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!

At the last CCA meeting, I purchased a bag of Pseudocrenilabrus nicholsi dwarf cichlids from West Africa. This morning, while in my fish room, I noticed the dominant male showing fantastic coloration, and policing the middle of his tank. He was chasing away the other males, while gyrating his body near some plants, presumably to lure the females over to spawn there.

The video quality isn’t fantastic, but hopefully you can still see how entertaining and beautiful these little fish are…

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!

A few weeks ago, I posted some pictures of the new aquarium stand I had built for my GLA 33G rimless aquarium. Well, I finally got around to actually setting up and aquascaping this tank. One of my goals was to keep this aquascape fairly minimalistic. Therefore, I originally planted the entire tank with only one plant, Ranalisma rostrata. Then, after looking at it a few days, I decided to add Staurogyne repens around the base of the rock.

After another few days, I thought the background needed some taller grass sloping up to the large rock, so I added some Blyxa japonica. Then, I went too far, and planted some Myriophyllum mattogrossense to the right of the rock. I’m going to pull out this plant, as I think the aquascape will be more striking with clean rock lines there. I may stick a little bit of Blyxa japonica there so that just a few grassy tips are visible, but I will need to experiment with how that looks.

Now, I’m just waiting for all of the plants to fill in and bush out. I really like the dimensions (25″x18″x18″) of this particular aquarium, as it’s basically like aquascaping half of a 75G. I have always complained how it’s easy to get one side of a larger tank looking great, but it’s hard to design an equally awesome second half to complement the first. Well, with this tank, I can simply worry about one side. What do you think of the aquascape so far? Comments/critiques welcome!