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Neo_ad's 350Ltr Journal (Prometheus)

Joined
12 Jan 2009
Messages
47
Location
West Yorkshire, England
Well its about time the newbie got one of these going, you can skip the sections below your not interested in :)

Introduction
I have been keeping fish on an off since my dad got me into the hobby when I was around 12 in which I was given a 3 foot tank to stock and look after myself. My dad also used to keep and breed fish in his 50+ tank house, so as you can imagine I got valuable knowledge from him. My main experience is general fish keeping, breeding, and maintenance. I had a break after I left school and only started again last year and oh dear I am already back up to 4 tanks :)

All my tanks I used to have would be by this forums standards very very low tech, I had zero knowledge about keeping a planted tank until recently. I have been doing research on here for a good couple of months, got myself a 2nd hand vision 450 tank as my main display tank so that's right my first ever try at a high tech planted tank is a huge 151 x 61 x 64 cm oh dear!

Lets do this!

The Tank idea: (Prometheus) why the name? Well if you know your mythology you will know it involves a large rock, but that's not the only reason.

Left half of tank starts out very heavily planted, built around a tall piece of wood sticking up. Then around the middle starts to thin out. The right hand side of the tank is grass, with a couple of mounds of blyxa japonica in an open plan style with two large rocks. After seeing this before I started doing research and being inspired by carpeting grass I knew immediately that is what I was going to work my tank around!

Left hand side my be short term (as mixing the two styles may go very very wrong)
Right hand side is long term

Focal points will be the left hand side heavy planted wood, and off centre right the rocks poking up through the grass.

You can get a better idea hopefully looking at this picture. (co2 is now coming in-line via a reactor)

tank_plan_web.jpg


The Setup
Tank: Vision 450 (151 x 61 x 64 cm)
Filters: x2 Eheim 2028
Powerhead: Hydor Koralia 2 (x2)
Lighting: 2x Plantpro 54watt T5s, 2x (not confirmed what type yet) 54watt T5s (Total watt with Lights & Reflectors = 432 watt)
Co2: Pressurised CO2 FE Method 30ppm, In-line Reactor (Will be x2 at some point)
Heating: x1 Hydor 300 External Thermal Heater
Substrate: Eco complete
Ferts EI daily method, 50% water changes etc
(I have more equipment in the post, salts, water change pump etc)

Expected fish to be kept:
Panda Corys x 20 or so
Large shoal of fish (not finalised this yet)
Some unusual community fish
Cherry Shrimp

Plants:
Eleocharis parvula (Dwarf Hairgrass) – coving right hand of tank around tall rocks
blyxa japonica – off right middle
Narrow leaf Java fern – Left hand side
more to add when I have chosen them......



Filling up and checking level and leaks
leak_check.jpg


Some of my equipment ready for action!
equipment.JPG
 
can i just say nice one for doing your research and planning first. Some people ( :oops: ) just plunge right in at the deep end and hope everything works!

anyway, a quick question, what is the name of the model, that is your co2 diffuser. (if that makes sense) - the black thing with the ceramic media
 
Nick16 said:
can i just say nice one for doing your research and planning first. Some people :)oops:) just plunge right in at the deep end and hope everything works!

anyway, a quick question, what is the name of the model, that is your co2 diffuser. (if that makes sense) - the black thing with the ceramic media

Hi Nick

Thanks for the kind words, we will see if my research pays off first :p

The reactor is the Aqua Medic reactor 1000, with the bio balls swapped out for the new media (sorry forgot the name) TheGreenMachine swapped them out for me for free. http://www.thegreenmachineaquatics.com/ ... tor%201000
 
Good stuff pal, you've clearly done your research, bonus!
All your gear and setup ideas sound great, i look forward to seeing what you some up with.
 
Nice planning Neo, and cool choice of corys too.

By the way, have you diddled yourself out of 100 litres of tank water with your Vision 450. :D ;)
 
TDI-line said:
Nice planning Neo, and cool choice of corys too.

By the way, have you diddled yourself out of 100 litres of tank water with your Vision 450. :D ;)

Sorry I should of explained, technically you don't get 450L great marketing eh! my dad has the same tank granted its marine with his equipment and rocks in it held around 350L so I am calculating my volume around that for the time being :) I think its probably 350-400L for me as I will have less rocks in I will be checking on the refill.

