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Tank at Home

nphsmith

Member
Joined
3 Dec 2012
Messages
83
I know. Most tanks are at home, so it's hardly a title. Well, I have been running a 500 litre reef tank at my office for the last 2 and a half years, as well as (helping with) my daughter's 2-foot tropical community tank. About a year ago, I started looking into a planted tank (After Aquatics Live 2012).

My then plan was to get a 45*45*45cm TMC signature tank, but things got in the way, and I forgot the plan. Then, about a month ago, my wife and I were in a garden centre, and she said "You know, it would be nice to have fish-tank in the living-room". Needless to say, I pinned her down and made her sign an oath in blood before purchasing her various bath-bombs and smelly candles. So, this is the tank I am allowed at home, rather than the one I allow myself at the office.

Because it's my first planted tank, I have lots and lots of questions, and there are many things I don't know. I'm slightly suspicious of myself, because I fear I have knowledge from the reef side that I will get confused with planted. So I'm hoping that I will be able to ask questions here, and keep all the info in one place.

Location

This tank is going to be in the living-room, and there is only one place for it to go:

mZl4W4O.jpg

This is a pretty good location - it is away from the door, radiator, TV, and doesn't get much sunlight. More importantly, that is my armchair, so I will be able to sit and gaze while nominally watching X-Factor - which my wife does from the sofa facing that tank location. The alcove, at it's tightest, is 103 cm wide. There is only one problem, and it is this:

E1oKSxm.jpg


^^ This is not a ceiling I am going to be allowed to drill into: no hanging pendants.

The Plan

There are in fact two plans, and I am hoping you guys will be able to help me choose between them.
Plan 1: A 90*45*45 tank. (180 L)
Plan 2: A 90*60*45 tank (240 L)

Either way will be topless, braceless.

The two plans will be identical, except that Plan 2 will include a couple of Discus (hence the extra height).

My intention is to have a fairly heavily planted tank. It will attempt to mimic a canyon running between 2 cliff-walls/hills. On each hill will be planted background plants which will emerge from the tank, hopefully flowering on occasion. The foreground will be a grassy lawn, with bushes on the slopes running up to the 'show' plants at the tops of the hills.


Fish Stock
12-20 Neon Tetra Shoal
12-20 Another tetra shoal/Werneri Rainbows/Boraras Merah (Possibly 2 of the 3)
8 Otocinclus
5 Glass Cats
1 Male, 2* Female Pearl Gourami
2 Discus (240 L tank)

Non-fish:- Amano Shrimps

Plant Stock
Background
Peace Lily OR Hygrophilla
Anubias Congensis
Nymphea Lotus
Aponogeton Crispus
Echidnorus Grandiflorus
Ludwigia (red)

Mid-Ground
Rotala Macranda
Anubias Barteri
Nuphar Japonica

Foreground
Cryptocoryne Parva
Eleocharis mini

Lighting
I know this is not the most important part of the triumvirate of Light-Nutrients-CO2, but it is very important for my marital relationship. My wife is quite short, and sensitive to light, so if she is sat on the sofa with, say, Aquarays or T5s 6" above the tank in a luminaire, it is highly likely that it will upset her. I am therefore planning to get 2 Kessil 150W Sun, alog with the goosenecks - these are 24" long, and will enable me to have the two Kessils pointing firmly away from my wife. This also gives me the height above the tank to light plants growing above the water without being so close as to burn them. What I am not sure of is whether they are good enough to penetrate both 18" of air and 24" of water...any views would be welcome. I'm also hoping that I will be able to use these as part of the aquascape, drawing the eye initially above the tank.

CO2/Circulation/Filtration
One of the many areas I am very uncertain about is how to get CO2 circulating around the tank. My current plan is to to have an inline CO2 reactor connected to an Eheim 3 350T (Which I hope will be adequate). That will then feed into a spray-bar running across the back of the tank. I am very unsure whether this will work as a solution - I am worried about the spray getting through background plants, and worried whether it will be adequate to get down to 60cm depth as well.
 
