36x24x18: Good things come (I hope!) - Newbie

[mrmikemaynard]

Hi all,

This is a journal for my first planted tank. Well, my first proper planted tank. My Grandad bought me a first tank for my 13th birthday. Pal, a red tailed black shark named after Grandad, lived in there very happily for six years, along with a revolving cast of tiger barbs, tetras, gouramis, snails a crab, and several plants that I never seemed to be able to keep alive for more than a couple of months at a time. More than two decades on, I'm excited to be returning to the hobby, and with the knowledge I've gleaned from this forum (gravel alone won't cut it!), I'm optimistic about being able to keep the plants alive a little bit longer...

I've been a voracious lurker on UKAPS until now, enjoying journals, learning about the duckweed index, filters and different start up techniques. I hope the journal will not only help me to more crowd-source wisdom, but also be of some use to other newbies planning their first aquascape. It's also going to help my marriage as my wife isn't all that interested in hearing about my fishy travails.

Key stats
Tank: 36x24x18 with 10mm opti white glass
Cabinet: Aquariums 4 Life, Gloss White
Filter: Eheim 4+350T
Hardscape: Redmoor Wood and Dragon Stone
Lighting: Fluval Aquasky 2.0
C02: No.
Location: Crystal Palace
Fish and Plants: TBC! But going for a nature style, with smaller fish and perhaps some shrimp.

Tank, Cabinet and Positioning:
It's been a long wait! I requested samples from A4L in Feb, made the order in April, received the tank in July, and started set up in late August. It was most definitely worth the wait. The cabinet feels premium, blends well with my other gloss furniture and the tank itself seems well made. "It looks nicer than I was expecting" was my wife's verdict. So much so that she let me put it in the prime viewing spot from the sofa (pic 2), banishing our much loved bookcase to the other corner of the room (pic 1).

Pic 1: The original location

Pic 2: The prime location


This did mean my cabinet shelf was on the wrong side. I'm too chicken to drill holes to relocate it, so I've ordered some self-adhesive shelf pegs from Amazon - fingers crossed they do the job.

 

[mrmikemaynard]

Filters
I'm pretty sensitive to noise. The slight buzz on the transformer for my Nest thermostat is a bother kind of sensitive, especially as our lower basement flat is unusually quite for London.

After consuming countless threads and videos on the "quietest" filters, I opted for the Eheim 4+350T. In addition to hoping it'd be quiet, I was attracted to the integrated heater meaning one less bit of kit in the tank. It's been running for a couple of hours so too early to make any judgement. It's not silent. But it does seem quieter than my underfloor heating manifold. "Mosquito" - " quiet library" loud is what the DB meter on my phone says. I reckon I'll be able to bring it down to mosquito with a bit more sound insulation. More on that once it's done.

It was pretty easy to set up, needed to use a hairdryer to soften the pipes before sliding them over, and it took quite a few pumps, and turn on and offs to prime, but nothing too tricky.

Lighting
I went for the AquaSky due to app controls and a decent price. I'm conscious it may be underpowered given the depth of my tank (24 inches) - will consider upgrading/adding a second light in future if deficiencies become apparent (probably a Fluval plant so I can control both through one app).

 

[mrmikemaynard]

The hardscape
I bought a piece of redmoor wood before I'd even ordered the tank. It was a perch for George for a few months:

I started soaking process it in April

It was done by June - took about 6 weeks. I then bought a piece of spider wood, not realizing that the first piece I bought was redmoor. They looked the same colour out of water, but very different in it. And when trailing some designs, I wasn't satisfied that they were complementary.

So I bought another piece of Redmoor along with a load more dragonstone - all from Maidenhead Aquatics Morden store.


I soaked the new piece and expected to be all good to go when the tank arrived. Unfortunately though, I left redmoor wood #1 in my car boot for a couple of months. It dried out! All that past soaking for nothing 🙁 More on that later...

 

[mrmikemaynard]

Filling her up: Advice please on floating wood
I got some helpful advice on cycling here: Cycling advice for holidaying newbie I ended up following @Iain Sutherland 's tip to take my time. So whilst my tank arrived in early July, I didn't put any water in until the end of August. In in the meantime, I tinkered with the hardscape in the tank: I really enjoyed just tweaking a little bit for 15 mins a day over the course of a couple of weeks. And I enjoyed my holidays without having to worry about stuff going wrong in the tank.

Water went into today. Hurray! And hurray for not flooding my flat! I used a a fish tank hook tap with valve connected to a hosepipe connected to my shower hose to fill it up. I've got a small pump for water changes. This was much cheaper than buying the Python water changing system and the valve gives lots of controls. Not a single drip. Pretty pleased.

What I'm less pleased about is...

My floating wood! I left it soaking again for a couple of weeks whilst away, and it had sunk in the container it was in, but when I filled up the tank, it floated. I emptied the water, and tried supergluing one piece into place, and put a rock on another piece. It seemed to be working -phew
But as the tank neared full, it broke loose. Damn. I only glued two points, perhaps that wasn't enough. I'm not sure what to do...just wait, or try more gluing.

I'm leaning towards waiting, or getting a big heavy rock to weigh them down. Got lots of plants arriving tomorrow somit would be helpful to have them in the their near final position... Any tips?

 

[Iain Sutherland]

It's happened to the best of us, just throw a heavy rock on it and leave it a week or two the you can get on with planting.

