Thanks v much for the link!! They are more expensive, but when I first googled everything looked like it would be £150+ so finding smaller cheaper ones like your link makes me think it's not too bad. 100% worth it, 50% of the tank is 10 buckets, which I do not enjoy hauling up and down the stairs! Very relieved that there's a bit of machinery for exactly this kind of thing really 🙂
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The Nymph's Spring (EA900)
- Thread starter shangman
- Start date
RIGHT bought all the last bits I need to do the hardscape!! Since it's going to rain all this weekend, I think it's the perfect time to get started. Decided that I'm gonna do the hardscape first before ordering any plants. I think it could easily take 2 days, so I can really work out the rough scape I want on one day, and then slowly glue everything together and do it on the second. Then I get another 100% waterchange in which is never a bad thing - and can really test my new waterchange pump and tubing, which will def need some sort of adaptation to hook it on the end!.
Well guys, the hardscape is pretty much done, and I am tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiireeeeeeeeeeeeedddddddddddddddddddddddd. WOW it was completely exhausting.
I'm really pleased with the results though!! I think it's a good first try 🙂 I ended up having way too much soil, and not quite enough nice little bits of pointy riverwood (that bit on the right with the obvious glue will have one of these coming from it), but that can be added in the next few days. Definitely it will get more "rooty" around the sand area, and also in the sand there will be some rocks with buce and moss that I can move about, in case apisto territories ever require it.
Tomorrow I'm going to fill the tank up again, and then suck up all the rogue soil in the sand area, and add the sand. And of course make all sorts of changes I'm sure lol
Please excuse the dirty glass, I am too dead to do any more.
I'm really pleased with the results though!! I think it's a good first try 🙂 I ended up having way too much soil, and not quite enough nice little bits of pointy riverwood (that bit on the right with the obvious glue will have one of these coming from it), but that can be added in the next few days. Definitely it will get more "rooty" around the sand area, and also in the sand there will be some rocks with buce and moss that I can move about, in case apisto territories ever require it.
Tomorrow I'm going to fill the tank up again, and then suck up all the rogue soil in the sand area, and add the sand. And of course make all sorts of changes I'm sure lol
Please excuse the dirty glass, I am too dead to do any more.
EA James
Member
Thank you for asking and thinking of me, I have a happy update and a sad update....
I'm doing the planting right now, and it's looking pretty awesome, will post up some pics when I'm done (I'm very slow and need several more hours). I've added lots of twig bits so it looks more natural and cool now, and definitely bought enough plants. My final plants won't come until next week, but it's already quite full.
On a big downside, I was pulling some plants out of my 60L and realised that motherfish hadn't come out to investigate what was going on, and she wasn't hiding in her seedpod any more. Then searched around and found her dried up behind the filter 🙁 I guess she jumped, I didn't expect an apisto to jump!! They hardly even go to the surface. No wonder the tank's been quieter the past 2 days. RIP lovely motherfish, she was glorious, with such a big personality.
At the same time, the young female is hiding in the seedpod she was born in, I think with eggs. She's been chasing off any fish that go close, but she's not at all viscious or anything. Maybe it is related, though usually motherfish was the one chasing her around.
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I managed to see sneak a flash photo of the seedpod and daughterfish (she was quite offended), you can see a blurry pink-ish ring of dots on the ceiling inside the seedpod there are some pink eggs. Not sure if they are fertilised or not, I guess time will tell.
Cait1
New Member
Sorry to hear about your jumper! So sad. ☹️
EA James
Member
Thank you all for the condolences, idk I know they're "just fish" (which is what my family says everytime something happens and I get sad about it), but they are also great with personalities and eyes that look right back at you, I am pretty bummed out about this one. She was very interactive and chill with me, she never ran away from the glass when I came to look, she'd just wiggle to ask for food. When I had to move her I could literally scoop her up in my hand. Really I was making this bigger tank for her, she was the one that convinced me to get it so she could roam about more and have a proper territory, I'm sad she won't get to swim about in it. Extra glad I have a pair of her offspring, they are still small and a little shy, but very cute, this will give them more space to thrive and be confident though, the male has been flitting around more confidently the past few days, he is so beautiful with really long flowing fins.
