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Fishstery
Last reply · posted in Journals
I meant to get this journal started sooner, but there wasn't much to report on while doing a dark start, and then I had a small mishap with some of my plants getting partially frozen while getting driven around timbucktoo in a FedEx truck. Now that I got my plant replacements in and some of my fish in the tank, I figured now is a great time to start since I have some nice photos.

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Here's the sparks notes as to what I got going on so far:

Equipment:
Landen 100p (52 gal with a shallow footprint, roughly 47 gallons factoring in water displacement)
Two Week Aqua T90 Pros
UNS Controsoil Supplemented with APT 1 Dosed Daily
Oase Biomaster Thermo 600
5 LB co2 tank with inline diffuser

Flora:
Eleocharis acicularis 'Mini'
Staurogyne Repens
Alternanthera Reineckii 'Mini'
Ranunculus Inundatus (to be added to midground pending delivery)
Rotala Ramosior 'Florida'
Bacopa Salzmannii 'Purple'
Rotala 'Blood Red' SG
Bacopa Colorata
Limnophila 'Belem'
Persicaria 'Sao Paulo'
Nymphoides Taiwan
Cabomba Furcata

Fauna:
20x Cenepa Red Pencilfish
2x Wild Type Honey Gourami
A Few pink Ramshorn snails I plucked from my low techs
To be added once tank stabilizes:
20-30 Hastatus Corydora (I have a group of 20 in their own 20g long breeding project, my wallet broke with the Pencils and Hastatus aren't cheap either) 25 Blood Orange Neocaridina

What's happened so far:
The tank was filled and dark started on 1/17 using some Fritz Turbostart and seeded ceramic from one of my established tanks. I got impatient and planted on 1/30, after the ammonia dropped. The tank cycled on 2/4, so 18 days from fill.

Last night I moved the Pencilfish and Gourami out of QT since I don't work on the weekends and am able to monitor them with the co2. I had my co2 dialed in quite well, at 45ppm. Today was day 1 with the fish in and about halfway through the photo period my plants started lightly pearling for the first time, but unfortunately I could tell the fish were not feeling well. I backed off the co2 a bit, but one Pencilfish in particular started acting drunk. They were $30 a piece so any loss would be a huge disappointment, so I cut the co2 early and slammed some extra oxygen into the tank and all was well. The Gourami were totally unfazed as expected. I turned the flow up on my WaveMaker, turned the co2 down some more, so tomorrow will be ground 0 again with dialing in the co2. Other than that, things are going very well with the plants. It's only been 8 days but the hairgrass is spreading very quickly, the cabomba and bacopa colorata are throwing some very nice colors at the tops despite being low to the substrate, since I've been aggressively propagating everything to fill in what I can. The slower ones to transition and grow are the Ramisior (expected), Limnophila, and Persicaria.

I'm currently running the T90 Pros at 50% on the "Red" preset, which averages about 120 PAR at the substrate. I took about a hundred data points with my rented PAR meter of all of my preferred color settings, including increments of intensity so that I have the data on hand should I need to adjust later. These lights are very impressive. The spread is in line with what I'd expect with a pendant style, but I favor the Kessil-like shimmer effect which is why I chose Pendants. On my 17.71" high tank, they could easily put out 300+ PAR at the substrate and 500+ at the surface.

What's next?
I'm waiting on my Ranunculus Inundatus to arrive and will be planting that scattered throughout the tank like the AR mini to give a nice transition from the hairgrass carpet to the stem plants, I also have two pieces of cut glass coming to make a two piece lid to help prevent evaporation and preserve my boyfriends deer mount. I'm going to start doing larger water changes on the cory QT tank with water a few degrees colder than the tank to stimulate breeding, I'm hoping they will breed themselves into a larger colony, as my main vision for the tank is a massive school of these little cuties. It's my first time keeping them but I find their appearance far more attractive than regular Pygmy Cories, and their mid-level tight schooling behavior will be quite the spectacle if I'm successful. I feel the tank is stable enough to add my shrimp, so I'll be getting those shipped in at the end of the week. I'm hoping once I gain some more plant mass to output more oxygen, I can turn the co2 back up past 35ppm. I can't get any more surface agitation and flow than I already have, without turning the tank into a Kitchenaid mixer. The Pencilfish have been very forgiving with my harder, more alkaline tap water when in the QT tank, so I was hoping they'd be more tolerant of high co2, but apparently not. Long term plans are to add some Jazz caps in a few weeks to feed the stems, but I anticipate sticking with APT 1 since my tap contains both nitrate and phosphate, and I'll have a moderate bioload. I also have had a 5 stage BRS RODI system for a few years that I never bothered to hook up, so I'll be making plans to get the tank switched over to RO water once my soils buffering capacity is about kicked.

