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Hi guys!

I'm new here, but not entirely new to planted tanks though I've been out of the hobby for the better part of the last decade between kids and moving a couple of times - but finally in a spot where I can do something again. I'm mostly going to be making things up as I go along, but plan on a lot of automation (I want to integrate everything into home assistant) and a lot of DIY as I love the challenge of building things out myself.

The starting point:

I picked up a 90P rimless, low-iron tank on a great deal.



I have a rough idea in my head for a stand to be built from plywood - just have a couple other house projects to finish off before starting that built.

Wife says I can only have one aquarium, so for this tank, I want to go all out with a sump to allow for auto top off, and auto water changes, auto fertilizer dosing etc. etc. I have half a plan in my mind.

I've also started on the light fixture which I've modeled up in CAD, and plan on making out of an 8020 extrusion, and some 3D printed bits.

I'm using bridgelux gen 3 thrive CW (3000k) and WW (5000k) LED strips which have super high CRI at 98+ along with some specific XPE2 wavelengths that I'll solder onto some starboards. Far Red (730nm), Red (654nm), Cyan (495nm), Blue (455nm), Visible UV (415nm). Each segment of the white channels will be on its own driver so I can adjust left to right brightness in thirds, and each colour channel on its own driver so I can vary each channel on a time-based approach.

These will be run from a custom PCB board with Meanwell N-LDD drivers, and will run ESPHome on an ESP32 so it can link up with my Home Assistant installation.


That's it for now, this will probably be a very slow build so be warned if you follow along!

leaves curled up after the water change in the aquarium.

100l, change 35

Add 30ppm Ca. 8ppm Mg in 35l

I’ve had this idea in my head for a couple of years now and it’s finally taken shape. The inspiration came from a local conservation area/regional park. I wanted a tall nano scape with stone/wood hardscape with a pump/filter in the rear plumbed so the outflows exited at the top and trickled down the face of the scape. Primarily a moss scape dotted with some native accent plants.

Tank: 15cm x 15cm x 25cm ultra clea low iron nano tall with floating bottom.

Light: random plant light from local store.

Substrate: random top fin black pebble gravel that came in a bag with a marketplace tank setup.

Pump: random pump from my dad’s garage from one of my brothers super old tanks.

Plumbing: extra black RO 1/4” tubing and quick connect fittings from a reptile mist kit (for another project).

I started by building the frame with divider panels. There are two ledges that propped up the hardscape, and the whole frame was draped and buffered with 3d spacer mesh (Epiweb) to retain moisture and humidity near the top of the scape without needing a lid. The mesh also helps keep the wood in contact with water, and aids establishing moss.









3d spacer mesh:



Back filter installed:



And the dry fitment test. Had to file down the rock on both sides so it fit without being forced in there. I constructed it this way so the whole scape could be pulled out at once if I needed to reset it, or just the pump if it needed to be serviced. More 3d spacer mesh was wedged in all the crevices for additional wicking.



Topped up and testing:



Additional hardscape up top to help hide all the outflows, and provide space for the finishing flora (maybe some air plants and/or orchids).

I have always liked Rotala florida as plant due to its strongly colored leaves, but realized that I haven't actually aquascaped much with it - meaning to integrate it as part of a layout and not just growing a bunch of it in farm/collector style tank. Using plants in a layout in tighter bunches, and in competition with surrounding plants/hardscape is much harder than growing it farm style in a single patch - it also means be able to shape/trim the bushes to match the overall curves of the layout.

Back in 2016 or so when I first received Rotala florida samples from north america, I could only grow it in sparser bunches. It looked nice in macro photographs but I could not envision using it an bush that would show off well as part of a layout unless I can grow it much denser. In the recent years, there were two main discoveries that I found in my experimentation, the first is that it grows better in moderate GH (5 dGH+) compared to super soft water (say <3dGH), and that it grew better in certain soil mixes (I experimented with different garden soil mixes when engineering the composition of APT Feast). Eventually I integrated some of the soil data into APT Feast's composition, and paired with the higher power lights readily available today, I find that I could finally grow the plant the way I envisioned as part of overall layout. I could prune it dense, as the base stems were healthy enough to sprout dense side shoots after trimming - and the secondary/tertiary shoot tips were as fully colored and sized similar to a primary shoot tip that hasn't been subjected to topping yet.

As a midground stem, it works very well due to its slower growth rate vs other colored stem plants.

Against the deep purple of Rotala florida, I found that Golden white clouds worked quite well. So now they are the main inhabitants of the tank.

Tank this week (25/6/2025)



Tank started out like this:

A week or 2 after initial planting (5/5/2025). I reused old aquasoil from the previous scape, so I planted all plants up front rather than waiting more time for the tank to stabilize, with the idea that I could out-grow any algae issues. Initially wanted to add H. Chai but it really didn't fit the overall color scheme, and the bushes by the side were too invasive to be compatible with having a chai patch I think.

Since it was going to contain Rotala florida, I thought I might as well throw in other high demand troublesome species such as the Red Eriocaulon quinguangulare, blood vomit. I settled on Rotala tulunadensis for the background as I wanted something dense and shapeable.

Tank specs:
60x36x36cm
Filter: Oase biomaster 250, all sponge media
CO2 injected through inline atomizer
Substrate: APT Feast
Water column: APT Sky to raise GH to 5dGH, 2ml of APTe per day.


Light distance. Interestingly, not crazy high PAR - just around 200-250 umols PAR at the substrate level.



