I always look forward to meetings at Viktor’s house because he is constantly adding new and interesting fish to his tanks. The fish that I now want the most is a hovering loach that stays about 1.5″ long and has vertical stripes on the body.

Viktor’s 75G was lush with plants planted more Dutch style, without many hardscape items. The plants are all extremely heathly, and his tank are fairly low maintenance with soil substrates.

He has another 75G rainbowfish tank with some old M. bosemanii rainbowish that are stunning. Given the cover of Val. nana, the rainbowfish streaked from end to end of the aquarium showing great coloration.

After viewing the aquariums for awhile, Cavan Allen talked about plants from the Eriocaulaceae family, describing several plants that are not yet in the hobby. We had a good sized auction with rare plants that rival any club in the country. Yet another good GWAPA meeting!

What’s very interesting is that I still feed the catfish in this tank veggie wafers, but I guess either the catfish aren’t sharing, or the shrimp/snails prefer the BBA. I honestly believe that it’s the zebra nerites that are doing more BBA eating than anything else in the tank. I had never previously realized that zebra nerites had such an affection for BBA, but I’m quite pleased that the latest crew seem to enjoy it.

As I mentioned, I regularly feed algae wafers to the catfish in this tank. While the shrimp and nerites don’t seem to go after these provisions, the Malaysian Trumpet Snails cluster around the wafers. Today I watched one MTS slither over the back of a Red Lizard Catfish who was also yearn for some veggie goodness.

The take away is that in my tanks, algae is inevitable. I’m going to get lazy on my dosing, CO2 is going to run out, or I’ll let a filter go slightly too long between cleanings. It’s good to know that when this happens, I’ll get some help from Amano Shrimp and Zebra Nerite Snails to keep things looking decent. My laziness is their gain!

Click for Larger Version

The 75G (my angelfish tank) is really looking wonderful. The bits of black-brush algae that had crept up on the hardscape are receding little-by-little every week thanks to more consistent dosing, water changes, and feeding. It probably doesn’t hurt that I added a few extra Amano shrimp and zebra nerites either. The angelfish are majestic, and are truly beautiful fish to watch. No fins get injured, but the seven large angels take and cede territory regularly throughout the day. Of course, when it’s feeding time, all seven crowd the front glass.

Click for Larger Version

The recently rescaped 33G cube is in a mixed state right now. I think the fresh Aquasoil and tannins from the wood have made the tank pretty acidic. Some of the more delicately leaved plants like Didiplis diandre and HC have melted a little bit due to this. On the other hand, Rotala sp. ‘Yao Yai‘ has grown well, but I know the nitrate levels in the tank are elevated since it’s bright green without a tinge of red. None of the fish seem any worse for wear, but I’ve pulled out the test kits a couple times to monitor, and will do extra water changes if need be.

Click for Larger Version

The other recently rescaped tank, my 50G has been growing well. I didn’t replace as much Aquasoil in this aquarium, so I don’t seem to have the same problems as in the 33G aquarium. All of the stem plants have grown in size. Unfortunately, the Blyxa japonica seems to be dominating the scape a little too much. I’m going to pull some of it out once the Ranalisma rostrata grows in, as it’ll provide a similar look without as much height.

Click for Larger Version

Truth be told, one of the tanks I’ve gotten the most pleasure out of lately has been the jungle of my 40G farm tank. It has a little bit of thread algae in it, but the plants are looking stunning. I’ve been diligent about my trimming to keep any one plant from shading out the rest. I also recently (within the past six weeks) moved all ferns/anubias/etc to the left side of the tank, leaving the right side solely for stem and other desirable plants. In addition, I’ve been feeding the Pseudocrenilabrus nicholsi blackworms, which has made the dominant male absolutely stunning. He patrols the tank all day long, trying to court females into depressions in the substrate or thick bushes of stem plants. There’s enough hiding places for the other fish to hide if they get tired of his aggressive behavior, however, so everyone’s happy.

33G - One Day after Rescape

For the 33G cube, I pretty much followed ADA’s formula for aquascaping: slope the substrate, place the hardscape, plant Anubias along the edges of the substrate, wrap moss around the the hardscape, plant everything else, and fill tank with water. What you can’t see are Hemianthus glomeratus, Didiplis diandre, and Ludwigia arcuata, which I hope will grow into nice bushes just over the top of the Malaysian driftwood.

50G - Immediately after rescape

The 50G uses Malaysian driftwood as well, but I couldn’t bring myself to throw away two full buckets for of Blyxa, so I decided to reuse them in this scape. Unfortunately, I haven’t received the Ranalisma rostrata in the mail yet, but that will be my foreground plant here. I took photos during my rescape process, so let’s go through it.

I always try to do some preliminary hardscaping outside of the tank before I start. This allows me to quickly realize if I have enough hardscape materials, the right pieces, and pre-plan what types of plants I’ll need to pull from other tanks.

