Francine's Aquascape

[marge618]

Just got home from the GWAPA July meeting. They had a special planted tank demonstration at Francine's house.

Wow! :sign0129: There's a lot more to aquascaping than just planting good looking plants in the tank. Francine and the GWAPA group put alot of time and talk into deciding what plants to use for the demo. Then they flew in Luis Navarro from Texas to present and aquascape a 120G tank.

Huge rocks, foreground, midground and background plants, even a tiny midget type plant that will grow like a carpet on the sand. Look for Franny's pictures of the event. It will be fun to see the plants in this tank develop over the next year!

later,
Marge

 

[mscichlid]

Thanks Marge for starting this thread. I will attempt to take photos of the whole tank tomorrow when I have a little more time and rest. It was an exciting and energy charged day. Hopefully, I can get some of the pics from Jeff and Kris to post here, too.

 

[F8LBITE]

sounds cool, post pics ASAP

 

[mscichlid]

Go to Kris's blog for a synopsis.. http://www.guitarfish.org/

 

[mscichlid]

Here's a link to GWAPA's synopsis: http://gwapa.org/articles/july2008/index.html

 

[F8LBITE]

That looks great already, I bet itll be real nice when all that stuff grows in.

 

[Sonny Disposition]

You should've been there. It was a good meeting. It's a very simple design, with some gravel, some rocks, and about 4 plant species. One always thinks that planted tanks need to have a lot of plant species to look good.

I'm thinking of re-doing my 55 long along similar lines. I'd keep it even simpler, though, with just Val, an inch or so of sand at the bottom, and maybe some anubius or java fern on the rock piles. This would be a hard water cichlid tank, so I wouldn't use much in the way of gravel, in case somebody decided to dig a hole at the base of the rocks. I'd stick with val, annubias and java fern because I think the cichlids would be less likely to eat those.

Essentially, if I'm going to build rock piles, I cover the bottom with egg crate, arrange the rocks on the egg crate, then fill in the sand around the rocks. If the rocks are already on the bottom, the fish can't dig underneath and cause any avalanches.

Luis also explained the 2 to 1 principal. I didn't understand it completely, but the part that I came away with is that the idea is to appeal to the mind's need for symmetry by starting with two rock piles instead of one. He also explained that it's more visually interesting if one rock pile is smaller than the other.

That's a change from my labidochromis reef tank, which has one big central rock pile.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (F8LBITEva @ Jul 29 2008, 11:25 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div>

That looks great already, I bet itll be real nice when all that stuff grows in.[/b]

 

[mscichlid]

I think the 2:1 principal meant that whatever you do to one side do less of it to the other.

 

[maddog10]

That is how I used to mix drinks (many years ago), 2 parts Seagrams 1 part 7-Up arty0007: :winking0004:

 

[mscichlid]

Updated pic of my 120:

I just added 48 cardinals. They were smaller than expected, but oh well. I added blyxa (thanks Cristy) and did a little pruning. I also added a pair of an unsubscribed pair of Nannacara. Looking for a source for Amano shrimp because cherry reds would get eaten.

 

[Pat Kelly]

OOOh, very nice

 

[ltrepeter2000]

If its just one pair and you added enough Cherries to the heavily planted section I am sure you can get a colony going and its not like you dont pay ridonculous amounts for daphnia cowherdi on a regular basis. I would think a group of thirty or so cherries could overcome the initial onslaught by the pair of nannacara's....just think about Ghazanfar's tank and how many he had and there were several pair of apisto's in there and they couldnt keep the colony from blooming. I would get in touch with Neilan in GWAPA, who has the same size colony Ghaz had going, he would probably be able to get you enough Cherries to get started.

 

[SubMariner]

Very Nice Francine!

 

[rsretep]

love the tank francine very nice

gotta agree less is usually more with our planted tanks but i am still in the jam as many in as i can

think i am still surprised that they even grow for me lol

again great tank

 

[Tony]

Tank looks great! A bit inspired to redo my 45 high Anubis jungle...

Is the substrate the mud? Did you have algae problems initially? What lighting do you have? CO2?

 

[mscichlid]

Thanks!

Substrate is ADA Amazonian Aquasoil and power sand additive.

I didn't have algae problems initially, but since I added the fish there is some.

Yes, there is C02 and 645 watts of 59" T5 Catalina's. At this time, I'm only running half the lighting and will be going to a noon burst at full wattage as soon as I pick up another timer.

Running a Marineland 360 and an Eheim 2217.