I actually already own the pandas now lol, I saw some small babies last weekend got a good deal on 21 so I had to buy them, they are living in my 24x24x24 breeding/quarantine tank (using a fully cycled 2028 from the above set-up)

The picture of the tank fill is actually a good month old, I had to spread my cash out a bit so I thought I might as well dump some ammonia in and get the filters cycling, tank now reports cycle compete.

So I am further along than my pictures give me credit for :p

update will be added shortly.
 
Dan Crawford said:
Good stuff pal, you've clearly done your research, bonus!
All your gear and setup ideas sound great, i look forward to seeing what you some up with.
LondonDragon said:
Good start Stewart, you putting a lot of throught into this one, it should work out great :) Looking forward to see how this develops, so far it promises :) good luck

Cheers, hopefully all should be good :)

Parcel 1of2 of more equipment just arrived on my desk at work, almost there now.
 
First real update :)

Tank drained (Pumps officially rock, got my new one today so easy!) then gave it another clean inside and added the substrate.

Based on my plan above I have gave it my first shot at Aquascaping! and I have to say its very HARD probably the hardest bit so far arg!

You can see my failing I mean "attempts" below :p be gentle lol


The wood does look a little unnatural randomly ending in mid air etc, its going to be heavly planted and covered which would hopefully mask that.

First try (rock was too centre)
2.jpg


Moved rock off centre, started to randomly try other wood positions
3.jpg


Another wood change
4.jpg


Comments and suggestions are of course welcome.

/braces for impact :)
 
I haven't got any more rock I held of buying it in case it was too much, I will probably buy another decent sized piece to bring the total to 3.

I will mock some rock placements tonight and draw in a 3rd piece to get an idea of what piece to look for. Not sure if I should go for a larger piece or one in between the two I already have.
 
Wood number 1 with rocks number 2/3 for me if this is all that you have, although i'd seriously consider getting more of everything. It's a big tank and they are all gonna get lost in there with plants. Of corse it depends on what type of aquascape your looking for?
 
Dan Crawford said:
Wood number 1 with rocks number 2/3 for me if this is all that you have, although i'd seriously consider getting more of everything. It's a big tank and they are all gonna get lost in there with plants. Of corse it depends on what type of aquascape your looking for?

Getting more rocks is not a problem I just held off when collecting my equipment together :) I keep forgetting how big this tank is! I was thinking maybe getting a rock double the size of the largest one so there would be a cluster of 3 on the right hand

Not shown in the picture above I was going to lay down some slate to raise up the rocks too, I am aiming for dwarf hair grass or the mini variety around the rocks. The biggest rock is into the substrate at least 6-7cm.

I am trying to stick to my plan on the first page but I will change it as I need to, so open to suggestions.
 
Mini update

Another 25kg of rock on order (due Tue/Wed ish)
Plants on order too (due next Fri)

Working on getting all the pipework and equipment set up and made neat over the weekend.

This is the tank at the moment with a slightly changed rock placement, obviously nothing is final as I have more rock, and more wood to play with.

7.jpg
 
Small update:

All my Co2 equipment is up and running, using the FE method. (not in use atm just ready to roll)
Plants are all ordered and due for delivery next week, woop!

Got some more rock too!

I have arranged my new rock with old rock and came up with the below as my first attempt, I could really do with some pointers before make some changes and have a move around (the rocks all do match just the new ones are wet after washing)

Cheers!

new_1.jpg
 
Not convinced somehow but not sure why...things seem a little too separated...

I'd be inclined to move the rock at the front-right into the gap between the wood arch and the centre rock and move the right-hand rock back and to the left a bit...maybe it depends on your planting layout too a bit...
 
Big update!

Right first thing is first I have been getting overly obsessive with getting my aquascape correct first time, so in a change of tactics I have re arranged it again to something I like (it might be wrong/right/better) but I can change it again later once I get better. (its also an excuse to play with it again)

With that in mind here are the final 2 layouts I have come up with, I am sick of picking up rocks now :)

(You have to use your imagination with the rocks as they will be surrounded by dwarf hair grass)

Final
final_1.jpg


Final (with one rock removed)
final_2.jpg


Now onto the rest of the tank, the Co2 is set up and working
co2_setup.jpg


And my plants have arrived today(I still need to purchase a few unique ones), so soon as I get home its going to be back braking while I am planing the hair grass arg!

I will get some pictures up as I do them (going to use a decent camera this time too)

I will get a full list of plants once I have finalised what is going
 
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