After weeks (months) of neglect, the farm tank is finally looking good again. This isn’t meant to be aquascaped , but there’s something about a collectoritis farm tank that keeps me glued to it.

I want to introduce a new aquarium that I brought back with me from the Chicago Aquatic Experience show. It’s an Aquavas system with mostly plants from Aqvainnova, who hopefully will soon be selling in the USA.

The scape is made up of spiderwood and some local quartz rocks. I’ve got cardinal tetras and Corydoras melini in there currently. There is still some new tank algae that I’m combating

, but overall it’s growing in nicely.

I previously posted pictures of my 33G and 50G aquascapes. Both are growing in pretty nicely. The 50G started to get some BBA on the wood, but a combination of peroxide treatment and adding additional algae eaters seems to have eliminated most of that problem. It did

, however, harm some of the foreground Monte Carlo plant, slowing it’s growth. I’m sure that it will rebound.

I’m still figuring out the exact amounts to dose this aquarium, slowly increasing the dosage as the plants have been growing in. The LED lights are quite bright and are actually dialed back slightly to slow things down.

Two weeks in, the 33G cube (above) is doing okay as well. I have been getting some algae on the Blyxa japonica especially

, but I think that it’s just a matter of all of the bacterial colonies stabilizing to help me with some of the organics. The foreground is starting to grow, but definitely has a ways to go. The most prolific plant thus far is the North American native, Heteranthera dubia, which is growing up behind the peak of the hill. Comments/critiques welcome!

This weekend I rescaped another one of my aquariums, the 33g cube. Previously, this tank had several iterations of my Bermuda-inspired aquascape. This time, I wanted to reuse some Africa Bogwood that’s been sitting idle for awhile. This wood is pretty chunky, but it sinks well, mosses attach to it well, and it stacks nicely without too many obvious gaps. As proof, you hopefully can’t tell that there are actually about a dozen different pieces of wood in the new scape that are woven together with the intention of making it look like one comprehensive stump.

In terms of plants , I reused most of the plants that I had in the previous aquascape. In the foreground/midground, I have Micrantherum umbrosum “monte carlo”, Staurogyne ‘Porto Velho’, Ludwigia sphaerocarpa, and Riccardia chamedryfolia. Surrounding the wood I use Blyxa japonica, and in the background there’s a mismatch of Syngonanthus ‘Madiera’ and ‘Belem’, Ludwigia simpsonii, Ludwigia octovalvis, and Dioda virginiania. Once the stems are more visible I’ll pick which ones I’m actually going to keep. The fish are the same that have been in there for awhile , highlighted by the trio of blackbanded sunfish. Comments/suggestions welcome!

A couple of weeks ago, I rescaped my 50G aquarium and setup a new scape with some new Rosewood and Activ-Flora substrate — two things I’ve never used before. The Activ-Flora substrate is chose is a mix of their Floragems and Lakegems varieties, which basically look like river pebbles. I used a quartz-based rock that was locally collected that has slate and other veins marbled through it.

The rosewood is a very unique wood that branches in many different directions. Most of the branching is actually root material. It floats initially so I needed to weigh down my pieces for about a week, and the wood went through the normal fungus phase which was quickly consumed by snails. I did get some brown algae that I remedied by blasting the tank with 6 different powerheads and some extra filtration to clear it. Currently

, I think the scape is a bit too bright due to the substrate, but I’m hoping that once the Monty-Carlo foreground grows in, it will look better. I may need to adjust the heights on the rosewood pieces to create a bit more distinction and visual pathways. At this point

, however, I’m happy to just get the plants growing and algae-free. Comments welcome!