I MADE A SHALLOW RIVER FOR TINY FISH! Aquascape Tutorial

In today's video we're going to rescape my currently very overgrown UNS-90B and turn it into a fast-flowing river style setup. So roughly six months ago I released a video called I copied the most famous shallow tank on the internet and in that video I tried to recreate Crimson Sky by James Findlay. It's a very famous shallow tank. Everybody knows the green machine as well so it was a fun video to do and the scape turned out quite nice. Not exactly like James Findlay's Crimson Sky but still looked pretty good. So I tried to maintain it for as long as possible but since moving to the new studio I've kind of been neglecting it a little bit. It still looks pretty good though. I mean I love the emerge growing Atlantera reineckii mini. It's growing really really tall even above the light now. Also the wood with the Hydrocotyle tripartita and the moss. Like above the water surface it all looks very good but below the water surface it's a bit messy. There's some hair algae in there and it's just completely overgrown you know. So plan for today is to take everything out, give the tank a good clean so we can start rescaping it. So it's quite a simple process it's just a little bit messy. So I first start by just taking everything out such as the hardscape and the plants. So I got the hardscape in a bucket right here. I'll bring this bucket outside let the hardscape dry out and then we can reuse it again for a new layout if you want. In the trash bag here I have all the plants. So the plants are not going to be reused. This will just go in the trash. So then the next step is to drain as much water as possible. I would say about 75%. I'll catch all the fish because we still have a bunch of ember tetras and red cherry shrimp in here. So I'll catch them and they're going to be moved into the tank next to it. The 60U with the crypts. Because in here we currently just have some blue, neon, red ice or whatever they're called. So this tank could definitely use a little bit more fish. So I'll move the fish in here. Then we can take all this substrate out. Clean the glass and then we can start with our new layout. Okay we're almost done. I've caught all the fish. I caught all the shrimp. They're now chilling in the UNS 60U. I've also moved the filter from the shallow to the UNS 60U just so we can keep those beneficial bacteria alive you know. And then once we're done scaping this one we can move the filter back over. And technically we shouldn't have to cycle the tank anymore. So the last step is to take out all the old substrate. I'm going to put it in this bucket here. I'm just going to throw it away. I'm not going to reuse it. And then after that we can clean the glass and then we can start on the new layout. Okay guys. Tank is all clean. So we can now begin with the new layout. Super excited. Like I said we're going to make a river style aquascape. But before we get to work let's quickly go over the setup. All the equipment that I'm using. So starting with the tank. This one is from UNS. It's the UNS 90B. So it's measuring 90 centimeters from left to right. It's 25 centimeters tall. And it's only 20 centimeters front to back. So it's quite an interesting size. A little bit difficult to scape and get some decent sense of depth. But we're going to give it another try. Then the light is from Skylight. It's the Hyperbar. It's a very powerful light. App controlled. You can change different colors. You can make schedules with like sunrise, sunset. Really good light. Then behind me I have a CO2 system. I'm using a two kilogram pressurized cylinder with a... I think it's a stride waves regulator. And then for the filter I'm using an external canister filter from JBL. And on the return I also have a inline CO2 diffuser. Now normally I always start by adding a background to the cramp. And I always use this you know this plastic window film. I was thinking of doing the same for this tank. But I think I changed my mind. I think for this tank I kind of just want to keep it see-through. I quite like the the green color behind the tank. So no background for this one. So I think I have a pretty cool idea for the layout. So we're going to make a river. So we're going to be using boulders. I have these really dark gray boulders from Rio. I think these are called Black Venom boulders. I used these in the Bamboo Shroom tank that I made half a year ago. So I recently took that tank down. So there is some glue marks on the rocks. But I'll try to hide those as best as I can. So the plan is to make a triangle style composition. So I want to start with the biggest boulders on the right side. And then slope it down towards the left. I'll start with aqua soil on the right side as well. And then transition into a sand foreground basically. Now this is the biggest boulder that I have. And I want this one to break the water surface. So the first step is to build up some height with some substrate. So this one can sit sort of like this. So I've got two of these filter media bags. And over here I also have some aqua soil. So the plan is to fill up these bags with aqua soil. And then place those bags underneath that big rock. And hopefully that will provide enough