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!

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!

After battling BBA for a couple months, I think it’s finally starting to subside as the plants grow in my 50G aquarium. Shortly after setting this tank up, the combination of intense lighting, too few plants, and a couple CO2 outages resulted in black brush algae to cover most of the rocks, and many of the plant leaves. I also had a brief bought with green algae, which I believe was due to an insufficient bacteria colony to help break down the organics in the tank.

Recall that this aquarium was basically started afresh , removing very old Aquasoil and replacing it with Seachem Flourite Black. I also made a couple of equipment changes , adding an inline CO2 atomizer on my filter outflow and a surface skimmer on the inflow. This has helped a longtime problem with surface scum. I’m planning to keep up on the manual removal of BBA until it’s gone. Let me know what you think of the aquascape in the comments.

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.

After looking at an overgrown mess for several weeks, I broke down and spent the day on Sunday rescaping my 50g aquarium. I emptied everything from the tank

, but the substrate, including dozens of bristlenosed plecos. I overturned one of the previous pieces of wood, and saw probably a hundred baby plecos scurrying everywhere. It probably took me an extra 30 minutes to pull all of those tiny 1/2″ fry from the tank.

I recently bought a large amount of Malaysian driftwood from a local store, and wanted to use some of those pieces in this aquascape. I was looking to recreate the base of a tree submerged in the water. I don’t know if the above hardscape is exactly that, but I did create three distinct lanes running from left to right; one on the left behind the centerpiece, the center lane, and another that goes behind the large piece on the right. In addition, knowing that I would put dozens of plecos back into this tank, I chose pieces of wood that have caves or crevices that I hope they’ll occupy. Some always insist on digging underneath the wood!

Next, I replanted the tank using most of the same plants that I had in previously. All throughout the tank is Ranalisma rostrata, with Hygrophila pinnatifida both used as stems and attached fern-like plants on the wood itself. I used some Staurogyne sp. to help add some more intrigue throughout the Ranalisma, along with Hygrophila sp. ‘Araguaia’. I still need to add some mosses to the wood

, particularly the center piece that has a visible sawed off area. I will post updated shots once the tank completely clears. Initial comments/critiques welcome!