# 5 Gallons - Vertical Iwagumi + Dutch Mixture



## Chizpa305 (Feb 13, 2011)

Hello,

I decided to do a rescape of my 5 gallon tank and this time around I wanted to use some aggressive hardscape. Since my tank is longer vertically than horizontally, I will go with tall rocks arranged in an iwagumi style, however I want this tank to be heavily planted so it will not be a classical Iwagumi. Anyways Here's a picture of how I want the scape to look, more or less. The rocks will actually be a bit higher than in this picture but the arrangement will probably be the same.


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## Chizpa305 (Feb 13, 2011)

When I came home from work yesterday, I got an unpleasant surprise. A lot of the plants were in very bad shape. I had left them in a bucket with water that I left outside, underestimating the unrelenting heat that has been going on here in Miami these past few days. They were there for the duration of just one day, but apparently the drastic change in temperature affected them quite a bit. They were not dead, but not looking good at all. At that point I realized that I had to plant them right away if I wanted any chances of them surviving. So at 2:00AM I finished setting up the scape and planting, knowing that I had to wake up super early today. I turned on the filter to let the water clear up and left the lights on all night. Let's hope that the plants can still make it. Not all were affected, it was mostly the stem plants. Lysimachia nummularia, Ludwigia repens, and Rotala rotundifolia got hit the hardest.


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## Chizpa305 (Feb 13, 2011)

Plants and Critters are In​


This morning I decided to introduce the shrimps. They were not confused by the change of scenery and went directly to scrape the substrate as they usually do. The background plants still are looking a bit pale and unhealthy, but I think they might be able to make it. Here is a quick shot.
P.S: I will clean the intake and outtake at some point during this coming week.


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## sorepatrol68 (Feb 25, 2017)

Ooooo I love the rocks!!! Hope your plants make it!

Sent from my SM-G930W8 using Tapatalk


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## Chizpa305 (Feb 13, 2011)

Week 1

All plants melted, (or are in the process of melting) all their leaves and are growing new leaves at the apices (tips) of the stems. They are starting to look like bare twigs, but I hope in time they'll start to look better. I am pretty confident that the stem plants will make it. Not so confident carpet plants and Phoenix moss will. In any case, it will be a very slow process until this tank starts to get in real shape.








This is the right side view of the tank. I created some sort of cave using the two rocks. The cave will become a nice element to play with using the plants








Also added some soil on top of these two rocks because I have some plans for it in the future.








This is Shrimba, The Shrimp King.








Bottom up shot








I know, I still haven't cleaned those intake/outtake tubes, but the tank looks damn barren and ugly anyways, so it's no big deal.








That's all for now, I will give it some time to grow and I'll get back with more pics once there's some development​


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## Chizpa305 (Feb 13, 2011)

Week 2​


Back from the Dead​
Plants are still fighting back. Looking better this week, but still delicate. Some of them are hanging by a thin thread of tissue. There's some slow, but healthy growth on the tips. I don't even want to touch them for now. I'll wait until there's about 3 or 4 inches of new growth for the stem plants and then replant those tops and get rid of the rest.​











↓↓↓Only Surviving _Utricularia graminifolia_↓↓↓​











↓↓↓Only surviving HC 'Cuba'↓↓↓












↓↓↓Shrimps through a magnifying glass↓↓↓


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## ChrisX (May 28, 2017)

Its coming along. My first planted tank was low tech, and when something happened to a plant, it melted or needed leaves removed, it was almost not worth it to try to regrow.

If a stem only recovers at the tip, figure it will take a month for it to reach the top of the tank, replant, then another 2 months til it fills in again. That is alot of work.

If you upgrade to CO2, the new stems will be at the top in a week or so and you can propagate and create new stems which will soon be at the top again.

IMO, either upgrade to CO2 or order new stems. I've never seen that degree of melt before. I think that kind of melt might be caused by stress from shipping. (Too hot)


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## Chizpa305 (Feb 13, 2011)

ChrisX said:


> Its coming along. My first planted tank was low tech, and when something happened to a plant, it melted or needed leaves removed, it was almost not worth it to try to regrow.
> 
> If a stem only recovers at the tip, figure it will take a month for it to reach the top of the tank, replant, then another 2 months til it fills in again. That is alot of work.
> 
> ...


Yeah, I get you. I want to upgrade to CO2 in the future, I still need to research a bit more into that. However, I am not particularly into high maintenance. I am kind of lazy sometimes, and fast growing plants mean that you have to be constantly trimming them back to avoid getting the tank too overgrown and causing carpet plants to uproot (happened to me once). I am ok with them growing slowly. It'll take longer, yes, to reach the desired scape, but it will also be easier to maintain that desired scape once you get there. 

