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[DexterPunk]

I tell ya what, I’d think twice about doing it if I knew what I do now. It’s a hell of a lot more difficult than I was expecting.


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[wobblysauce]

Well, you did jump in the deep end.

[KNAPPO]

I tell ya what, I’d think twice about doing it if I knew what I do now. It’s a hell of a lot more difficult than I was expecting.

Hahahahahahaha, I have been watching your tanks evolution for a while now and we have a big 200L tank at home with Neons, Gouramis and some alge eaters. The tank is scaped with drift woods with Anubias Nanna's and some Java Moss growing all over them. The tank use to house a Oscar fish but he passed on and the tank was dormant for ages with just the plants living in it and it pretty much went into neglect whilst or twins were so young. My wife and I got it back up n running about a month ago and im amazed all our plants are still alive given how much the tank was neglected.

So, now Ive always wanted to do a aquascape project properly as ive liked this aspect of the hobby a bit more than the fishies. Ive had a look into low-tech vs high-tech setups and im thinking of going the low-tech route as I wont be able to dedicate the time into a high-tech C02 tank and dont want to set myself up for failure and waste the coin.

I have a spare AquaOne Aquastart500 65L tank thats been stashed in the shed that im planning on using in a low-tech setup. I have been boiling my hardscape wood over the last few days to remove the tannins as I plan on using a mixture of rock and timber in the hardscape design and planting around it and grafting some of the plants to the wooden parts. In our main tank we have a corse gravel and its not ideal for planting and root growth so in this tank I want to do the substrate properly so am thinking of going with Aquasoil with Osmocote+ lightly applied down first to feed the roots as ive been seen this used a fair bit in low-tech setups.

Dex, do you buy your plant stock locally or online?
I have a few places local but I think they dont have as much of the ground cover carpeting plants from memory.

[DexterPunk]

CO2 doesn’t really make anything more difficult or hugely complex. The outlay of cost is really the only downside. The higher light is what makes things more difficult.

I paid around $250 for my CO2 setup which included a 2.6Kg bottle. Think that was about $110. But now that I have it, their swap and go program is only $26 for a full bottle. Each bottle should last about 3-6 months.

There’s a couple of aquascape specific stores around Melbourne which have a good range of plants. Even some of the smaller aquariums are getting in tissue culture now (which I’m a massive fan of). But most of my recent plant purchases have come from an online site, family run company in North Queensland.

If you go low tech, you are a little limited in what carpeting plants you can use. Depending on how low tech, have a look at either staurogyne repens, or micranthemum Monte Carlo. I’m growing HC cuba at the moment, which def needs higher light and CO2.



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[DexterPunk]

I’ve just 3D printed some new stands for my light, which doesn’t look the prettiest but does the job getting the light higher up until I can attach some proper hanging stands to the back of my cabinet.




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[KNAPPO]

- CO2 doesn’t really make anything more difficult or hugely complex. The outlay of cost is really the only downside. The higher light is what makes things more difficult.

- I paid around $250 for my CO2 setup which included a 2.6Kg bottle. Think that was about $110, swap and go program is only $26 for a full bottle. Each bottle should last about 3-6 months.

- But most of my recent plant purchases have come from an online site, family run company in North Queensland.

- Depending on how low tech, have a look at either staurogyne repens.

Thanks Dex. Thats coming along nicely!!! Heaps of growth and I love that red leaved Java Fern?

Still not keen to go CO2 even tho that seems pretty cheap, im trying to reuse this second tank for as cheap as possible and keep the on going cost down. If I get addicted and get things take off ill have the 215L tank I can go gang busters on My aim is for the most expensive part of this 65L setup to come from the Aqua soil and the plant stock. Im ok it it takes longer for the plants to grow and im aware it limits my plant selection but ive always kept slow growing plants as it is. Mostly Anubias Nana.

My plan is to sort out my hardscape first then look at what plants to use to compliment it, keeping in mind that I aim to keep things as simple as possible. Some of the plants on my short list so far are Java Fern, Amazon Sword, Cryptocoryne's ect. Staurogyne repens were on my list as they seem hardy and easier to keep. Will keep an eye out for them, thanks.

