Gav935's 120l Planted

[Gav935]

Righty, been meaning to do this for aaaages now, I acquired a 120l tank about a year and a half ago with the intention of just having a few fish in it, however plans changed as I started to look into planted tanks. I spent the next while collecting all the kit I thought I would need for a hight tech setup. My first efforts were pretty crap tbh, both in terms of looks and growing healthy plants (hence the lack of photos from these early days!), algae was a constant battle along with the dreaded spirogyra. However, after persevering, I managed to be able to grow plants that were healthy and for the most part algae free. At this point I added a shedload of blyxa and some HC purely just to see if I could get them to grow as I'd heard they can both be quite difficult. Both of these plants went absolutely mental, so happy with that I decided to make my first attempt at scaping the tank in a slightly more organised fashion, I ended up just using blyxa and HC with a couple of P. helferi cuttings I didn't want to bin and moved the stems into another tank, rocks were bought for cheapness from lfs as I couldn't stretch to the ones I really wanted from AE. I recently went over to EI dosing partly because of cost but also as I have a pump ready to setup an autodosing system (I love a good gadget!). Basically, so far so good, it's due for a rescape at some point as I'm down for some manzanita wood that's coming from the states. Pics below, please excuse the lack of skills...

Tank specs:
120l 900x300x450mm
2x39w T5HO
Tetratec EX1200
Hydor Koralia 1
Hydor external heater
JBL CO2 with external diffuser
Ecocomplete with a bit of gravel
Autodoser (when I get my finger out)

Blyxa and HC added:

Current scape:

As it stands now:

 

[AdAndrews]

beautiful blyxa, it reminds me of GF's blyxa hills, and that can only be a good thing

keep it up mate

 

[lljdma06]

That is filling out very nicely. I like the scape too.

 

[bagu]

fantastic mate!

 

[aaronnorth]

nice to see your tank
A bit of hairgrass or blyxa at the back would finish it off nicely

 

[Gav935]

Cheers for the comments people!

@aaron - yeah I know what you mean, it's a bit of a big empty space, blyxa would maybe be a bit much as the tank is only 300mm (wish I'd gone for one that was 450mm) in width and it has a tendency to turn into a massive bush, may look into the hairgrass though, which variety of hairgrass would you recommend?

 

[bagu]

i think some wisteria would look really nice there imo

 

[aaronnorth]

Cheers for the comments people!

@aaron - yeah I know what you mean, it's a bit of a big empty space, blyxa would maybe be a bit much as the tank is only 300mm (wish I'd gone for one that was 450mm) in width and it has a tendency to turn into a massive bush, may look into the hairgrass though, which variety of hairgrass would you recommend?

Eleocharis acicularis or parvula. Either will do, Acicularis is said to stay smaller at 4" meanwhile parvula gets to about 6". Hwever the differences between the two cannot be seen sometimes

 

[Gav935]

Cheers, I've been considering both of these at some point around the stones too, maybe soften the transition between the rocks and HC

 

[aaronnorth]

Cheers, I've been considering both of these at some point around the stones too, maybe soften the transition between the rocks and HC

You could do, or place a couple of riccia stones like Amano uses alot. He gets say, 1" stones and makes a "path" with them. That is how he gets the best carpet effect with it