Gomer

it is late..I am tired and sweaty....but I thought I'd share. It sure is tough to both breakdown and startup a tank in the same day LOL


In the tradition of good journals, lets start from the beginning:

First comes the tank. This is a 3/8" Cast Cell Acrylic tank custom made. The stand too is custom made and is made of mahagony. Both were made by www.socalcreations.com The tank ran $260 and the stand (with nifty hinging and dual shelves) ran $480. Delivery was a tiny $30 right to my door.
alt image http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/g...lCreations.jpg



First goes the Power Sand Special. It was quite odd when I poured it out. It looks black and dirty and looks to have a fair amount of peat in there.
alt image http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/g...l_original.jpg



Next goes the Amazonia Aquasoil. I really like the color. You can crush it in your hand if you try, but I think it will be ok with normal use long term. Strangely there were bits of twigs and wood chips etc in the mix. Not sure if that is intentional or not.
alt image http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/g...1/amazonia.jpg




Here is the layout I decided to use after some fiddling around. The wood is manzanita for the curious.
alt image http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/g...s/4/1/wood.jpg



..and with plants. This is within hours of filling up the tank so it is a bit hazy. The water is a bit brown cause I forgot to clean out the filter after tearing down the previous tank (filter was on when removing lots of stuff and hence got mucked up). Overall, I am quite happy with it. I will move a couple things a little bit though. Give a couple months and it will take on a whole new shape! For those taking count, the plants are: HC, petite nana, marbled nana, blyxa japonica, weeping moss, narrow leaf fern, bobitus, rotala sp. vietnam. This tank is intended to be a low maint tank relative to my supercharged tanks I have done in the past.

040105
alt image http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/g...040105day1.jpg


UPDATE 040705:
Water is a little brownish since I have yet to do a WC (tomorrow). I am noticing very good HC growth. I experienced some stunting/burned tips on the rotala. Not sure what is the cause of it, but it is recovering now. The rest of the plants ..well..they are slow growers, so it is hard to judge week to week LOL



UPDATE 060705:
I decided I wanted to keep this as a very low maint green tank and the rotala went against that, so I decided to re-structure things a little bit. This photo was taken about 1 week after making the change.



UPDATE 070805:
Tank is just about there. I'll be doing a photo shoot very shortly. Unfortunately, I lost a whole lot of fish (practically all of them) to a VERY resistant infection of sorts about a month ago. I'll have to find some more lemon tetras soon.



UPDATE 071405:
DONE! I am very happy with this tank and think it is probably my best creation so far.

MrHarris

looks great! keepin postin more pics i wanna see what it looks like after everythings grown in.

Jdinh04

Looks great so far, you've spent quite a lot of money on the tank and the stand. I would pay that much for such a thing and would rather build it my self.

dennis

I think that amount Gomer wants to spend is entirely his decission, and most certainly only his buisness. Do you judge Amanos or the Senski's tanks by how much the materials cost?

Tony, Totally awesome.. Thank you for sharing and definately keep us updated. As usual, your work is an inspiration for others. Guess I don't have to worry about AGA 2005

Jdinh04

I never said he couldn't, I just specifically said that I wouldn't spend that much on a tank. Not saying that i'm cheap, its just saying in my honest opinion I don't think it's worth it. He may think its worth it, but thats him.

gnatster

Tony,

Thanks for sharing, the pictures look great, very nice setup you have there. I'm looking forward to see it progress.

<rant>
What people spend or do not spend on their setups is not subject of this tread. There are many alternatives in the hobby and because a person has choosen to spend more then you think is prudent should be of no concern to anyone. We all make choices based on our wants desires and ability. Please do not disparage others for taking a route you choose not to.
</rant>

omega

All the visual interests in this tank is confined to the bottom 1/2 of the tank. The rest is pretty much void of visual interests and thus boring to me. I would have liked to see the weeping moss motif repeated on the branch on the right side of the tank because that's the side that's most visually unappealing to me. Doing so would enclose the emptiness, making it "negative space" instead of being "empty" as it is now IMHO. The only problem I forsee is an unbalance in driftwood arrangement if the right branch is partially covered with moss, since the other left ones are bare. Even that, I would much rather have some vertical interest on the right half of the tank. I tried putting my fingers on the screen to block that big empty space on the right and your tank looks much better IMHO.

Other than that, the tank is real pretty. I'd bet all that moss with the nooks and crannies would make some awesome close up shots. Would you show some of those? I'm dying to see some close-ups.

Bavarian3

Im going to have to disagree with this. I think the aquascape was done perfect as for as depth/height goes. If you went around looking at all of the ada contest top winners many i see are like this. Id youd have a hell of a time trying to critique those tanks simply because they didnt use the whole upper portion of it!

-Charles

Gomer

Lets see if I can wrap up all the questions thus far in one post without forgetting one

The tank is 36x15x16 in

For ferts, I use ADA Step X (right now I am on step 2), Brighty lights, Saturated K2SO4, Equilibrium, ECA, Python Git, and Green gain.

I initially was using equilibrium for my K but it wasn't enough so I went back to just a K source and it seems to work well. I might do a mix of both sometime.

This tank only has had 2 easily fixed algae problems. Initially, I was dumb and dosed too much (should have done maybe 1/2-1/4 Step and no Lights) and this resulted in a lot of green dust when coupled with my bright lights. I also had a bit of spot algae for the same reasons. Now, neither are much of an issue. I do get a little, but that is nothing more than any other tank will get.

For ferts, I dose 5-7x a week of:
Brighty lights, Step X, K2SO4 (7mL of each)

On water changes, I dose the ECA (60dps), Python git (30dps) and green gain (15dps)

Lighting is 12hr a day. I can both raise/lower and use 2 or 4 x39watts, so I can adjust the intensity/spread when ever I feel like it. Right now, I have the lights 1.25' off the water surface with all 4 lights on.


With respect to Omega's post, I am quite happy with the negative space and no moss on the wood. I originally thought about moss on the wood, but that would be both more maint. (weeping does not attach) and an effect I was not after in this scape. That is about all I'll say on it, cause I'd like to hear other peoples reply to your post Ideas make the world go round

dennis

Omega's post makes a good bit of sense to me. I don't feel that the wood needs moss although I definately feel the need for 1 more piece. As it is right now, I only see 4 visual, vertical wood elements...we all know what 4 can mean I think ht eheight issue Omega refers to is the same thing that makes me feel the forground is to fluffy. If the foreground were lower thent he midground would appear higher making the whole scape feel a little less flat. You have a good appearance of depth although I would really like to see the Bylxa in the back right half be more visible over the top of the anubias. I feel thiswould add even more depth to the aquarium. I personally do like the large amount of negative space and I think it is pretty well balanced to the filled space (about 2/3 negative to 1/3 filled).

Still, better than anything I have done to date