The plants I am using are all recycled from the old scape I had before setting this new one. I think the reason why they melted is that I placed them in a bucket of water that I left outside during a hot day. From one day to the next, the plants were looking extremely pale and the red plants completely lost the red color. Then there was a lot of melting and dying off.

I went from having a full carpet of UG, to just having three leaves of UG LOL


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## Chizpa305 (Feb 13, 2011)

Week 3




A Visit to the LFS




I was going to wait until the stems grew more before cutting and replanting, but I realized that the stems were a bit damaged and the growth was stunted, so I cut and replanted the tiny tops I had.












But I realized this was very little plant mass and algae would soon come with fury if I didn't do something, so I went by the LFS and bought some more, nice looking plants. Pink tipped _Rotala wallichii_, some _Hemianthus micranthemoides_ at the left background corner, and I can't remember the name of the other one at the right background corner (ID it if you know). Oh and also got some more Staurogyne repens to help populate the scant remains I had of it. The new plants I got have great colors, but I don't know if they will change them in my tank since I don't have CO2.












I got another FugeRay light... I wasn't getting even light spread using just one light, due to the rocks , but now I don't know if this is overkill... We'll see.












Here is a shot from above to show the plant arrangement clearer. The middle background plants will need some time to grow before they can be seen going over the rocks when looking through the front.


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## Chizpa305 (Feb 13, 2011)

Week 4





Hurricane Irma








View of Irma from my balcony as the eye was 150 miles away.





I left my tank a bit unattended these past few days because there were some preparations to be made for the hurricane. I lost power for three days, so I placed the tank close to a window so that the plants could get a bit of sunlight (I was lucky since there are still many people without electricity). Apart from that, there was not much else I could do. Luckily, I didn't loose any fish or shrimp. Just got a bit of algae growth on the rocks (you can see a greener tint on them as compared to previous weeks). I will be buying an otocinculus or two in the coming days to help with that.












_Staurogyne repens_ and _Alternanthera reinekii_ 'mini' growing healthily.












I have noticed that a few of these mysterious plants have sprouted out from the soil in a few different spots. I think it is UG, but has a steam-like appearance too so I'm not sure. I'm waiting for it to grow more to determine what the hell it is.

















Below are some pics of the neighborhood the day after the hurricane.

The damage wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, due to the hurricane loosing strength and changing path slightly in the last moments before landfall, but still many, many trees down, even some concrete light posts in my neighborhood. The Florida keys got the big hit, but it could have been worse... A lot worse.

































That's all for now. More updates next week.​


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## Chizpa305 (Feb 13, 2011)

Week 5






First Trim Required






Some of the background plants have been growing fast. Especially the two species on the right. It is time for my first trim, but I wanted to post these pictures before I did, to show the full growth. You can see a couple of stems of the _Ludwigia repens_ already growing up from behind the rocks, although it still doesn't look quite red as it used to in my previous set-up. The foreground plants are falling behind in terms of growth, as expected, but the UG is soon going to catch speed. I increased the Ember tetra population to a total of 9. they're hard to see since they are camouflaged with the rocks. I have been doing 25% water changes every other day to account for the rapid introduction of fish. So far they all look good.













I also bought this otocinculus to help keep algae on check, but I am considering also getting a nerite snail or two depending on how algae behaves.













I still can't say what this little plant is (directly to the bottom right of Ludwigia repens in this picture). I think it is UG, but it showing some strange growth pattern and the leaves look a bit different from what I am used to see in UG. The same exact plant has sprouted from around four different points on the substrate without me planting anything there... Mysterious.













_Rotala wallichii _is also going to be trimmed. It has lost a bit of the bright pink color it had when I got it, but it's still early to say how it's going to turn out.













Right side view of the aquarium. You can see the slower growing _Lysimachia nummularia_ (bright green stem plant) being shaded by the towering stems growing around it. After trimming, that should help it get more light.


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## Chizpa305 (Feb 13, 2011)

Week 6





I did my first trim last week and replanted some of the tops of _Ludwigia repens_ 'red' because I want to spread it a bit more. I think I put too many different stem plant species when first adding plants and now it's looking a bit too chaotic for my liking so I will reconfigure the background slightly. I'm still thinking about how I want it to look. I might remove one or two species of stems at the back. Beauty in simplicity and all that. _Ludwigia repens_ is staying for sure, but still need to get a denser bush. The _Lysimachia nummularia_ is still not visible behind the rocks. Slow grower that one, but I like it so it will stay too.












I did a mixed bush of HM and _Rotala rotundifolia_ here to make the scape a bit more natural looking. I like it so far. Might even add a couple of stems of _Rotala wallichii _to this mix.












I have noticed the Ludwigia is growing with an orangy color as opposed to the dark red it used to have on my previous setup. Maybe it's still not completely settled in? I did use a DIY CO2 system on my old setup for a short period of time, so maybe that has something to do with the redder coloration it had then...