Anyways, that's it for now. I'll update back tomorrow with how day 2 went with the Cenepas' tolerance for co2. I've been practicing my cellphone photography skills so enjoy my photo dump below, the Cenepa are absolutely spectacular to watch, and between my toddler, Kaiseri Newts, and these guys, I'm going to have to invest in some external storage for my camera roll. Also, honorable mention for those who replied to my "Center or not" thread regarding my driftwood. It's placed slightly off to the right and it should look very nice once I'm done propagating and can let my stems get some real height. The fish love all of the holes, tunnels, and caves that this piece of wood has.
94 replies · 6123 views
JayP
Last reply · posted in Equipment Discussions
The Biomaster Thermo 600 on my farm tank had been screaming at me lately that it was time for some TLC. It was doing the typical air sucking, hard to prime, small leaks, etc. all the indications it needed to be fully torn down and have all the gaskets/o-rings lubricated. This is the nice thing about having extra complete filters so I can have a pump head, heater, priming assembly, and inlet/outlet connection unit all cleaned, lubed and ready to go on an active filter. This is especially true for the Inlet/Outlet Connection Unit which seems to be the most common cause of leaks and air intrusion. For this reason, I also keep a couple new spares on hand because I've had a couple break in different ways. Today, while tearing the old one down to lube not only the two visible o-rings, but also the 3 buried within, I broke one of the retaining tabs that hold the inner portion in tightly against those buried o-rings. When I grabbed a new one that I'd just recently purchased, I noticed the visible o-rings were now orange instead of the normal black. They also look a little beefier. I wonder if this is Oase addressing the known common issues with this assembly and making some quiet updates and improvements.

In_Out Assy.webp

Oh, and the farm tank filter is running great again...so far. 😉
10 replies · 428 views
Jarno
Last reply · posted in Journals
Hello everybody im new here and wanted to introduce my tank,

The tank is a 350 liter Juwel rio (120x50x60)
Pretty high tank but wanted to have 50 cm wide

Lights: 3 daytime onex (1x plant 2x colour)
Good for 180 par at the bottom, 1.5 hour build up/5 hours full and 1.5 hour build off

Co2 by Inline with a co2art series pro dual stage regulator dropping 1.4 in ph

Filtration: 2 external filters (1x crystal profi 900, 1x tetra ex 1500 on a spraybar) and a eheim skim 350

Substrate: mastersoil black powder with masterline root tabs

Fertilizer: apt e

Fish: cherry barbels, siamese algae eaters, kuhli, ottociclus and some bloody mary shrimps

Plants: rotala macandra, anubias tinto, reineckii mini, reineckki rosenarvig, rotala blood red, ludwigia repens super red, bacopa carolinia, lobelia cardinalis, crypto flamingo, crypto rosen maiden, staurogene repens, spiralus tiger, ludwigia inclinata meta, samolus parvifloris red.
Might have forgotten something

Currently battling algae and unhappy plants due to nutrient inbalances and a no3 tester that was not correct.

Under a pic of the current state and the state it was a little better in balance (not as it should tho)
52 replies · 3328 views
hamfist
Last reply · posted in Equipment Discussions
I've just spotted these latest Hygger luminaire lights.

All the bumf seems to claim that they only have RGB LEDs (all 5054 type). Very reasonable prices. Is this a complete bargain for a genuine RGB light ? Or is there a catch ?? THis is way off my areas of expertise.

4 replies · 98 views
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Minorhero
Last reply · posted in Equipment Discussions
Hello folks,

I have a Twinstar 1200S V (the new model that has app support). I love the look of the light itself and it makes my tank look great, but either the app is fundamentally flawed or I'm missing something obvious. I have a smart plug on this light so I can turn it off and on with a voice command. The light clearly has a saved state as when it gets powered on it turns on with the right spectrum and the intensity. BUT, it also only turns on for 6 hours before turning off. Every. Single. Time.

My set photoperiod is 8 hours, so the light turns off 2 hours short of the correct time every day.

I can make a work around by turning the light off and back on again at the smart plug, (gaining an additional 6 hour window of 'on' time when I only need 2 hours before the smart switch unplugs the light again). BUT, I would much rather have the light allow for it to be on for as long as I want and turn off when I want.

I contacted twinstar support via email more then a month ago and got absolutely no response. So pretty much the worse product support something can have.

