This week I rescaped my 75G angelfish aquarium. I wanted to open up the tank a little bit, while still preserving some of the classic anglefish biotypes by including sword plants as key focal points to the scape. I reused several plants from the previous scape, namely the Cryptocoryne pontederiifolia and Anubias barteri var. ‘nana petite’.

This is the first aquascape that I’ve done using Brightwell Aquatic’s FlorinVolcanit substrate. I completely emptied the aquarium of all of the previous substrate, leaving only the eggcrate to prevent rocks from directly contacting the glass bottom.

Then

, I placed the hardscape into the aquarium. I choose to use several pieces of manzanita laying over quartz/slate rock, to simulate a fallen branch in the river, wedge between a rocky riverbank. I wanted to simulate a stream bed where the dying tree branches gave life to other aquatic plants, namely the Kleiner Prinz Sword plants.

Lastly, I filled in the foreground with white pool filter sand. I did plant some Staurogyne sp. ‘Porto Velho’ in the sand that I hope will break it up a bit, but hope to keep most of the plain foreground intact, as it provides a nice contrast to the darker wood. Overall, I’m looking forward to seeing how this new aquascape progresses as the plants grow in. Comments welcome!

I rescaped my 50G aquarium this weekend, replacing a lot of wood from the previous scape with some new rock that I picked up from another GWAPA member. The main things that I wanted to achieve with this aquascape were to try out Seachem Flourite Black and to feature Gratiola viscidula, which is planted all throughout the rocks.

Obviously

, the plants all need to grow in now to make the whole thing look more natural. The plants are Ranalisma rostrata, Gratiola viscidula, Staurogyne ‘Low Grow’, Juncus repens, Hygrophila ‘Araguaia’

, Blyxa japonica, Ludwigia arcuata, and Hygrophila odora.

Recently, I was honored to be invited by the Bermuda Fry-Angle Aquarium Society to speak to their club about planted aquariums and judge their home show. On Friday evening, I gave a presentation on keeping planted aquariums and the basics of aquascaping. Then, on Sunday, I went house-to-house with several members to judge their home show. In their home show, they have two categories: designer tanks and planted aquariums.

The tank above is Sinder’s aquarium, who is a teenager that is wonderfully inspired by aquarium keeping. He entered two tanks and this is his designer tank. I like the idea behind the hardscape, and but thought that overall it just needed a little more growth and polish.

Michelle had a very nice Anubias tank that flowed very nicely from one side to the other. Overall I liked the tank, but was hoping for a small amount of intrigue from a background or from some pieces of wood jutting from the main section.

Nyon won the designer category with his aquarium. He had several pieces of driftwood suspended and hanging into the aquarium. He had incorporated some Amazon Swords to add a splash of greenery to the tank, which I liked.

On the planted aquarium side, Sinder had a very nice Aponogeton 10G aquarium that included mostly South American fish and represented a nice biotope-style aquarium.

Scott had a beautiful cluster of Cryptocoryne wendtii in his 75G aquarium. He had started to planted dwarf sag across the foreground , but it hadn’t really filled in yet. The plants looked very nice though, and I’m looking forward to seeing the finish aquascape once everything grows in.

David had a 180G aquarium in his kitchen with and really nice hardsacpe in place. He used lacerock, mixed with wood to a simple minimalist scape using just C. wendtii, Val, C. lutea, and some Anubias. It is a stunning aquarium to sit in front of, and had a lot of activity going on from a nice selection of fauna.

Overall, I judged Robert’s 75G aquarium to be the winner. He had really nice plants, and while he did had some wood in the tank, he basically pulled off a nice planted aquarium without much hardscape visible. The Marsilea still needs to fill in a little bit in the foreground , but his plants were not showing any deficiencies, and he had them nicely groomed. I had a wonderful time in Bermuda mingling with the local aquarium-keepers, and was very encouraged by the planted aquarium talent present on the island.

The two recent aquascapes are coming together. The 33G cube is finally starting to grow in. I had a couple bulbs die on me that went unnoticed for several weeks. I couldn’t figure out why the foreground was growing in so slowly until I looked up and sure enough the front two HOT5s were dark. Once I replaced them, the Elatine triandra and HC started to take off. The rest of the plants are growing really well too.

I’ve started to get a little bit of BBA, so I’ve been spot treating and have adjusted me dosing scheme slightly. The 50G aquarium (below) is also growing pretty well. I removed the Blyxa aubertii because it was too overpowering. In it’s place, I’ve planted a row of Syngonanthus sp. ‘Madiera’, which I hope will fill in nicely. I need a little bit more color in this scape, as well, but the Rotala macrandra variant I have in there isn’t really thrilling me.

At this point, it’s still a little bit of a work in progress. The bristlenosed plecos are making it difficult for me to establish a foreground as well. All in good time I suppose!

I snapped a photo of my Mini-S nano aquarium this morning. The Hemianthus callitrichoides is growing in well, however, I’m scratching my head a little bit regarding the difference in appearance of the HC on the right side verses the left side of the tank. The left side looks fantastic, with lush, green growth. The right side is growing, but many of the leaves are brown or even decaying. There’s definitely more flow on the right side of the tank, but usually that’s a good thing.

The stuff on the right side probably doesn’t have as much substrate to root itself into as on the left, so I’ve added a little bit of powder-type ADA Amazonia on the right. We’ll see if that helps improve the help. Otherwise, comments welcome!