Personally, for a proper layout I always fix wood down with scape foam or zip tie to rocks, it's inevitable you will catch it cleaning, trimming and water changes, often making a mess and you never get it back how it was.

Looking good though, well before at least 😂

 

[Spartacus]

Hello,

Regarding the noise I have the exact same filter and found it noisy (I’m fussy about noise also) however for the sake of £16 I bought this anti vibration mat and the noise went from 6/10 to 2/10.

Difference was really surprisingly noticeable (you can see the cut out in the pic. They are heavy duty so I had to use a kitchen knife to cut.

Mottez Shock-Absorbing Floor Mat Grey / Blue 620mm x 620mm x 12mm - Screwfix

Order online at Screwfix.com. Rubber-sided shock-absorbing, slip-resistant multipurpose mat. FREE next day delivery available, free collection in 1 minute.

www.screwfix.com

You only need one quarter of it but again if concerned about the noise it’s not an expensive fix considering the lengths we go to enjoy our escape 😊

As for the wood I’ve tied mine down with two cable ties as per attached. Just flooded the tank last night going for the dark start method.

Happy scaping 😊

Murray

 

[mrmikemaynard]

Hello,

Regarding the noise I have the exact same filter and found it noisy (I’m fussy about noise also) however for the sake of £16 I bought this anti vibration mat and the noise went from 6/10 to 2/10.

Difference was really surprisingly noticeable (you can see the cut out in the pic. They are heavy duty so I had to use a kitchen knife to cut.

Mottez Shock-Absorbing Floor Mat Grey / Blue 620mm x 620mm x 12mm - Screwfix

Order online at Screwfix.com. Rubber-sided shock-absorbing, slip-resistant multipurpose mat. FREE next day delivery available, free collection in 1 minute.

www.screwfix.com

You only need one quarter of it but again if concerned about the noise it’s not an expensive fix considering the lengths we go to enjoy our escape 😊

As for the wood I’ve tied mine down with two cable ties as per attached. Just flooded the tank last night going for the dark start method.

Happy scaping 😊

Murray

Thank you Murray. I've got a rubber anti-vibration pad, in the small plastic box the filter is sitting in, and underneath the box. It definitely makes a difference. I've also now got some foam so will have a play with whether putting the foam under the matt makes a further difference. I think the main source of noise now is the motor - I have quite a big gap at the back of the cupboard - I'm going to try and plug that with some mass loaded vinyl. Fingers crossed that makes a difference too.

 

[mrmikemaynard]

The big rock solution has solved my floating wood problem and allowed me to get on with planting. Woop. Im really pleased with the beginners plant collection set from Aquarium Gardens for a 36in tank - variety and quality seemed great to me. So I the plants in my tank now are:

Buce. Lamandau
Crypt. Moehlmanni
Crypt. Beckettii
Crypt nevelli
Lilaeopsis novea zealandia
Microsurum pteropus
Anubias nana bonzai
Anubias petite


Lessons learned were:
Planting takes time, lots of time! It took way longer than I expected. I thought it'd take me 4 or 5 hours in one session. It probably took me more like 12 hours over 3 sessions!
The plants don't bite. I was a little intimidated at first, I kept playing around with the hardscape as I was quite sure how and where to put in my first plant. Eventually, after watching some YouTube videos specific to my plants, I got going, and soon hit a (slow) rhythm, and started enjoying it.
Straight and deep. Planting was easiest when I had a good 3 cm of soil to plant into, and when I went straight in (with my straight jbl tweezers). It was hardest in a few areas where I didn't have much soil,.and hit the lava rock sitting underneath soil with the tweezers. I found myself topping up the soil in some places as I planted.
Tricky grasses I found my smaller grass - the lilaeopsis NZ - the trickiest, a couple floated away when I filled. I tried to replant with a full tanks, which made others float away. Taking the water level back down and re-doing the section sort of worked (see plea for help below)!...

I would welcome advice on:
Crypt roots. You'll see from the red circle in pic 1 that some of the root of one of my crypts is above the soil. I did a better job on the other I think (green circle in pic 1) Should I have another go at pushing them down, or pour soil on top, or leave them.

Floating Grasses. Some of my grasses have floated up, and others are partially in with some roots exposed. See pics 2 and 3. Should I have another go at trying to get them all properly in? Or would it better to leave as is now, let some die, and the others that aren't secure will hopefully flourish in the space anyway?

 

[mrmikemaynard]

Some pics of the planting session and how it looked when done, on 2 Sept.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

Crypt roots. You'll see from the red circle in pic 1 that some of the root of one of my crypts is above the soil. I did a better job on the other I think (green circle in pic 1) Should I have another go at pushing them down, or pour soil on top, or leave them.

Some of my grasses have floated up, and others are partially in with some roots exposed. See pics 2 and 3. Should I have another go at trying to get them all properly in? Or would it better to leave as is now, let some die, and the others that aren't secure will hopefully flourish in the space anyway?

If you still have some soil? I'd pour that on carefully and then mound it up over the Cryptocoryne roots. Same for the Lilaeopsis novae-zealandia, just pour soil over them. The leaves that have melted will carry on melting, if you have snails they should clean them up, if you don't? I'd try gently syphoning the dead leaves up.

We don't know why the leaves melt some times on new plants, but hopefully they will start growing new roots and then shoots.

cheers Darrel