The obvious issue is the inbuilt timer in the app is defaulting to 6 hours. I have tried changing this timer to be longer (set it for 23 hours). I also have tried having the timer just set to 'off'. Neither does anything.

Does anyone else have this light? Does anyone else have any suggestions?
5 replies · 158 views
R
Last reply · posted in Journals
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.

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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.
Screenshot 2026-06-01 092809.webp
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.
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That's it for now, this will probably be a very slow build so be warned if you follow along!
17 replies · 508 views
HardeeParty
Last reply · posted in Journals
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.

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222 replies · 24029 views
F
Last reply · posted in Planted Aquarium Discussion
So I've been trying to recover this farm tank after having been neglected for a couple months after my injury. I had lost some plants which I could understand for obvious reasons. However it seems as though since I've resumed maintenance Its had a major negative impact on the tank. Since resuming water changes & Co2 injection I've had a major issue with plant melt: hygophila araguaia which had been decent has been completely wiped out, buces are shedding leaves at an alarming rate, lagenandra meeboldii green which was easily the largest plant in the tank is a shaddow of its former self and continues to decline, I attributed this melt as likely being a combination of factors:

A.) Aquarium had stopped being dosed with fertilizers and plants had become weak
B.) Co2 bottle had run dry and now suddenly Co2 injection had resumed.
C.) Lack of water changes caused the plants to use up or at least deplete available minerals which were not being replaced with each water change.

My theory was these factors combined with resuming maintenance, co2 injection, etc were drastic enough to cause a significant change in water parameters from what the plants had adapated to.

I had ordered some new plants to replace some that were lost, mostly tissue culture which is what I've had pretty great success with. However now many of these new plants are pretty much also instantly melting. Pogostemon helferi specifically, but also some some swords (echinodorus red diamond) being the hardest hit, but ozelot also struggling.

Nutrient dosing targets:
30mL dose provides
Macros
NO3 via KNO3 - 20ppm
P via KH2PO4 - 1.5ppm
K via KNO3+KH2PO4+K2SO4 - 20 ppm

Micros
Fe via CSM+B - 0.5ppm
Ferts are dosed 10mL at at the time 3x/ week on alternating days.

I use RO water and APT Sky+ to remineralize using the calculator on 2 Hr Aquarist website, and according to the calculator my dosages should put me around 7GH and 1.9KH.
I was going to check water hardness last night but my solution is expired so I need to pick up some more today just for verification purposes. While the tank SHOULD be somewhere in the neighborhood provided by the APT SKY+ when I tested KH (not expired) it tested at 4dKH :unsure:. Lights are on for 7 hours per day, Co2 Injection begins 1.5 hours before lights on and shuts off 1 hour before lights off. pH is 7.4 and pH drop is approximately 1.2 using an apera pH meter (Tank has no inhabitants other than plants). Drop checker Green. TDS 225. I will add that the tank does start seeing some pretty decent ambient light from the room for several hours before lights on, so I'm not sure if this makes a difference. I'm skeptical because everything had been doing fine until the maintenance fell off during my injury, and the decline really accelerated once the water changes/ Co2 injection resumed. Its not everything in the tank, there are plants that bouncing back, the echinodorus Aflame, blyxa japonica, and crypt lucens all seem to be either doing fine or recovering with new growth. I'm at a complete loss, and by no means an expert, I would love any input, ideas, insights that you all could offer. TIA.
5 replies · 180 views
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BenB
Last reply · posted in Lounge
I'm thinking about setting up a carnivorous plant terrarium. I'm looking for a place to go like Scape Crunch to ask a few questions. My experience with aquarium forums has me leery of where I go for info. FaceBook is a :poop: storm. Reddit is slightly better. There are a couple forums, but I don't want to end up in a Planted Tank type situation where the wrong question gets me banned. Any suggestions?

FWIW: I've grown carnivorous plants in the past and had good luck with them. However, from what I can find, doing a terrarium might have a few different rules than just a fun pot garden outside.
9 replies · 125 views
mrmoss
Last reply · posted in Journals
Ive reorganized the order of my tanks so I can better keep track of them ie. Tank 2 moss tank is now tank 3. This helps in any confusion I had when tracking tanks they are in a sort of order now. Rather than taking time editing my old journal id rather create a new thread. Pics will be current (for the most part) as they are posted. I am not aquascaping. I am just farming.
13 replies · 600 views
Art
Art
Last reply · posted in Forum News/Feedback
This is the future home for the announcements when someone obtains an achievement badge. Let the games begin!
1969 replies · 46497 views
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