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This tank was a Dutch-ish tank before we moved 2 months ago. This was one of its last pictures, very overgrown I know.



This time I want to make it a true Dutch, so anyone can chime in and help me.

After we moved, it ran low-tech with just a few tissue cultures until this week when I finally had time and materials to finish setting it up. This is what it looks like now:



I know there’s some bubbles showing in the vinyl cling. I’m having trouble reaching back there to smooth it out. I’ll have to think about how to fix that, although when the plants grow in it may not be visible anyway. I did read that you can have 1 rock in a Dutch scape, so I kept one. I may put Monte Carlo on it again, I haven’t decided.

So, details…

Tank: UNS 90U, 68 gallons

Light: Week Aqua P900 Pro, current settings R 40%, G 51%, B 20%, UV 0, Fan 100, Power 51%.
8 hours of light with 30 min ramp up/down
Par—no idea

Filtration: Fluval Fx4, currently running at 75%. Any higher blows the fish around. I expect to be able to increase it when the plants are grown in.

CO2: Yugang stainless steel reactor, 370 mm long, working really well. I had to turn down the CO2 a bit today because the drop was more than I expected (from degassed 7.4 to 5.9). I’ve already changed the end cap to the medium setting, but I think I’m just going to make further adjustments with the regulator. Call it laziness, but since there aren’t any double taps available for the Fx4 tubing that’s going to be easier for me. Anyway, I really like it. It’s completely silent and does its job well.

Substrate: Aqua Natural Galaxy sand, with a few Aquarium Coop root tabs.

Other: Oase CrystalSkim 350 skimmer, Kactoily 6-in-1 water quality monitor

Fertilizer: Until today I’ve just been using Easy Green. Today I installed the Chihiro’s dosing system with PPS-Pro, 6 ml macros and 3 ml micros daily. On water change day, I’ll add another 2 ml macros. I’m currently changing 20% of the water once a week. I’ll increase if necessary.

Parameters: Ammonia and Nitrite 0, Nitrate 10 ppm, gH 6, kH 2, TDS 222, 70-74 F

Plants (mostly from @Burr740 thanks!):

Leopard Val
Echinodorus Aflame
Hydrocotyle Tripartita (coming)
Penthorum Sedioides
Crypt Wendtii Sindoor
Lobelia cardinalis mini
Bacopa colorata
Rotala (? back left corner)
Limnophila wilsonii
Nymphae Peru Puerto Maldonade
Rotala macrandra Kochi
Nymphoides Taiwan

I’m not sure I like the Leopard Val in there. Should I put it in my 125 gallon instead, and move the Limnophila wilsonii to that spot?

Fish:

1 Honey Flame Gourami
4 Ember tetras
8 Otos
2 Pygmy sunfish
4 Red neon blue-eyed rainbowfish
9 Pygmy Cory catfish
9 male Lime Green Endlers
1 Leopard Danio (last of a group)
A few random Amano and Neocaridina shrimp and snails

The fish list will change as I get more tanks set up. I would like to end up with just the gourami, Otos, Rainbowfish (but more of them), and Pygmy Cories.

Well, that’s a start. Thanks for reading!

Welcome to ScapeCrunch, @mariagrace010!
We would love to get to know you. Please tell us about yourself. What tank do you have?

This is going to be a weird doubt

I don’t keep surface agitation very high in my tank , mainly because it has an overflow & I find the returns pointed downwards keep the substrate much cleaner than the returns pointed upwards

I have 2 returns

One on the front left & other other on the back right , both pointed downwards,

This dosent let any debris settle & pushes everything into the overflow

The overflow is connected to a DIY sump , kept outside the house , which is basically 3 HDPE barrels (120 ltrs /30 gallons each)

The way the sump is designed ., there is hardly any surface movement in the sump too , all the outlets of the barrels are pushed deep down the next barrel & split in such a way that even tho 6500 ltrs per hour (1700gph) is being pumped through the barrels there is absolutely no splashing at all



For oxygenation there is a large Air pump with 4 outlets in the 2nd barrel ( the bio barrel) which is on a timer & switches on after CO2 & remains on till Co2 starts

CO2 is supplied by 2 cerges type reactors , one on each return line , installed after the 3rd barrel)


I was wondering if anyone has ever experimented with injecting air in the said reactor rather than co 2, if Co2 can be dissolved I am sure so can air

All I have to do is drill an extra hole in reactor, connect a tubing to an air pump & start the same on a timer

This way I can keep the tank oxygenated probably much more that what surface agitation would do

I hadn't seen it mentioned by others that attended Aquashella, but if you hadn't already heard about it or seen it in Aquashella videos, ADA has come out with Amazonia Pro. It's not a replacement for Version 2, but an addition. It is essentially Version 2 on steroids with higher nutrients and of course the negative side effect of potentially higher initial ammonia leaching and, if your not prepared and skilled, more chance of algae. That's even from the mouth of Homma-san himself. The scaping competitors were using it in the competition and AFA was selling 9l bags at the show. They said it would be available on the website within the next couple weeks.

