Since I’ve been dosing regularly, keeping the CO2 levels fairly high, and finally have the lighting period set nicely, the plants in this tank have been doing really well. So, as usual, the blyxa japonica (pictured left) really overgrew itself, throwing the whole aquascape out of balance. I was debating whether to simply flip the anubias and blyxa, putting the anubias in front and blyxa in back, but ultimately, I decided to just yank out the blyxa altogether and go with all anubias. (I’m a maintenance kind of guy, and if one plant is less maintenance than another, chances are, I’m going to go with the lesser maintenance plant.)

75G – 09-28-2006 (Angled view)

Anyways, as you can see, I’ve replaced the blyxa with anubias barterii var. nana. I like how more of the hardscape is revealed by doing so. I’m pretty happy with it thus far, but I might yank the anubias afzelli, which is the long slender leafed anubias in the center-left part of the tank. Additionally, I’m anxiously awaiting the utricularia graminifolia (pictured right) to grow in on the bottom left side. I’m currently blaming my whiptail catfish for hanging out over there, and uprooting the plant. As always, I welcome everyone’s comments on this scape.

75G – 09-28-2006 (Front view)

Well, I couldn’t manage to pull out a win for 1st place in the advanced category. GWAPA members awarded first place to Sean’s tank pictured below. Congrats Sean!

 

Well, it’s Friday night before the Saturday GWAPA meeting. Tomorrow’s meeting will conclude what has been a 5-month effort in preparation for GWAPA’s first annual aquascaping contest. I tidied up the tank, cleaned the glass, removed 2 dozen Endlers, and snapped some photos.

(Front View – Straight on)

Tomorrow afternoon, I will drain all but an inch of water from this take, pack it up at securing it as best as I can, and take it to the meeting, where GWAPA members, beginner and advanced, will rank my tank aside everyone elses. I’m not sure how mine will rank, but I’ve it’s been a great challenge getting this tank to where it is today. Comments welcome!

(Front view – Looking down at an angle.)

It’s amazing how fast things can turn south. We had to leave town for a few days due to a family emergency, and of course, this is the time it always happens — the CO2 tank ran out. Now mind you, it could be a coincidense, but really it’s just a crewl joke, that not one, but two, CO2 tanks ran out this past weekend. So, while my aquariums are not unsalvagable, they most definitely now range from algae scapes, to minor eye sores on the glass.

Here, is my gallery of shame. On the top left: green spot algae on the glass, with perhaps some late stages of green dust algae. To the right, a nice mat of cladaphora. Note, there’s not a good cure for this algae. Finally, below, notice the free flowing pad of staghorn algae.

Well, I finally got fed up with lots of not-so-dwarf hairgrass, full of brush algae, that ended up not staying rooted in the substrate. So, I pretty much yanked everything out of the tank. I had neglected this tank for about 2 months, allowing a lotus plant to nearly cover the entire surface. I had hoped that if I let it go long enough, I would finally got a beautiful lotus flower. It figures that the day I pull out that lotus, I see its first flower stalk shooting up. Of course, I only realized this after I ripped out the foot long root system, uprooting the entire left side of the tank. So much for patience — I’ll try that next time.

So, anyways, I’m working with a very limited set of slate rock that’s leftover from redoing my 75G. One of these days, I need to get back down to an excellent slate collection site by the side of the road in northern Virginia. Below is what I’ve come up with thus far for the hardscape. I want lots of caves, as this tank houses several apistogramma panduro. Please ignore the horrible derth of flora right now. I need to make a serious visit to my LFS (and a few GWAPA member’s tank) to find some new and interesting plants to throw in here. I’m open to any plant suggestions, particularly for the foreground.