Ha, we had a lovely old ceiling like that until it started to delaminate and all had to come down:(
 
It sounds good. Only fault I can see is stocking. Discus ideally need to be in groups of 6 or more and from my personal experience they are not overly tolerant to co2 its not too bad I suppose if they are a breeding pair. They also require a higher temprature than most plants are comfortable with.

There does seem to be some discussion about the Discuses (?Discii?), which is why I'm on a dilemma about whether to prepare for them or not. Certainly, I would only have mature adults to give them the best opportunity.
 
My personal experience is this..... (this time last year I was in the same position as you)

For the time being concentrate on the planted aspect of your tank and leave the discus for now. I tried both last year after never owning a planted tank or discus and it was very hard. unfortunately it all about compromising between the plants and the discus and in my tank (with the exeption of a few months) neither faired too well. when i was having problems with algae due to not injecting enough co2 the plants suffered. when i upped the co2 the discus suffered. im now going back to basics with my discus tank and planting it low tech for a few months before i try again with high tech.
 
Water

I live in London, so I have very hard water - Comes out of the tap at 18GH, 8.3PH. My plan therefore is to mix half RO (Which I can get from my RO device at the office). I will also be able to top-up using RO - intending to get a 10-Litre ATU from Reefloat. I'm (more than slightly) unsure how I should go about measuring the hardness of the mixture, what (if anything) I should use to remineralize the RO, whether I can use the top-up water to dose nutrients, and indeed whether dosing is required - could someone point me to a guide on this sort of thing? I am hoping, for the sake of my back, to limit water changes to around 10%/week (One bottle RO plus one bucket tap=22 litres). But I have no idea if that is feasible.

Substrate
This is an area I have absolutely no knowledge of - LFS has advised TMC Nutrasoil as a complete thing - my books advise a layered approach with eg laterite below, gravel above. I quite like the look (and price) of the TMC stuff - any views?

Aquascaping
Because I am intending to have 2 'hills', one at each end of the tank, and because they will need to be quite high (I guess I will want to plant my emergent plants no more than 10" below the surface), the hills will need to be between 8"-14" (Depending whether I go with the deeper tank or not). I imagine I can use at least some rock to develop the hills, but how solid is the substrate? Will it all slide down? Any tips? I've seen some scapes with rocks apparently vertical - is there any trick to keeping them stable?

LFS
I think I am very lucky in terms of LFS choice near me in Croydon - I do have a competent Maidenhead, a less competent P@Home, a couple of others, and the crown jewel from my point of view, Living Waters - this is a marvellous shop very focused on plants (walking into it is a bit like walking into the herbarium at Hogwarts - plants are hanging from the ceiling, growing out of a 20-year old 10,000 litre tank at the other end of the shop. I'll be purchasing the bulk of my kit and livestock there, and leaning heavily on them for the sort of advice that's difficult to get online ("Yes, stick a pencil in *that* sprocket there" kind of thing).
 
My personal experience is this..... (this time last year I was in the same position as you)

For the time being concentrate on the planted aspect of your tank and leave the discus for now. I tried both last year after never owning a planted tank or discus and it was very hard. unfortunately it all about compromising between the plants and the discus and in my tank (with the exeption of a few months) neither faired too well. when i was having problems with algae due to not injecting enough co2 the plants suffered. when i upped the co2 the discus suffered. im now going back to basics with my discus tank and planting it low tech for a few months before i try again with high tech.

Thanks. I do begin to feel that the smaller tank (18" high rather than 24") will be easier as well in terms of CO2 circulation, and aquascaping. I'm still torn, though, because it has taken 3 years to get approval for this tank, and I see zero prospect of upgrading it in the future - it's a one-shot purchase!
 
Substrate This is an area I have absolutely no knowledge of - LFS has advised TMC Nutrasoil as a complete thing - my books advise a layered approach with eg laterite below, gravel above. I quite like the look (and price) of the TMC stuff - any views?

