# my first Co2 enriched Aquascape



## JosephH (Dec 23, 2013)

Well guys what do they say about ideas nothing lasts past first scrutiny or some bs like that.

Well went by aquatic store today and i found a piece of driftwood I just couldn't resist. I love the shape and looks of it and best of all it was only 30 bucks for this huge piece.

Below are several pics from different angles. it is 31 inches Long, 13 inches High, and 6" wide and was only $30 like I said.

Now I could definitely use some ideas for a layout as I haven't really done an all out aqua-scape and so have limited imagination.

I took some photos from different angles of my wood and even turned it upside down to see how would look that way.

My tank is a 75 gallon and my regulator showed up today it is a concoa twin stage.

so far here are the parts I have ordered since this is my first setup like this i'm going slow so as to get proper parts. someone said I don't want to use a diffuser because i was told i will lose too much Co2 and that I want to use something called a reactor that breaks bubbles up better.

so far here is what I have ordered:

Concoa Dual Stage Gas Regulator Assy Model: 4122331-580

Milwaukee Instruments MA955 Solenoid Valve for Co2 Dosing

DICI Professional Aquarium CO2 Bubble Counter w/ Check Valve

I dont know much about reactors etc but came across this one and was wondering if it would be what I want

http://www.drsfostersmith.com/produc...7&pcatid=24117


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## JosephH (Dec 23, 2013)




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## JosephH (Dec 23, 2013)




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## JosephH (Dec 23, 2013)

I will be using Miracle-Gro 72986510 Organic Choice Potting Mix for my soil mix with a 2" cap of Black Beauty Medium Blasting Media.


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## JosephH (Dec 23, 2013)

I have a list of some of the plants I would like to use in this layout, but i have to figure out where to get them from and what I can afford as i do not know how much a setup of plants will cost.

L aquatica
Ambulia (Limnophila)
Rotala 'Bonsai'
Dwarf saggitaria
Anubias sp. ‘Petite’
Ludwigia palustris
Limnophila hippuridoides
Hemianthus callitrichoides 'Cuba'
Hygrophila pinnatifida
Alternanthera reineckii 'Mini'
Japanese Takashi Amano

I dont know if use all of them but those are what I am looking at right now. any suggestions always welcome


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## JosephH (Dec 23, 2013)

I have had low tech no co2 for the last year to see if i can do plants and my plants grow like crazy. I have an amazon sword was like 2 to 3 inches tall when I put it in it is now abt 20 inches tall and takes up half the tank. it has had like 50 babies over the year that was enough to put several in my 10 and 20 gallon tanks for nice cover and i've given away abt 30 of them to local guys. my crypts have had a bunch of babies too that's using root tabs and seachem ferts.

so I am satisfied I can do this. Here are the ferts I will be dosing for those that take it from the water table:

http://greenleafaquariums.com/aquarium-fertilizer.html

My lighting when I originally set it up I went onto the Barr report site and did some research on all this and that lighting thing (cant remember what they called it the strength etc) mine come in at the higher end of medium lighting almost to high lighting, that is why I dont have any of the super high light required plants in there most are low and medium light requirements but I am sure theres a couple high light plants I can put in there.

I am thinking before tearing the tank down, because of the fish, I will put the wood and rocks and prescape it to figure out my ground, wood, and rock layout so I have it figured out so I can get it tore down and put back up in one day so not to kill the bacteria off in my canister and not have fish in 5 gal buckets for so very long.


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## JosephH (Dec 23, 2013)

I was wondering if this had really narrow leaves Sagittaria subulata (Narrow Leaf Sag) I want a longer grass for the back corner that has really fine leaves on it similar to hair grass so that it makes a nice place for baby fish but also sways with the current giving a relaxing type look. my tank is like 21 inches tall and this seems that it grows to 8 inches I am assuming it would keep growing but even if it stops would work too at 8 inches

Bump: BTW I got my tank stand shelves added so wifes happy lol and got 3 bags of the miracle grow organic potting mix, and some white rocks from by the river they use to keep bank erosion to minimum I will clean them off and boil them tomorrow and do a vinegar test tomorrow but I have used rocks from there before. so i need to figure out from my list what plants I can afford right now and those that dont require co2 immediately and get ready to set it up and for now use liquid co2 to get them started while i get the rest of my co2 assembly in.

I know i should wait but the aquarium substrate is getting old and with several huge loads of baby fish its getting a smell to it and she wants me to change it soon.


