Journey to my first aquascape.

[Skymoon]

So having a traumatic experience with my Paludarium I decided to start over and start from scratch. I've always wanted to take a crack at aquascaping and now that i have the money to do so I'm excited to try it out finally. My family who are into gardening were really curious about my project and requested to document my journey and encouraged me to share it with them and others. Hopefully it'll be entertaining to everyone as it is for me.

I believe this was the image I found a long time ago that was by Takashi Amano was what made me want to try aquascaping. And knowing about just regular plants this wasn't going to be easy to do in the first go, but I still want to try a crack at it.

After spending a lot of time on researching on aquascapes and the care I learned a lot! I realized it kept going deeper on little things the more I searched on plant care. From lighting to co2 and fertilizers I learned even more stuff that I didn't think about until I started asking questions and buying some of the stuff.  An example would be that I found out the aquasoil I bought makes my water softer which would be fine but I wanted to add Neocaridina shrimps and they prefer harder water. I also learned seiryu stone's are technically a different stone and not a true seiryu stone because they were banned on being sold in japan for a while now. If what i'm reading about was correct they contain limestone in it and that also makes the water hard.

Looking at the space in my room I decided to do two rimless tanks one 11 gallon cube and one 6 gallon. After asking around I also decided to use a white frosted background for both of them. I learned that aquarium specific frosted backgrounds are really hard to attach then just window frosted. I ended up really ruining the one for my 11 gallon and had to use frosted window backing instead. Still looks nice though!

I finally got my supplies for most if not all that I need to do a dark cycle. I figured this will help me on the long run and prevent a huge algae bloom that might suffocate my new plants when I get them. With what I've learned the longer the tank cycles the better it is since they'll be more buffer to my water and less ph swings. I've also learned that it's a lot different with regular plants and that this whole process will be for the long haul.

Today I got the last of my stones I wanted to put in my tank. I decided to add some crush coral to give more buffer to my aquarium. I'm regretting doing so as I make the mistake (not really a mistake but aesthetically I wanted my soil to be on top) of mixing the crush coral while putting my soil so its speckled my black soil. Might be able to fix it but i'll do it tomorrow since I ended up using all my soil for my 11 gallon and don't have enough for my 6 gallon. It shouldn't be that much of an issue since I do plan on putting ground cover to take up all the black. Putting what I have for my 11 i'll let it sit to see if I still like the design for tomorrow before I end up gluing my rocks together and wood. Hopefully it looks alright, what do you guys think?

 

 

[Guppysnail]

I think you have a fantastic start. The learning portion of the hobby is definitely an ongoing process. I’m looking forward to following your journey. 

[Skymoon]

Update time! God didn't think it would take so long setting up. My back hurts lol. So after getting the aquasoil for my second tank I decided to fix up my 11 gallon. I'm learning why not a lot of people use white sand often for aquascaping. It's very fickle but it looks good setting it down. Also learning from my previous mistake I made sure to put the crushed coral on the bottom first and then the soil and I think everything is looking good so far.

It looks far better dry then wet lol. God I'm sure i'm missing something there has to be a faster way to fill up these tanks then hand pumping it in. Also i learned even a little bit of adding too much water quickly pushes up the soil and sand easily. I didn't think it would be this hard keeping it down. Trying different ways on filling the tank I find putting a towel and cup with holes on the bottom the best method, Just using the towel still kicks up if I just directly put it in there. Also using the plastic I needed more holes I think since it kept floating away or tipping over which caused some issues on kicking up some sand 😂 I'm starting to understand why most videos on aquascaping are timelapsed when filling water. I also found that the soil is lighter then the sand so i could sorta brush it away in the water. Not perfect to how I wanted it but I guess that's the part of learning 😆 Also I made the mistake on getting superglue gel then liquid so it didn't quite stick immediately using the cotton ball method but it seemed to work. Now my tree isn't going to float up or move anywhere, nor are my rocks. Wiring everything up and doing the airline tubes was an interesting time. I just pray I didn't do it wrong and not get any leaks.

I added my water conditioner and now I let it set tomorrow before adding some beneficial bacteria and then dark cycle it for 4+ weeks. Hopefully the ambient light won't cause me too much issue.

