# Which photo is best (my 10 gallon) (56K)



## Tausendblatt (Sep 16, 2009)

I am no prodigy in the planted aquarium hobby, but I feel it is my 'duty' as a member of APC to enter the aquascaping contest. I have been in this since summer 2009, this tank was started in mid August.

I suppose this could be a journal some day, but for now, it has a specific and narrow purpose;

I want to know, at what point of it's life did my tank look best? I will not go to before it started filling in, although, at that time, there was no BGA all over the substrate and foreground. W*hich ONE is NICEST, if you don't like any of them that much, should I continue growing the tank out?* I pulled and plucked a lot of the limnophila sessiliflora to plant in my brand new *started this afternoon* MINERALIZED TOPSOIL 35 GALLON MASTERPIECE!

I am brimming with tolerance for constructive criticism.

Anyways, without any further ado, enjoy yonder photographs! They are in chronological order.









For the purpose of yonder thread, this is the first image I will use. Nice and sunlit, Diana Walstad would be proud. Not particularly viable as a contest photo... you can see my reflection!


















Lookin pretty fine, the huge"dead" stem is very much alive, the right side is brimming with various potamogetons, and algae is at bay. Elodea canadensis thrives in the foreground on the left. Egeria najas and Limnophila dominate the center and left (in the back) My mossy rock was doing great. Here is the final photo of before the rescape. I don't think callitriche or sago pondweed liked being move.









I rescaped, but I was being bothered by debris accumilating on my dwarf hairgrass, so I tore it all down and Replanted. The next photo is the end result after a week of growth. Mossy rock was diminishing, I trimmed it crappily and tore chunks out rather than shaving it back, so it was bad. Then I put it in with a jack dempsey in another tank... OOPS. Well, the rock is very ugly at the moment. Aw...









This photo was taken with a great camera. I love the lemna trisulca cloud in the middle. I don't love the tube in the left side.









This is from today, before I hacked Limnophila all up. I am having problems with BGA at the moment. Also, the vallisnera (back left) are way too large and very new, only a couple weeks. The huge increase of BGA and Lemna trisulca are probably due to my filter breaking. The entire mass of green on the top is colonized by clones of Lemna trisulca. There is way more LIMNO than it looks. I pulled out a half pound of the stuff and it still looked a but full. Egeria najas is in the back right corner, growing mighty fine and obscured by the colossal forest of Asian Ambulia.

I have been losing species like flies, I don't have any answers! My flame tetras dropped dead, all of them, within a day. (They are absent in the last photo)  My callitriche is a single stem. My sago pondweed is 2 small stems. My elodea canadensis is missing in action, and my E. nuttallii disappeared even before this. So who knows how long the growth will continue. 2 species of stem and a twining floating plant allow great aquascaping opportunity! (slight sarcasm) I'd rather not get a pressurized CO2 system. Lets keep the chit chat about that to a dull roar. 
RANT RANT RANT

I don't expect I will win, but being in the contest makes me feel smarter, just like infants exposed to Mozart.


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## Tex Gal (Nov 1, 2007)

I like the 2nd photo.

If this is an el natural tank, I suspect the plant mass got too thick to have enough nutrients in the tank to support it. As your plants started rotting the ammonia spiked and killed your tetras. It may also be that some plant species that needed more light got shaded out by the opportunistic growers.

Good luck in the contest!


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## Tausendblatt (Sep 16, 2009)

Tex Gal, Thanks for the input and advice!

It isn't El natural because it has only one fish and some snails, I dose KHPO4, KNO3, Chelated iron, and traces.

I would like a little more input though folks!


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## BJRuttenberg (Sep 25, 2005)

#3


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