It does seem like every time there's eggs, an apisto dies semi-randomly, I assume it's from the extra stress of it or something. Mr Apisto died just when the eggs hatched last time too, though I still suspect it was too many bloodworms that did it that time. Hopefully the bigger tank will help (and the lesss acidic water so they won't breed as much). Earlier in the week I did a blackout as I had a lot of spiro and wanted to get rid of most of it so I could move plants to the new tank less afflicted, maybe she got spooked when I took the plastic off and they saw the light again.
I spent the rest of yesterday in a rather bad mood and got a bit slapdash, so there's more glue on the wood than their should be from when I added the moss. This morning I've already moved some plants and things around a bit cos they weren't right. I'm ordering some more buce and moss to go on the wood, which I think needs some more coverage to get it to how I want (covered). I realised when I finished I made a classic mistake of placing the plants to how things looked where I was standing, rather than sitting down in front of the tank, so the top of the wood is much more covered than the sides. It looks a bit messy and bitty atm, but I was trying to envisage everything when it's grown in in a few months. A few plants also still haven't arrived, including bolbitis so it'll be good to get the last of it.
Managed to break a tiny rubber ring on my CO2 inline diffuser, so gotta wait for a replacement before that happens, bad timing hooray! Will be putting shedloads of liquid carbon in every day until that comes, hopefully in the next 2-3 days.
Despite all that criticism, I think it's looking pretty cute and promising though 🙂 Fingers crossed things grow in well!
While it's growing in, I'm going to paint the cabinet with an aquatic theme. We don't really have any minimalist furniture in our house, so I want to transform the cabinet to be more decorative. I haven't painted in ages so we'll see how that goes lol, but I painted a lot of cute birds in our kitchen so hopefully I can do the same with fish 🙂
It does seem like every time there's eggs, an apisto dies semi-randomly, I assume it's from the extra stress of it or something. Mr Apisto died just when the eggs hatched last time too, though I still suspect it was too many bloodworms that did it that time. Hopefully the bigger tank will help (and the lesss acidic water so they won't breed as much). Earlier in the week I did a blackout as I had a lot of spiro and wanted to get rid of most of it so I could move plants to the new tank less afflicted, maybe she got spooked when I took the plastic off and they saw the light again.
I spent the rest of yesterday in a rather bad mood and got a bit slapdash, so there's more glue on the wood than their should be from when I added the moss. This morning I've already moved some plants and things around a bit cos they weren't right. I'm ordering some more buce and moss to go on the wood, which I think needs some more coverage to get it to how I want (covered). I realised when I finished I made a classic mistake of placing the plants to how things looked where I was standing, rather than sitting down in front of the tank, so the top of the wood is much more covered than the sides. It looks a bit messy and bitty atm, but I was trying to envisage everything when it's grown in in a few months. A few plants also still haven't arrived, including bolbitis so it'll be good to get the last of it.
Managed to break a tiny rubber ring on my CO2 inline diffuser, so gotta wait for a replacement before that happens, bad timing hooray! Will be putting shedloads of liquid carbon in every day until that comes, hopefully in the next 2-3 days.
Despite all that criticism, I think it's looking pretty cute and promising though 🙂 Fingers crossed things grow in well!
While it's growing in, I'm going to paint the cabinet with an aquatic theme. We don't really have any minimalist furniture in our house, so I want to transform the cabinet to be more decorative. I haven't painted in ages so we'll see how that goes lol, but I painted a lot of cute birds in our kitchen so hopefully I can do the same with fish 🙂
ScareCrow
Member
Sorry to hear about your loss.
On a more positive note the tank is looking great.
On a more positive note the tank is looking great.
Thank you!!!
I have been rather quiet since setting up the tank, as things keep going wrong and stressing me out!! The day after I set up the tank I set up the CO2, and managed to damage a tiny silicon O-ring which meant gas could leak out of the diffuser. Luckily CO2Art have really amazing customer service and sent 2 out to me asap for free from Germany, though it took a week to arrive (thanks again Brexit). The tank was without CO2 for the first week, so I've been dosing it with liquid carbon every day and just praying nothing melts before the CO2 arrived. So far things look ok, the stem plants are particularly perky.