Midground plants growing nicely. _Rotala indica_ 'bonsai' emerging from behind the rock already. Once it grows more I'll cut tops and replant to increase bush size more towards that empty patch on the right.












I will be adding a surface skimmer soon to get rid of some of the oil/protein build up.












More pictures next week. Feel free to leave some feedback.​


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## Chizpa305 (Feb 13, 2011)

Week 7





The Aquarium is starting to look more mature, but there's still a bit more maturing to occur. The _Lysimachia nummularia_ is still hidden behind the Two bigger rocks. It is supposed to grow in front of the _Ludwigia repens_ 'red'. Probably in a couple of weeks more it will start to show the first stems. Also, the foreground plants still need to grow a lot more. That is the section of the tank that has been growing the slowest, but I am not surprised since I only had tiny amounts of it left after the mass die-out.

I removed one of the light fixtures after coming to the conclusion that two was simply too much. With only one, the plants have enough light, and there is very slow algae growth that can be controlled.


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## Chizpa305 (Feb 13, 2011)

Week 9






Captain Black Beard Algae






That is right, I am starting to see BBA on the rocks. For some reason I always seem to have issues with this algae. It is still not too bad at this point, but if it gets out of control it can cover all the rocks. Does anyone knows an effective way to get rid of these? I am applying some Flourish Excel on some areas and waiting to see if it does anything. Other than that, everything else looks fine. Plants look happy and are growing nicely. 












Front












Right side of tank - I trimmed the right side background plants to put them at the same level of the _Lysimachia nummularia_ so that this one gets more light and catches up with growth. Foreground plants gaining space, but still not filling out the area.


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## Chizpa305 (Feb 13, 2011)

week 18





Fighting the Pirates










Haven't posted in a while, but here are some pics. What's new? I bought a nice red/purple betta fish. His name is UltraViolet or just UV. His last name is Radiation:icon_bigg. Carpet plants have now gained speed and are close to covering the entire foreground. I had a little accident with the stems at the right back, so they will need some time to recuperate and get back in the game. I am fighting some BBA that is growing all over the rocks, and I am making some improvement to keep it on check. Enjoy the pics.












Here is the betta fish. It is a bit aggressive with the tetras and with the shrimps, but nothing too crazy. tetras are really fast swimmers and shrimps have lots of places to hide so It's all good.












*Before (three weeks ago)*
Captan Black Beard has invaded 












*Now*
I've been keeping the algae on check using Seachem Excel solution which seems to be effective against it.












The Rotala indica bunch after first trim, growing the new shoots.​


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## Chizpa305 (Feb 13, 2011)

Week 24















Not a lot has changed at first glance since the last update a few weeks back. However there were some small changes. For one, I had to remove my beautiful betta fish "UltraViolet" due to a sudden and complete disappearance of every single Red Cherry Shrimp I had. I always thought that some would survive predation due to the heavy planted tank. To be honest I am not sure what happened but every single one disappeared. I only noticed because it had been a few days since I had seen any Shrimp until I came to the realization that there were none left. It's such a shame because the betta looks so pretty in this tank... I suspect that it might have been caused by a small ammonia spike that I experienced recently and maybe the shrimps had to come out of their hiding places and got picked by Mr. UV one by one. None of the fish died, though.













I have been noticing that every two days or so there are a lot of small leaves and plant parts floating on the surface. Here is what I removed since the last time I cleaned it two days ago. This is a sign that there is something off. I thought that maybe it was the water circulation which has been a bit poor. I cleaned the filter and put it back at full pressure to see if the nutrients circulate better this way.














Here is a shot of the Fissidens fontanus. It looks a bit ratty and for some reason it grabs a lot of dust particles. Maybe that was also due to the poor water circulation. Maybe someone can give some insight into this.














I have been fighting the BBA with Seachem Excel. I started applying it to the bigger rock first, now I am doing it to the middle rock. As you can see it is almost clear of BBA. I haven't started applying it to the small rock and you can notice a big difference because this rock is entirely covered in this stuff. It takes time but little by little I've been removing it. In a few more weeks it should be pretty much under control.​


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## Chizpa305 (Feb 13, 2011)

Week 25















Trying a new camera to take better pictures, but I'm still having some issues with the focusing​


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## Chizpa305 (Feb 13, 2011)

Week 29















Just a quick shot to show some of the progress. The HC on top of the rock has grown and is cascading down the rocks giving a nice effect but it will need some trimming soon before it goes out of control. HC carpet on the bottom also needing some trimming at this point. For some reason the UG is slowly despairing and the HC is taking it's place. Don't know why because usually UG is hardier than HC. Everything else is looking good. The scape is still a bit disorganized but I am more focused on the growth quality now. As you can see from the pic, I also have some floaters that I am testing how they look on the scape. I am still farming the stems behind the rock, but they are gaining speed.​


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## JAMarlow (Jan 16, 2018)

Your tank looks fantastic! It's really grown in now. The Fissidens fontanus has really filled out. Mine also collects particles. I use a turkey baster to gently blow water across them from time to time, and that seems to take care of it.


