2020 IAPLC Submission

Time sure does fly.  Before I knew it, it was approaching the end of May and the deadline for submitting was here.  I had hoped the tree would be way way more filled out but I was pretty happy with where I got it.

The fish would not cooperate with me.  It's like they knew when I took all the hardware out they figured I was cleaning the tank so they were freaked out.  This was the best shot I could get of them.

The tree had actually grown in even more than this but I trimmed it some because I wanted to be sure I could see the slope of the grass line behind it.  I also put down fresh sand to make the river pop.  Here is a cool tank shot I submitted to Reddit shortly after and got the most upvotes for a post I've ever made.  People were either super stoked or freaking out about having a glass stand.

As a footnote, about a month after I submitted the top shot here I realized I didn't ever get a confirmation email from ADA like I did in 2019.  My heart sank when I realized this.  I tried to email their support to see if my submission got in successfully but I never heard back.  There is a high probability that something failed on the website during my submission and I didn't notice.  I guess I'll either get a letter in the mail or I won't.  Sad because I was 1301 last year and made the book which you can see in my stand in the picture above.  I was really looking forward to making the book again this year.   Fingers crossed till October or whenever the results come out.

There She Grows

A little time had passed and you can see how well the Dwarf Hairgrass is growing in.  A nice dense carpet with no real maintenance trimming wise.  I do occasionally have to pull some runners out of the sand.  You can also see I have some floating plants going.  My thought was to try and absorb some light and nutrients to try and keep the algae battle under control.  Well that didn't really work.

This setup has had quite the algae fight.  From the beginning it's been blue green algae and some hair algae.  When I clean this tank weekly, you should see how much algae I suck out.  The tree isn't growing in as fast as I'd hope.  Note, this post is actually being made many months after the fact so you'll see the tree does come around strong later.  At this point I hadn't really figured out a good technique to get the algae out of the Christmas Moss tree.  

Either way the tank looks cool to me.  Trying to get everything looking good for my IAPLC 2020 shot.

Dwarf Hairgrass & Christmas Moss

I loved the idea of simplicity for this tank.  Only two types of plans, Dwarf Hairgrass for the carpet and Christmas Moss for the tree.  I chose Christmas Moss because it was so successful in my last scape and I figured it would look cool in the tree once it grew out.  Here is the final shot immediately after I flooded the tank.

I want to say I spent about $40 or less on the plants for this re-scape.  It was nice that re-scaping cost so little this time compared to my initial investment.  I really do enjoy this part of the process.  Below you can see how I divided the Dwarf Hairgrass into small clumps and how I initially got the moss into the tree.  I didn't glue or tie the moss to the tree so I figured some would come loose.  I basically just stuffed it into the tree branches as best I could.  Looked pretty good to me. Also note, I had soaked the bonsai tree in water for a few weeks to ensure it wouldn't float because I didn't want to mess with tying it down.  Another thing that makes this scape to easy to maintain is that I can pick the tree up out of the scape when I'm doing maintenance.  I take it over to the sink and can use the hand sprayer to blast off any algae.  Having nothing in your way when you are doing weekly maintenance is quite the treat from my last scape.

Here was a shot just before I flooded.  I plan to let things go for a few weeks before I add any fish since I did add some brand new ADA Aquasoil Amazonia.

A Fresh Start on Scape #2

After my last scape (and first scape ever), I knew I wanted to try something completely different.  There were a couple things that made me want to do this.  First, I wanted to have a new entry for the 2020 IAPLC.  Secondly, I wanted to try something that would be simpler and have less maintenance potentially.  Thirdly, I think minimal scapes like Iwagumi are pretty cool when done well.   I found a place online called Bonsai Driftwood that had an amazing selection so I could get a tree that fits to exactly what I was thinking.

Here you can see where my final hardscape landed.  The concept is that there would be something short and carpeting on the left and right side and then a moss in the tree.  There would be sand between the DragonStone to look like a river.  There was actually quite a bit of work to get to this point.  I had to clean out the old tank and I actually took all the old Aquasoil and rinsed it with a collander and dried it on a tarp on the driveway.  The soil was in good shape so I'd need all that from the previous scape plus more to be able to build up the hill I wanted the tree to live on. 

This next picture gives a shot of just how much soil was really in there.  I didn't put down and ADA PowerSand this time, but there was some mixed in with the previous soil.