Nice "haircut" to my 60L Aquarium

Hi, this tank stills alive... but is out of shape! I simply lost the times that I have trimmed these plants and missed the best moment to take the final pictures. The rocks disappeared, plants are overgrowth and I hope that I don't miss next week to take some nice pictures of the layout and with the plants on the right size.  

Update of 60L Aquarium

I've been doing trimmings on the plants very often to get the best shape but this will take more time to get the perfection and volume that I need. Meanwhile I let you with an updated picture of this layout and later, I will add some more pictures of it.

Update of my 60L Aquarium ' 26 Days after setup

After last trimming plants got volume and grew very fast, but they still don't have volume enough for what I want. This kind of layouts, when we use a lot of stem plants, we need to have patience and trim the plants very often to get the best shape; this is what I will gonna do next days, trim it again but this time with a different method.
Meanwhile, I adjusted the fertilization routine and changed a little bit the quantity of each liquid fertilizer. I have increased the dose of FASE1 and FASE2 plus 0.5ml weekly, instead of 2X0.5ml, I'm using now 1ml + 0.5ml to raise PO4 to 1ppm and provide more chelated iron + micros to balance Lighting system vs CO2 (that is now 1,5bps, instead of 1bps). More CO2 will increase plant's metabolism on high light but we cannot forget to increase also liquid fertilization, otherwise the aquarium will be unbalanced and algae will appear.



Panoramic picture of the Aquarium with 26 days after setup.


Short video of the Aquarium:

Choose 720p for better resolution.

60L 2 weeks after setup - Trimming lessons

I made this video to show how I trim my plants.Usually I do several different trimmings according to layout's development and plant's needs. This is the first trimming on this layout and not make any sense do some corrections on the plants to enhance the shape of general layout. Plants need to get volume and later when they get enough volume and filled the areas, I pass to adjusted trimming process.



Please accept my apologies, but this layout has not one week as mentioned in the video but 2 weeks. I mess up the setup date with the postprocessing of photos and videos. This layout was setup on 27/October, so it did yesterday (10/November) 2 weeks and not 1 week. Sorry for that!
I already edited the video on youtube to cut the first seconds, where it is mentioned 1week. As soon it will be processed, it will make sense with the title (already changed).

11 Days after setup ' Video

This layout has 11 days after setup and it is visible that some plants grew and have spread very well. Next days, I will trim to some plants for the first time to give more volume and start defining some areas, keeping some plants under control.
When I setup my 350L (one day after this layout), I not used all Eleocharis acicularis (3 pots), so I planted them on the front of this layout to close the empty area visible on the first video.



Please accept my apologies, but this layout has not 4 days as mentioned in the video but 11 days. I mess up the setup date with the postprocessing of photos and videos.
This layout was setup on 27/October, so if we make some counts, it will give us 11 days and not 4! Sorry for that! I already edited the video on youtube to cut the first seconds, where it is mentioned 4days. As soon it will be processed, it will make sense with the title (already changed).

Regards,
FAAO

Video of my 60L ' New Layout

ELOS BlackMediumSoil

Most of the people knows that I'm a big fan of brown soil (ELOS Terra) and I had been using it during long, long time with excellent results. However, this time and after saw it live in Aqua2011 in Telford UK and used it to setup the paludarium, I surrender! It is absolutely amazing how the water stays crystal from the time when I start to fill the aquarium with water till is totally filled up!
With ELOS Terra brown soil usually I use some newspaper to cover the soil and plants to avoid getting cloudy water after fill the aquarium with water. In this case and to show you how different it is, I filled up the aquarium directly from TAP water without newspaper and any kind of filtration during the process... You must see to believe!!! Take 7min of your time and watch it ;-)

60L NewLayout Step by Step

During last week (Thursday, 27/October/2011) as I promised, I changed the layout of my 60L Aquarium.
After passing some hours catching all the shrimps, fishes, plants and removed the soil, the aquarium is now empty and cleaned to receive the new layout.


In this setup, I used a different soil from ELOS, the New Medium Black Soil. I had used it before in Telford (AQUA2011) when I setup the ELOS Paludarium; What a great soil!!!
As you know I'm a big fan of the brown soil (ELOS Terra) because of its own properties that leaves the water crystal clear after a few hours even that you use a small filter. About this new soil, I will not say nothing about it... I prefer to show it in a video that I did when I filled the aquarium with water!