Trimming and shaping: Most bushes were shaped by cutting individual outlier shoots one by one. Only Rotala blood red and the Rotala tulunadensis was straight trimmed across the entire top once.


This is how the Rotala tulunadensis looked like after a straight trim on 29/5/2025. About 3 weeks from when the top picture at top of this page was taken. It took the plant a whole week + to show new shoots. It seems straight trimming slows down the plant quite a bit, but allows for a very dense & neat canopy afterwards.



There are some interesting plants stuffed here and there. Some Eriocaulon caulescens? bolivia? that local hobbyists passed on to me. Carved out a patch for Syngonanthus vichada - slow grower, but the couple of babies that came have doubled in size so I think they should be alright. I think I will move them to a larger tank with more space.









Only discovered the color combination with the Golden white clouds when the tank matured, but its one of my favourite fish-plant combinations now. I think that while some of the species are a bit picky about growth conditions, one thing I really like about this tank is that most things have moderate/slow growth rates, which makes maintenance with regards to removing excess growth less tedious.
Elatine triandra is used as a low growing green filler plant - it does this role well. As it does not root very deeply, I can easily cut and pull off excess growth easily. Its the fasting growing plant in the layout that requires frequent removal of excess growth.

Some more close-ups.








I'm trying to replicate concepts of this layout (slowing growing bushes) into my 4ft tank.

Welcome to ScapeCrunch, @Rachel Smith!
We would love to get to know you. Please tell us about yourself. What tank do you have?

Time to start a new thread.

I’ll fill in some details later, but I’m working on the hardscape now. Any and all criticism is appreciated. The vision is nothing more, and nothing less, than something appealing to the eye.

90cm x 30cm x 30cm Lifegard Aquatics ultra clear bookshelf tank. Buce and anubias on the hardscape, stems towards the back and center, mid to front carpet with some changes in shade and texture down to a flat grade on the right side of the tank.

Lily pipe inlet and skimmer will be in the back left corner with the outflow in the front left to hopefully achieve circular flow. I’ll be running an in-line diffuser. Light will be the P600 Pro that I regrettably did not upside to 900. Oh well. I’ll mount it high and hopefully it’ll have enough spread.

I have some dragon stone and red lava rock rubble I’ll use at the base to blend into the substrate, as well as some stratum I may or may not cap with.

This is the future home for the announcements when someone obtains an achievement badge. Let the games begin!

I hadn't seen it mentioned by others that attended Aquashella, but if you hadn't already heard about it or seen it in Aquashella videos, ADA has come out with Amazonia Pro. It's not a replacement for Version 2, but an addition. It is essentially Version 2 on steroids with higher nutrients and of course the negative side effect of potentially higher initial ammonia leaching and, if your not prepared and skilled, more chance of algae. That's even from the mouth of Homma-san himself. The scaping competitors were using it in the competition and AFA was selling 9l bags at the show. They said it would be available on the website within the next couple weeks.

It’s time to take down the 20 gallon long tank that was my first “ high tech planted” aquarium and upgrade to a tank with on an appropriate size/depth.

I’ll order a Landen (90 x 50 x 50) tank on Amazon for this. Free overnight delivery. Preposterous!

I’ve studied the thread TRyan posted on 3/4” plywood stands and will be building a stand for this - thank you TRyan!

For filtration, I’ve been studying JayP’s thread. I had a biomaster thermo 350 on the 20L which I’m thinking of reusing. And I also have a netlea prefilter sitting around and an ARC small acrylic yugang reactor I can steal from a tank. I’m thinking of buying an Oase 800 or other pump and chaining these pieces together to provide a second filtration/carbonizing path? Not sure on the pump manufacturer & size?

I’ll be putting this together in the style of the ADA nature aquarium. Aquasoil in the back, some hardscape (rock, wood) in the midground and a decorative sand foreground. Very simple. Primarily a guppy, Endler, Cory, pleco, neocaridina tank.

Soliciting the scapecrunch community for feedback, advice, suggestions, etc.

Thank you as always. You all are the best!

I managed to acquire some Eriocaulon ratnagiricum. It should arrive early next week. I am pulling my 60U out of its extended dark start this weekend, and figured it would be an intriguing addition at the base of the large stones. (Not my image, this was from the seller):



I did read Dennis Wong's 'how to grow' for this species, which was very helpful, and will add some APT Jazz in the areas that I plant it as it seems it wants a fairly rich soil. Tank is 0KH, remineralized RO with APT Sky initially to dGH 6 when I initiated the dark start.

However, despite being sold as 'inert', the Sensei stone I acquired from AFA is most definitely not proving to be entirely inert. I haven't drained the tank yet, but will this weekend when I start planting, but this morning KH is holding at 0, but dGH is currently sitting at 10! There is a vein of quartz-like crystal running through the largest stone, presumably calcite, as it is driving the GH up, and leaving KH unaffected. Calcite reportedly can run in some Magura/Sensei stone. I am already reconsidering the type of shrimp for this tank based on the higher GH level, but I am wondering if anyone has experience with this plant in a tank with higher GH? This Erio is KH sensitive, and the tank is ok there, but I am wondering if the excess calcium in the water column, pushing that higher GH, might be less than ideal for this Eriocaulon?

I did consider sealing the vein of calcite with cyanoacrylate glue, and covering it in riccardia to maybe slow the leaching/rise in GH, but I think most of the rocks have at least some of this material running through them to varying degree, and I am expecting that the leaching could increase once the CO2 is running, and the pH drops. Regardless, if anyone has experience growing this lovely little spiky Erio, please share!