The other annoying thing that plagued me is that the horn-like bit of wood on the right side kept falling down, it seems like filters+glue + wet wood = nope, so we ended up screwing the wood to lava rock with gigantic screws. It turns out not only can you drill lava rock, you can also saw it too so now things are all in place and not likely to fall down again!! The right side now looks really rubbish but hopefully the planting will cover all my sins in good time 🙂 Definitely going to need a few more plants for the right side, I think some mosses and extra bolbitis, and maybe some monte carlo. Would like to wait for some thing to be available on here though, when some of the pots I ordered arrived the portions were soooo small, I've been spoilt by the home-grown plants here! On the upside, I've now 100% drained the tank 4 times while working on the horn, which I'm sure will help get rid of any ammonia that was left after the dark start, and helped me add some more plants and mosses to the wood which I've been pilfering from other tanks. And my water changing system works fabulously with my submersible pump and a garden hose, Hallelujah.
On Saturday the CO2 ring arrived and I installed it and... nothing, still didn't seem to work. Luckily I live really close to @Courtneybst who very kindly came to have a look and make sure things were working right, which after a final check of every part now works!!! Hooray! And he gave me a spare dropchecker he had too, as mine was showing green even before the CO2 system went on which was rather odd. It's lovely to make friends with my fellow aquarists and meet irl, here's hoping I get to meet more of you in the future! It was also relaly nice to show off my tanks irl more, it made me realise I should share some other bits of the setups that I don't usually that you might like. 🙂
SO... we may now finally be on track, fingers crossed! I'm still monitoring and adjusting the CO2 to go yellow for the first few weeks. WOW this tank has been a steep learning curve so far, honestly doing a tank this size is suuuuuchhhh a big stepup from the 60L... I'm looking forward to all this work paying off soon (and/or anticipating shedloads of algae too, to continue the saga of many things going wrong).
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I'm really liking how this scape is coming along and very glad I could help! I hope that suction cup keeps sticking!
Also @shangman 's scapes in pictures are great of course but in person they are truly something. You've created such good depth in this latest scape, I can't wait to see it all grown in.
Also @shangman 's scapes in pictures are great of course but in person they are truly something. You've created such good depth in this latest scape, I can't wait to see it all grown in.
So far all good. Honestly so much less stressed now the co2 is working, can't wait to really start to see the effects on growth over the next few days and weeks.. and months! 😁
That's very kind to say, thank you!! My next step is def to try and take better photos so I can show off the depth and colours much better, trying out an old DSLR this weekend... Would love to get it all looking gorgeous like your photos and tanks do and so many others here too. There's always a new challenge in aquascaping!!
Starting to 👀👀👀 into the tank every day now, and today I've noticed a lot more little sproutings all over, I'm particularly happy with some sad buce rhizomes I had in my nano tank which did nothingfor months, already they have lots of little shoots all over them!
On the other hand, I already have diatoms. Now I can't quite remember... is this a problem? Do I need to do anything? I'm happy to do extra mid-week 50% water changes if that helps, but maybe it's just a phase not to worry about. The other option is that I have amanos, cherries and otos in my other tanks, but I wasn't planning on adding any animals for 2 weeks. What do you guys think?
Mixing together my ferts today, have been using TNC Complete but I think it's time to level up on that too 🙂
On the other hand, I already have diatoms. Now I can't quite remember... is this a problem? Do I need to do anything? I'm happy to do extra mid-week 50% water changes if that helps, but maybe it's just a phase not to worry about. The other option is that I have amanos, cherries and otos in my other tanks, but I wasn't planning on adding any animals for 2 weeks. What do you guys think?
Mixing together my ferts today, have been using TNC Complete but I think it's time to level up on that too 🙂
A little photo update on this tank!
I added some more little twigs for extra detail all over, they're a pain to place but I thikn I've wedged them well, they really add a lot of character to the tank. I also culled my nano tank as there are all sorts in there, I've added the 4 nice black shrimp to this tank and they are alive and eating and swimming ok, I'm going to add some more of this colour, they look rather fabulous, and I'm hoping they'll be less likely to be eaten and find it easier to hide than the brightly coloured ones. They were a little test to see if animals can live in the tank yet, as I'm wary of fish jumping out from the stress of the apisto breeding. So far, baby motherfish is fully holding her own and still has a lot of babies, around 20.