Time to start a new thread.

I’ll fill in some details later, but I’m working on the hardscape now. Any and all criticism is appreciated. The vision is nothing more, and nothing less, than something appealing to the eye.

90cm x 30cm x 30cm Lifegard Aquatics ultra clear bookshelf tank. Buce and anubias on the hardscape, stems towards the back and center, mid to front carpet with some changes in shade and texture down to a flat grade on the right side of the tank.

Lily pipe inlet and skimmer will be in the back left corner with the outflow in the front left to hopefully achieve circular flow. I’ll be running an in-line diffuser. Light will be the P600 Pro that I regrettably did not upside to 900. Oh well. I’ll mount it high and hopefully it’ll have enough spread.

I have some dragon stone and red lava rock rubble I’ll use at the base to blend into the substrate, as well as some stratum I may or may not cap with.

Welcome to ScapeCrunch, @Rachel Smith!
We would love to get to know you. Please tell us about yourself. What tank do you have?

I have always liked Rotala florida as plant due to its strongly colored leaves, but realized that I haven't actually aquascaped much with it - meaning to integrate it as part of a layout and not just growing a bunch of it in farm/collector style tank. Using plants in a layout in tighter bunches, and in competition with surrounding plants/hardscape is much harder than growing it farm style in a single patch - it also means be able to shape/trim the bushes to match the overall curves of the layout.

Back in 2016 or so when I first received Rotala florida samples from north america, I could only grow it in sparser bunches. It looked nice in macro photographs but I could not envision using it an bush that would show off well as part of a layout unless I can grow it much denser. In the recent years, there were two main discoveries that I found in my experimentation, the first is that it grows better in moderate GH (5 dGH+) compared to super soft water (say <3dGH), and that it grew better in certain soil mixes (I experimented with different garden soil mixes when engineering the composition of APT Feast). Eventually I integrated some of the soil data into APT Feast's composition, and paired with the higher power lights readily available today, I find that I could finally grow the plant the way I envisioned as part of overall layout. I could prune it dense, as the base stems were healthy enough to sprout dense side shoots after trimming - and the secondary/tertiary shoot tips were as fully colored and sized similar to a primary shoot tip that hasn't been subjected to topping yet.

As a midground stem, it works very well due to its slower growth rate vs other colored stem plants.

Against the deep purple of Rotala florida, I found that Golden white clouds worked quite well. So now they are the main inhabitants of the tank.

Tank this week (25/6/2025)



Tank started out like this:

A week or 2 after initial planting (5/5/2025). I reused old aquasoil from the previous scape, so I planted all plants up front rather than waiting more time for the tank to stabilize, with the idea that I could out-grow any algae issues. Initially wanted to add H. Chai but it really didn't fit the overall color scheme, and the bushes by the side were too invasive to be compatible with having a chai patch I think.

Since it was going to contain Rotala florida, I thought I might as well throw in other high demand troublesome species such as the Red Eriocaulon quinguangulare, blood vomit. I settled on Rotala tulunadensis for the background as I wanted something dense and shapeable.

Tank specs:
60x36x36cm
Filter: Oase biomaster 250, all sponge media
CO2 injected through inline atomizer
Substrate: APT Feast
Water column: APT Sky to raise GH to 5dGH, 2ml of APTe per day.


Light distance. Interestingly, not crazy high PAR - just around 200-250 umols PAR at the substrate level.



Trimming and shaping: Most bushes were shaped by cutting individual outlier shoots one by one. Only Rotala blood red and the Rotala tulunadensis was straight trimmed across the entire top once.


This is how the Rotala tulunadensis looked like after a straight trim on 29/5/2025. About 3 weeks from when the top picture at top of this page was taken. It took the plant a whole week + to show new shoots. It seems straight trimming slows down the plant quite a bit, but allows for a very dense & neat canopy afterwards.



There are some interesting plants stuffed here and there. Some Eriocaulon caulescens? bolivia? that local hobbyists passed on to me. Carved out a patch for Syngonanthus vichada - slow grower, but the couple of babies that came have doubled in size so I think they should be alright. I think I will move them to a larger tank with more space.









