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Road to the AGA Dutch Style Competition/Ended


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On 12/20/2021 at 9:44 AM, Hobbit said:

Hmm because it’s too tall and messy?

Yeah, I'm thinking it might get too bushy.

On 12/20/2021 at 11:07 AM, Beardedbillygoat1975 said:

@Mmiller2001what will you use for your street? It really is insane how quickly with CO2 these plants take off. Gorgeous and best of luck whittling them down! 

Also frequent updates are great as you’ve been leaving breadcrumbs for us to follow when we pull the trigger on ours! 

I'm going to try the Limnophila Vietnam, if it doesn't work, I'm going to try Pogo Erectus.

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Regarding plant choices: lay out the bones of your scape, the stuff you really need, and the rest will fill itself in.

1. Pick a focal point plant. This goes at one of the "rule of thirds" points; bottom left, top left, bottom right, or top right. Take the time to either take a photo and draw the rule of thirds lines on it, or draw it on your tank with whiteboard marker and look at the tank from where the photo will be taken. Having these focal points off by just a few inches makes the scape seem uneasy.

2. If you have another visually powerful plant that you really want to use, it by default has to go in the opposite "rule of thirds" point-- for example, if your focal point is bottom left, it has to be top right. Anything else and your scape will be too obviously symmetrical. 

3. Pick a "Dutch street" plant and decide where you want it. It should not start dead center, and should curve up and behind a midground group. It can disappear behind one of the focal point plants if you like. If you do not yet have a midground bush to curve it behind, pick a plant that grows dense enough to hide the vanishing point of the street.

4. Add a tall, "grassy" plant somewhere.  It's nice to have a rosette as well, but Vin (one of the judges) is a real stickler about "grassy" plants. The easiest place for this is front left/right, to act as a curtain. 

5. Decide on 2-4 background plants. These should be big and dense enough to cover a significant portion of the background, without being so strong visually that they distract from the from the focal point plants

At this point, you should have at least five plants located where they need to be. This is when you can start choosing between plants. No plant can touch a plant that looks similar, either in texture or color. Take a picture and turn it grayscale; if you can't clearly tell the plants apart by texture alone, they won't work next to each other. Do the same thing, but instead of grayscale apply a strong blur effect to your photo. If you can't clearly tell them apart by color alone, then they should not be next to each other. This is where you'll find the importance of having big gaps in between your groups, there is no other way to visually separate plants that are similar shades of green or similar textures.

Every group needs to be important to the layout. They should have a visual weight. A person walking by your tank should be able to stop and look at each group and immediately be struck by what a beautiful plant that is. As you start growing your groups to full height, and practicing your strict trimming, you'll notice groups that look weak in comparison to the rest of the rest of the layout, those are ones to consider eliminating. I considered going down to seven species in a 3-foot tank, if I had more time I would have tried it. 

The only way to pick plants is iteratively. Grow out a group, assess the contrast with the surrounding groups, if it works then great and if it doesn't, pick another plant. In my last Dutch-style tank, I grew five different species to full height in the same location in the tank until I found one that worked. I would fall asleep thinking about whether Hygrophila difformis and Hydrocotyle leucocephala are too close to the same shade of green. 

TL;DR don't try to pick your plants now. Focus on the 4-5 plants that are a definite yes, get them into their positions, and the rest will become obvious.

 

Edited by gjcarew
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On 12/21/2021 at 1:39 PM, gjcarew said:

Decide on 2-4 background plants. These should be big and dense enough to cover a significant portion of the background, without being so strong visually that they distract from the from the focal point plants

Hardest thing ever!

On 12/21/2021 at 1:39 PM, gjcarew said:

Regarding plant choices: lay out the bones of your scape, the stuff you really need, and the rest will fill itself in.

1. Pick a focal point plant. This goes at one of the "rule of thirds" points; bottom left, top left, bottom right, or top right. Take the time to either take a photo and draw the rule of thirds lines on it, or draw it on your tank with whiteboard marker and look at the tank from where the photo will be taken. Having these focal points off by just a few inches makes the scape seem uneasy.

2. If you have another visually powerful plant that you really want to use, it by default has to go in the opposite "rule of thirds" point-- for example, if your focal point is bottom left, it has to be top right. Anything else and your scape will be too obviously symmetrical. 

