Use your imagination ' Update 2013

Due some health problems some of my aquariums stayed in auto-maintenance but never have been forgotten! Of course that I could not have done the regular maintenance as it was supposed, but I always tried to keep them in the best conditions as possible. This doesn't mean that I lost the passion for Aquascaping or even Aquarium hobby, but the problems on my backs really let me down for a few months (discal hernia) but now that I'm recovering, I'm also coming back to update my blog and explain what really happened to my 60lt Aquarium "Use your imagination".

Usually when we can't do maintenance to aquariums is when the problems happen... The project was going as planned but unfortunately the bonsai started to loose most of the leaves and I never discovered if the problem was the water inside of the plastic recipient or due its characteristics (deciduous's bonsai) I decided to transplant it to a new plastic recipient and try to recover it!

In fact the transplant resulted, I really don't know if the cause was too much humidity, but it worked; at beginning I thought that the project was ruined or I would replace the bonsai by a new one, but after a few weeks and after have added a few liquid fertilizer (ELOS Fase1, Fase2, K40 and Extra1; just 1ml of each) few days after, new leaves start to born and for my surprise the bonsai recovered.

After few days:


After 2 weeks:

At the moment, the project still going and I have made a short video just to show how it looks like right now:


New video coming soon!

Use your imagination ' Video of 4th week

The videos are equal but they are hosted in two different servers; If for some reason it isn't possible to see it on youtube, you can now watch it on Vimeo. Enjoy it!

1 Month after setup ' 60L Aquarium

The layout of my 60L Aquarium made 1 month after setup and till the moment I'm very pleased with its development. Plants are growing as expected, not so fast on the bottom but it depends of the intensity of the light, because on the higher part of the hardscape and near of the bonsai, Hemianthus grew 2x faster. I had to remove the cladophora from the junction of the plastic recipient because it was letting the soil too wet and compromising bonsai's health.

I trimmed the bonsai to get more light on the left side and to improve the growing of Hemianthus on the corner, otherwise it was getting very poor and dying. So, for the moment I don't have anything more to explain, I will let you with some updated pictures of the aquarium and I hope that you enjoy it.

Later I will publish a small video of this aquarium.

60L Aquarium ' Video

Short video of my 60L Aquarium. I got feedback that some of my videos aren't seen in some countries due youtube copyrights, so I have decided to upload the video in two different hosts. Now you can see it on Vimeo and also on youtube. I hope that solves the problem!

Vimeo:


Youtube:

60L Update ' What really happened in two weeks...

Two weeks after setup, I added the fishes and shrimps to help cleaning the layout. Some algae appeared, but nothing that should be worried about, quite common when you setup a new planted aquarium. Some partial water changes of 50% twice a week, solved the problem and established the water column. 

I added the same fishes that had on my last layout and were kept on other aquarium while the nitrogen  cycle wasn't finished.

Let me show how the Layout looks like after 2 weeks.

Panoramic picture of submerged layout:

General view of the entire layout:


Close Up of the bonsai and also of the underwater cliff:


View from the left:


A bonsai's root that went out from the plastic recipient and is growing inside of water column:

Take a look how it went out and how big it is! The root looks very healthy and it seems that the bonsai needs even more water than it is getting from the humidity provided by the Cladophora that is keeping the humidity inside of the plastic recipient. Hemianthus callitrichoides spread very fast on the top and it seems that very soon will need a trimming.

And it is all for now... I will try to do a movie on the next days to show this layout with more detail.

Video of New layout

Here it is a video of my new layout. Enjoy it.

60L full planted ' Setup day 06.07.2012

Plants arrived sooner than I expected... It was supposed to arrive next week but for my suprise they came today and I couldn't let the planting part for tomorrow! :-) 

I used Hemianthus Callitrichoides cuba on the bottom and also on higher piece of hardscape; On bottom you can see also some Eleocharis aciculares and Vesicularia dubyana. On top and near of the bonsai, with Hemianthus and on the join of the plastic bottle where is placed the bonsai, I used some Cladophora aegagropila to disguise the plastic and make the transition to HC.

General view of the layout (emerse and submerse)

I'm preparing a video to show all the details of the layout, so stay tuned and I hope that you enjoy it ;-)

Use your imagination! 60L New layout

After long time without giving news about my layouts it was time to rescape my small aquarium and try to bring something new and more directed to landscape. Everybody knows that I love landscapes and mostly something that is related to trees; this scape will be a little bit different of what I usually do but more eye catching than old layouts. 

This layout is not finished and I need to improve a lot of things on the white sand, add the plants and disguise the plastic bottle where is placed the real bonsai. I intend to recreate a cliff and use also the bottom of the higher piece of hardscape to plant some foreground plants to be more realistic and have a good transition from the bonsai to plastic's stones (Replicas from Unipac UK of my friend Roy).

My first attempt for the hardscape was to use plastic bottles but definitely I gave up of the idea once I saw the work that I was involved... Not really a good idea! It was a crazy idea and at first sight, when I started working on it but after spent a lot of time building it, it doesn't gave the natural aspect that I was expecting. So I have decided to use a big stone's replica and cut it on the middle in order that could be possible to put inside the plastic bottle with the bonsai. 

Looking to the hardscape right now, I'm very pleased with the work and it seems to me very promising... I hope that big plastic stone where is the bonsai don't fall apart and ruin the entire layout!!!!

I will let you with some pictures and I hope that you enjoy it! As soon I have more news I will publish it.