Hi, my name is Jeff Pogrob aka Houseofcards. I am 43 years old and live on Long Island about 50 miles east of New York City. I am married with three kids and am self employed as a media and market research consultant. As a kid I always had aquariums for the fish, but never really looked at an aquarium as anything more than a container to hold those fish. It was only a few years ago that I happened to be in a book store that I discovered the Nature Aquarium Books by Takashi Amano and my idea of a “fish tank” was changed forever. Here was the ability to take breathtaking scenery and bring it indoors to enjoy with the added sparkle of water. I had a few false starts with planted aquaria, before I fully understood all the necessary ingredients that would be needed. Having all these ingredients in good order resulted in Petrified Valley (formally Wisteria Island).


Me and my tank

The tank is located in the kitchen of my home and sits on a server that just happened to work out perfectly for the tank. The kitchen is a great place to have the tank since sinks are conveniently located and the family can spend a lot of time viewing the tank.



Tank specs
Tank: 72g AGA Bowfront (48” x 18” x 22”)
Lighting: 4 x 65 watts CF 6700k Coralife
Co2: 5lb pressurized, ceramic gas diffuser under spraybar
Filtration: Eheim Ecco 2235
UV sterilizer: Coralife turbo twist 9watt
Substrate: Eco complete
Fauna: 15 Cardinals, 8 Gold tetras, 6 otos, 7 amano shrimp, 2 kuli loaches, 2 fancy guppies
Flora: Rotala rotundifolia, Limnophila aromatica, Riccia fluitans, Blyxa Japonica,Heteranthera zosterifolia, Hygrophila difformis, Cryptocoryne wendtii
Hardscape: Petrified wood, twigs


Tank maintenance and fertilizer schedule
Maintenance consists of 50% water changes weekly. Fertilization is typical Estimative Index (EI) consisting of no3, po4 and flourish all 3 times per week. I really don’t know the levels since I haven’t taken any measurements in over a year. I trim the plants when things don’t look right, which usually requires 10 minutes here and 30 minutes there.


The Tank
Petrified Valley represents my first real attempt at planted aquaria with all the bells and whistles and is the end product of a tank that has been setup since September 2005. Like many beginners the tank started off with an easy care plant, which in my case was Hygrophila difformis as the main plant and I tried to be creative in it’s use. Here you can see the use of wisteria as ground cover and a little bit more. It pretty much dominated the scape thus the original name Wisteria Island. After cutting it many times and planting it on an angle the plant has been “trained” to crawl as it runs along the substrate.


Original Scape

Although I really enjoyed the look of the tank I was told by some it had a very static or still-life feel to it, so I decided to make some changes. I always loved the look of rocks and valleys and the awesomeness of these big formations in nature. I also thought the shape of my bowfront tank would lend itself well to a big valley down the middle. At the same time it would eliminate the still life feel of the tank. With these thoughts in mind Wisteria Island became Petrified Valley. The tank was never broken down during the makeover. I did my usual 50% water changes and moved rocks, substrate and plants in the process. This took place over several water changes until the full rescape was completed.




The New Scape




Closeup of Valley and Right Grouping





Closeup of Valley


Challenges with this tank:
There were three major challenges in regards to this tank.

• Finding rocks that would make the valley attractive and natural looking – This was very difficult due to the limited supply of rocks available at LFS in the area.
• Growing all plants successfully – One plant in the layout (Blyxa Japonica) simply does not grow well. I liken this to the fact all tanks are different even when certain conditions for a plant are met. The Limnophila aromatica also has been a challenge of late, but increasing fertilizer doses all the way around seem to have helped.
• Keeping the sand clean because of the two Kuli loaches in the tank – Sounds silly, but true. Lesson learned don’t have squirmy digging fish if you have two substrates next to each other.

I had some green water a few weeks after startup, but the addition of a UV sterilizer quickly ended that. Other than some GSA, the only other algae I ever had in the tank was a little BBA on the hardscape and substrate. This was quickly remedied by increased co2 to a steady pace and reducing the light duration. I’m a big believer in minimal fish load and very minimal feeding. I simply don’t think the small fish that inhabit most planted aquaria need to be feed everyday. I feed a small pinch 4 to 5 times a week once a day.

Final words:
I believe every tank is a learning experience since no two are exactly the same. I’m excited to apply what I’ve learned with Petrified Valley to my next scape that I’m already working on. There are two concepts that I think are extremely important and will limit problems within a tank. These are the control of organics and the ability to make changes to a scape slowly. I find if I adhere to these two principles I could really enjoy my tanks and not worry about algae and other issues.





Petrified Valley