# 20 gallon week 14



## IUnknown (Feb 24, 2004)




----------



## Sir_BlackhOle (Jan 25, 2004)

Looks like its coming along quite nicely. What kind of light is that?


----------



## trenac (Jul 16, 2004)

Growth looks very nice... Your tank is so clean looking & the water so clear.


----------



## niko (Jan 28, 2004)

The tank looks very very clear! Beautiful!

The glosso growth is not as dense as it could be - how much light do you have over that tank?

--Nikolay


----------



## IUnknown (Feb 24, 2004)

Thanks everyone.

The light pendant was from pet supply liquidators. More info in my journals,
http://www.aquascapingjournals.com/journals.htm


----------



## tsunami (Jan 24, 2004)

Greg,

I'm glad to see that your tank is finally not overrun with algae. The plants look very healthy, and I look forward to seeing how you aquascape your new aquarium. 

Now, it is my turn as my 10g is getting smothered in a slimy, filamentous, semi-transparent, brown algae I've never seen before...but that's a topic for another discussion.

Carlos


----------



## IUnknown (Feb 24, 2004)

Haha Carlos,
From your posts I think we run into a lot of the same problems. I haven't got this tank figured out completely yet. Switching out the 70W helped with the algae I was getting on the edges of the tank. The tank seems to crash by Wednesday when doing a water change on Saturday. My tap water parameters have improved (I have been doing a mix of R/O and tap). I was going to try doing 100% tap to see if I have been deficient on something. Maybe I will have to do 2 water changes per week? Maybe the tank still needs to balance out, we'll see.


----------



## IUnknown (Feb 24, 2004)

3 weeks worth of growth. Now that the tank is balanced, I'm going to try to aquascape the tank this weekend.


----------



## pineapple (May 4, 2004)

Bravo. This is a learning experience for me as well. You're running this on CF now? I wonder if you are planning to add some rocks or wood?

Andrew Cribb


----------



## AaronT (Apr 26, 2004)

Nice growth there  I like your custom lilly pipes too. I'm wondering if your tank came like that or did you remove the top plastic brace to give it the 'ADA' look?


----------



## IUnknown (Feb 24, 2004)

Andrew,
Yeah, I should sketch something out and post what I am planning. I've got a driftwood piece that is sitting in a bucket of water. From the AGA photos that have been posted on Amanos work, I'm thinking of trying the Anubias/Java moss/rock combinations. I've switched over to 2 x 55 watt CF. Eventually I would like to try out 150W MH, but I don't want to spend the money yet.

grandmasterofpool,
The tank was done by aquariumobsessed.com. There are older post on the setup.
Thanks,
Greg


----------



## pineapple (May 4, 2004)

It does look healthy. I like the presentation set up that Amano did (was not there sad to say). Anubias petite would look well in that space although it seems fairly expensive to obtain good amounts (in case anyone is reading I am interested in buying petite).

Grandmasterofpool - Greg's aquascaping journals (link at the end of iunknown's post) have all the details of this odyssey.

Andrew Cribb


----------



## Gomer (Feb 2, 2004)

THe AGA convention with the ADA tanks + this thread + custom starphire tanks locally obtained= bad news for my wallet.

Keep us updated!!!


----------



## IUnknown (Feb 24, 2004)

Yeah, I was thinking Anubias just because the stem plant growth is out of control. They reach the top of the tank within two weeks. This is what I had planned in the beginning. I'm thinking of changing it up. I really have gotten used to Rotala sp. "Green" and love the look, so that is going to be the main plant on the upper right. I'm really in love with giant hairgrass, and might see how it looks as a background plant, in back of everything.

http://www.aquascapingjournals.com/images/20_gallon/20_gallon_layout.jpg


----------



## IUnknown (Feb 24, 2004)

Added some hard scape finally. Placed the driftwood using the golden ration. The plan is to get a big bush of Rotala "green" on the left. I want to have Gaint hair grass fill in the back on the right and then have a deep red highlight of Ludwiga acruata.