I also plan on using the rest of my crush coral and aquasoil to a plastic tub and start a cycle there for plant quarantine. I'm going to try doing an RR dip for the plants that I'll get since somewhere last time I bought from my fish stores they introduced planaria to my old tank and bladder snails. Now I don't mind having snails in my tank but I find bladder snails not very appealing. I will be adding pink ramshorn snails when I get my plants so that I have some kind of clean up crew for the algae. I will try not to get planaria in my tank since later on I plan on adding shrimp and I do not want to end up having to bomb it with medicine to get rid of it. Any opinions on quarantining plants? Do you think two weeks after RR dip will be fine for planting? I'm also wondering if snails can also accidentally carry planaria and maybe i should quarantine them too? Any advice is welcome!

[Skymoon]

Update time!

It's been I think 3 weeks now and I'm surprised how well my water stayed clear. I don't know if it was the bacteria starter or what but I have very little growing (which is good! that's why I started a dark cycle first.), Some observations would be that of course my wood grew fungi but that's to be expected, I was actually expecting more fungus to go all over my wood but it seems to only be on certain spots.

 

Another note is that I'm starting to see some kind of white algae? Or maybe just biofilm where my temp gauge is. I'm assuming it's diatome algae or brown algae that's causing this since my soil has slowly started to give a brown tinge instead of black like it use to. Which again is to be expected since new tank syndrome is a thing. 

Overall it's looking really good. I did make a few changes since last time. I've been noticing some light coming in a lot from the back so I put a backing behind the tank until I'm ready to plant.

My water check's have been very interesting. I'm just use to so much buffer in my old tank that seeing it so low to 40 ppm was interesting. I've also have been curious on how much aquasoil lowers my ph. (It does a lot apparently it's at 6.4 but I'm thinking it's lower since that's the lowest reading I can go with my strips) Thankfully I thought ahead and added crush coral to help stabilize and it seems to be slowly rising for my 11 gallon not so much for my 6 gallon. My guess is because of not having so much crushed coral in my 6. I cut back since the instructions said one bag for 10 gallon.

I guess I could always get caridina shrimp if it doesn't get to high on the ph lol. I also need to add more water. It seems like it evaporates a good inch or two per week. 

I've also learned from my water from my tap is actually soft then hard. I'm surprised since my hardness Gh is on 300 ppm but I do recall that someone told me that the test strips I use pick up on other particulates that might be setting it off. Maybe that's why on my old tank my pests snails seem to not get enough calcium? I would have thought my oyster shells I put in there would fix it. Whatever the case I do plan on getting a water test kit since I want to get a more accurate read before buying my plants. Along with testing after I do my huge water change on week 4.

I've also forgot to set up my quarantine tank for my plants. Woops. I set that up today. I'll add the beneficial bacteria along with adding some fresh media and media from these two tanks to help with the cycle tomorrow. These are going to be for my plants that I got in store that already were in water. I'm planning on leaving them in that tub for a week after doing the seltzer dip. I know it might be a little overkill but I really don't want to run the risk of getting Planaria in my tank. I also want to not have bladder snails in my tank since I think I got them after buying a plant at one point. I will be getting some pink ramshorn snails to introduce in the tank instead.

I'm wondering if I should throw my new snails in the quarantine tank for a week that my plants will be sitting in there or just drop them in my new tank? Also I plan to put a light over the quarantine bin, should I keep the lid on or off when I do this? Any pointers are appreciated. Next time I might upload my list of plant's I'm thinking on getting to get a second opinion before buying them. Hopefully this was entertaining for you guys to read!

 

[nabokovfan87]

On 5/26/2023 at 6:05 PM, Skymoon said:

I believe this was the image I found a long time ago that was by Takashi Amano was what made me want to try aquascaping. And knowing about just regular plants this wasn't going to be easy to do in the first go, but I still want to try a crack at it.

Well, I have to share the "tree man" with you!  He is known for using trees i this manor.  It's a beautiful resource photo. 🙂 I especially enjoy the moss, the way it's trimmed, and the shrimp up top there hanging out.  Green aqua has a series with Felipe when he was at their facility.  All of those videos are wonderful and I highly recommend them just for the fun and enjoyment.
 

