180L Planted tank

Greetings from Portugal!

Let me introduce myself: My name is André Silvestre, I live in Portugal and I have planted tanks for over 4 years. I have recently discovered this forum by my increasing interest in shrimp keeping and I must say that the bros here ( from what I have seen in other posts, everyone here call each others in a friendly manner, bros) have great knowledge and wisdom in this area ( and probably others, I just have to take more time in viewing all the sub-foruns).

Here´s my latest project:

Setup:

Dimensions: 90*45*45 cm - 180L
Lighting: 4 * 39W T5HO
CO2: Pressurized
Filtration: Eheim Profissional 2228
Heating: Jager 150W
Substrate: Thin Akadama
Decoration: Root and basalts
Fertilization: K2SO4 and KH2PO4 for now

Flora: Rotala sp. " pink"; Ludwigia arcuata; Pogostemon helferi; Eleocharis acicularis; Singapore moss ( true Vesicularia dubyana); Hemianthus callitrichoides " Cuba"

Fauna: A. bitaeniata " Kleei"; Otocinclus sp. ; Neocaridina sp. " Red Cherry"; Planorbis sp; Neritinas natalensis

In the first two weeks:


One month after, the algae appeared in full strenght:






In 27th September:

In 29th September, I went out for the weekend and fertilized with enough nutrients for those days. When I came back, the water was like this:







I never had green water before so this was a bit new to me. I picked up some Pistia stratiotes at a friend of mine and dumped them in the tank. Here are the pics of the following days:



Dia = Day

With the green water, some plants were damaged due to the lack of light such as H.C. and Eleocharis acicularis but the mosses went crazy. Beautiful growth by x-mas moss and Singapore moss. Here´s a pic of the tank taken in 15th November with cristal clear water:



From this day, the tank has been recovering very well. I did some changes in the Flora as, some of you said, R. Pink wasnt working very well with the driftwood.So I removed most of the R. Pink and placed R. green and Valisneria nana. R. green has yet to show herself as the plant is all creeped and compact behind the driftwood. The ideia is to have a little bush of R. Pink, sorrounded by R. green and, behind the vertical branches of the driftwood, V. nana. Anyway, this tank still has a long way to go, tough I am very pleased with the way it turned out after so many misfortunes.

Some singular shots:

Overall:









I have buyed a small school of Pseudomugil gertrudade: 2 males and 4 females. I hope they breed in the tank as this little guys are a bit expensive. Very active and peaceful though and they make a nice choice for small tanks.

Sorry for the big post. After so many pics and text, you guys will want my head in a plate.

Thanks for watching and Happy New Year,
Silvestre

[Mali]

Hi Bro Silvestre,

First and foremost, welcome to Arofanatics Forum.
That is really a nice setup. we are glad to have you here so that we could learn and share experience with each other.

Good day to you!

Regards,
Jumali

hi bro... welcome to the forum....nice setup u have there... the driftwood is veri nice....

Hi Silvestre, welcome to AF!

I saw your thread at APC and was simply awed by your scape. Hope that you can bring more updates of your beautiful scapes here at af.

-Calvin

up la bro...

Hi bro and i must say very nice tank you have there.

Hi bro,

Welcome to AF! The setup is really outstanding , have a nice day! Cheers.