Starting a 7.5g cube Iwagumi style

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RevLine

Aquarium Advice Activist
Joined
Feb 1, 2015
Messages
135
Location
new jersey
Finally settled after the move and I'm pretty excited to try this style of Japanese aquascaping. To put it loosely, iwagumi means "rock formation" or "rock garden", using rule of thirds to focus attention on the hardscape and making things look natural.

Went to my LFS yesterday and found some really cool ohko "dragon" stone, to keep the theme going lol. always wanted to try Aquasoil but they had this aquasolum stuff which looked pretty similar so I bought it.


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Sitting on this formation for the night after a couple hours arranging things. We'll see if I'll still go with it after a few days.

For carpet I'm definitely going for dwarf baby tears. I'm also considering patches of anubias nana petite and steurogyne repens between/on the rocks.
 
The worst part is figuring out how to anchor the plants and hope they don't float once I add the water...

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Immersed at the moment. Doing a little bonsai thing at the top of the biggest rock. waiting for some Christmas moss for the tree and dwarf baby tears for carpet to show up at my LFS... (I'm impatient I know...)

Anyone know how long it takes for anubias nana to start adhering to the rock?
 
I wanna make sure I get the dwarf baby tears and moss in there. Gonna visit the LFS tomorrow and see. If they do have them in I may just flood it by then! Haha
 
I just got rid of my DBT/HC Cuba carpet recently. Had it for 4-5 months. It did really well while I had it. It started to lift out of the substrate (probably due to the choice of substrate).
If you do get a hold of some you may want to wait several weeks before flooding it (to allow decent root growth). To avoid post flooding melt, the CO2 needs to be really high during the transition.
If you flood it sooner, just be patient and be prepared to replant any floaters.
 
Got lucky today at the LFS! Bought 2 packs of HC and also had the Christmas moss! First time taking care of Christmas moss but I don't think it should really be any different from java or flame which I had in the past.

Luckily the dwarf babytears were able to be planted within their growing media to help them stay in the substrate.
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I've had okay success with growing a carpet using liquid CO2 so I hope this'll be the same. the light I'm using has (2) 10k and (2) 7.5k LEDs positioned about 8" above the water surface.

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Moar plants and rocks added! I'll be working on the moss tree tomorrow.

Gonna give it a couple weeks before the flood. Give or take how impatient/excited I get :p
 
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Finally got around to making the tree with the Christmas moss. Hopefully it'll grow out nicely after a few weeks!

Also tank is now flooded and the dwarf baby tears ended up staying put! I got a few yellow neocaridina in there already and dumped this turbo start kit and using some old media.

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And so indeed. With my $80 DeepSea lighting fixture and dosing excel and flourish every other day, most of my baby tears have melted away but I saw some new life from the melt.

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I have a long road ahead with this carpet...
 
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