3. Pick a "Dutch street" plant and decide where you want it. It should not start dead center, and should curve up and behind a midground group. It can disappear behind one of the focal point plants if you like. If you do not yet have a midground bush to curve it behind, pick a plant that grows dense enough to hide the vanishing point of the street.

4. Add a tall, "grassy" plant somewhere.  It's nice to have a rosette as well, but Vin (one of the judges) is a real stickler about "grassy" plants. The easiest place for this is front left/right, to act as a curtain. 

5. Decide on 2-4 background plants. These should be big and dense enough to cover a significant portion of the background, without being so strong visually that they distract from the from the focal point plants

At this point, you should have at least five plants located where they need to be. This is when you can start choosing between plants. No plant can touch a plant that looks similar, either in texture or color. Take a picture and turn it grayscale; if you can't clearly tell the plants apart by texture alone, they won't work next to each other. Do the same thing, but instead of grayscale apply a strong blur effect to your photo. If you can't clearly tell them apart by color alone, then they should not be next to each other. This is where you'll find the importance of having big gaps in between your groups, there is no other way to visually separate plants that are similar shades of green or similar textures.

Every group needs to be important to the layout. They should have a visual weight. A person walking by your tank should be able to stop and look at each group and immediately be struck by what a beautiful plant that is. As you start growing your groups to full height, and practicing your strict trimming, you'll notice groups that look weak in comparison to the rest of the rest of the layout, those are ones to consider eliminating. I considered going down to seven species in a 3-foot tank, if I had more time I would have tried it. 

The only way to pick plants is iteratively. Grow out a group, assess the contrast with the surrounding groups, if it works then great and if it doesn't, pick another plant. In my last Dutch-style tank, I grew five different species to full height in the same location in the tank until I found one that worked. I would fall asleep thinking about whether Hygrophila difformis and Hydrocotyle leucocephala are too close to the same shade of green. 

TL;DR don't try to pick your plants now. Focus on the 4-5 plants that are a definite yes, get them into their positions, and the rest will become obvious.

 

Thank you for this. Seriously!

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On 12/21/2021 at 6:32 PM, Mmiller2001 said:

I want to report that this maintenance day got biblical. I wish I had seen @gjcarewpost prior to starting, but I feel like a shape is forming. I will wait to post a picture, but for now; enjoy this picture of my cat that only likes me and nobody else.

 

kikay 2.jpg

Wow, beautiful! We have a cat that likes me 80%, my wife 20%, our daughter and the rest of humanity -200%!

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Problems problems problems. For the first time, I'm worried about this journey! The GDA is insane, I should have taken a picture but you could barely see into the tank. The GDA is covering every plant. My wife and I scrapped it all out and brushed most of the equipment. This left so much dust in the tank, that a bloom has started. Added 4 more Harlequins and 2 Oto's. As of this morning, the Oto's are sipping air from the surface, they are definitely not happy. I've reduce my CO2 and also my dosing. I started my cheap UV sterilizer too and I might just go ahead and set up a permanent UV system on this tank also. They just work so well!

New dosing:

12ppm NO3

5ppm PO4

25ppm K

.63Fe (proxy)

So either this bacterial bloom, or green water bloom is just enough to reduce O2 in the tank that the Oto's are feeling it. I will probably do a water change tonight just to relieve some stress if the CO2 reduction doesn't work.

The good news:

I'm down to 10 species and I think the street is coming in nicely. I will adjust the curve a bit, I think it's too extreme. I'm removing the Bacopa, back right, and putting in a Hygrophila species. Also, the Belem is coming out (this takes the tank to 9 species) and I removed the Helferi. I put Purple Repens in that will be my foreground/ carpet. The little green plant in the forward area is only there temporarly, It melts in my 75 and I'm trying to save it. So ignore them. Trying Wallichii in the back left but it is on the chopping block as it could be a rule breaker.

If you look at the left foreground, I added some extra Purple Repens. See it's normal color versus the same plant covered in GDA just behind it! Wow, right!

Problem 3.jpg

Problem 4.jpg

Problem 2.jpg

Problem 1.jpg

Problem 5.jpg

Edited by Mmiller2001
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Wow! It looks like you need to borrow some baby plecos. (This is not a serious suggestion because it would be sooo hard to catch them before they started eating holes in your plants—but I have a bunch of babies I’m struggling to feed so I can’t help but see that and go 🤤)

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