Hey everyone! This will be a journal about my first attempt at a Nature style aquascape having previously only done Dutch in the past. I was on break for about 6 years from the hobby due to college, and not having very aquarium-friendly apartments, but now I am back!
I set out on this tank with the idea that I would be able to try everything that I wasn't able to do before as a broke high school student. That meant better equipment, a fancy rimless tank and actually being able to afford hardscape this time around.
I started by choosing my equipment and settled on the following:
When it came to selecting hardscape I am lucky to have Aqua Forest Aquarium nearby so I was able to select some cool pieces of wood from them and make them the centerpiece of this tank. I chose their Forest dark wood, which seems to be some kind of dense driftwood with a naturally darker color than mopani or malaysian driftwood. For the rock, I had to use Seiryu. I have always loved the look of it and I thought it would pair well with the darker wood. I was aware of the issues it may cause with KH swings, but my tap water is lower hardness so I figured I would be able to offset it (spoiler alert: I was not). I also took some time to thoroughly wash the rock as well as give them a good vinegar bath. I read this would help start the process of leaching so it could form an inert layer sooner.
Onto the hardscape! This is the layout that I settled on:
In between the dry scaping and flooding I also added some smaller accent rocks that are visible here:
I also ended up adding more substrate to the back corners to give it more depth
Now onto plants! I am planning on a very high energy system, and chose plants for that occasion. I also wanted to try getting some moss to attach to the wood and chose weeping moss. I figured it would have a cool effect draping down the wood but it has been a huge headache trying to get it to attach to the wood.
I also ended up moving some of my plants around and this is my most recent photo:
And now onto the not so fun part. After this I ran into issue after issue. I think it was due to me letting my KH and GH creep because I wasnt regularly topping off with RO in between water changes and that led to some nasty algae issues I am currently battling. I have some pretty bad hair algae growing on nearly everything, as well as some clado. I have pulled back my photoperiod and tuned my CO2 and it seems to be slowing but plant health isnt looking amazing. Particularly my rotala macrandra is staying quite green despite most of this tank having 100+ par at the substrate, except some shaded areas and the corners, which are closer to 70-80. I have possibly linked this to micro issues with my Ph being a bit high and am currently looking at BurrAqua's micros mix but only time will tell. In the meantime I have been lowering my hardness levels with remineralized RO, targeting 0 KH and 4-5 GH. My TDS has gone from 250+ down to about 100 since these changes, with no adverse affects on fish, so we will see how the plants react. I have also been trying to spot dose the nastier algae's with hydrogen peroxide, which seems to be keeping them at bay. I had some GSA and ended up upping phosphate dosing and it pretty much is completely gone.
I have had some other issues with s. repens melting as well as my erio sp. vietnam, which I think was due to the hardness climbing over time which led to unfavorable conditions. Overall plant health is looking OK now but I am trying to get everything fine tuned still.
I set out on this tank with the idea that I would be able to try everything that I wasn't able to do before as a broke high school student. That meant better equipment, a fancy rimless tank and actually being able to afford hardscape this time around.
I started by choosing my equipment and settled on the following:
- UNS 90P tank and stand
- Pressurized CO2 setup with a GLA regulator
- Oase 850 therm
- Chirios WRGB Pro II
- Chirios dosing pumps
When it came to selecting hardscape I am lucky to have Aqua Forest Aquarium nearby so I was able to select some cool pieces of wood from them and make them the centerpiece of this tank. I chose their Forest dark wood, which seems to be some kind of dense driftwood with a naturally darker color than mopani or malaysian driftwood. For the rock, I had to use Seiryu. I have always loved the look of it and I thought it would pair well with the darker wood. I was aware of the issues it may cause with KH swings, but my tap water is lower hardness so I figured I would be able to offset it (spoiler alert: I was not). I also took some time to thoroughly wash the rock as well as give them a good vinegar bath. I read this would help start the process of leaching so it could form an inert layer sooner.
Onto the hardscape! This is the layout that I settled on:
In between the dry scaping and flooding I also added some smaller accent rocks that are visible here:
I also ended up adding more substrate to the back corners to give it more depth
Now onto plants! I am planning on a very high energy system, and chose plants for that occasion. I also wanted to try getting some moss to attach to the wood and chose weeping moss. I figured it would have a cool effect draping down the wood but it has been a huge headache trying to get it to attach to the wood.
I also ended up moving some of my plants around and this is my most recent photo:
And now onto the not so fun part. After this I ran into issue after issue. I think it was due to me letting my KH and GH creep because I wasnt regularly topping off with RO in between water changes and that led to some nasty algae issues I am currently battling. I have some pretty bad hair algae growing on nearly everything, as well as some clado. I have pulled back my photoperiod and tuned my CO2 and it seems to be slowing but plant health isnt looking amazing. Particularly my rotala macrandra is staying quite green despite most of this tank having 100+ par at the substrate, except some shaded areas and the corners, which are closer to 70-80. I have possibly linked this to micro issues with my Ph being a bit high and am currently looking at BurrAqua's micros mix but only time will tell. In the meantime I have been lowering my hardness levels with remineralized RO, targeting 0 KH and 4-5 GH. My TDS has gone from 250+ down to about 100 since these changes, with no adverse affects on fish, so we will see how the plants react. I have also been trying to spot dose the nastier algae's with hydrogen peroxide, which seems to be keeping them at bay. I had some GSA and ended up upping phosphate dosing and it pretty much is completely gone.
I have had some other issues with s. repens melting as well as my erio sp. vietnam, which I think was due to the hardness climbing over time which led to unfavorable conditions. Overall plant health is looking OK now but I am trying to get everything fine tuned still.
