you think it could be also some sort of compound getting released and if so could you do something like activated carbon in your filter?
- Thread starter
- #36
JayP
Valuable Member
I haven't used activated carbon on any of my other tanks, but I'm definitely considering it for this. I do think it has to be more than just the plastic/resin producing something. I really don't want to have to pull all the stone out but we'll try some things and give it more time.
- Thread starter
- #37
JayP
Valuable Member
Well, there are far worse things going on around the country right now so my aquarium issue isn't that significant in the grand scheme, but it's painful for me none the less.
As can be seen below, I had to tear things up. My theory as to the cause of the bad smell was correct. I drilled into the largest stone and as expected, it was full of nasty smelling biofilm. I decided it was best to go ahead and pull most of the stones out, drill large holes in them and clean them well. Since the algae in the monte carlo was just getting worse, I decided I might as well remove all that as well. I hope to get the stones back in the tank today as close to the original layout as possible. Once everything is back in place, I'll give things time to re-settle before adding new monte carlo. Before removing the stones, I transferred the fish to my farm tank. I still have a couple snails and a good number of shrimp in here though. Can you feel my pain
? Moral of the story, don't use fake hollow stones.
As can be seen below, I had to tear things up. My theory as to the cause of the bad smell was correct. I drilled into the largest stone and as expected, it was full of nasty smelling biofilm. I decided it was best to go ahead and pull most of the stones out, drill large holes in them and clean them well. Since the algae in the monte carlo was just getting worse, I decided I might as well remove all that as well. I hope to get the stones back in the tank today as close to the original layout as possible. Once everything is back in place, I'll give things time to re-settle before adding new monte carlo. Before removing the stones, I transferred the fish to my farm tank. I still have a couple snails and a good number of shrimp in here though. Can you feel my pain
? Moral of the story, don't use fake hollow stones.
Glad you found the source. Hope everything settles out quickly. Bet the shrimp will like being able to hide inside the rocks now that you've drilled holes
- Thread starter
- #39
JayP
Valuable Member
Welcome to Jay's 60cm Brazilian Rev 2.0. I placed the rocks back in the tank last weekend. They all now have holes in them to let water flow in and out better. Of course, I didn't get everything back exactly the way it was but it's close enough. The slightly different layout opened up a couple new spots to add some plants and I also added a few small real Seiryu stones.. There's now some Eriocaulon Vietnam on the right and a stem of AR Mini on the left under the drop checker. I think I'll probably replace the AR Mini with some other midground plant that is ok with the moderate light in that spot. I also had room now to add a few more stems of S. Repens. I replaced the Monte Carlo on the rocks (good drink name) with HC Cuba. The Cuba was TC and did not like getting glued and going submersed. It immediately went yellow/white and I'm just keeping my fingers crossed at least 75% of it successfully survives the transformation. Some patches have now turned to mostly mush, while others are starting to turn back green. The shrimp are munching on the mushy patches. I'm holding off adding the fish back to the tank until I've done a couple weekly water changes. They're loving the longer swim lanes in the 40 gallon farm tank so they may not be happy to come back to this one. So far the tank has no bad smells.
Looks really good. I don't think I'd ever know those were fake rocks.
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