Ghazanfar Ghori hosted GWAPA’s January meeting last weekend, and I wanted to share a fantastic video that our recording secretary took of Ghazanfar’s 90-P aquarium and aquascape. The wood in this aquascape is a special wood from Southeast Asia that maintains its bark underwater without releasing too many tannins. He complements the detail in the wood with lots of Riccardia chamedryfolia (Mini Pelia) , Fissidens moss, Bolbitus, and Anubias barterii var. ‘nana’. The foreground is a very shallow layer of pool filter sand, with ADA Aquasoil in the background to provide nutrition to the plants. Check it out!

For more information about this tank, and the rest of the meeting, please see GWAPA’s website.

It’s been a long time since I’ve posted an update on here. I snapped a quick photo of the Mini-S how it appears right now. I’ve recently replaced the Taiwan moss with Flame moss. The Rotala macrandra variant have been trimmed and is growing back in. Everything else has been filling in a bit. It like how the sand has bits of Aquasoil on top of it, as it looks more natural to me than plain white sand. Comments/critiques welcome!

After getting some great feedback from the aquascaping community, I’ve replaced the rock in the back right of this scape. Many folks felt that the original rock didn’t balance out the large focal rock enough. I also added in a little bit of Eleocharis acicularis in the background to fine-tune things back there. Comments/critiques welcome!

After neglecting all but essential maintenance on my aquariums for some time due to an on-going home-improvement project, I finally aquascaped a new ADA Mini-S aquarium for my office. Below is a picture of the tank after being setup for a few days. This is the first aquascape I’ve ever actually done using a sand foreground and path, as I’ve always favored foreground plants.

The low ground cover is Taiwan Moss tied to lots of small stones. Mini pelia accents lots of the larger rocks, with Blyxa japonica, Staurogyne repens, and Rotala macrandra (some variant) in the background behind the large rock. I think I may need something in the back right, but I’m not sure if that should be a slightly larger rock, or just some hairgrass trimmed at an angle for some height and depth. I’d love to hear everyone’s feedback on the hardscape and aquascape in general, comments/critiques are welcome!

After the banquet tonight, the Aquatic Gardener’s Association announced the winner’s of their aquascaping competition. I took quick shots of every winner, and am listing them below. Do you agree with the winners? You can view all of the entries on the AGA website.

SMALL CATEGORY

PALUDARIUM CATEGORY

MEDIUM CATEGORY

BIOTOPE CATEGORY

LARGE CATEGORY

EXTRA LARGE CATEGORY

It’s been two weeks since my last update on this aquascape, so I wanted to post a nearly finalized version to see what everyone thinks. I finally replaced the Myriophyllum mattogrossense on the right side with more Blyxa japonica. I think this really improves the overall look of the aquascape. Do you agree?

The Ranalisma rostrata is continuing to fill in nicely, with a few strands of Echinodorus tenellus var. ‘micro’ mixing in, which is actually a good thing. The E. tenellus provides a slightly longer leaf than the Ranalisma which creates a nice transition between that and the longer leaved Blyxa.

Otherwise, I’ve had to start dosing this aquarium to prevent algae from creeping in too much. I guess the ADA Aquasoil has started to deplete, but that’s to be expected after a few months. Comments/critiques welcome!

I made a few adjustments to my 33G aquascape since the last post. For starters, I still haven’t removed the Myriophyllum mattogrossense from the right side, as my other tanks are currently full of other plants that I don’t want to get overrun by the fast-growing Myrio. I really think you could see this stuff grow if you sat and watched it! I’ve had differing opinions from folks as to whether or not they like the Myrio. Please let me know what you think in the comments.

Otherwise, I did remove the rock that was in the front-right, directly in front of the large rock. I felt that the previous one was too big and detracted from the large rock. What do you think of the smaller rock there? I also raised one of the rocks in the back, just left of center, so that it would be slightly more visible, rather than being buried by the Blyxa japonica.

One of the reasons I love this porous mossy rock is that many pieces have small caves in them. The large rock, for example, has two caves, one directly on its peak, with the other on the backside of the rock. In previous scapes, I’ve had both Apistogramma and Ancistrus spawn inside of these tunnels.

I’m really amazed by how quickly this aquascape is shaping up, and filling in. I guess fresh aquasoil, combined with good lights and lots of CO2 are a winning combination. The only problem I’ve had so far is some diatom algae, which was easily gobbled up overnight (literally) by four baby bristlenosed plecos I added from another tank. While they grow to about 6″ in size, right now these plecos are about 1.5″ inches, or similar in size to Otocinclus, so they were the perfect remedy. Comments/critiques welcome!

My 75G aquascape has finally matured. I spent some time over the weekend trimming back the Trident Java Fern, removing old leaves from the Cryptocoryne and Anubias plants, and thinning out some of the moss on the wood. Below is the result of that effort, with what will probably be the final picture of this aquascape before I rescape the tank.

75G - Click for Larger Image

The angelfish continue to grow quickly, and remain as beautiful to me as the day I got them. For my money, there are not many other fish that are more majestic than wild-colored angelfish. The Nannacara anomala are still doing well, breeding several times, but never raising up any of the babies. I added some small Ancistrus sp. ‘L279′ awhile back which are also enjoying all of the hiding places this aquascape provides. I’m looking for ideas for the next scape I do in this tank. Please leave your thoughts in the comments area…

I wanted to share an updated photo of my 12G bookshelf aquarium. The aquascape is largely unchanged since the last photo, but the hairgrass has grown in a little bit. I also went to the trouble of removing the equipment for this particular shot. Notice the pleco in the back left. I put those guys in this tank when they were only a few millimeters long.

Rimless Bookshelf Aquarium - Click for larger image

I’m fairly pleased with this aquascape, although I’m not very happy with this Eleocharis sp. ‘Japan’ hairgrass. It just grows WAY too slow. Because of that and some beard algae on the rocks, I’m kind of getting the itch to rescape it. What do you guys think? Comments/critiques welcome!

On Monday, I spent a very long overdue 7.5 hours working in my fish-room. The problem is that I have neglected my tanks for too long that duckweed and algae had taken them over. In addition to cleaning them up, I also decided to swap the stands the my 40G and 50G aquariums were sitting on to provide better light to my aquascaping tank (the 50G).

As you can see above, the two tanks sit side-by-side. That doesn’t mean it’s an easy job to swap their positions. I still had to drain the water, remove the plants, remove the rocks, remove the fish, remove the driftwood, and finally get help to physically move them. In other words, it was nearly the same amount of work as if I were moving to another house.

After getting the aquariums into their new resting places, I decided that it was time to re-aquascape the 50G. I didn’t want to change too much from how it was before, but I definitely needed to make some changes. So, I repositioned the wood countless times until I came up with what you see above.

Then, I replanted the Blyxa aubertii on the back left and added Hygrophila sp. ‘Guinea’ to the back right. Hopefully with some time, everything will fill in and look a lot better than it did previously. I’m still toying with the idea of adding the branches back into the scape to give the feel of a riverbank, but I’ll let the plants grow in a bit before doing that. Comments welcome!