#70: 208L Aquatic Garden

Roger S. Miller Albuquerque, United States

Awards and Comments

Honorable Mention
This is a pretty tank that points out the difficulties of working with a 55 gallon tank with only 13" from back to front. The layout would be improved with plants of intermediate height between the lovely ground cover plants in the front and the tall vertical plants in the back but there is no room for it in these tanks! Still this exhibitor has made an admirable attempt and has managed to conceal all equipment in the tank. I suspect that the pale look of some of the plants is more an artifact of lighting than a sign of deficiency so I have not marked down for it. I do however need to mark down for the haziness of the water. We see only glimpses of the animals in the tank but those we see appear healthy and compatible both with each other and the plants.
— Karen Randall
This tank is valuable for very high
placement because of the wide variation
of plant arrangements. It has lost some points
because of the unpleasant transparency
to the back glass.
— Kaspar Horst

Aquascape Details

Dimensions 122 × 33 × 51 cm
Volume 208L
Background black fabric
Lighting 4X40 watt Chroma 50
Filtration No regular filtration. Magnum 350 occasionally
used for clean up.
Plants Barclaya longifolia "red", Didiplis diandra,
Eleocharis sp., Vallisneria sp., Cryptocoryne
crispatula "balansae", Cyperus helferi, Nymphae
lotus, Micranthemum micranthemoides, Cryptocoryne
lucens(?), Lobelia cardinalis, Cryptocoryne
cordata, Rotala rotundifolia, Limnophila sp.,
Hygrophila corymbosa, Lobelia sp. "dwarf",
Marsilea sp.
Animals rummy nose tetras, columbian red fin tetras,
corydorus pileatus, swordtails, SAEs, ramshorn
snails, malaysian trumpet snails.
Materials Two pieces of petrified wood at the left front of
the tank, both colored in shades of red through
yellow. From Triassic rocks of the Texas
panhandle.

Horizontal driftwood piece in right-center, behind
the Marsilea carpet, with branches extending
parallel to the tank back, parallel to the tank
end and about 45 degrees into the foreground.

A driftwood root - largely invisible - on the left
side of the tank in front of the C. cordata and
L. cardinalis.

Both driftwood pieces collected from the Rio
Grande in Albuquerque
Additional Information Yeast CO2 changed monthly. Epson salt and KCl
added to tap water for 15% weekly water changes.
Iron gluconate tablets and Jobes houseplant spikes
used in the substrate as needed.

Tank water normally clear, but slightly murky at
the time the photos were taken because I was
poking around in the Marsilea.

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