meeiu Posted January 11, 2012 Report Share Posted January 11, 2012 (edited) Friday, July 20, 2012 Just thought I would update this as I have not done so in a long time. Picture as of today. Fauna: 2 Black Marble Angle Fish 1 Otocinclus 5 Amano Shrimp ?? Red Cherry Shrimp Flora: Front: Hemianthus Callitrichoides 'Cuba' (Dwarf Baby Tears) Middle: Pogostemon Helferi (Downoi) Back: Eleocharis Acicularis (Dwarf Hair Grass) Equipment: Tank: ADA Cube Garden 45-P 45X27X30 Light: Sunblaster 24W T5HO CO2: None Filter: Eheim 2217 So other than a Amano Shrimp jumper two months ago, things have been good. Light period has been cut down to about 4 hours a day and water changes occur once every 1.5 months. No CO2 injections and only weekly dose of Excel. So I have been round and about trying to collect my items for my second planted tank. I stumbled across some videos regarding Takashi Amano and just fell in love with his tanks and decided to try and start my own. Please keep in mind that this will be my first Iwagumi attempt. Any suggestions and comments will be greatly appreciated! Searching for ADA products in Canada is not easy but luckily there is a distributor here. So I acquired a ADA Cube Garden 45x27x30 and I am stunned at the craftsmanship of the overall tank. Unfortunately, the place where I brought my stuff did not carry any Garden Mats for the aquarium so I was forced to DIY it. So I did some research and tried to find some closed-cell foam or neoprene and was unsuccessful. Then I read on a forum about some people using yoga mats for their ADA tanks. So I decided the yoga mats were my next best option and now I have a cut up yoga mat. The substrate I used is ADA Powersand Special S and ADA Amaziona (the amazonia smells nice....) It took about another week or so to find and gather some stones which I felt will go well in the tank, here they are! And finally, here is what the tank currently looks like. As of now, I am waiting for my supplier to get back to me on the plant list I had put in a week ago. The list consists of: Hemianthus Callitrichoides Eleocharis Acicularis Pogostemon Helferi I plan to have HC carpet, hopefully, the entire aquarium. As for the Pogo Helferi, I was thinking of planting it close to and surrounding the stones. As for the Dwarf Hair Grass, I was thinking of planting it in the back right hand corner. The lights I will be using are 2 CFL rated at 6500K @ 13W and 800 lumes each. Any suggestions on the lighting? Will this be sufficient for these plants? Also, accompanying this will be DIY CO2. As for the filter, I am quite lost as of now. I somewhat narrowed it down to 3 filters: Zoo Med 501 Turtle Canister Filter http://www.amazon.ca...m=ACESBCCRDDFV4 Ehiem Filter 2213 http://www.amazon.ca...TF8&me=&seller= RENA Filstar XP1 Canister Filter http://www.amazon.ca...pd_rhf_se_p_t_1 Anybody have any experiences with these filters and if so, do you think it will overpower a 10 gallon tank? Anways, I would like to tank you for reading my thread and I hope to gain some valuable constructive criticism on my setup. Any comments and/or suggestions are welcomed. Thank you very much! Sunday, January 22, 2012 Just wanted to do an update. After readjusting some of the rocks and slopes, this is what the hardscape currently looks like: Please feel free to criticize and give me some feedback! I finally finalized my order with Canadian Aquatics and am waiting for my package to arrive with the plants. Therefore, this may be the last chance for you guys to give me feedback before I dive into planting and flooding this baby up Also, did anybody RSVP for the ADA Workshop tomorrow at Pisces? Give me a shout if you have! Oh I am excited for tomorrow. hehe Tuesday, January 24th, 2012 So I finally got my package in the mail today. Thank you Canadian Aquatics. Amazing people and the best customer service ever. (Shipped out yesterday and arrived today) Anyways so I spent a large park of the afternoon planting my HC, helferi, and DHG Heres a shot before the fill up. Filling up. And finally filled up. (Topped it off a bit more after I took this shot) You may ask where is my filter and heater and I have to say I am embarrassed at them so I took the shot before I put those items in. Currently using a HOB and I have to shop around for a canister ASAP! Thanks for reading Just for kicks.... my cat was watching Thursday, February 2, 2012 Just wanted to do a quick update today. Just took this picture and it seems I may need to trim soon. Any suggestions on keeping the HC lower and more dense? Thanks! P.S. ignore the heater and filter please haha. Waiting for my Lily Pipes and gotta find a solution to hide the heater.... :S Thursday, February 23, 2012 Took this shot a few days ago. You can't really tell from the photo but my HC is not as green as I want it to be. There are some leaves that are starting to turn brown. I was wondering if anyone can shed some light on this for me. I am currently using a 24W 6400K T5HO on this. Fertilizes NPK and micro minerals. Lights were on for 6 hours but have been reduced to 4 hours because of the browning (I thought maybe they were getting too much light so I reduced them about a week ago) Thanks! Tuesday March 06, 2012 Thanks for all your suggestions. So I went out and purchased some Excel and oh my, what a turn around. Here is a shot of the HC at its most brown point: February 26, 2012 and here it is today: March 6, 2012 (44 days after planting) And some Amano Shrimp Edited December 17, 2012 by meeiu Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cgy_Betta_Guy Posted January 11, 2012 Report Share Posted January 11, 2012 Looks nice and look forward to it being planted! :thumbs: The zoomed 501 are decent little canisters but probably wouldnt have enough flow for the 10 gallon. I have 2 of them for use for 5 Gallon tanks and find them to be a bit under powered. Also they arent designed to be far below the tank so if you are planning on concealing the filtration below the tank in a stand the 501 wont be usable for you. I would go with the Eheim or Rena depending on your budget. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jvision Posted January 11, 2012 Report Share Posted January 11, 2012 If you can find a used Ehiem, I'd go with that - you can easily throttle the flow back if you have the quick connect valves. I would also go with a paintball CO2 canister. Having a canister to supply a constant supply of CO2 is well worthy he extra initial cost. You could also go with brighter lights. When I had a 10g planted tank, I used 2x23W bulbs to grow a nice thick carpet of Glosso in no time. The only thing w using so much light is keeping your CO2 constant and your ferts balanced. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
