jsiegmund
Member
Hi all, to start off: all the best wishes for 2015! I've been reading a lot on this forum but didn't share my tank yet, so here it is.
A little history: I had a tank between my 12th and 15th but stopped the hobby back then. Last year I got enthused again and bought myself an Eheim / MP 240L scubaline tank. Unfortunately my lack of knowledge back then led me to some unfortunate choices buying both soil and hardscape (seiryu) containing lime. Combined with pretty hard tap water this gave me pretty high hardness (up to general hardness of 11 and carbonate hardness of 10). My plants weren't doing well and so I decided to start over after somewhat over 8 months of running it.
I've swapped the soil to hard grade Akadama and switched to dragon stone for hardscape and added some branches of bonzai wood. A world of difference is the result, now reading general hardness of 8 and carbonate hardness of 1. I expect the latter to raise a bit as the drop is probably a side effect of the new Akadama.
Ok so here are the specs:
Tech
JBL e901 greenline filter
AquaMedic 1000 external CO2 reactor on 2kg cilinder
SMD / RGB LED (Dutch branded Chinese stuff, 54W in total using around 70%)
Plants
Eleocharis parvula
Bacopa sp. Japan
Pogostemon Helferi
Cyperus Helferi
Heternanthera Zosterifolia
Utricularia graminifolia (small pitch)
Riccardia chamedryfolia (on bonzai wood)
Floaters: Hydrocotyle leucocephala and Salvinia natans
Fish
24x Rasbora Heteromorpha
7x Otocinclus Afinis
6x Corydoras Julii
Unknown numbers of cherry & mini japonica shrimp
And two guppy's which were introduced accidentally with a bunch of shrimp
And here are some pics:
Prepping plants from my previous setup
Used plain Akadama without anything else, did add some root fertilizers to help the stemmed plants
Experimenting with hardscape lay-outs
Flora and fauna
And this is what it currrently looks like:
There's still room for improvement, I'm waiting a bit to see what the plants are going to do. I'm not quite sure on the location of the stemmed plants yet and probably will switch some stuff around. But for now I first want to make sure everything is doing ok. The cyperus helferi didn't do well in my previous setup and seems to be struggling still. Not quite sure why, it has brown spots on the leaves and some minor algea problems. Rest of the tank seems to be doing pretty well
Techwise I want to add a second filter with internal heating so I can remove some more tech from inside of the tank (heating and circulation pump).
If any of you have good ideas on plants / plant layout, that would be very much appreciated!
A little history: I had a tank between my 12th and 15th but stopped the hobby back then. Last year I got enthused again and bought myself an Eheim / MP 240L scubaline tank. Unfortunately my lack of knowledge back then led me to some unfortunate choices buying both soil and hardscape (seiryu) containing lime. Combined with pretty hard tap water this gave me pretty high hardness (up to general hardness of 11 and carbonate hardness of 10). My plants weren't doing well and so I decided to start over after somewhat over 8 months of running it.
I've swapped the soil to hard grade Akadama and switched to dragon stone for hardscape and added some branches of bonzai wood. A world of difference is the result, now reading general hardness of 8 and carbonate hardness of 1. I expect the latter to raise a bit as the drop is probably a side effect of the new Akadama.
Ok so here are the specs:
Tech
JBL e901 greenline filter
AquaMedic 1000 external CO2 reactor on 2kg cilinder
SMD / RGB LED (Dutch branded Chinese stuff, 54W in total using around 70%)
Plants
Eleocharis parvula
Bacopa sp. Japan
Pogostemon Helferi
Cyperus Helferi
Heternanthera Zosterifolia
Utricularia graminifolia (small pitch)
Riccardia chamedryfolia (on bonzai wood)
Floaters: Hydrocotyle leucocephala and Salvinia natans
Fish
24x Rasbora Heteromorpha
7x Otocinclus Afinis
6x Corydoras Julii
Unknown numbers of cherry & mini japonica shrimp
And two guppy's which were introduced accidentally with a bunch of shrimp
And here are some pics:
Prepping plants from my previous setup
Used plain Akadama without anything else, did add some root fertilizers to help the stemmed plants
Experimenting with hardscape lay-outs
Flora and fauna
And this is what it currrently looks like:
There's still room for improvement, I'm waiting a bit to see what the plants are going to do. I'm not quite sure on the location of the stemmed plants yet and probably will switch some stuff around. But for now I first want to make sure everything is doing ok. The cyperus helferi didn't do well in my previous setup and seems to be struggling still. Not quite sure why, it has brown spots on the leaves and some minor algea problems. Rest of the tank seems to be doing pretty well
Techwise I want to add a second filter with internal heating so I can remove some more tech from inside of the tank (heating and circulation pump).
If any of you have good ideas on plants / plant layout, that would be very much appreciated!