About one month ago, I've decided to rescape my old tank, which was my first attempt on ryouboku, but had some mistakes with driftwood formation. So now I've tried to create ryoboku style aquascape, but payed much more attention to driftwoods and composition.
Lightning: 6 x 23 w, Philips NDL Tornado energy savers-6500 K.
Filtration:Sump and Hang on filter with suface skimmer, total flow rate 2500 l/h.
CO2: DIY yeast and sugar, with also DIY diffuser. I have a pressurized CO2 bottle with manometers but I couldn't find a needle valve so I am a bit afraid to turn this ting without it.
Substrate: 2-5cm layer of peat with some clay, and 3-8 cm of gravel 1-3 mm granulation above.
Hardscape: vine grape driftwood covered with java moss, and some stones, which last week I covered with Riccia.
Plant used are:
Microsorum Windelow
Microsorum narrow
Bolbitis heudeloti
Anubias nana
Valisneria nana
Crynum thaianum
Vesicularia sp.
Monosolenium tennerum
Cryptocoryne becketi ver. petchi
Echinodorus tennelus
Rotalla sp. green
Rotala nanjenshan
Rotala rotundifolia
Hemianthus micranthemoides
Hydrocotyle dissecta
Glossostigma elatinoides
and Riccia sp.
So one month ago, it started like this.
Soon after the setup, I decided to cut old and long leaves of Valisneria nana, because it created to much shade for Rotalas. And two weeks ago I looked like this:
Last week, I decided to ad one driftwood, to improve the appearance of the right side, and also I shif one driftwood more to the back. Also, I added some Riccia on the stones to smooth the transition from Glosso to Monosolenium. Valisneria nana, started to grow out behind Rotalas, which was the idea in the begging.
So now it looks like this:
I did not have major algae issues, only some of green harry looking algae on mosses (maybe staghorn?), but I managed soon to put this in control, and they are reduced.
I ad 5 ml of Easy Life Easy Carbo daily (in the second week, when algae started to appeare I incresed the dosage on 10 ml daily, but now it is 5 ml again). In the second week I started dosing 0,5 ml Nutrafn NPK, 1 ml Easy Life Pro fito and 0,3 ml Easy Life Ferro every 3rd day, and gradually increased the dosage to 2ml of NPK, 2 ml of Pro fito and 0,5 ml of Ferro every second day.