Products used on this setup, all of them from ELOS: New BlackMediumSoil, Bottom Mineral, AquaUno and TerraZero.


Picture of AquaUno (Special bacteria/Enzymatic Complex for Freshwater), TerraZero (powder rich in elements for long keeping planted Aquariums) and Bottom Mineral (mineral soil very rich in nutrients)


New MediumBlackSoil from ELOS:

AquaUno is a very strong Enzymatic Complex for Freshwater that promotes the instalation of an adequate colony of micro-organism into the soil, filter or water, reducing the time of the introduction of fishes into the aquarium.


TerraZero, is a powder with elements that permits to keep a planted aquarium for longer without no need to increase the liquid fertilization. This will provide constant feeding to the roots of the plants for more than 18months when used together with Bottom Mineral.


Bottom Mineral, plants need rich soil to develop their roots and grow healthy. Normal soils have nutrients that keeps them fed by a short period of time, of course depending on the quantity of plants used, but normally at least 3~4 months. When used a powerfull rich soil below the based soil, it will permits constant feeding for 12months without need of extra dose of liquid fertilization.

When I was in UK to Aqua2011 @Telford, I saw some beautiful pieces of hardscape and after a chat with the owner of UNIPAC, he kindly sent me a parcel with some fake rocks to use on my layouts. It is not common to find something like that in Portugal, or in other words, I never saw it on Aquarium's market... maybe because it's a new product or shop's owner don't believe that could be a good bet! To be honest, it was love at first sight and for sure a very useful product on my workshops, seminars and home setups. Its very light and you can carry on to everywhere; they have a lot of details and if I hadn't said so, people wouldn't beleived that was fake! Major value on this pieces of hardscape is that don't change your water's parameters, so you can simply use them in any kind of aquarium vs fishes!

In this setup I used Replica Decorative Products from UNIPAC ' The Suteshi Fake stones SR/C, SR/F and SR/I.

Before placed them on the soil, I added AquaUno (3 capsules) in bottom glass spreading them on entire bottom, later TerraZero (1 package in the same way as AquaUno), Bottom Mineral (1 bag) and finally covered very well the entire bottom with BlackMediumSoil to avoid the nutrients of the products used below stay in contact with the water.


After placed the hardscape on the right position, I used more soil to fill empty zones between the rocks and give more depth to layout.


All the plants used are from Aquaflora.nl. They came well conditioned in packages of 5 pots each in a plastic box (pots of 5cm) and with great quality!!
Here it is a picture of the layout almost planted.


Before add the fishes and after fill the aquarium with water, I used 2 capsules of AquaUno directly on the water to provide some bacteria. After 15min, I added the fishes and invertebrates.


I hope that you enjoy it and news coming soon!

Cleaning and how to prepare the aquarium for New Layout

Today I dismounted my layout of my 60L Aquarium and before I remove the hardscape and all the soil, I picked up all the shrimps and fishes. Then I took off the rocks and wood, and later the soil.

Some people are complaining about the quality of the soil that they are using because after several months of keeping their aquariums, the soil turns in to mud. I'm using ELOS soils since several years and I never had that problem. I don't know if people are too much complicated and cannot distinguish mud from wet soil, but in case of ELOS Soils, I never saw it turn in to mud... If we see the picture below it seems very compacted because it is very wet, and the grain of this soil is very small, around 1~2mm.

To be sure that is not a kind of mud, I've used a sheet of paper and it is visible the individual grains of the soil... so, no mud, just very wet!

I have used my son shovel to play around on the beach to remove the soil and I must say that is very useful and pratical! With that, it was possible to separate the normal soil from rich soil (ELOS Bottom mineral), of course that in one moment they were mixed, but I will use it later as rich bottom and all the normal soil to cover it ;-)

In this picture you can see the soil on the hose and in front glass and it is not mud for sure.

General view of all mess that I did on that moment...


After remove all the soil and very carefully to avoid any kind of scratches on glass, it is time to fill the aquarium with water. This will help to "unglue" and clean all the soil that was on the glass. Now just need to do the opposite situation, with the hose, remove all the water and the soil that was on the glass and it is now on the bottom of the tank. Do it 1, 2, 3 times until is clean!

It is new again and prepared to receive the new layout! Quite easy ;-)


New pictures very soon!