 

On 6/16/2023 at 1:25 PM, Skymoon said:

Another note is that I'm starting to see some kind of white algae? Or maybe just biofilm where my temp gauge is. I'm assuming it's diatome algae or brown algae that's causing this since my soil has slowly started to give a brown tinge instead of black like it use to. Which again is to be expected since new tank syndrome is a thing. 

Yes, just biofilm.  You can remove it with a paper towel or toothbrush pretty easily.  That piece of wood is pretty epic. It's a wonderful form for the project you have in mind and generally speaking, it's a wonderful piece of wood for aquascaping in general.

Considering the tank is new, water changes are your friend to remove any excess nutrients from the aquasoil.

On 5/27/2023 at 9:40 PM, Skymoon said:

I didn't think it would be this hard keeping it down. Trying different ways on filling the tank I find putting a towel and cup with holes on the bottom the best method, Just using the towel still kicks up if I just directly put it in there.

I learned a trick from Mark's Shrimp Tanks on youtube.  I use a piece of styrafoam on the water surface to diffuse the harsh flow.

[Skymoon]

On 6/17/2023 at 12:35 AM, nabokovfan87 said:

Well, I have to share the "tree man" with you!  He is known for using trees i this manor.  It's a beautiful resource photo. 🙂 I especially enjoy the moss, the way it's trimmed, and the shrimp up top there hanging out.  Green aqua has a series with Felipe when he was at their facility.  All of those videos are wonderful and I highly recommend them just for the fun and enjoyment.
 

 

Yes, just biofilm.  You can remove it with a paper towel or toothbrush pretty easily.  That piece of wood is pretty epic. It's a wonderful form for the project you have in mind and generally speaking, it's a wonderful piece of wood for aquascaping in general.

Considering the tank is new, water changes are your friend to remove any excess nutrients from the aquasoil.

I learned a trick from Mark's Shrimp Tanks on youtube.  I use a piece of styrafoam on the water surface to diffuse the harsh flow.

Ah thanks for the reply and tips! Will defiantly look into Filipe, R.I.P it's sad to hear the man passed away recently. I took a glimpse at his youtube channel and love the different aquascapes he's posted. 

I might keep the biofilm on there since I do plan on putting shrimps so they'll love that, though when I do the 90% water change next week i'll brush off the fungus since i've heard it actually affects the plants health. I'll also plan on doing 50% water changes after that until I get the plants in.

So far I've learned that using my hose clip and a plastic container with holes poked through seems to help when I need to fill in the water and doesn't disturb the soil. I might do the styrafoam when filling in the 90% water change since it might disturb the soil at that height.

I read that styrafoam is safe for fish tanks, though I have to check if there's any additives on it? I got a disk size of recycled plastic styrafoam from hobby lobby and i'm not sure if it's safe to use for tanks? What do you think? @nabokovfan87

[nabokovfan87]

On 6/17/2023 at 3:33 PM, Skymoon said:

I took a glimpse at his youtube channel and love the different aquascapes he's posted. 

I looked for it yesterday. The image in the OP was Filipes tank, ironically, the same one that originally inspired Tomas.  That's really cool. So there's probably similar styles and likes between yourself and Tomas on GA.

On 6/17/2023 at 3:33 PM, Skymoon said:

I read that styrafoam is safe for fish tanks, though I have to check if there's any additives on it? I got a disk size of recycled plastic styrafoam from hobby lobby and i'm not sure if it's safe to use for tanks? What do you think? @nabokovfan87

It's not something I would say to keep in there long term. Some people use types of foam for aquascaping as well. As someone with some background in the material side of things, yes.... It is very, very likely that it would release something. I keep contact time very low and I don't leave that in the tank. Fish are also shipped with Styrofoam tags as well from time to time. I use it in my neo shrimp tank without issues for many months now.

[Skymoon]

On 6/17/2023 at 4:02 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

I looked for it yesterday. The image in the OP was Filipes tank, ironically, the same one that originally inspired Tomas.  That's really cool. So there's probably similar styles and likes between yourself and Tomas on GA.