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## Chizpa305 (Feb 13, 2011)

JAMarlow said:


> Your tank looks fantastic! It's really grown in now. The Fissidens fontanus has really filled out. Mine also collects particles. I use a turkey baster to gently blow water across them from time to time, and that seems to take care of it.


Yeah, it is more lush now, although the background stems still need some growth and there are some foreground patches yet to 
get covered. But for the most part (the front and middle areas at least) growth is at a good level.

I do something similar to the Fissidens fontanus. I use a syringe to shoot a jet of water against the leaves to blow the dust away, and it helps, but I need to be doing it frequently if I want to maintain it . I might have to trim it back a bit because it is covering the rock too much


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## jordie416 (Jul 1, 2016)

Nice tank boyo. Good job working with such small space!


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## Chizpa305 (Feb 13, 2011)

jordie416 said:


> Nice tank boyo. Good job working with such small space!


Thanks, yeah 5 gallons is not a lot. Sometimes I wish I could have a bigger tank, but there are many restrictions where I live and they don't allow large tanks. Plus, a bigger tank would also mean more maintenance and money so this is not too bad after all.


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## Chizpa305 (Feb 13, 2011)

Week 30
















Did some trimming on the Fissidens fontanus and some other minor adjustments. Still waiting for background stems to grow more to cut and replant. Carpet is expanding.














Right side shot. A different angle.














The fish look funny aligned diagonally like that. They get shy after I do some maintenance. I am thinking about adding some more fish and shrimps. For fish I was thinking another school of 5, different from the tetras I have, but similar in size, to add some variety of fauna and also because that might help them become less shy. And shrimps, maybe get a few more RCS; I currently have only 2.














Front shot of the creeping HC. Hanging gardens of Dutch Iwagumi... That name fits well with this scape.​


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## Chizpa305 (Feb 13, 2011)

Week 32














Tank is looking pretty lush as a low tech (no Co2). Still some growth needed in the right background stems, but they're getting there slowly. Not much else to add. I want to add some more fish and shrimps and I will do so pretty soon.













Another shot from further back.​


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## Chizpa305 (Feb 13, 2011)

Week 33














I bought a few more fish and shrimps. Now I have 8 ember tetras and 14 neons, and also around 10 crystal red shrimps, to add a bit more fauna life to the tank. The shrimps are still very shy and are hard to spot because they hide behind all the foliage, but hopefully they can start breeding and create a nice population and be seen around the tank more often. I've noticed that the previously shy ember tetras now seem to be swimming more around the tank, alongside the newcomer neons. Apparently they feel more comfortable with the added number of community fish. The scape is coming along well, as I had envisioned it initially. Still some more development in the background needed, but it's getting there quickly. I will do a big trim today and replant some tops to create more plant density in the background. For some mysterious reason all my Utricularia graminifolia has died out. It used to do great in my previous setup... Maybe something in the water parameters, but everything else seems to be doing great, considering I don't have any CO2 system installed. I also won the fight against the black beard algae. There is not a single spot in the rocks where I can see any. The green algae is still present, but it is fine because it adds some beauty and sense of maturity to the tank. After this big trim, the tank should start growing into its ideal look​


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## Chizpa305 (Feb 13, 2011)

Week 38















Not a lot going on. Plants keep growing. Looking a bit too overgrown and unorganized right now. The HC has grown a lot, covering the rock outline and I don't like that because it hides the tones and the iwagumi element here.. I will trim it back soon to give shape to the "flow" of the HC that is cascading down. Also, the HC on the foreground needs some trimming too. I am currently waiting on some new scissors I purchased that will hopefully make maintenance more easy.















I made this gif image to show some of the progress so far. This is what I mean about the rock outline, it is almost covered completely​


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## [email protected] (Jan 8, 2010)

A good way to clean the dust off of fissidens and other plants is to stick a piece or airline tubing into your output pipe and you can clean a long as you like . Tank looks awesome .


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## ipkiss (Aug 9, 2011)

What amazing work for no CO2. kudos! Gives me some hope for my next tank! Subscribed for my future inspirations!


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## Chizpa305 (Feb 13, 2011)

> A good way to clean the dust off of fissidens and other plants is to stick a piece or airline tubing into your output pipe and you can clean a long as you like . Tank looks awesome .