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## JosephH (Dec 23, 2013)

you can also see from the pictures above how the aquarium is looking now. I want to later in the week take some video of the tank as it is now then later an after rescaping and then after the plants have grown
any suggestions are welcome. tomorrow I will be boiling rocks I have some nice white rocks they use down by the river for embankment erosion control and they look very nice and will offset with the black background and substrate and the green yellow and red plants I will have


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## JosephH (Dec 23, 2013)

Ok guys I got my 55 gal and got fish and everything moved so today I cleaned up the 75g moved it to its new location, and pained the back of the tank.

ppl have asked me what I use to paint the back of my tanks. I use gloss black laytex because it covers good and also you can basically peel it off if you sell the aquarium, change colors etc.

I use this paint and it is $3.65 for a half pint. 1/2 pint will barely do a 75 gal tank with a nice thick coat so any bigger than a 48" x 21" area you might get a pint.


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## JosephH (Dec 23, 2013)

I took a few pics of my driftwood and rocks placed in my tank. I have a couple plastic baskets I am going to use to stick into the substrate and cover so my hills don't degrade. I also put my rocks in the tank but I have no idea where I want to place them as of yet. Wife likes the driftwood on the lower basket so it will go on that and the green on in the other corner so there is a nice rise there.

any suggestions or ideas are more than welcome as I haven't done anything remotely like this before and so probably don't have an eye for it yet.


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## JosephH (Dec 23, 2013)




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## JosephH (Dec 23, 2013)




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## marty93aus (Aug 1, 2014)

Its a little hard to comment without the hardscape. That is a nice piece of driftwood though, definatly hang some moss off it 

If you throw the dirt in and come up with a few scape designs that would help out a lot in my opinion, it certaintly helped me decide. When you're ready ofcourse. 

Also i used .5mm plastic and cut them into the desired shapes and used them to form my hills so that dirt didn't move. I just siliconed them in place. Just an idea mate

Good luck champ!


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## JosephH (Dec 23, 2013)

Thanks yea I will add substrate first I was just putting stuff in there last night to store it and figured would move things around while I as at it.


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## JosephH (Dec 23, 2013)

ok I put my potting mix in and set my driftwood up. I have some rocks in the corner as a reference until wife gets home with truck so I can get my substrate cap out which will partially submerge some of those rocks and I will add few more making a rock pile and hiding a pleco cave in it so it will look like a cave opening in the rocks. I also have a driftwood branch or partial stump piece I may put in by the rocks but they are in holding tank atm and I want to wait til I get my cap on so I can place them as I vision them


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## JosephH (Dec 23, 2013)

swapped cars with wife so now have the substrate cap on and I think once the plants are in and the other driftwood piece gets in it will look great once grown out


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## JosephH (Dec 23, 2013)

added water today. laid out some plastic inside then filled and the water came out little cloudy but really clear. I had 1 problem though and that was my driftwood even with the slate decided to float so I had to move 2 rocks over to weight it down foe a few weeks until it is waterlogged. I will get a coup0le more rocks to replace the ones I moved as these rocks look pretty good next to the wood I will just have to do some shifting around of them to get the right looks. I also noticed when the wood came up the potting mix had some stuff float but didn't muddy the water so that's a big relief. I now have my submersible pump in the tank with a bottle attached to the bottom stuff with filter floss to polish the water for a couple days. I still need to figure out how i can afford some plants now lol but wife is happy the tank is moved and cleaned up for her.


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## JosephH (Dec 23, 2013)

well today is the third day and I checked my water parameters and they are perfect where they supposed to be and my PH is the same running at 7.8 I dont have a checker to check the hardness but if everything else is the same it should be same maybe a hair softer if there is anything in the rocks to soften it


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## JosephH (Dec 23, 2013)

well tomorrow is March Madness in Des Moines Iowa and I have a 3 hr drive but have some plants waiting for me.