It's not something I would say to keep in there long term. Some people use types of foam for aquascaping as well. As someone with some background in the material side of things, yes.... It is very, very likely that it would release something. I keep contact time very low and I don't leave that in the tank. Fish are also shipped with Styrofoam tags as well from time to time. I use it in my neo shrimp tank without issues for many months now.

Lol yeah I noticed too that he was inspired by the same pic as I was. I wish I had the money to make a nice rockery like that XD

Yeah i'm on the fence on using it now. I mean it should be fine and maybe i'll use it before putting in the shrimps. I did find this cool water diffuser funnel on etsy and might spend some money on that since that's exactly what I was looking for. For how well it works I guess i'll have to try it out once i get it.

Another thing i've noticed on my tank is that my sponge filter is causing splashing and wetting behind my tank. I put a towel there temporarily but I'm on the fence on what to do to solve it. I have heard putting a plastic cup works but that doesn't really make it all that aesthetically pleasing lol. I've also seen someone cut out and put a plastic folder like the cup method. I thought about getting polycarbonate sheet and cutting something out for my tank but I don't have the power tools to do so. Another thought was getting a small corner tempered glass shelf on amazon and buy some clips for my rimless tank and use that to block it. I would have to figure out how to manage my wiring since I don't think it'll fit through the gap? Any suggestions on how to solve this would be appreciated. 

[nabokovfan87]

On 6/18/2023 at 12:36 PM, Skymoon said:

I did find this cool water diffuser funnel on etsy and might spend some money on that since that's exactly what I was looking for. For how well it works I guess i'll have to try it out once i get it.

George Farmer just uses a dollar store strainer. There's always a way to get something that'll work for you!

On 6/18/2023 at 12:36 PM, Skymoon said:

Another thing i've noticed on my tank is that my sponge filter is causing splashing and wetting behind my tank. I put a towel there temporarily but I'm on the fence on what to do to solve it. I have heard putting a plastic cup works but that doesn't really make it all that aesthetically pleasing lol.

The only way I've found is to use a lid.

On 6/18/2023 at 12:36 PM, Skymoon said:

Another thought was getting a small corner tempered glass shelf on amazon and buy some clips for my rimless tank and use that to block it. I would have to figure out how to manage my wiring since I don't think it'll fit through the gap? Any suggestions on how to solve this would be appreciated. 

You just route the wires as you need to. Some of them can go through the space in the  lid and for other wires you can use a glass cutter (or have a shop make it for you) and put a 45 degree notch in the corner. Most of the time your lid is going to have some space somewhere for the sake of filtration.

[Skymoon]

Update time! Wow I've been really busy. Hope you all are having a interesting summer like I am! My tank looks really great now but let me catch everyone up with what's been happening up until this point! Hope you all don't mind the long post but a lot has happened since the last update. 😅

 

So last I left off was that I was doing a dark cycle and so here are the results of my water parameters for it. 

looking really good and it looks like i have enough nitrates to put in some plants. It's so hard to tell if it's 5.0 ppm or 10 ppm and I have heard bringing it into natural light helps but it's still a little hard for me to see. Either way it's still in the safe range. It also seems my lovely 11 gallon and 6 gallon have the same parameters too so that's a good sign!

I got some hardy plants and others not so much and hopefully I remember what each thing I bought, I also did this in two parts. The first plant was for any of the lab grown plants I put into my tank and then the second plant was after doing a seltzer dip that I found on the forums to help get rid of any unwanted hitch hikers and then properly quarantine for a week. Not that I'm not going to have any snails in my tank I just wanted to put some pink Ramshorn snails instead of getting an accidental bladder snail in my tank.

 

I learned that superglue jell and liquid are two very different things and makes more of a mess attaching moss and the wood to rock then I would like. It still seems to work out though. I also understand why they rip up the carpeting plants not just to make it stretch further on all the areas but when planting and it's too big it's really easy for it to not get buried into the soil and float upwards. My back was breaking after planting 😅

 

Another interesting thing that I probably should have known is that if you add sand into a tank it really clouds the water for a bit. It seems to look good for my first planting. I hope the carpet plants take

. 