I have found some cool as dead wood that im boiling up, stripping back and soaking in the bath tub to release the tannins whilst im in the planing phase, ive got the basic plan down for a tree root style scape so it resembles a trees roots growing into a river. Im going to spend a fair chunk of time getting the hardscape right before I add any water. So far the timber prep has been going well, just want to ensure the timbers are well and truly prepped. Its a fair bit of work but after some test installs last night it should look pretty cool with some complimentary rock. Finding rock to my liking its going to take some time as I want it to be free if possible.

Im keen to get some of my plant stocks from online and within Australia, could you share the web address for the family run company in QLD?



This is how our large 215L tank is setup at the moment. Pretty basic with just Anubias Nana, Java Moss, rock and drift wood. its very low maintenance and has x20 Neon Tetras, x2 Yellow Dwarf Gourami and x3 Siamese Flying Fox algae eater's. I have x10 Red Cherry Shrimp going into this tonight to see how they go with helping the plant leaves.

[DexterPunk]

- CO2 doesn’t really make anything more difficult or hugely complex. The outlay of cost is really the only downside. The higher light is what makes things more difficult.

- I paid around $250 for my CO2 setup which included a 2.6Kg bottle. Think that was about $110, swap and go program is only $26 for a full bottle. Each bottle should last about 3-6 months.

- But most of my recent plant purchases have come from an online site, family run company in North Queensland.

- Depending on how low tech, have a look at either staurogyne repens.

Thanks Dex. Thats coming along nicely!!! Heaps of growth and I love that red leaved Java Fern?

Still not keen to go CO2 even tho that seems pretty cheap, im trying to reuse this second tank for as cheap as possible and keep the on going cost down. If I get addicted and get things take off ill have the 215L tank I can go gang busters on My aim is for the most expensive part of this 65L setup to come from the Aqua soil and the plant stock. Im ok it it takes longer for the plants to grow and im aware it limits my plant selection but ive always kept slow growing plants as it is. Mostly Anubias Nana.

My plan is to sort out my hardscape first then look at what plants to use to compliment it, keeping in mind that I aim to keep things as simple as possible. Some of the plants on my short list so far are Java Fern, Amazon Sword, Cryptocoryne's ect. Staurogyne repens were on my list as they seem hardy and easier to keep. Will keep an eye out for them, thanks.

I have found some cool as dead wood that im boiling up, stripping back and soaking in the bath tub to release the tannins whilst im in the planing phase, ive got the basic plan down for a tree root style scape so it resembles a trees roots growing into a river. Im going to spend a fair chunk of time getting the hardscape right before I add any water. So far the timber prep has been going well, just want to ensure the timbers are well and truly prepped. Its a fair bit of work but after some test installs last night it should look pretty cool with some complimentary rock. Finding rock to my liking its going to take some time as I want it to be free if possible.

Im keen to get some of my plant stocks from online and within Australia, could you share the web address for the family run company in QLD?



This is how our large 215L tank is setup at the moment. Pretty basic with just Anubias Nana, Java Moss, rock and drift wood. its very low maintenance and has x20 Neon Tetras, x2 Yellow Dwarf Gourami and x3 Siamese Flying Fox algae eater's. I have x10 Red Cherry Shrimp going into this tonight to see how they go with helping the plant leaves.

I love how much Anubias you have going on there. I paid $80 recently for about 10 tiny plants. Although they are the 'petite' variety.
My red plants are Alternanthera reineckii 'Mini' (often referred to as AR mini). Lots of light, CO2, and iron to keep them red. They have been a bit bronze of late, but starting to get there since I started dosing fertilisers.
You are definitely on the right track taking your time to get the hardscape right. It's said to be the most important step. And that's a good selection of easy to grow plants.
I would recommend going some ADA brand aquasoil. I use Amazonia in my tank. It's tried and true, and full of all the good stuff your plants need. Just be aware that it will spike ammonia levels quite a bit at the start. That eventually dies down. I lost some expensive plants learning that lesson.