I'm not quite sure what your question is regarding the substrate but it is regarding adjusting the GH and KH then I have some input. I use tap water in Copenhagen that are even worse than yours. My GH is higher than I can measure with my test kits (+21!!!) and my KH is 20. I use ADA Amazonia and that is capable of reducing it to a GH of 12 and a KH of 6. It was pretty impressed with that to be honest. It has been able to keep my water steady at that levels for 3 months now so it seems to have some good buffer capabilities and shows no signs of deteriorating yet.

Sorry if this was not what you meant with your question.
 
I'm not quite sure what your question is regarding the substrate but it is regarding adjusting the GH and KH then I have some input. I use tap water in Copenhagen that are even worse than yours. My GH is higher than I can measure with my test kits (+21!!!) and my KH is 20. I use ADA Amazonia and that is capable of reducing it to a GH of 12 and a KH of 6. It was pretty impressed with that to be honest. It has been able to keep my water steady at that levels for 3 months now so it seems to have some good buffer capabilities and shows no signs of deteriorating yet.

Sorry if this was not what you meant with your question.


It wasn't quite what I meant, but is very helpful in explaining to me my lack of knowledge! What I need, I think, is a (Reasonably up-to-date) article explaining the possible impacts of Substrate, and what differing ones might do.
 
Its a very hard choice! I love discus and I have sacrificed the planted aspect on a big level to cater for their needs better. Try joining bidka.org and reading a few posts in the forum it will give you a better understanding on the aspects for keeping discus and whats required.

Thanks, I've done that, and it has firmly pushed me against discus - too many water changes and too much feeding! So now my only question is do I want the bigger tank 'just because' or not?
 
Although I love discus you have made the right choice, you can concentrate on the planted aspect more! My personal opinion would be to go for the larger tank if there is no scope for an upgrade and get a nice large shoal of fish. it might be worthwhile looking for the threads on here with deep tanks to see if they had any problems and how they overcame them.
 
I like tmc soil. I have used it in a few tanks now with good results.


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Well, the tank is in - first hard scape attempt done with daughter.

ady4edy2.jpg
 
If you are hoping to keep some hills in the substrate it is a very good idea to use substrate supports as it will level over time, especially if you have shrimp. I use cut up plastic food storage containers fom Ikea, they are really cheap! You could also make a clear spraybar and intake from acrylic tubing bought on fleabay along with clear suckers(many of us have done this). One of the forum sponsers sells glass spraybars as well as the usual glassware and they are pretty swanky.
You have some nice wood but I would bring it more to the foreground as it will get lost in the plants being quite small. Leave plenty of space behing it for planting larger plants and also for circulation. I would move the wood arch forward so its rear base comes from behind the channel in the 2 rocks currently in front of it., this should keep it from disappearing. Soak your wood(give it a boil if you've a pot big enough) to help it sink and to reduce the amount of white mold and tanins you will get. I always tie mine to some slate as wood can still move once sunk and pull up plants. The rocks in the substrate will soon be lost in amongst the plants too..
It all depends on what kind of style you are going for, lightly planted, dense jungle, island etc etc..
 
Thanks, those are very useful comments. Not visible is a large rock in the middle-rear-left, which is supporting the hill - the idea being that this will keep it in place, but also does limit somewhat where I can put the wood.

The wood has been soaked for a couple of weeks. I agree about the stones - argument I lost with my architecturally-minded daughter!
 
Soak your wood(give it a boil if you've a pot big enough) to help it sink and to reduce the amount of white mold and tanins you will get.


Annoyingly :))) you were right, and the wood floated- the arch is back soaking outside again, the 'tree is laden with pot rings, which is keeping ti down, but the white mold you mentioned is developing - I hadnt heard about this - can you elaborate/point me at an article/advise on what I can do about it?
 
It may be unsightly but it will just run its coarse and die off. Just syphon or scrub it off when you do water changes.

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9uruhy2a.jpg


First shot, from rubbish camera (man). Flow looks good, as all plants sway a little. I was expecting an ammonia surge from the TMC soil by now (planted on Monday), but doesn't seem to have happened yet - is that expected ?
 
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