The next few days it's looking so nice. Here's the list from what I remember planting in each tank. 

11 G

• Rotala Rotundifolia 'Blood Red'

• Taxiphyllum barbieri 'Willow' (Willow Moss)

• Eleocharis parvula 'Dwarf Hairgrass'

• Anubias Nana 'Petite' 

• Micranthemum tweediei 'Monte Carlo'

• Vallisneria (It's doing a melt off but it's in the back growing now)

• Rotala rotundifolia 'Indica'

• Hydrocotyle tripartita 'Japan'

• Marsilea hirsuta

• Bacopa caroliniana (I think? I totally forgot if it was this I bought or something else)

6 G

• Rotala Rotundifolia 'Blood Red'
• Taxiphyllum barbieri 'Willow' (Willow Moss)
• Eleocharis parvula 'Dwarf Hairgrass'
• Anubias Nana 'Petite' 
• Micranthemum tweediei 'Monte Carlo'
• Rotala rotundifolia 'Indica'
• Hydrocotyle tripartita 'Japan'
• Hemianthus Micranthemoides 'Pearl Weed' (Which did not survive the dip, mostly my fault)
• Marsilea hirsuta
• Bacopa caroliniana (I think? I totally forgot if it was this I bought or something else)

 

It seems like Pearl Weed did not like my seltzer dip, though It might have been because of me doing it twice because of another issue that came later on in my project. Other then that I only had to plant the Hydrocotyle later because it was sold out when I was buying all my plants the last time. Surprisingly I only had a slight algae bloom but as soon as I added my snails it balanced out within the week and is now thriving!

After adding the snails it didn't take long for them to reproduce!

 

after letting it grow out a bit and adding the snails to handle some of the algae problem I wanted to make sure everything was stable before adding my shrimps. I decided to add 15 blue velvet shrimps in my 11 G and 5 Red Rilli, 5 Oranges, and 5 Red Cherries into my 6 G since I wanted it to be a skittles tank. I also added 2 Yellows and 3 Green Jade shrimp later on too!

It's kinda hard to see in this picture but they are there! You can also see how well my plants are growing in. Sadly the Pearl Weed died off after this pic was taken. 

During that week of introducing my shrimps in the tank I realize they were carrying parasites! 😬 Scutariella Japonica to be exact! Thankfully with a bit of research I found it wasn't fatal but not good to keep them in there. So I did some salt baths for the ones carrying a lot and picked up the shedding for 3 weeks along with adding paragaurd and that seemed to be doing the trick. Though once I finished curing my 11 G I find that my 6 G had Scutariella Japonica now too! I was also concerned that something was up with my skittles tank since I was getting a lot of die offs. Mostly the Orange and Red Rilli shrimp were dead every other day. I was worried it might have been a bacterial infection but then I realized shrimp are not fish and shouldn't have too many water changes! 😭 I feel really bad that I didn't realize it sooner since I knew neo caradina shrimp need clean water to prevent ppm buildup, which is why I did weekly changes but then realized that it should be a 2-3 week water change since it stresses them out. It seems that the water changes more on the 6 G then my 11 G, which makes sense since there is more swings when changing water in a smaller tank and why only my 6 G were having die offs. 

 

Since I refrained doing a weekly water change I can see that my die offs stopped. It seems that was the issue and now my shrimps look a lot more active and healthy! I'm also pleased on how well my plants grew out too! I'm going to leave the plants growing a little more before trimming them but so far I'm happy to how things are turning out. I'm loving how much the moss is growing out on the tree too!

When I went out on a trip I got greeted by a surprise when coming back! 😮

Got berried females! I'm so excited and hope they are all healthy after they hatch. In order to not stress them out I'm going to top off my tank with distilled water and wait this week on a water change. I'll keep you guys posted when they hatch but I hope you enjoyed the update as much as I was watching all this pan out for the past few weeks! 👋

[nabokovfan87]

Both setups look really nice, wonderful work!  I am excited to see how things move forward for you and how the tanks develop.  Keep at it, and hopefully a year from now you're amazed at all that's become. 🙂

 

On 8/2/2023 at 2:39 PM, Skymoon said:

My back was breaking after planting 😅

😂 so true.