I'm also on the lookout for any extra bolbitis and monte carlo/cuba people have to buy, both these plants are so nice but the plants that come from the shops are kinda rubbish. Let me know! 🙂
You can't see it from the front, but on the back of the wood that sticks out I've added this little fern. It wasn't labeled but we think it's some sort of staghorn or birds nest fern. It'll probably get way too big but it's just an experiment really.
I added some more little twigs for extra detail all over, they're a pain to place but I thikn I've wedged them well, they really add a lot of character to the tank. I also culled my nano tank as there are all sorts in there, I've added the 4 nice black shrimp to this tank and they are alive and eating and swimming ok, I'm going to add some more of this colour, they look rather fabulous, and I'm hoping they'll be less likely to be eaten and find it easier to hide than the brightly coloured ones. They were a little test to see if animals can live in the tank yet, as I'm wary of fish jumping out from the stress of the apisto breeding. So far, baby motherfish is fully holding her own and still has a lot of babies, around 20.
I'm also on the lookout for any extra bolbitis and monte carlo/cuba people have to buy, both these plants are so nice but the plants that come from the shops are kinda rubbish. Let me know! 🙂
You can't see it from the front, but on the back of the wood that sticks out I've added this little fern. It wasn't labeled but we think it's some sort of staghorn or birds nest fern. It'll probably get way too big but it's just an experiment really.
It's my UKAPS birthday, I joined one year ago today 🙂 So I thought I'd write a post about why I started fishkeeping. It's a bit long, apologies for that!
When I was very young my dad kept a tropical fishtank and some firebellied toads (2 different tanks luckily!) which I was enamoured by, I loved to go to Maidenhead Aquatics at Morden Hall with him and pick out fish, to help with waterchanges and generally be around animals. The tank began to leak when I was 5, so he drained the tank and we kept some leopard geckos, which was very successful - they bred, and we swapped the babies at the local pet shop for some golden axolotls. This spiraled into keeping a huge array of exotic pets over the next 6 years - corn snakes, salamanders, bullfrogs and horned toads, then onto insects with hissing cockroaches, praying mantis, beetles and their large grubs in big tubs, and finally arachnids where we ended up with 21 tarantulas and 14 scorpions. We probably had a hundred different species come and go with varying success - some things bred and lived a long time, and some things dropped dead very quickly. We had enormous fun going to conventions across England to meet the eccentric people who sold the animals, and find fascinating creatures to keep. The most awful creature we kept was a camel spider, which is probably one of the most ugly things in the world. My dad goes through phases of collecting interesting things (it's usually plants, he is Kew-trained horticulturist, gardener and landscape architect), and he was getting bored by the time I was 12 so they all got given to the local pet shop (Crystal Palace has a fantastic exotic pets shop which enabled all of this), and I got some pet fancy rats instead. We've just had cats since I was 15. Because I kept so many animals as a teenager I of course wanted to study biology and do some sort of science-y stuff as an adult, but I started finding the tests extremely hard at A-Level as I'm dyslexic (sorry for all my typos all the time 😅), and really was much better at art anyway, so I studied that. Nature has always featured heavily in my art, but always as an interpretation.
In 2019 I started watching Foo the Flowerhorn videos on youtube to chill out after work which was really high stress. When the pandemic began it completely up-ended my industry (designer fashion) and my small business, though I was totally burnt out anyway from the extremely long hours and relentless desire people have for new stuff, so in a way it was a relief to rest. I started playing Planet Zoo where you make and manage a zoo with quite realistic animals, I loved to make beautiful naturalistic enclosures, it was a great escape. Then I started to fantasise about my own aquarium, what I might put in it and how that might go, but I didn't think I'd get to keep one any time soon. Looking back I think it was the idea of another little world in my bedroom, one I could somewhat control was what really attracted me to it, while the whole world became so scary and unknowable. In May 2020 my MIL died very unexpectedly (not from covid, but covid made it even more awful) and I just snapped, I have always been quite anxious and I was at a 10/10, somehow I felt that the only relief I would have is if I got a fishtank. Luckily a lovely woman at our allotment had a tank and basic equipment in her shed from trying and failing to keep goldfish which she gave to me for free. I think my instincts were right, I have found this hobby healing, calming and invigorating.