Thanks for the tip. I found that the Fissidens only gets dusty when it is not growing very healthily. Once it established itself and started to grow full speed the dust wasn't there any longer. A good water flow seems to make them a lot happier.




> What amazing work for no CO2. kudos! Gives me some hope for my next tank! Subscribed for my future inspirations!


Thank you! I am glad to inspire other people with my work. It still needs some adjustments before it's final stage, so keep an eye for updates.


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## TitaniumOrchid (May 11, 2018)

How is your tank doing? Particularly the fauna. I was surprised you were able to get so many in a 5gal.


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## Rnasty (Jun 30, 2017)

TItaniumOrchid said:


> How is your tank doing? Particularly the fauna. I was surprised you were able to get so many in a 5gal.


Same, how do you manage that bioload ?


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## zmartin (May 1, 2018)

Great thread - well done on the tank. It was nice to see a few different plants that can be grown without CO2.


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## Chizpa305 (Feb 13, 2011)

TitaniumOrchid said:


> How is your tank doing? Particularly the fauna. I was surprised you were able to get so many in a 5gal.


The fauna is doing good. They look happy. I think what helps the most is the high plant volume. Plants help filter out the water and maintain the parameters stable. Also, this tank is now about 2/3 of a year old so it has had time to create a strong colony of good microorganisms and stuff that keep the recycling of organic matter moving. I don't really do much else than try to keep the plants healthy through fertilizers and such, allow all plants to get good light. Water flow I would say is key too, so the nutrients circulate well all around and are available equally for all plants. I do the 25% water changes every week or every other week.




> Great thread - well done on the tank. It was nice to see a few different plants that can be grown without CO2.


Thanks, yeah I don't have a pressurized CO2 system installed in this tank, but I do add fertilizers that can compensate for the lack of it. Seachem Excel provides some bio-available carbon to the water. If interested, I can provide the exact dosage of fertilizers that I apply to the tank.

Bump:


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## Chizpa305 (Feb 13, 2011)

Week 39
















I did some light trimming on the HC Cuba on top of the rock. I cut it down so that the outline of the rocks are better visible because it was being covered too much by the plant. I also trimmed some of the background plants. I should be getting a very good density of new shoots soon, so let's see how it turns out.














Got me these scissors to help with trimming, but it is still kind of difficult to trim the foreground HC Cuba... Very little space and due to the rocks I have to put my arm in awkward angles... But it gets the job done.















Top view of the background plants. Good density but the new shoots are still to young so the colors are not popping out well enough yet.














The other face of the tank. Looks ok I think​


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## Rnasty (Jun 30, 2017)

whats your aggression like with that many tetras? i always seem to have one male kill everyone in that small of a tank no matter the school size


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## Chizpa305 (Feb 13, 2011)

Rnasty said:


> whats your aggression like with that many tetras? i always seem to have one male kill everyone in that small of a tank no matter the school size


These tetras that I have stay pretty calm. They swim around but I've never seen them attacking each other or even chasing down one another. I used to have neons in the past that would chase around each other from time to time, but these are not like that... So I guess the element of luck has a little bit to do with the behavior of the schooling fish that you have, that and also the species. Some tetras are much more aggressive than others. Other than that, I think that having good water current makes them have to be constantly swimming and therefore they'll have less energy to be fighting all the time. Not a super strong current either, but something that keeps them swimming, even if it is only to stay in place.

Cheers


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## Chizpa305 (Feb 13, 2011)

Week 40


























































































I didn't have much to add in terms of updates, so I am just putting some pictures here. Enjoy.​


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## Chizpa305 (Feb 13, 2011)

Week 41

















This little plants reproduce so quickly. They double in numbers in a matter of two or three days. I try to keep the numbers low so that the light can penetrate to the bottom of the tank. Their roots are not very long. Probably around an inch so they don't look bad just floating there.


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## Grobbins48 (Oct 16, 2017)

Beautiful tank! Enjoy seeing these smaller tanks looking so full and lush. Makes me want to try something smaller!


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## Chizpa305 (Feb 13, 2011)

Grobbins48 said:


> Beautiful tank! Enjoy seeing these smaller tanks looking so full and lush. Makes me want to try something smaller!


They require a lot less maintenance, that's for sure haha. I've always wanted to have a bigger tank until I picture myself doing water changes and trimmings.


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## Grobbins48 (Oct 16, 2017)

Chizpa305 said:


> They require a lot less maintenance, that's for sure haha. I've always wanted to have a bigger tank until I picture myself doing water changes and trimmings.


I can see less maintenance with easy water changes and small trims, however is your margin for error super small? I always figured a large tank give your more room for error and small tank if one little thing is off it would blow thing out of proportion. Curious to hear your experience with that.