I use Liverpool Creek Aquariums for the recent plants i've purchased. https://www.liverpoolcreekaquariums.com/
They have a really helpful facebook group where heaps of advise is always asked, and given. They also have online auctions via their facebook group where you can make savings.
Their fertilisers are also excellent. Two of the most well known aquascaping stores here in Melbourne are stocking it, and vouch for it. It's way more concentrated than something like Seachem ferts so you need way less, and in the end is far cheaper to use. It also contains a potassium and phosphorus, which I don't think most of the commercial brands do.

There's also https://www.aquagreen.com.au/
Their site is terrible, but they get some amazing native plants and fish. I'd love to do an all native aquascape one day. From reports, they are trustworthy sellers, but I have no personal experience.

[KNAPPO]

Thanks Dex, will have a look thru those links and the ADA brand aquasoil is already on the list.

Just be aware that it will spike ammonia levels quite a bit at the start

Question: I was planning on buying the aquasoil and getting it into the tank whilst setting up the hard scape to get the wood and rocks all arranged ect. Could I add water to the finished hardscape and leave it for a while (weeks even) allowing the water to stabilise before planting to reduce ammonia spike risks to plant life?

I love how much Anubias you have going on there. I paid $80 recently for about 10 tiny plants. Although they are the 'petite' variety.

Most of these came from a bunch a mate gave me about 5-6 years ago. They are such slow growing but are hardy as hell, No ferts, no CO2 but they just kick on. Shit we let this tank completely go for about 2 years... Never turned the light on, never changed the water and a big Pleco (THIS GUY) died in his hiding hole and it took us a while to realise when we didnt see him for a while... But still, the Anubias just kept on. The plants on the left log are at least 5 years old! Not huge but big enough to split and re propagate.

Now the tank has been rejuvenated and closer to a window the plants are throwing up new leaves like crazy. Ive never seen them grow so fast. I have split a few rhizomes and fixed them to new logs so the collection keeps growing. Some of these will probably make it into the new tank.

I just want to get rid of the black algae growing on them and get them all good again. I have looked into diluted bleach cleaning but im saving that as a absolute last resort.

[DexterPunk]

Question: I was planning on buying the aquasoil and getting it into the tank whilst setting up the hard scape to get the wood and rocks all arranged ect. Could I add water to the finished hardscape and leave it for a while (weeks even) allowing the water to stabilise before planting to reduce ammonia spike risks to plant life?

Absolutely. If you have some established biomedia in the old tank, chuck some of that in the new filter too to help kickstart the colony of good bacteria that helps to process the ammonia. Your hardy plants may well be perfectly fine with the high ammonia, I had significant melting of my HC cuba, and pogostemon helferi, but both of those are a bit more fragile than what you are using. Still, I don't see why you wouldn't let the tank cycle a bit before planting. I'd say the only reason people don't is patience. I would have done it this way if I had my time again.

[DexterPunk]

Just further to this... plants take up nutrients that algae would otherwise use. This is why experienced aquascapers advice for fighting algae is always 'concentrate on growing plants well'. The plants out compete it. So if you cycle the tank plantless... make sure the light is not used.

[KNAPPO]

Good advice, thanks Dex.

My red cherry shrimp went into my big tank last night. Bought 10 for $10 of a local bloke via Gumtree, when I went to collect them he said there were more than I asked for. Got home and started the drip acclimatisation and counted 43! Some are super small and get lost in my tank but I counted about 25 this morning. The Gold Dwarf Gurami's only seem slightly interested but the bigger shrimp can escape so thats good. The smaller fry seem to either be hiding very well, ive spotted some in the gravels, amongst the logs but some could have died or been eaten. Will have a good look tonight.




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Made some more progress on my new tank. The test piece of dead paper bark worked out so well that i went back and grabbed the other two portions of the shrub and trimmed them up to about 120% of what i need and got them soaking in the bath tub to soften the bark and get them ready for stripping. The initial test piece took about 30 mins to strip the bark off after a long soak, I used steel wool and a flat head screw driver to hack at its nooks and crannies, this time im going to initially blast the soaked pieces with a gurney then do the manual scrubbing. Came up with shit loads of character.

BEFORE: Here are the two pieces I harvested after the test piece was a winner.


AFTER: Here is how the hardwood turns out with the bark removed.