support for the rock to sit and break the water surface. That looks stable enough. Okay so the first rock is in. Now before I add in more aqua soil. I want to add in some other substrate nutrients and additives. This is going to be quite a heavily planted river star aquascape. So I want to make sure that the substrate is full of nutrients. So first thing that's going in is the Dennerle plant substrate. This is just a very nutrient rich base layer. So that's going to go underneath the aqua soil. Then after that I'm going to add in the substrate additives from ADA. So we have Bacter 100, Clear Super and Tourmaline BC. So I've used these three substrate additives in the previous layout as well. And that layer runs super smooth. I had very little algae issues. Very little startup issues as well. So the Bacter 100 just adds extra bacteria to the substrate. The Clear Super helps to increase the water clarity. And the Tourmaline BC helps with the nutrient absorption for the plant roots basically. Okay one last thing before I'm adding in the aqua soil. I'm also going to add in some power caps from Dennerle plants. So these are just root caps basically. Clear capsules. So I'm going to take like five or six of them. Open them up and sprinkle the contents all over the base layer. So these are just more extra nutrients. I just like to have a lot of nutrients in the substrate. And then that way I can just dose very little liquid fertilizer. And over the years that just seems to help me with algae. If there's very little nutrients in the water column then there's just less chance of you getting algae issues you know. So a lot of nutrients in the substrate. Very little nutrients in the water column. That seems to be working well for me. So I'm using the aqua soil from Dennerle plants. Obviously because they're my channel sponsor. But I also really like this one because it doesn't release a ton of ammonia like some other brands. So if you miss a few water changes it's not really a big deal. Okay so let's start adding in some more rocks. I'll just start with the largest ones and then work my way towards all the smaller rocks. I quite like that they're also sort of the same color. Of course you might not see that in nature. Usually in nature all the boulders have like different colors. But I know I quite like that. So we have these really dark gray rocks and a bunch of really green plants. I think they'll provide a nice contrast. What I don't like at the moment is how these two rocks are sort of like the same size. And they're also kind of at the same height. So I think this one I'm just gonna like push it in a little bit more. So you have a little bit of a difference in height. I think that will look better. Here we go. I've used all the rocks. So I think that's the hardscape sort of finished for now. I still want to add in some cosmetic sand and have some gray small gravel as well. So let's do that now. Okay guys I think that's the hardscape completely done. I'm really happy with it. I think it looks very good. Looks very natural. So the reason I only have sand and gravel here is because with the planting I want to have very dense planting on the right side. And gradually moving towards the left side it will become more open. So where the sand and gravel is there will be very little planting. On the right side there will be very densely planted. Now speaking of plants. This box just came in today as well. A big box full of fresh plants straight from the greenhouse from Dennerle Plants. I'm doing a few projects this week. So not everything in this box is for the 9TB. Okay so here we have the selection for today. This is actually 75% because I had to order two more plants that are just not available in the Dennerle Plants assortment. But I really wanted to use them. So we have Dwarf Hairgrass, Eleocharis pusilla. We have Helanthium Tellum Red, Helanthium Tellum Broadleaf. We have Eriocauron cinerum. And we have a floating plant of course the Salvinia minima. All the plants are prepared. Pretty sure I have way too much. Like with all the boulders in here there's actually not that much planting space left. But it just means that we can plant super dense from the very beginning. And hopefully we'll have a nice grown-in aquascape within a relatively short amount of time. So I'm gonna spray the soil. Get everything nice and moist. And then we can start planting. So first plant going in is the Dwarf Hairgrass. And I'm thinking to start kind of here. And then go in a line sort of diagonally. And finish somewhere around here in the background. Keep this foreground with sands mostly open. And then just have grass along the entire diagonal line. Might be difficult to plant in the sand though. But I think it should be possible. Okay I think we have enough hairgrass for now. We can always add in some more afterwards. But I'm already loving the green contrast against those dark gray boulders. So next up I'm going to plant the Helanthium. Both the Red and the Broadleaf. So this is the Helanthium Red. Quite a narrow leaf. Obviously still green as well. And then this is the Broadleaf. As you can see there's quite a big difference already. But once they start growing you'll see an even bigger difference. The Broadleaf