I'm still a little behind real-time with my posts, but I want to keep things chronologically accurate. I already have a new scape going well but I'll post about that in the future. For now, I want to talk about the end of my first scape that placed my 1301 in the IAPLC 2019.
For a long time with this scape, I had battled algae. I worked so hard, and did so many water changes. I never let this get my down and kept fighting to keep a nice looking tank. After my final competition shot, I even removed some of the most algae ridden plants and planted a ton of new stem plants. Those looked good for a few weeks but ultimately, the algae had a hold.
I went out of town for 4th of July vacation and came back to a mess. I just couldn't stomach the idea of trying to keep this scape alive any longer. Here are some shots of what the tank looked like after I came back from a trip and then neglected it for a few more days.
You can see it was a mix of green dust algae, black beard and some other things. It was honestly nice to know that I was going to tear it down and just see what would happen to it for a week or two.
1867 total entries in the world, top 1600 make the book and I came in 1301. So cool. Much better than I expected. My only goal was to get my picture published and I did it. I had reviewed the previous year's book to compare and I figured I'd come in around 1500 or so. That pretty much concludes this chapter and scape. I've already torn this one down and started a new scape. I'll try and get caught up soon to add new posts about what I'm doing this time.
Whoa. It's been 5 months since I have posted here. I've though about posting a lot but just didn't ever get around to it. I decided to enter the International Aquatic Plants Layout Context this year. This contest was created by ADA and Takashi Amano many years ago. Since he was the inspiration for my whole tank and I bought all his companies equipment I figured I should give this contest a shot.
Now by no means do I expect to do well in the contest, but I do have one goal. To make the book. Each year, they create a book of all the best entries to the context. Last year the top 1700 made it into the book. Having reviewed the entries near the bottom, I think my tank has promise to make the cut. I submitted my entry about a month ago and should hear back what place I come in around August.
Here is the final shot I submitted.
Now the tank was by no means perfect, but I guess none ever are and that's kinda the point. To get this shot, I removed all the glass pipes and had Ryan hold a hair dryer near the top to create water ripples. Additionally she would wiggle her fingers in front of the tank to get the neon tetra to come over where I wanted them. I had our camera setup on a tripod and took tons of pictures. I liked how the fish were all facing in the same direction here and in the open part of the tank.
This was a long time coming for sure. I always knew getting into Nature Aquariums and the Planted Tank world that my focus would be primarily on the plants and then finally on the fish. However, I didn't think it would take me this long. It's been over 2 months since I first flooded the tank after a 6 week Dry Start. I had primarily been holding off for so long since I was battling with so much algae. I mean crazy amounts. All that time I was doing massive water changes of like 75% like 2 or 3 times a week. This would not be a great world for a fish to live in.
Since my last post where I returned from vacation, I have been doing lots of things to try and get the algae under control. Still doing big water changes 2 times a week, but I also did my first ever big cleaning of my filter. It was nasty and likely not helping the algae situation. I figured things seemed to be taking a turn for the better so I figured why not go get some fish.
I have known all along I wanted Neon Tetra's. I think they are the coolest looking fish but have many other features that make them the perfect choice. Their blue and red stripes give great contrast to the mostly green foliage. The bright lights in the tank make their colors really pop. Another great things about Neon's are that they are schooling fish. They tend to stay in right formation to scare of predators with the appearance of a much larger fish. In the wild, they will be in groups of thousands. Being that they are fish that will only grow to about an inch or so I can safely add 20-30 of them without overcrowding. This allows them to grow a nice school and give that nice vibe to the tank. Finally and most importantly based on my current burn rate for this tank, they are cheap. Like $1 for small ones and $2 for big ones at my local fish store Aquatropics.
It's amazing to me how hard it is to actually get some. Aquatropics gets like 50-60 of these in every week and usually by the time the weekend comes, they are all gone. I was able to get my first 5 in the tank this weekend and had the girls help me knock it out. They had a blast, it's so fun to get them involved in my new hobby.
I've read and watched lots of videos about aquascaping. Most of the experts and professionals travel alot and make videos of how they end up having to deal with large amounts of algae after their trips. I hadn't yet been through such a problem since I hadn't been gone for more than a day to 2 and already have plenty of algae issues.
Before I left for my New Years trip to my sisters house I did a few major water changes and tank cleanings to get everything as ready as possible. I had the cat sitter put fertilizer in my tank each day when he visited. I was gone for 6 days and this is what I came back to.
I couldn't believe it. This was the worst I had ever seen my tank. Luckily it looked like most of the algae was green algae stuck to the side of the glass. That stuff is pretty easy to remove. I think I figured out what caused it, if you look closely at the CO2 line you can see a bunch of slack in it. One of the snails must have tried to go behind it and dislodged it. Basically the tank wasn't getting any CO2 permeated in the water which when you have high intensity light like mine can cause an algae spike without CO2.
Here is what the tank looked like after about an hour of cleaning and changing 80% of the water out.
After another day or so the water cleared up and I did another huge water change. Tank is looking really good now which I'll show more in another post.