This substrate was previously ADA Aquasoil Amazonia on top of a mixture of 50/50 sand and worm castings with 100% pool sand in the foreground. I scrapped out all of the sand foreground, and while I was at it, decided to remove the top layer of Aquasoil, as well.

I recapped the base level with fresh ADA Aquasoil to help get my aquascape off to a fresh start. All of the muck that was removed is going outside to my pond for this year’s potted pond plants.

Next, it was time to place the hardscape. Since I had previously designed the hardscape outside of the aquarium, I simply transplanted the driftwood from my floor to the tank. I still spent about 20 minutes adjusting the angles and placement of the pieces. I finished the process by working in a little bit of extra Aquasoil throughout the hardscape to better integrate the wood into the landscape.

Next, I planted the aquascape. The midground is mostly made up of Blyxa japonica, with a background of Blyxa aubertii on the left hand side. I also added several stems from my farm tank, namely: Hygrophila pinnatifida, Rotala macrandra ‘narrow’, Syngonanthus sp. ‘Madiera’, Didiplis diandre, and  Hygrophila odora. Finally, I softened the hardscape with Fissidens moss.

It’s hard to see the difference in this picture, compared to the one above it, but I added a few moss-wrapped pieces of wood around the perimeter of the foreground. I like adding these little touches to make the environment a little bit more natural looking.

Lastly, I filled the tank with water. I will post updates as the water clears, and after I plant the foreground. Initial feedback welcome!

Judi's 2.5G Aquarium

This year, GWAPA members voted to require all submissions to our contest be in the Nature Aquarium Style, excluding Iwagumi. Last year, we had a fun contest with similar requirements for Dutch aquascapes. You can see last year’s winning tank online at GWAPA’s website.

Judi's Other 2.5G Aquarium

Judi has an assortment of tanks scattered through-out her house, which made going from room-to-room a lot of fun. In the kitchen, she has two 2.5G aquariums side-by-side with very nice nano-scapes going on.

Judi's Aquascape with Cryptocoryne nurii

In the dining room, she had a 30G (I think) aquarium with some of the nicest looking Cryptocoryne nurii I have ever seen. At first glance, I thought it was a batch of C. wendtii, but the leaf pattern on C. nurii is unmistakable. The foreground is Eleocharis sp. ‘Belem’, with lots of Anubias, Hygrophila pinnatifida, and a few other stems throughout. Overall, it was a great way to spend a chilly and windy February afternoon.

I was also treated to some great activities in Raleigh by local members. Neil Frank invited me over to see his fish room, which consists of three wonderful planted aquariums. Neil is a long-time planted aquarist, and has lots of interesting things going on in his tanks.

In the tank above, he has a breeding colony of Melanotaenia praecox rainbowfish, that were buzzing all throughout the tank. I was blown away by the red sword plant in the 90G aquarium below. This old narrow-leaf sword was a single plant, but took up a foot in circumference. The contrast against the greenery surrounding it was even better in person.

He had another 90G next to this one (shown below) that had an oddball cultivar of Java Fern where every leaf was complemented by two smaller leaves at it’s base, making it look like the fleur de lis.

All of Neil’s aquariums had sumps, which allowed him to hide most of his equipment, aside from the built-in overflow boxes. I’m seriously considering a sump for my rimless tank now, as I didn’t realize that sumps allow you to keep a constant water level in the tank. Rimless tanks are a pain to refill water lost to evaporation through the week otherwise.

Outside of the conference, I also got an invitation to tour the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. Many of the exhibits at this museum feature fish and other fauna that are native to North Carolina. My absolute favorite exhibit was one featuring Blackbanded Sunfish, which are one of the most striking native fish you’ll find.

A close second-favorite exhibit was one featuring native Kanawha darters and Redlip Shiner. The shiner were incredibly active, zooming around the tank, while the darters pretty much hung out on the logs.

This tank was in a wide-open area, so I bet these fish weren’t displaying their top coloration. I’d love to see how red the shiner would get in a nicely planted aquarium after feeding some quality food for several weeks.

After a great time at the workshop on Saturday, Sunday was an all-day auction. I wasn’t able to stay for most of the auction, but there were at least 500-600 items for sale on 10+ tables. They did a fantastic job of dividing up the auction items into categories like south american cichlids and plants so that you could target a specific table for items that you might want to bid on later. All-in-all, it was a great weekend! Thank you to the Raleigh Aquarium Society for inviting me down to such a wonderful event. I had a truly wonderful time meeting and hanging out with everyone, and highly recommend the event to any aquarist.

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!

I snapped this picture a few minutes ago while feeding the fish in the rest of my aquariums. This is about 2-3 weeks after planting, and the only thing I’ve been dosing is Seachem Excel for a carbon source. Otherwise, I’m currently relying on the nutrients in new ADA Aquasoil (regular Amazonia and powder forms). I’d love to hear some feedback on the hardscape arrangement as it stands now.