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## Chizpa305 (Feb 13, 2011)

Grobbins48 said:


> I can see less maintenance with easy water changes and small trims, however is your margin for error super small? I always figured a large tank give your more room for error and small tank if one little thing is off it would blow thing out of proportion. Curious to hear your experience with that.


Yeah, what you say is true. I would say for a beginners is better to start with a medium sized tank for that same reason. But once you get the hang of it, and know how much to add of what and when to do it and so forth, there is no reason for your tank parameters to swing drastically. Once your tank reaches a good maturity and you have a high plant biomass and diversity, and good, healthy detritus, they will do the rest of the job in maintaining the parameters stable. 

One issue I had was when I started to use a different dechlorinator for after water changes and I was putting the wrong amount and caused some shrimps to die, but that was several months ago and it was entirely my fault for misunderstanding the directions. Aside from that I haven't had any other serious issue with this tank.


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## Chizpa305 (Feb 13, 2011)

Week 43















I decided to let this duckweed grow. I kind of like how it looks but it blocks a little light for the underwater plants, though not a lot. I will try to maintain this much duckweed for a while and keep an aye on the lower plants and see if they start to give any signs of lack of lighting, and if they do then I will reduce the amount of duckweed present. It also becomes a bit annoying when doing maintenance but I'm liking the looks of it and it is a good alternative for an aquarium lid I think.​


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## swarley (Apr 12, 2018)

I really like the look of the tank now. All the plants are looking super healthy too.


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## Rrny (Jan 3, 2017)

Very nice tank. What are the exact ferts and dosing schedule like. I have a 5 gallon fluval spec v I cant seem to get down right. It's currently running co2 but seeing your results without look pretty dang good.


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## Chizpa305 (Feb 13, 2011)

Week 52 bounce:1 Year:bounce 

















It's been a while since my last post. Since then, these are the main things that have changed in the tank:

1- All the shrimps died. I am not sure why, they slowly started to decrease in numbers until all of them were gone. Maybe it was due to the accumulation of too much detritus in the substrate layer. Due to the small size of the aquarium and the heavy plant volume covering the soil suface, it is kind of difficult to clean the substrate, but I started to take some measures. I have started using a hose to suction all of this powdery dirt that has accumulated by pressing the hose against the HC foreground layer. This way, the HC acts as a filter, allowing the suction of the dusty dirt while preventing bigger pieces of substrate to pass through. This also helps the plants to root better since they can't root too much in that powdery dust. By extracting it, only the bigger rocks are left creating better anchoring for plants. However, after extracting the dust, many of the HC roots are now exposed and loose so it will take some days for the roots to find new anchoring.

2- I accidentally threw away all of the duckweed. I was doing some heavy HC trimming and then removed all the leaves from the water surface not noticing that I was also removing all of the duckweed along with it. The duckweed was getting a bit annoying anyways because it grew too fast. I kind of liked how it looked when it covered portion of the water surface though, so I might get some more in the future.

3- As you can see the middle size rock has been completely covered by the HC. I am not sure if I should leave it like that or if I should let some of the rock be visible. Let me know what you think looks best.​

















































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## Chizpa305 (Feb 13, 2011)

Rrny said:


> Very nice tank. What are the exact ferts and dosing schedule like. I have a 5 gallon fluval spec v I cant seem to get down right. It's currently running co2 but seeing your results without look pretty dang good.


Hello Rrny, 

Sorry for the super late response. For the ferts I use Seachem products. My experience with them has been good so far. I use the chart below, you can find it in their website. Although I don't use all the products listed there. For my 5 gallon tank, I need to adapt the quantities based on the ratio of volume of ferts to volume of tank given there, so for example for Excel I doze 0.5 mL every day, though in reality I now use between 1ML to 1.5mL because the tank has a lot of plants in it.



















Above are all the ferts that I use, I also use the Kordom amQuel dechlorinator

I hope this helps. I will be posting some more pictures of the tank soon.

Cheers.


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## Chizpa305 (Feb 13, 2011)

9/19/2018
















Here are a few more photos. I am still trying to get those background plants in the picture, literally. Since I replanted the top cuttings they have been growing very slowly, but are starting to gain a bit of speed now. The formidable HC mountain has covered the rock entirely. I will leave it like this for some time because I kind of like how it looks. Unfortunately the fish don't like swimming too much when the lights are on. This makes the tank look a bit empty of fauna. They do swim a lot when the lights are off. Is this normal for these tetras?












This throw back picture of all the HC I once had. All HC I currently have came from this tiny bit of plant. 






















I got some pearling going on. It's been more prominent in the past few days, maybe because I've been more consistent with the fertilizing regime.... Sometimes I slack off for a few days, but when I am consistent the plants really show it.





























Enjoy.​


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## lab_fly (May 6, 2018)

Amazing Tank. Once my plants stop dying, I'm going to work on something like this.



