I’ve been a bit preoccupied with any number of things lately — mowing the yard, preparing the vegetable garden, spending more time taking pictures outdoors in the nice weather — that I haven’t really spent a whole lot of time paying attention to my aquariums. Well, that changed a little bit today when I put together my first scape using the new manzanita wood that I ordered a few weeks back. Below is the first show of the new aquascape. I was so eager to get a shot, that I forgot to fill the tank all the way up.

One of my goals with this aquascape is to provide something that looks nice, without requiring too much upkeep. Lately, stem tanks have been too much for me to keep up with. So, to that avail, my foreground is ranalisma rostrata, background is bylxa japonica (yes I know, it’s technically a stem plant), to the left are some cryptocoryne, and in the middle are some anubias barterii var. nana. Finally, fissidens moss is adorning some of the branches.

Please let me know what your first impressions are…

I haven’t blogged in a little while due to an unexpected trip out of the state due to a family emergency. When these things happen, they don’t always fall conveniently right after a water change, or when your CO2 tank is 100% full. As happens, the timing for my 20G high was quite unfortunate. I had kind of let this tank go a little bit anyways because it seems that some kind of algae spore is embedded in the bogwood, and won’t go away. I didn’t want to pull out the wood because it makes a great shelter for the Apistogramma viejita in this aquarium. So, with an algae outbreak already creeping up, no water change for 2 weeks, and my CO2 tank running out, I came home to this mess.

I’m not really sure what I’m going to do here. I think I may just tear the whole thing down and start it fresh. I could make this a non-planted tank, specifically for the purpose of breeding apistos, using Rain/RO water and peat to lower the PH down to ridiculous levels. Or, I might rescape the whole thing, without this bogwood, once my ADA order of Amazonia comes in.

Eitherway, I guess this shows that while there are a lot of low-maintenance planted tanks, some of these higher light, nutrient dependant, CO2 sucking tanks can really go south in a short time if not tended to. This isn’t a terrible thing because I love the constant change of this hobby, but it’s a good headcheck that there’s more at work in these little biocubes than might meet the eye.

Last night, I moved my Apistogramma viejita ‘Rio Meta’ pair in the 20G High tank I’ve been preparing for them. The aquascape in this tank is still developing, as is the algae, but at this point, I’m more interested in getting these beautiful fish to breed. I’ve snapped a few pictures of the viejita’s in their new home…

The male’s checking himself and his new digs out.

A. viejita female

A. viejita male

It’s been a few weeks since I last posted a picture of this tank, so here’s where it’s at. I make no apologies for the powerhead or diffuser in my “progress pictures,” so do your best to look past them. The utricularia graminifolia is starting to fill in after I plucked out at least a hundred trumpet snails that kept uprooting it. I’ve trimmed the didiplis diandra at least twice since the last picture, so it is starting to form a nice bush in the middle/right. New additions are the rotala macrandra ‘green’ and pogostemon stellata in the right and left sides of the didiplis diandra, respectively.

I was having quite the time controlling algae in this tank, but after sticking to a rather strict SeaChem product-line dosing regimen, including overdosing Excel, I seem to have that under control. The 10 of so cherry shrimp I added from my over-populated cherry shrimp tank haven’t done any harm in that regard either. I estimate that I’m probably about a week away from adding the apistogramma viejita pair that will eventually occupy this tank. I want the utricularia to be pretty much established before I add them. In the meantime, they’ve been enjoying a copious diet of blackworms, spectrum pellets, and veggie flake to ready them for some baby-making, er, I mean spawning.

After looking at a mess of algae and java moss for far too long, I decided to tear down this tank, and give it a new aquascape. The wood is a wonderful piece of bogwood for apistogramma breeding because it is completely hollow, and has multiple entrances and exits through it’s core. The slate was collected locally before the October meeting down in Virginia, and the substrate is ADA aquasoil.

The plants are ludwigia repens var. ‘narrow leaf’ (back left, didiplis diandra (back right), baby tears (mid ground), and utricularia graminifolia in the foreground. I do have one restrictions that may somewhat limit this aquascape:

• Make sure there are enough nooks and cranies for the apistogramma viejitas that I’m going to attempt to breed in this tank. (Hence the bogwood, even though it may not be the perfect center piece)

One other thing to note. We all know that aquasoil grows plants like crazy. Well, apparently, it grows trumpet snails too. I have some of the largest trumpet snails I’ve ever seen in this tank. I’m trying to pull them all out since they’re disturbing the utricularia that I’ve so carefully planted.