<This was my first post on UKAPS>, in which I killed my first group of fish by completely misunderstanding cycling and how important water changes are, and relied on test kits to tell me things they couldn't. I had researched for months (a bit but not much on UKAPS) and completely got the wrong end of the stick, don't trust aquarium-reddit, folks! I felt very guilty, lots of animals had died on us when I was a kid and even though I was very young I had always felt guilty and responsible for that, and I really did not want to repeat those mistakes, my biggest goal is for all my pets to live the best life possible. Somehow I must've realised that this place was the best place to ask what was going on, which I'm very thankful for. The concepts explained to me in that first post are really the foundation of my knowledge and understanding of the aquarium, and I haven't killed a fish in a new tank since. Especially big thanks to @dw1305, the first time I felt I really "got" what was going on in an aquarium and the whole holistic system was with your explanations. Though of course it takes a village and there are too many amazing users to name, I won't list as I'm sure I'll leave someone awesome out.
I've watched basically every aquascaping video on Youtube over the past year which are so mesmerising, but really it is UKAPS where I have learnt the most, not just from all the amazing responses to my own posts that have really educated me, but from the whole archive of questions and answers with so many theories and experiments being shared, and the endless beautiful journals full of creativity. I don't always comment, but I read almost everything and learn something new constantly. Coming from the fashion industry, which has a very hostile and competitive atmosphere which is very isolating (even though most fashion designers are very nice), it has been so refreshing to join a community of people who share so openly, who compliment and comment and give advice and just generally lift eachother up. It's kinda like art school, but better. After being burnt out by fashion, I haven't made anything new art-wise the whole pandemic, although now I look back and view the aquariums as pieces of art themselves, art where we work collaboratively with nature to create something beautiful that neither of us could have done alone. Before coming here I only really thought about fish tanks in old-fashioned terms, as glass boxes you bought in a pre-decided size, where you put a small selection of plants and fish and it was basic, but still nice. Of course, now I know that you can literally do every part of the aquarium yourself, that there is so much variety, so much possibility and so much beauty. I am so excited by the possibilities of this hobby - I have so many ideas I want to try, I honestly can't wait! Another little shoutout here to my awesome creative friend @Courtneybst, who I'm endlessly scheming new tank ideas with, we met on UKAPS after I gave him some baby apistogrammas.
Despite being trapped in my room the whole time, this hobby and community has really has made this past year fun - I'm so grateful for all of your generosity, advice, jokes, plants and experiences shared so far. Here's to many more years of glorious fishkeeping, aquascaping and everything inbetween! 🐟🦐🎉
When I was very young my dad kept a tropical fishtank and some firebellied toads (2 different tanks luckily!) which I was enamoured by, I loved to go to Maidenhead Aquatics at Morden Hall with him and pick out fish, to help with waterchanges and generally be around animals. The tank began to leak when I was 5, so he drained the tank and we kept some leopard geckos, which was very successful - they bred, and we swapped the babies at the local pet shop for some golden axolotls. This spiraled into keeping a huge array of exotic pets over the next 6 years - corn snakes, salamanders, bullfrogs and horned toads, then onto insects with hissing cockroaches, praying mantis, beetles and their large grubs in big tubs, and finally arachnids where we ended up with 21 tarantulas and 14 scorpions. We probably had a hundred different species come and go with varying success - some things bred and lived a long time, and some things dropped dead very quickly. We had enormous fun going to conventions across England to meet the eccentric people who sold the animals, and find fascinating creatures to keep. The most awful creature we kept was a camel spider, which is probably one of the most ugly things in the world. My dad goes through phases of collecting interesting things (it's usually plants, he is Kew-trained horticulturist, gardener and landscape architect), and he was getting bored by the time I was 12 so they all got given to the local pet shop (Crystal Palace has a fantastic exotic pets shop which enabled all of this), and I got some pet fancy rats instead. We've just had cats since I was 15. Because I kept so many animals as a teenager I of course wanted to study biology and do some sort of science-y stuff as an adult, but I started finding the tests extremely hard at A-Level as I'm dyslexic (sorry for all my typos all the time 😅), and really was much better at art anyway, so I studied that. Nature has always featured heavily in my art, but always as an interpretation.