This is the basic concept that im going for. I have more timber than I need but I want to explore some layout designs along this basic theme, tree roots growing into the tank with rocks built up in the underside of the roots with a higher structure on the left and a complimentary smaller setup on the right. Ill strip back the last two sets of paperbark tonight and I can get the wood portion sorted out whilst I search for more of the blue stone ive found in the local creek.

[DexterPunk]

Yeah it's sometimes hard to keep track of the shrimp. Make sure they aren't being sucked up by the inflow to the filter as well. I know some people stuff some sponge down the bottom of the inflow tube, or a bit of stocking over the end of it works too. If they have lots of hiding places, the fry should hopefully not get picked off. I lost all my 20 something North Queensland algae shrimp. I think my water just wasn't quite ready for them when they went in. I'll go with red cherries as well next time. A bit more hardy, a lot cheaper, and will breed in fresh water.

The wood looks amazing! What is it? I've been wondering how well Tea Tree shrubs you find all around the bay here in Melb would go if the wood was properly aged / boiled / soaked long enough.

Here's the best in the world from last year for inspiration

http://www.adana.co.jp/en/contents/iapl ... index.html

[KNAPPO]

The wood looks amazing! What is it?

I have no idea, after a bit of searching it could be a Swamp Paper-Bark. There was no foliage left to use for clues, its well and truly dead, dry and brittle but the remains remind me of this. The bark has this kind of stringy texture to it.

Soaking it gets the timber back to a point that cutting it with secateurs leaves a nice clean cut. Ive boiled the trunk end of the 1st piece and the other two have been soaking for 24hrs in nothing but hot water in a bath tub. Im filling the tub each day with hot water and soaking for 24hrs and repeating till im happy with it. The two pieces with bark left leeched a fair bit of tannins over night but thats mainly from the bark. The initial piece leeched only a bit after it was stripped so I dont think it will take long to get it tank ready. Its not leeching anywhere near the amounts the dark red woods I have in our big tank did when curing them for use.

There is the slight chance it could have been poisoned to kill it initially, I really dont know. The wood has no moisture in its centre anymore so my plan is lots n lots of hot/boiling water treatment. Then when im happy with the amounts of tannins I can always do a bleach soak and a Seachem Prime soak to be super sure anything nasty is dead! This is a method ive seen people use for cleaning black algae from Anubius Nana plants but I have my concerns with bleach, ill probably just boil the fuck out of it.

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I went for a walk at lunch and raided the local rail yards for fist sized blue stone as it matches the larger blue stone rocks ive found in the local creek. Plus I found a few crushed gravel paths with the same colour stone so I managed to haul about 10-20kg of blue stone in a variety of sizes for free. Im really enjoying the planning and sourcing of materials for this tank. Im going to have more than I need to build the hardscape which is prefect as itll give me lots of design options.

[DexterPunk]

Yeah perfect. It's good to have way more than you need, and select the best bits.

I'm not sure that tannins are that much of an issue. There are people out there who intentionally add them for a blackwater style tank, and can look really good! You can also use carbon filter media to remove tannins I believe.

[KNAPPO]

Yeah tannins pose no issue to the health of the fish or plants really but from my experience fresh woods that have not had any submersion leech heaps initially. So I find it best to get them soaking for a while before introducing them into a tank unless you are going for a blackwater style tank like you mentioned.

the timber I have makes the water go a straw colour so im happy with that. I plan on keeping them in the tub till im ready to design the hardscape and commit for two reasons. I want to keep them waterlogged and as a bonus they will leech into the tub and not my tank.

I think im going to go with a canister filter, mainly for extra room in the tank and for the overall look of not having a machine in the scape. As its a small sized tank a canister filter should not cost toooo much and will probably be my biggest expense.

Ive seen that the Eheim Classic 250 gets some good wraps along with the Fluval line of filters. The Classic 250 is for tanks 80-250L so I could go with the Classic 150 which is for tanks 50-150L as the Aquastart 500 is around 65L. Ill have to do some reading up in regards to flow rate and hardscape density once i know how the tank will be populated. Dont really want an internal filter as itll chew up a fair bit of space in this tank.

