n0otro

Hey guys,
This is my first attempt at a natural style aquarium. I'm not new to growing freshwater plants, but I am new to the whole japanese-Amano style.
Questions, Comments, Critiques? Can you notice any glaring problems i'm not seeing? Obviously the back still needs to be blacked out, but other than that, should I make any changes?

The tank has been up and running for about 1 hour as of this posting.

Tank Specs:
10 Gallon
2x36W 10K PC
DIY CO2
Penguin Filter
Red Sea Flora Base substrate

Plants:
Microsorium pteropus
Nesaea crassicaulis?
Riccia fluitans
Rotala spp.
Heminathus callitrichoides
Hemianthus micranthemoides
Valisneria americana?
Cryptocorne spp.
Alot of species I know....

Inverts:
Neocaridina denticulata sinensis

Tools used for planting:


Pre-planting Hardscape layout:


How I attached Riccia to a rock:


Finished, Immediately after being filled and topped off with water:


Aloha
Greg

SUBORPHAN

it is looking nice so far. i like the variety of plants and i think that the whole concept will be more clear when the plants have grown and filled in the spaces.

n0otro

Thanks,
I plan to update the pictures in this thread on a weekly basis so you can see how everything starts to grow in.

Left C

I think your choice of rocks are too dissimilar. The colors of the rocks are close but their texture is too different. The rock on the left side with the holes seems to be the focal point and it just doesn't look right to me. It's the first thing I see when I look at your tank. I'd replace it with something more similar in texture and color like the others.

trenac

Nice start... But I would have to agree with Left C

n0otro

Thanks for the advice guys. I'm a biologist before I claim to be an artist. Actually I have very little artistic skills. The whole concept of the golden rule is still brand new to me. I could tell there was something not quite right, but I couldn't pick it out. The idea was for the Red Nesaea spp. to be the focal point.
Good thing I got the rocks from the stream in my backyard and I can just go grab another.

n0otro

Well, 9 months later and finally an update. The tank has gone through several stages and is finally doing very well on it's own.

At first I had massive hair algae problems and couldn't get the HC to outgrow the algae that was growing on it. I call this, "The dark ages". I didn't even take any pictures during this time because I couldn't stand the way it looked. I trimmed back the Nesaea, Rotala, and H. micranthemoides several times because it was all being overwhelmed by algae. The riccia and java fern were also taken out. The first batch of HC I planted was taken out and I made the following changes to my setup:

-Cut the amount of light in half, down to 1 x 36watt 10k PC
-Got rid of the DIY CO2 (I got lazy and it was too much of a hassle) and went with a pressurized setup

I replanted the HC and added a half dozen neon tetras and now 9 months later the tank is doing excellent. My HC lawn is thicker than I ever thought it would get, giving the wild cherries plenty of places to hide from the tetras when they're freshly hatched. I also have a small snail problem, but I figure they diversify the system and help keep some of the algae in check. I manually remove a bunch of them when I do water changes.

I'm no photographer, but these photos show basically what the tank looks like now:
Without flash:


With flash:

Haeun

Wow, I'm amazed at how much better it got. I love that lush HC lawn.

What I would do now is pull up some of that vallisneria in the front (thin it out a bit), maybe plant some mid-ground place in the empty space right there between the HC and the vallisneria. Even the HM would work.

As for the rotala, try to cut and plant to get more "mass" to it, and then let it grow up to the top. Give it a few trimming, and it would bush out a bit. I think I'd look gorgeous like that then.

n0otro

Yeah, I have to uproot the val every week or two, it grows way too fast. I'll probably be leaving it out of my next tank altogether. Right now i'm just trying to get a lot more mass from everything because in the coming months i'll be taking this tank apart and setting up a 30 gallon now that I have more than enough HC to plant a nice lawn. I'll try trimming the rotala to get it to bush out a little bit more as well as plant the trimmings.

Thanks for the suggestions