> I got some pearling going on. It's been more prominent in the past few days, maybe because I've been more consistent with the fertilizing regime.... Sometimes I slack off for a few days, but when I am consistent the plants really show it.


If you look closely in the first pearling picture, some of the leaves are pretty black. I've seen this on my leaves too. Do you know what's going on here?


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## Chizpa305 (Feb 13, 2011)

lab_fly said:


> Amazing Tank. Once my plants stop dying, I'm going to work on something like this.
> 
> 
> 
> If you look closely in the first pearling picture, some of the leaves are pretty black. I've seen this on my leaves too. Do you know what's going on here?


Yeah, some of the leaves have a bit of algae coating on them, though overall they are pretty healthy. One thing that I've noticed is that I barely get any algae on the glass, and when it grows there it does it very, very slowly so sometimes I can be several weeks without cleaning the glass. There is still algae there and you can notice it in certain areas, but that's ok, as long asit's not a lot and it doesn't overly interfere with the appearance.


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## cbachmann (Aug 6, 2013)

WOW I am so impressed with this tank. It's beautiful! I've never had luck with rotala indica, even with c02! Next time you trim can I buy a few tops off you? Yours seems very healthy.


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## Chizpa305 (Feb 13, 2011)

cbachmann said:


> WOW I am so impressed with this tank. It's beautiful! I've never had luck with rotala indica, even with c02! Next time you trim can I buy a few tops off you? Yours seems very healthy.


Thanks, the tank still needs more improvements, so I hope it will look even better in the coming weeks. The rotala indica 'bonsai' is sort of a slow grower, especially since I don't have CO2, but sure. I will let you know when I am about to do my next trimming for those.


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## Ryan Mosby (Jan 19, 2017)

Do you still have this tank? How is it doing?


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## Chizpa305 (Feb 13, 2011)

Ryan Mosby said:


> Do you still have this tank? How is it doing?


Hey Ryan,

I have not been active in here for a while. I just logged in today and saw your comment. Yes, the tank is still going. It must be somewhere around 2.5 years old now, almost 3!!! Wow, time flies. However it has gone through some... let's say, periods of "slight abandonment..." followed by periods of "let me try to fix it again". Right now it's kind of in a in-between phase, sorta getting better.

Below are some pics so you have an Idea of the current situation.


































The major changes have been that I had to end up removing all the HC that was growing on the rocks, because it was covering all of the beautiful hardscape textures, then the Fissidens moss started to creep in everywhere and cover the rock as just the same, or worse. I don't like the way it looks even less, but the problem is that this Fissidens has turned into sort of an infestation, growing everywhere. It does not grow as a pretty ball anymore, and it is very difficult to remove. I have to pull individual little clumps of it from the rock and it grows again all over. Thinking about replanting some HC on the rocks again, but to keep better controlled this time. I don't know, I am running out of ideas with this tank since it is so small and I am limited to what I can do to it without redoing the whole scape.

On other news, I've been considering buying a bigger aquarium for some time now, so that I can a create fuller scape and not be cramped by the tiny size. Actually, today I bought a new tank that I will be setting up soon. It is an *ADA 90P*!!! so it is about 10 times bigger in volume as my 5 gallons (plenty of room to get creative). I am super excited about it. I've been thinking about doing a real high tech aquarium this time with a nice CO2 system and all that, to see what comes out. I will be creating a new journal for that one. So stay tuned for it in about a month or so.

I might continue to post some updates on this tank if I can manage to get it looking a bit better again. But to be honest, I am a bit bored of this same scape by now.

Anyways, 
Thanks for following along, Till next time.


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## Chizpa305 (Feb 13, 2011)

Update 4/11/2020​
I removed some of the fissidens growing on the rock a bit. It's better, but I still might need to remove even more. In the following days I will be planting a bit of HC in between two rocks at the top. Need to add soil to that crevice. I trimmed the AR a bit last week and it's now small and compact, looking good. It starts to look bad when it grows its leaves too much and looks out of proportion for this scape.

I don't like that the outflow piece is sitting right in the middle of the focal point. It becomes too obvious. I've been thinking about moving it to one of the corners, but the problem is that the plants cover it and the leaves get stuck on the small openings of the tube, clugging it a bit. Maybe if I put some kind of metal mesh around the bottom part, covered by the plants...

HC will need trimming soon.

That's all for now, here're some pics


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## Charrr89 (May 15, 2013)

i legit went through this entire feed. amazing tank without co2... ive been slacking on my high tech tank as of lately..


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## andrewss (Oct 17, 2012)

Very nice after the trim!

Cool plan with the bigger tank! I'm sure it will be a ton of fun to plan out and build up!