Only discovered the color combination with the Golden white clouds when the tank matured, but its one of my favourite fish-plant combinations now. I think that while some of the species are a bit picky about growth conditions, one thing I really like about this tank is that most things have moderate/slow growth rates, which makes maintenance with regards to removing excess growth less tedious.
Elatine triandra is used as a low growing green filler plant - it does this role well. As it does not root very deeply, I can easily cut and pull off excess growth easily. Its the fasting growing plant in the layout that requires frequent removal of excess growth.

Some more close-ups.








I'm trying to replicate concepts of this layout (slowing growing bushes) into my 4ft tank.

I have a wonderful stand of erio feather duster that has been algae free for well over a year.

Wnen I firts got it, tufts of bba would form on it on tips and I would just pull them off…

This summer my display tank has been struggling with simmering algae issues.

Still doing weekly 2/3 water changes, keeping nutrient levels and all stable, trimming away degraded leaves…

My erio is in sad shape…







I have tried spraying peroxide on it when doing water changes, laying the mass on a cafeteria tray and spraying on full strength and letting it set for 10 minutes before refilling to no avail.

I gave the fikters a thorough cleaning out, andremoved and reset plant groupings after thoroughly gravel vaccing the bdbs to remove organics…

Iam starting to think giving the erio a good hair cut way down low and letting it send up all new leaves.

Figure I would poll the audience before taking any such action…

Well I’m done talking about it, it’s time to get this journal started.

I have been really out of it the last year or so in terms of maintaining my own tank, mainly out of frustration with time constraints and inconsistency with dosing etc. However, I have now acquired a dream tank, rimless and with low iron glass like I’ve always wanted. While I loved having a sump and prided myself on putting it together, I’m past that desire. The AIO allows the same benefits with hiding equipment, and overall easier maintenance without climbing in and out of cabinets. Now onto the details of this build.

Tank: Planet Aquariums Tideline 62 Gallon AIO Lagoon

Filtration: (2) 250gph pumps on either side of the tank with center overflow into socks (I’m going to punch holes in the socks for now and stuff with polyfill, reviews state the socks clog way too quickly and there is no replacement sock as the insert is not the common round style). The baffles will be stuffed with the poret foam I have already from my sump for extra mechanical/biological.

Substrate: The bottom layer will comprise of bagged pond soil/peat/earthworm castings/ STS. This will be a thin layer and will mainly act as filler to raise up the cap of APT Feast. This is similar to a substrate setup I did when I first started back up in 2020, And that tank did very well. While capping with sand and relying on the dirt to feed the stems worked well, it did require a little more effort on my end with dosing. I don’t trust myself to be as diligent as some members on here are with their inert subs, so I’m taking the mulligan and using aquasoil as a cap, hence, “dirty soil.” This will be another island style layout, and the surrounding substrate will be comprised of Caribsea Carolina Creek Sand.

Hardscape: River rock (local hardscape center sourced) and malaysian driftwood. I have recently acquired another large piece of wood and I’m sourcing new stone this week, as what I have just isn’t meshing with my current vision for the tank.

Plants: …. I have not solidified my vision of what this scape will look like just yet as I haven’t been able to setup the hardscape to outline the island. The plan is to use a good amount of colorful stems, epiphytes, and potentially moss.

Lighting: I will be ordering the Week Aqua Z400 this week and am excited to test it out.

That’s all for now, more pictures and details to come. I should hopefully have the hardscape setup by the end of this coming week after acquiring more stone and wood.

CO2: Almost forgot, for Co2 injection I have made a DIY Yugang with a locking food storage container. It will be stored in the cabinet and the hook will feed into the return pump chamber on the right. I initially was bummed that I had to sacrifice storage to fit a 5lb CO2 tank under the stand, which also meant getting rid of of the 20lb tank I’ve only been having to fill twice a year. @GreggZ Will appreciate this, my awesome father in law suggested that I hide the co2 tank in the pantry closet which is directly behind that wall and just drill a hole for the co2 line. Since my father in laws word is pure gold in my wife’s eyes, that suggestion was approved! He’s just as much my dad too so I appreciated him supporting the project

Browsed the Sreepadma booth at Aquashella briefly today. I'd not heard of them but they are the largest aquatic plant farm in India and have been selling their TC offerings in the US for about 2 years. I was actually impressed with the qualty I was seeing of their TC cups and wish I had room in a tank for some (and some ADA TC). Has anyone else purchased any of their plants. One of the first that I spotted was Red Tiger Crypt which was a coincidence since we have a thread discussing it.