I will be getting some

peacock moss
xmas moss
creeping moss
curly dwarf swords
Dwarf Sag
a val
green and red rotalas
a couple nice stems of Alternanthera reineckii 'Mini'
petite anubias

I already have some cryptocoryne petchii planted
and someone sending me 10 stems of Sunset Hygrophilia

I might be able to get more plants there as I still need S.repens and some other stuff and also looking at possibly getting some Buce if he has it there I want to add
Bucephalandra Copper
Bucephalandra Pink Lady
Bucephalandra Kedagang

I know right now its nothing super fancy for plants but figure since first CO2 enriched ill start with some simple plants and see how they do as I will have a 55 g to do next but will wait until this one gets going. it will start without the CO2 while I try to raise the cash for a CO2 bottle


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## JosephH (Dec 23, 2013)

Ok guys am planting posting pics of plants i got and the tank. its hard to see all my sag in the tank as its so small pieces it is almost under the substrate but i am ASSuming that as it gets going it will come out of the substrate and grow. this my first time trying to really do a lawn and some these pieces so small if I dont push them down it will float away


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## JosephH (Dec 23, 2013)

S Repens only had these 3 teensy pieces but man nice roots. planted them among my rocks for ground cover there


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## JosephH (Dec 23, 2013)




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## JosephH (Dec 23, 2013)

Anubias sp. 'Petite'


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## JosephH (Dec 23, 2013)

The Hell if I know what they are plants. I put them at base of driftwood


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## JosephH (Dec 23, 2013)

I am thinking the Hell if I know plant is Limnophila hippuridoides

Note: was just told by supplier it is thin leaf red rotalas


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## JosephH (Dec 23, 2013)

Dwarf Saggitaria

Hard to see some is just under the substrate because so small but abt 1 inch apart


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## JosephH (Dec 23, 2013)

well finished the sag from that batch supposedly Kody added some in the bag of plants i got from him. Also added some water so my plants stay wet


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## JosephH (Dec 23, 2013)

ok i planted some of this scattered as temp so it can grow out and I can identify it and see where I want to place it. wont be bad moving it as it will be just a small root area early on.

First up looks like some jungle val I just put that in back corner by the rocks will be nice there and I will keep it trimmed just below the water line be good for fry to hide in.










next some green thing lol green rotalas










Next looks like my Alternanthera reineckii 'Mini'










Next looks like broad leaf red rotalas










next have some more reddish plants but not sure what these are they different than the broad leaf red rotalas










some green thing

lol I hope I am not getting to technical for you guys when describing the plants rofl










now some kind of grass looks like little spiders to me lol it is really dwarf sword


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## Yo-han (Oct 15, 2010)

First thing that came to mind is: are those limestone rocks? Have you tested them? 

Second, the plants are in awful condition, combined with the fact that the biomass is very low, you're up to a rough start; I'll hope I'm wrong! Could become a nice scape but I'm curious how this turns out!


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## JosephH (Dec 23, 2013)

Yo-Han they are a quartz type hard to see all the sparkles inside. I have used it for years and doesn't alter my tank at all. I have even done the Vinegar test when I first started using them before someone told me they are a quartz


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## JosephH (Dec 23, 2013)

as for bio mass my canister filter and all my fish are in a holding tank til I got the tank planted there will be plenty of bio mass for now though I put in a few extra root tabs


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## JosephH (Dec 23, 2013)

but yea I wished I had grown my own starters but the guy is ally nice and got a good deal got everything there for 20 bucks I still have a list yet to get but will need few more bucks for that

limnophila aquatica sp.- dwarf
Rotala 'Bonsai'
Ludwigia palustris
Limnophila hippuridoides
Hygrophila pinnatifida
Eleocharis Parvula
rotala 'mini butterfly'
rotala wallichii
staurogyne repens
Microsorum pteropus "Needle Leaf"
rotala sp 'green'
lobelia cardinalis

plus 

Bucephalandra Copper
Bucephalandra Kedagang
Bucephalandra Pink Lady 

and maybe

Bucephalandra Kayu Lapis 1


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## JosephH (Dec 23, 2013)

Now a look at the tank as it sits waiting to grow. I still need to add moss later just boiling my hut I will be attaching it to


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## JosephH (Dec 23, 2013)

and my hut I will be attaching moss on top of so it will grow out and cover the hut


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## kevinmichael77 (Oct 8, 2012)

Are you dosing ferts?


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## JosephH (Dec 23, 2013)

Yes I have totally changed things around but new job has killed my posting time this weekend Ill post pictures. I also have a bonsai stump due here tomorrow. also making a stone wall and stone planting circle that I will put the Bonsai in. its gonna look cool when done. but last week I got new shipment ferts in I am dosing EI I get mystuff from here they are very reasonable premixed and COlin ius a great guy http://nilocg.com/diy-ei-liquid-fertilizer/

and my Bonsai from http://bonsaidriftwood.com/


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## Hillbilly Homer (Sep 25, 2012)

:thumbsup::thumbsup:


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