meeiu Posted January 11, 2012 Author Report Share Posted January 11, 2012 Thank you all for your comments and advice. For the filter, I will soon have a make a decision about which one to go forward on. As for the lights, do you think it will be sufficient for what I want to grow? Or should I upgrade to the next set up? I think they were 26W rated at 6500k with 1600 lumes. (The current ones are 13W 6500K @ 800 lumes) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hackerberry Posted January 11, 2012 Report Share Posted January 11, 2012 Wow, looking good! I didn't know we can get ADA stuff in Calgary. I would suggest LED lighting. It will look nice and light will have greater penetration though the water. My P. Helferis love it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
epiphany Posted January 11, 2012 Report Share Posted January 11, 2012 You can get ada stuff up at Pisces, they're the only place in Calgary (maybe Alberta?) authorized to distribute it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Iceturf Posted January 11, 2012 Report Share Posted January 11, 2012 What does the power sand price in at over there? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GRIMM Posted January 11, 2012 Report Share Posted January 11, 2012 Im happy to learn that ADA products are available up here without having to ship them up ourselves. If you dont mind, could you pm me the cost of the substrate/tank combined. Thanks It looks good, but I might suggest trying a few more different layouts. Ive been working with about 15 pieces of driftwood this week, and everytime I think Ive got it right I find another option that looks slightly better. I would suggest taking that small stone in the back far right, and moving it in a frontal position so it will not be hidden once the plants grow in. Or, if you want it back there, a more pronounced slope will help elevate it into view. Also, the rock directly in front of the main stone cannot be distinguished as a separate object. It just blends in and is totally hidden. The most compositionally strong iwagumis tend to have stones that all flow together with similar slopes and angles, yet are all distinguishable from eachother and do not all look identical. Its all personal preference though and what looks best in your own eye. You should know this is all comming from someone that has zero aquascaping experience, but from someone who is obsest with it :P Grain of salt my friend ...What the heck is with the text size on this forum?...hopefully my 3rd time editing this post fixes it... Mod edit: I think I got your main text for you. Left the last paragraph for comparison. (Jvision) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hackerberry Posted January 11, 2012 Report Share Posted January 11, 2012 Cool, thanks for the info. hb Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jewels Posted January 11, 2012 Report Share Posted January 11, 2012 . The lights I will be using are 2 CFL rated at 6500K @ 13W and 800 lumes each. Any suggestions on the lighting? Will this be sufficient for these plants? ! (mounted within an excellent reflector) A single 13W spiral can yield over 100 PAR @ 12 inches Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
meeiu Posted January 11, 2012 Author Report Share Posted January 11, 2012 Im happy to learn that ADA products are available up here without having to ship them up ourselves. If you dont mind, could you pm me the cost of the substrate/tank combined. Thanks It looks good, but I might suggest trying a few more different layouts. Ive been working with about 15 pieces of driftwood this week, and everytime I think Ive got it right I find another option that looks slightly better. I would suggest taking that small stone in the back far right, and moving it in a frontal position so it will not be hidden once the plants grow in. Or, if you want it back there, a more pronounced slope will help elevate it into view. Also, the rock directly in front of the main stone cannot be distinguished as a separate object. It just blends in and is totally hidden. The most compositionally strong iwagumis tend to have stones that all flow together with similar slopes and angles, yet are all distinguishable from eachother and do not all look identical. Its all personal preference though and what looks best in your own eye. You should know this is all comming from someone that has zero aquascaping experience, but from someone who is obsest with it Grain of salt my friend ...What the heck is with the text size on this forum?...hopefully my 3rd time editing this post fixes it... Mod edit: I think I got your main text for you. Left the last paragraph for comparison. (Jvision) Thank you for the advice. I was also thinking about the placement of the stone in the back as I know it will get hidden when the plants come in. I will think of a solution for that. Also, the stone directly in front of the main one, does that mean the left stone or the one on the right side? But once again, thank you for the advice! . The lights I will be using are 2 CFL rated at 6500K @ 13W and 800 lumes each. Any suggestions on the lighting? Will this be sufficient for these plants? ! (mounted within an excellent reflector) A single 13W spiral can yield over 100 PAR @ 12 inches I am not really familar with the term PAR. Possibly meaning photosynthetically active radiation? As for the 100PAR, is that a good or bad thing? haha Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jewels Posted January 12, 2012 Report Share Posted January 12, 2012 I am not really familar with the term PAR. Possibly meaning photosynthetically active radiation? Sorry, Yes!! an acronym for photosynthetically active radiation. As for the 100PAR, is that a good or bad thing? Jury is out When you swim in that sea of tears - you swim alone. http://tinyurl.com/84blxyn Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GRIMM Posted January 12, 2012 Report Share Posted January 12, 2012 (edited) My bad. The main stone actually looks like 2 stones because of the lightting from above. Or maybe it is 2 stones. I cant really tell right now lol. I fail Edited January 12, 2012 by GRIMM Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
epiphany Posted January 12, 2012 Report Share Posted January 12, 2012 They don't have everything listed, but most prices can be seen here: http://piscespets.com/products/freshwater-fish/ada-systems/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Iceturf Posted January 13, 2012 Report Share Posted January 13, 2012 I like the look of your setup (: You have to keep posting pics. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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