In 2019 I started watching Foo the Flowerhorn videos on youtube to chill out after work which was really high stress. When the pandemic began it completely up-ended my industry (designer fashion) and my small business, though I was totally burnt out anyway from the extremely long hours and relentless desire people have for new stuff, so in a way it was a relief to rest. I started playing Planet Zoo where you make and manage a zoo with quite realistic animals, I loved to make beautiful naturalistic enclosures, it was a great escape. Then I started to fantasise about my own aquarium, what I might put in it and how that might go, but I didn't think I'd get to keep one any time soon. Looking back I think it was the idea of another little world in my bedroom, one I could somewhat control was what really attracted me to it, while the whole world became so scary and unknowable. In May 2020 my MIL died very unexpectedly (not from covid, but covid made it even more awful) and I just snapped, I have always been quite anxious and I was at a 10/10, somehow I felt that the only relief I would have is if I got a fishtank. Luckily a lovely woman at our allotment had a tank and basic equipment in her shed from trying and failing to keep goldfish which she gave to me for free. I think my instincts were right, I have found this hobby healing, calming and invigorating.
<This was my first post on UKAPS>, in which I killed my first group of fish by completely misunderstanding cycling and how important water changes are, and relied on test kits to tell me things they couldn't. I had researched for months (a bit but not much on UKAPS) and completely got the wrong end of the stick, don't trust aquarium-reddit, folks! I felt very guilty, lots of animals had died on us when I was a kid and even though I was very young I had always felt guilty and responsible for that, and I really did not want to repeat those mistakes, my biggest goal is for all my pets to live the best life possible. Somehow I must've realised that this place was the best place to ask what was going on, which I'm very thankful for. The concepts explained to me in that first post are really the foundation of my knowledge and understanding of the aquarium, and I haven't killed a fish in a new tank since. Especially big thanks to @dw1305, the first time I felt I really "got" what was going on in an aquarium and the whole holistic system was with your explanations. Though of course it takes a village and there are too many amazing users to name, I won't list as I'm sure I'll leave someone awesome out.
I've watched basically every aquascaping video on Youtube over the past year which are so mesmerising, but really it is UKAPS where I have learnt the most, not just from all the amazing responses to my own posts that have really educated me, but from the whole archive of questions and answers with so many theories and experiments being shared, and the endless beautiful journals full of creativity. I don't always comment, but I read almost everything and learn something new constantly. Coming from the fashion industry, which has a very hostile and competitive atmosphere which is very isolating (even though most fashion designers are very nice), it has been so refreshing to join a community of people who share so openly, who compliment and comment and give advice and just generally lift eachother up. It's kinda like art school, but better. After being burnt out by fashion, I haven't made anything new art-wise the whole pandemic, although now I look back and view the aquariums as pieces of art themselves, art where we work collaboratively with nature to create something beautiful that neither of us could have done alone. Before coming here I only really thought about fish tanks in old-fashioned terms, as glass boxes you bought in a pre-decided size, where you put a small selection of plants and fish and it was basic, but still nice. Of course, now I know that you can literally do every part of the aquarium yourself, that there is so much variety, so much possibility and so much beauty. I am so excited by the possibilities of this hobby - I have so many ideas I want to try, I honestly can't wait! Another little shoutout here to my awesome creative friend @Courtneybst, who I'm endlessly scheming new tank ideas with, we met on UKAPS after I gave him some baby apistogrammas.
Despite being trapped in my room the whole time, this hobby and community has really has made this past year fun - I'm so grateful for all of your generosity, advice, jokes, plants and experiences shared so far. Here's to many more years of glorious fishkeeping, aquascaping and everything inbetween! 🐟🦐🎉
H all,
cheers Darrel
Thank-you, I always hope they help, but I'm never entirely sure. I'm not really the originator of any of "my" ideas, <"Diana Walstad">, Horst & Kipper, <"Bob Marklew">, @foxfish etc. had got there long before I did.
cheers Darrel
