60cm Journal Fall 2008

Been a long while since I posted a layout for my 60cm tank. I just never got it going last fall (1yr ago), and this last spring I was in Japan on study abroad. In any case, I'm working on this scape this fall.

Tank Specs:

60cm ADA
Eheim 2213
Pressurized CO2 using Diffusion method
Aquasoil Amazonia (powder and normal)

About a month ago I got the plants in, shipped from Aquaforest (glad to be Cali!).



Plant List:
Rotala macrandra "green"
Rotala rotundifolia "green"
Hemianthus micranthemoides
Myriophyllum sp. (can't remember, lol)
Ludwigia arcuata
Glossostigma elatinoides
Eleocharis accicularis
Lileopsis sp.

The plants came in well. As you can see, I've opted for an all-aquasoil with stem plants kinda thing.

About 2 weeks in:



Plants are starting to go gangbuster (except Hemianthus micranthemoides, which always seems to get to a rocky start for me). Nice shot from above:



And this last week I finally got fish into the tank:



I'm really having a war with the green thread algae now though. I was removing algae for about 2 hours during water change before I took this photo. >>

Stock:
8 Neon Tetras
4 Flame Tetras
4 Amano Shrimp (all the store had >>)

Starting pretty light, hoping to go with a typical ADA tetra mix (will add some more neons, pristellas and penguins).

Honestly, I'm not quite sure where I'm going with this. It started off as a sort-of hawaii-themed "Black Sand Beach," but now I'm feeling it as more of a forest-near-volcano type of landscape with lots of lava rock. We'll see how it goes.

Overall, I'm not quite sure where I'm going with the stem shaping, especially in respect to the back-right corner. I wanted to leave that corner bare except for short plants to give it a dynamic-cliff sort of impression, but I kind of get the feeling that not having taller plants back there leaves the stem group kind of "a drift." Meh, not sure what I want to do with it. Oh well, healthy plants and healthy fish, how can it not be pretty right? *sparkle sparkle*