[DexterPunk]

Yeah I went with a Fluval 306 for my tank and glad I didn’t go for any hangon filter. Also meant I could go for an in-line atomiser for the CO2, and I may switch to an in-line heater as well at some point.

The basic rule of thumb for flow is 10x the volume of your tank. So if it’s a 100l tank, go for a filter that moves 1000l/hr.

I found I didn’t have enough surface agitation with my filter and ended up buying a wave maker off eBay. The flow is possibly slightly higher than it should be now, but with better surface agitation, you get far better gaseous exchange which provides a better buffer for my CO2 levels. Not going to be an issue for you, but it does help O2 levels in the tank as well.

[KNAPPO]

Been playing about with my hardscape box the last few days testing a few designs and im slowly getting towards something I want to commit to. I still need to find a few more pieces of root to have a few more options with this particular design but overall im pretty happy with this basic concept. Will look pretty good planted with Java Fern's Crypts, moss and Anubius.



In the mean time ive scaped a bowl thats on our dining room table with a rock n dead wood theme that pokes out the surface. Its planted with Anubius and an air plant fixed to the wood that protrudes the surface. When the weather warms up a bit im going to trial some red cherry shrimps in it but its a little bit too cold at the moment for them. Ill grab a photo of it this weekend.

Last night when I was mucking about in the hardscape box I setup a small 360ml glass food storage container we had with some of the smaller pieces I had kicking about for my desk at work. Its planted with some moss thats growing in the cracks of our pavers in the backyard. The moss will probably die off as its to moist but its worth a trial. The glass container is only 140mm (L) x 100mm (W) x 50mm (D)

[DexterPunk]

The little glass container is awesome. Hopefully the moss lives. I’ve seen some people have luck with moss found in creeks/rivers... but that stuff is usually submerged.

Your hardscape is coming along nicely too. Can’t wait to see it progress.


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[DexterPunk]

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[KNAPPO]

Nice one, that would have been tricky to scape n plant with the narrow opening.

[KNAPPO]

Your hardscape is coming along nicely too. Can’t wait to see it progress

Long story short. My wood selection has been driving me nuts, as its all individual pieces crafting a piece that I was happy with was shaping up to be a LOT of work...

On my Friday lunch run I spotted some nice big pieces of chunky basalt so on the way home nabbed them along with a plastic palate that work let me have, score. Using the palate to build height for the large rock at no cost to additional weight ive settled on this layout. Tank tested it today and I think im happy to commit to this scape. I need to finish zip ting the levels of the palate together so I can glue the two main RHS rocks as one then I can fill the plastic grids with coarser gravel and get the substrate in and finish tweaking the smaller details of the scape. Need to sort out 3 smaller rocks to compliment the two large pieces along with small fragments of rock work to lead into the substrate.

Getting there. Really need to sort out my canister pump and inline heater now as im getting closer to thinking about planting.

[DexterPunk]

Looking really good!! To be honest, I loved setting up the new tank. My plants are really kicking along now, but I had such a good time constructing it, that I won’t be too fussed if I have to pull it all down and rescape when I eventually have to move house. The joys of renting.

Can’t wait to see how your tank looks. Keep us updated.

I just bought two new fishes after the Otos all carked it

Hopefully these Siamese Algae Eaters are a little more hardy.


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[KNAPPO]

I picked up a big tub of Peacock Moss from the local fish shop on the weekend for $10. As im still a little ways off my new tank I wanted to get it into my big tank and see how it goes compared to the Java Moss I already have. They look soooo similar but you can see the difference in how the two mosses grow and branch out. The Peacock Moss should trim up and form much tighter bunches if looked after so I plan on using it on logs and really wanted to try and form a tree with it.

So, last night I turned this pile of root ends and a rock into a bonsai tree. The main piece for the tree is the only Y piece in this bunch on the far LHS, the rest of this was made up from individual pieces and super glue! It has 6 platform areas for the moss to be setup on and ill have to give it weekly/fortnightly trims to keep the moss formation tight but for $3 worth of glue and some moss its worth a try.

[hutchy]

Very cool Knappo!

[KNAPPO]

Time to grow some algae... Well I hope not lol.