Matt's 220 Litre Aquaoak

Loving your tank. 

Well unfortunately last night I had to put my elderly Ram transferred from my old tank down. She had dropsy and a number of other conditions were starting to take hold as well.  She had gone in and out of health over the past few months. She didnt resist the process i put her through to bring things to a quiet end so it was her time... 

So sorry to hear about your ram. 

Thanks everyone.

Yep that's the stuff @Paddyc (thanks again for sending me some). It seems to be growing a lot better in the new setup. I used to have a few strands which needed the lower leaves removing frequently due to holes appearing in them and the whole plant replanting... it wasn't exactly thriving... now though (and possibly linked to change in fertiliser) the growth has increased and there no longer seems to be any die off. I'm even getting brownish red leaves on the top of the plant when it reaches near the light. I've chopped a couple of stems and replanted and all seems to be going well!

I'm thinking of changing the right hand side of the layout of the scape a bit actually... looking top-down it's a bit 'diagonal' with half sand and half scape from one corner to the opposite corner. I think I'd like it more like sand across the front, scape across the back... perhaps with a bit more height to it too... not sure yet though. Next task is to clean the algae off the rocks... not looking forward to that one!!

You gotta love stiphodons  They are so ugly-cute.


Is your java fern planted in the sand 

Beautiful. 

I bought some java fern recently and found some stone/rock in the fish cupboard to attach it to with just some covered twisty wire (forgotten what the official name for these things are).

Epic day of "faffing" with the tank... done 

I'm now much happier with the layout of the rocks on the far right and I've redone the wood on the left hand side which looks much better now I think.  There is now a distinction between two areas where the wood seems to 'grow' out from at the base rather than it just being everywhere across the tank.

The plants have grown significantly and also needed some work. The original planting had all of the plants distributed evenly across the width of the tank. This worked well when there were not as many of them as it filled the scape. Now though some plants have grown taller, shading others and dominating the scape, it all started to look very homogenous. So... I've now rearrang3d the planting into clusters of different plants meaning they will fair better and they can be told apart in the scape and be seen a lot more easily.  The hygrophila corymbosa thailand has really taken off like wildfire. I bought quite a lot of it originally and now it's growing so well I can see myself having to trim it all down in a about a months time... this is really not something I'm going to enjoy... throwing away healthy plant growth! Only ever had to do this with the  hornwort previously... still it's great that everything seems be be growing well.

I'm really tempted to try some red plants but can't convince Mrs Matt who thinks they just look strange for some reason... I can see a red plant appearing in the tank by accident lol... 

I've also removed the background from the tank.  All I'll say is if your thinking about adding a background to your tank, use oil to put it on rather than water as I did on the 64 litre years ago. That background is still perfect... the one of this tank had got loads of bubbling after the water dried out. I always wanted a frosted background to this tank in contrast to the black background on the other tank which created a dark and moody feel I wanted this to look lighter and more open. Unfortunately I stand no chance reattaching it as I can't move such a big tank with al it's hardscape etc but I've managed to find a way to fit the filter inlet and outlet  at the right hand side of the tank so that it's all hidden behind the planting in the darkest corner of the tank... also means you can't see the dirty filter hose from where we sit normally now which is a bonus. Fortunately the light beige wall directly behind the tank just means that really it looks no diffeelrent now to how it did before so for the sake of hiding the filter hose it's worked out quite well. It's interesting to see how the different flow direction has impacted the vallis I've added as it now reaches across the top of the scape perfectly too. 

The planting on the left hand side it a little space at the moment. I've added the vallis though there is only one long stem and a few shorter ones... these will grow with time and spread as they grow.  The hydrocotyle and the other plant... must look up the name later... I'm hoping will also grow much better now theyve got access to more light.

I've not yet attempted cleaning the rocks. I'm not sure this is something I want to start as I'm not sure I'll ever be happy with it once I have... something to leave until it really needs doing I think...

Looks great Matt. Reminds me of an island with a sandy ‘beach’ in the foreground and a rocky shoreline.