Many thanks for the feedback, all comments greatly received ........ To answer a few questions:
Looks really great Mr G. Can`t wait to see what it is like when it fills out so i will watch this journal with great interest!
Utricularia graminifolia and Pogostemon helferi look awesum!
Regarding your ammonia spike. All i can say from my 3 weeks AS experience, lol, is change water as often as possible. My ammonia spike was VERY large, it was maxing out on the test kit. Its a week on now and it has died down to near zero already!
I like your wood as well, where did you get it from and what wood is it?
A few comments/suggestions:
Its a little over weighted to the left but as it fills out and the Lilaeopsis macloviana grows to the right it could very well balance out.
Although on the flip side, have you any idea what shape the overall aquascape will be?
I think Sam mentioned a triangle layout which it looks to be in, but i think the Lilaeopsis m. will pull it out of the shape when it grows ?
I know you responded to this comment , but i think its an important one to consider.... what is the layout you are aiming for?
The tank looks really great and would be a shame to put a solid colour background, but i think its strongly advisable in my opinion due your patterned wall paper, dado rail and then is it a window sill at the top ? If you choose not to, i think it is very distracting with it not being a solid wall colour.
Finally and most importantly, has you java moss gone brown, it looks to have?
Watch it very closely, mine did the same and is the only area of the tank being attacked heavily with algae. I thought it was going to pull back to green and live, but it doesn`t. Or at least mine didn`t
Regards
Chris
The Wood:
The wood was from Maidenhead Aquatic and is being sold as 'Mangrove root'.
It's quite red in colour and some of the ends have been cut off a bit 'square', the moss has been used to try hide the worst bits. I had it in soak for over a month, it leached so bad the water it was in turned almost black ! Thankfully it seems to be totall free on tanins now. It was the best wood I could find at the time..... they also have some 'Sumatran driftwood' in stock. it's nice stuff, but not as good as the stuff
Aqua Essentials now have in stock.
The Aquascape:
Initially the sort of look I was after was similar to something I've seen in Amano's 'Aquarium Plant Paradise' book called "Sunspot Melody" (Page 46/47), this uses rocks (I dont have a pic). This is quite heavy, but comes covers more of the width of the tank. I wanted a similar shape, but using wood (I couldn't finds any suitable rock), I also wanted a different forground to that layout.
However it's strayed somewhat from the original intent !, partly becuse some of my original plant order didn't arrive, but mainly through my own inability to 'stick to the plan'
Both yourself and George have rightly pointed out how this scape is 'heavy' on the left and I fully agree with that.
When I was planning the layout I positioned the wood in the dry tank using less wood looked a bit 'light', like there was something missing. However once planted up things looked different.
I think the biggest factor making it look heavy was the addition of the moss (Christmas moss) ! When doing the dry setup the current amount of wood looked fine, but adding the moss made the wood look much more bulky .... something I'd not taken into consideration, but will remember for the future.
I could try trim back some of the moss (especially the bits that look too brown) to take away some of the weight. I'm also hoping that the weight will lessen when the plants bush out, especially the HM to hide some of the darkness at the front and also the Proserpinaca palustris ''Cuba'' (which seems to be settling in very well) should turn a deep copper colour and draw attention away from the wood itself.
As for the overall shape, I'm going to try recover a triangle shape.
I think the Lilaeopsis macloviana will come out later this week and go into my 'grow out tank', I've never grown it before, but Tropica say it grows very much like Val ( 30 - 50 cm), so is going to get too large. It was a bad choice for this tank, but I think it will fit nicely into my deeper 240Ltr tank. I'll probably put a bit of HM in the centre/rear to hep progress down from the height of the rotala down to the right hand corner.
Great Tank
How much did the Utricularia graminifolia cost you? You think it'd manage to catch and eat apple snails? Or only the smaller snails? Pond snails might be useful for something after all
I noticed from the photo that you have a lot of surface water movement, wouldnt that be releasing the CO2 from the water? You have a high level of CO2, but maybe you are injecting more than you would need to if u lowered the surface movement?
Thanks Voo,
I'm actually not sure how much the U. graminifolia cost per pot, they were all part of a much larger order through Birstall . However there is no risk to any snails, shrimp, fish or fry. Their carniverous capabilities are limited to very small (microscopic) creatures. It mentions this on the Tropica website, but I got it confirmed in email from one of the guys at Tropica.
There is much less surface movement in the tank now, that was only a temporary situation.
Cheers
Al