will get even broader. The Red will get a little bit longer and more narrow. And of course Red as well. And there's just one plant left for the midground. That's the Eriocaulon Cinerum. I'm just going to plant a few of these just randomly here and there. It's quite an interesting plant. Like right now it has these very spiky leaves. These will kind of disappear. And it will start sending out like weird stalks. Like I will overlay a picture because it's a bit hard to describe. But it's an interesting plant. So the only thing I have to do is the background. And for that I have two plants that were not in the Denman Plants assortment. One of them is the Valisneria Nana. So this is just a very small Valisneria that's gonna kind of like lay on the water surface. I think they will look really good. Especially in the current you know. The other one is the Eleocharis Montevidences. Kind of similar to the Valisneria. But this one has a much more firm leaf. So I'm thinking the plant isn't in the background. And hopefully it will kind of grow upwards and actually out of the water as well. Not sure that's going to happen but I just want to give it a try. So the Valisneria is going to go sort of in the middle background or the... Yeah sort of the middle background. And the Eleocharis will go all the way on the right side. Okay guys I think that's the planting done. I just have one cup left. That's the Salvinia minima. Obviously a floating plant. So we first need to fill up with water. Let's do that right now. Still filling up but almost done. In the meantime I've moved the filter over to this side. I've also cleaned the lily pipe. So everything is nice and shiny again. I have the outflow, inflow... What is it again? Inflow on the front. Outflow on the back. I think that will look very nice as well. And I've also changed the hose from the filter. I'm now using this flexible gray tubing. This one's from Chihiros. It's not sponsored or anything but it's super flexible filter tubing. Really nice actually. So the tank is filled. Filter is up and running. There's a few things left to do. First up we need to add in some floating plants. So here I have the Salvinia minima. And these floating plants are just going to help absorb some of the excess nutrients from the brand new aquasol and all the other nutrients that we've added into the substrate. And these are just easily removed you know. Like once the tank is stable I'll probably remove all of them. Maybe just keep a few. Then we'll start multiplying like crazy. Second thing we need to do is to check the water. In this tank I've used pure RO water. So right now there's not much in the tank at all. There's no calcium, there's no magnesium. So we need to add that back in. Right now the TDS is 24. And ideally I would like it to be 100 or 120. So we're going to take our minerals. Over here I have the APT Sky. So this is calcium, magnesium, iron, some trace minerals for optimal GH levels. So we're just going to take our scoop. And I'm going to pour it into the flow so it's dissolved easily. So I'll just let that dissolve a little bit and then in like 10 minutes I'll check again. So right now it's already 29. That will slowly creep up to hopefully 100. If not we'll just add a little bit more. I will leave a link for this stuff in the video description. And I have a discount code as well which will give you 15% off. And a small portion of the sale will actually go to me. So if you want to support the channel you can buy the APT Sky or APT Fertilizers. If you want to support the channel that's the way to do it. It's been five weeks since this tank was set up and I love how it has developed. The plants have grown and started sending out runners. And the rocks are slowly being covered by algae which I think looks very natural. After two or three weeks I also got some algae on the valisneria. That was not supposed to happen. But after fine-tuning the CO2 it slowly disappeared. As you can see the fish have moved in as well. And I decided to go with a variety of small fish to help keep the sense of scale in the layout. I first added a small group of dwarf emerald reservoirs and exclamation point reservoirs. The emeralds are still a bit small but will get more blue as they get older. After that I also added a small group of these red, neon, blue and rainbows. And a pair of scarlet bodice. For the cleanup crew I decided to go with some Amano shrimp. So we already have quite a few inhabitants and the tank is only 45 liters or 12 gallons. But I really wanted some gobies or loaches in this tank as well. And after visiting a few shops I finally found something that I think is the perfect fit for this tank. Spotted Borneo suckers. I bought five of these guys and they are really fun to watch. They only grow to about four or five centimeters and are not aggressive at all. They do need to eat algae and biofuel. So I've increased the light intensity a bit and I'm only cleaning the glass and not the rocks. Two of them have a very blue tail. So maybe those are the males and the other one's the females but I'm not sure. I'm really happy with this new addition to the studio and I hope you guys like it as well. As always thanks for watching and I'll see you in the next one.