> To find the focal point of your tank, measure the width and divide by 2.618


----------



## Magnus (Feb 4, 2004)

Great setup, IUnknown. Please keep us updated with its progress.



>


Does anyone else see a statue of a nude and possibly pregnant lady reaching for the sky?  Finals must be getting to me...


----------



## brbarkey (Nov 17, 2004)

Magnus said:


> Does anyone else see a statue of a nude and possibly pregnant lady reaching for the sky?


I see it


----------



## fishfry (Apr 15, 2004)

I see it too, haha, she is dancing


----------



## dennis (Mar 1, 2004)

Interesting, I can see the God Anubis (anubias ) reaching for the sky.


----------



## bigphil (Dec 8, 2004)

I see it too... then again I'm going threw finals as well


----------



## Sue (Mar 19, 2004)

The Lady of the Lake.......she needs a little Excalibur for her outstretched arm.


----------



## locus (Dec 7, 2004)

Although you have used the golden ratio to determine the placement of your driftwood, I feel that the strong vertical movement it creates is a bit disconcerting.

Rather than place the driftwood as you have, I would be inclined to have it at an angle and used to lead the eye to either a negative space or a plant focal point (such as a red plant).

It may be difficult to achieve this with just one piece of wood however.

It would be nice if you could show us some shots of the driftwood out of the tank, resting on different sides and at different angles... when you were placing the wood, did you just try the one position or did you experiment a lot?

I have been arranging some driftwood in an empty tank recently, trying to work out what to do when I start it back up in the new year... after a lot of thought on the matter I found that the driftwood positioning that was not obvious to me from the outset is perhaps the most pleasing.

Just my 2 cents


----------



## tsunami (Jan 24, 2004)

But the effect of the dancing lady will be ruined if he uses traditional Nature Aquarium style driftwood arrangement techniques... it is not a traditional piece of driftwood and shows something unique.

Welcome to the forum, by the way, locus.

Carlos


----------



## IUnknown (Feb 24, 2004)

> Although you have used the golden ratio to determine the placement of your driftwood, I feel that the strong vertical movement it creates is a bit disconcerting.


Thanks for the advice Locus. That is a good point. I want to see how it looks when the Rotala "Green" fills in. Hopefully it will make the driftwood less of a focal point.

I placed the driftwood this way originally because I liked how it looked in my hospital tank, compared to the placements I was trying to force the driftwood into. I thought it would be unique having an aquascape where their was space underneath the driftwood with fish hanging out, and it seemed to look natural.



















This was another piece I almost used,


----------



## IUnknown (Feb 24, 2004)

Actually, now that I compare the pics I do like how the driftwood is positioned in the hospital tank better. I'll have to fix that this weekend.


----------



## IUnknown (Feb 24, 2004)

Tank is filling in,


----------



## turtlehead (Nov 27, 2004)

what tank is that? company? and are you using co2?


----------



## IUnknown (Feb 24, 2004)




----------



## IUnknown (Feb 24, 2004)

Info on the tank,
http://aquascapingjournals.com/journals/20_gallon.htm

I am using Co2 with a Co2 controller.


----------



## Jdinh04 (Oct 7, 2004)

Nice Iunknown, I love how you've got your setup. Now is flourite and APC sort of the same thing?


----------



## IUnknown (Feb 24, 2004)

Where did you read APC? APC= aquatic plant central


----------



## Jdinh04 (Oct 7, 2004)

Sorry I meant, is flourite something similar to Shutlz APS ....


----------



## turtlehead (Nov 27, 2004)

was the stainless steel heater any good? what heater are you using now?


----------



## Black oranda (Dec 28, 2004)

It looks great, it's growing very well.


----------



## IUnknown (Feb 24, 2004)

> Sorry I meant, is flourite something similar to Shutlz APS ....


I haven't used Shutlz. I think flourite might be less of a mess. Flourite is from the seachem company.

The old heater worked great, I just wanted everything out of the tank, so I got a hydor in-line heater.


----------



## IUnknown (Feb 24, 2004)

Trimmed all the background plants to get them to grow back in bushier.









Larger image click here


----------