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## Chizpa305 (Feb 13, 2011)

Update: 4/19/2020

I already added some HC in between the two rocks (on top). I will post pictures of that once it takes off. For now, these shots are from before doing the HC trim. I was going to take pictures of the after, but now the water is cloudy, so next week I will.

Enjoy



















Playing with the selective focus tool on my phone, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Here it kind of did.​
Bump:


Charrr89 said:


> i legit went through this entire feed. amazing tank without co2... ive been slacking on my high tech tank as of lately..


Thanks. Yeah I am doing another tank now with CO2, very excited about how it will look. Not very excited about the faster plant growth and more maintenance, but oh well...

Bump:


andrewss said:


> Very nice after the trim!
> 
> Cool plan with the bigger tank! I'm sure it will be a ton of fun to plan out and build up!


Yeah, looking forward to that one.:laugh2:


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## Chizpa305 (Feb 13, 2011)

Update 4/23/2020















I added the soil in the crevice between the two rocks to plant HC. Still need to remove more fissidens from the rocks to make it contrast better. Also, that red AR in the center, I am planning to move it slightly more to the left. The SR on the left down corner takes ages to grow, there needs to be more growth there, but I think it might be because the water flow has a hard time reaching that area due to the rocks, same thing with Rotala indica 'bonsai', it's looking a bit ratty, and super slow growth...












^^This is a closer shot of the HC planted between the rocks.^^












^^I've noticed the Ludwigia repens has lost a bit of the deep red. Maybe because I've been dosing more Excel to fight some hair algae? Not sure, still lush though^^











Some pearling going on


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## timelord03 (Apr 30, 2020)

*questions*

so, i have a 5 gallon Marineland portrait tank and i would like to do a setup like this. The only problem is expenses, so i was wondering if you had any advice you can give me for trying to set up something like yours in a tank like that. it has a separating wall in the back that separates the cartridge filter and submerged pump from the rest of the tank. I would like to take this out and possibly use an out-of-tank filter, but they are all so expensive, or would it be better if i use no filter at all (if it is heavily planted) and just do more frequent water changes? I also would like to find affordable lighting for my tank as well, so if you had any advice about any lights that i could use for a small tank. (its only 9 3/4'' across, so i would for sure need a smaller light, but still a good quality one). I would also like to keep it a low-maintenance/tech tank as well, so if you had any advice for that, that would be much appreciated. 

Im sorry for all of the questions, but i am fairly new to this, so i would just like some instruction so that i do it right the first time. Thanks!


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## Chizpa305 (Feb 13, 2011)

timelord03 said:


> so, i have a 5 gallon Marineland portrait tank and i would like to do a setup like this. The only problem is expenses, so i was wondering if you had any advice you can give me for trying to set up something like yours in a tank like that. it has a separating wall in the back that separates the cartridge filter and submerged pump from the rest of the tank. I would like to take this out and possibly use an out-of-tank filter, but they are all so expensive, or would it be better if i use no filter at all (if it is heavily planted) and just do more frequent water changes? I also would like to find affordable lighting for my tank as well, so if you had any advice about any lights that i could use for a small tank. (its only 9 3/4'' across, so i would for sure need a smaller light, but still a good quality one). I would also like to keep it a low-maintenance/tech tank as well, so if you had any advice for that, that would be much appreciated.
> 
> Im sorry for all of the questions, but i am fairly new to this, so i would just like some instruction so that i do it right the first time. Thanks!


I started just like you, bought the tank, that came with a very crappy "filter" (it was more of a decoration than a filter) and "light" if you can call it that, but not really intended for planted tanks (see picture below). At first I tried my luck and added some marsilea crenata, and to my surprice, it was growing, but extremelly slowly and not very healthy at all. I wasn't having too much problems with algae because the light was quite low, but I was very limited to what I could do with that crappy filter and light. I am sure that you can still get slightly better ones for an affordable price, but you will still be limited to the type of plants that you can grow in it. You would need to look for low light plants and such that would do ok. I would not recommend using no filter at all, because this will only bring trouble in my opinion and it's not worth it. If you can't afford a canister filter, then just keep the one that you have.

After some time of getting nowhere, I went ahead and bought a decent filter and light. If you want to have a scape like mine, I can only recommend the equipment that I use since I don't know how a different light / filter might affect the results. I currently use on this tank the Eheim 2211 filter, which costs about $90, and the Finnex Fugeray 10 inch light, which costs about $35. I've had both for some time now and they keep working without issues.


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## timelord03 (Apr 30, 2020)

Ok thank you. I really want to try to fix my tank up, but with having a low budget, and trying to save for college, I don't have the most money to spend on things like my tank, sadly. I did post something 5 mins ago on the general forum, and am hoping I can get some help and advice. This was helpful, and thank you for taking the time to answer. I really hope that I can get my tank to the point that yours is at! Its quite a good looking tank!


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