90P from Norway

[kpdp54]

Hello,

It took me six months between receiving the tank and setting it up, but here is finally my first aquascape (and aquarium) ever.

A short list of the material:
- 90x45x45 from TMC
- 90x45 TMC cabinet
- 2 Radion XR15 Freshwater
- EHEIM Pro4 350
- JBL 2kg CO2 bottle
- inline diffuser from CO2 Art, on the inlet of the filter/pump
- inline 200W heater
- Twinstar (only cause I got a big discount)
- plenty of stuff from CO2 Art

The hardscape: trying to give a flow direction from left to right.
Wood from my LFS, ADA Powder sand 2L, Amazonia 18L, and Amazonia powder 8L.

Plant received ! It cost a fortune here in Norway...
(The red ones were out of stock)
17 Hemianthus callitrichoides 'Cuba'
3 Elatine hydropiper
1 Marsilea hirsuta
1 Hydrocotyle tripartita

6 Rotala 'Green'
2 Potamogeton gayi
2 Rotala macrandra
2 Rotala rotundifolia
3 Ludwigia arcuata
1 Proserpinaca palustris 'Cuba'
5 Rotala Nanjenshan

3 Echinodorus tenellus
2 Hygrophila 'Araguaia'
1 Gratiola viscidula

3 Vesicularia ferriei 'Weeping'
3 Taxiphyllum 'Spiky'
1 Fissidens fontanus

Cat inspection

Good timing, my sister was visiting me and proposed to be my assistant! She prepared all the plants so that I just had to plant it.

I hanged only one light for the moment.
Seems that I ordered too many cuba... it won't take long to have a proper carpet.
Half way through the planting:

Almost finished:

Inside the cabinet... yes it is messy. I will re-organise after a few months, once I am used to maintenance and all.
The inline CO2 diffuser was leaking a bit at the beginning. It seems to have stopped after pushing a bit more the pipe in the connections.

Final result:

Don't scream at the lamps, I haven't had time to set them properly... yes, I used some barbecue wood stick between them.

The tank is set-up to have all the back covered with long plants (middle being red species). Since the picture I also tied some moss on the big wood at the front.


Only 5min after having finish, the cat started a thorough inspection

Plan is to wait two weeks before introducing shrimps and another 1-2 weeks before the fishes

Cheers,
Ben

 

[Nelson]

Great first scape and equipment list.Beautiful cat .

 

[Jack Reilly]

Is this tank set up in the kitchen?

If plants are as or more expensive than in Australia then that's a lot of money right there haha.

The tank looks amazing and I can't wait to see it progress.

Also I think the Hydor inline heater has to be vertical. I bought a permanent stick on hook for my cabinet to hang it off.

 

[GotCrabs]

This is going to look mental once grown out, great start, you should be really pleased with this.

Jack, prices on plants aren't too bad here in Australia, also depends who you buy from also, but prices in USA are a lot better then here though.

KPDP54, Norway? Listen to Black Metal?

 

[Jack Reilly]

Carpeting plants were $15 a pot where I bought mine, is that expensive? If the OP was paying the same I can count $450 worth of those alone. Looks like there might be another tray underneath too!

 

[GotCrabs]

Carpeting plants were $15 a pot where I bought mine, is that expensive? If the OP was paying the same I can count $450 worth of those alone. Looks like there might be another tray underneath too!

I've been seeing them online for $9.95 per pot...

 

[kpdp54]

Hello gents! Thanks for your comments!

The tank is set up in a room between the kitchen and the living room. I am not using this room so the aquarium is creating a nice focus point! I can also see the tank from the couch in the living room, which is perfect.
I will show you a picture of my inspiration tank from the Amano book. I'm not at home before a week...

No black metal GotCrabs
I paid roughly 300€ for the plants... almost the price of the aquarium itself! I could have ordered them on internet but I prefer to use my local fish store, the guy is really nice and helps me a lot.

"make sure it is positioned as upright as possible" Hydor documentation.
Why should the Hydor be in vertical position? Hmmmm. I don't see why technically, unless they are measuring some pressure drop using gravity, isn't it? Anyone knows?
I will put it upright when I'm back!

Here are two pictures of the tank after 5 days:

And after 10 days, I am starting to get algea...

I have been told the white one is fine, but there seem to be some green one as well.
Grrrr.... I'm not at home and can't do much except change the light schedule via internet. I went down to 6h/d with 70% intensity.


And here is a cat picture for Nelson

 

[kpdp54]

"The presence of air bubbles inside the heating unit can cause irreversible damages. "

That could be the reason I guess, if it is horizontal then air bubble can get stuck more easily.

 

[GotCrabs]

NO BLACK METAL!!!???!!! Oh, sorry, I yelled.

Can't believe a Norwegian isn't into Black Metal! Sinful!

Sweet tank, going really well, don't stress too much about the algae.

 

[ian_m]

"make sure it is positioned as upright as possible" Hydor documentation.

Yes must be vertical, there have been numerous reports of Hydor heater failures (usually overheating!!) when people have decided to ignore this and place them horizontal.

If vertical and your pump fails or seriously looses flow, then there will still be slight flow due to convection if placed vertical compared to if placed horizontal. Also trapped air might be an issue if horizontal.

 

[kpdp54]

Roger that!
I'll modify it in a week, hope it survives until then

Can't believe a Norwegian isn't into Black Metal! Sinful!

That might be because I'm French

 

[slawson_92]

nice start, can see this developing nicely, can i ask the name your your local shop always nice to have a few to shop at and there are not many in Norway

 

[kpdp54]

Sure it is Sentrum Zoo AS, top floor of Galleriet in Bergen. Ask for Håkon

Quick (and poor) photo after today's water change:

the back corners are clearly lacking light but the center is growing like hell!

 

[slawson_92]

Bergen is a long way for a local shop for me but will remember to stop by when i am over that way, webzoo Heggedal is my most local

looks like you have some nice growth in the middle, if your having problems in the back corners you can try angleing the lights a little or try some other plant species that like/tolerate the shade. the carpet is really coming in nice.

 

[alto]

You'll get more even light distribution if you separate the XR15's so they sit equally across the tank,
eg, the midline of each XR15 should sit ~ 25 - 30cm from each glass side ... depending how much more "middle of the tank" light you want, at present your tank is very bright where the light fro each XR15 overlaps

This article shows the light pattern from the XR30W Pro (sorry cant seem to find the XR15 info, & Ecotechmarine also does not want to release their data on the FW version)
scroll down to find

Figure 2. Ecotech Radion Pro, Light Intensity and Distribution at 24" and 30"
I suspect the way you have your XR15FW's set up, the LED clusters are in similar arrangement to the XR30W Pro. so you will "see" a similar shaped "cone" of light
(note the intensities on the 15FW are significantly lower than the Pro versions, the PAR values in the article are for the marine LED matrix measured at 24in through water)

You likely can further decrease the photperiod to 5-6 hours to limit algae (while away)

Fantastic tank!

- though I'm wondering how you take photos & do water changes while away

 

[ricky.sharma09]

Hi all ,
i am very new to this forum n i want to setup a planted tank dimension 18L × 18W ×15 H
i want to go for carpet things what i have with me is
1- co2 cylider kit
2-amazonia soil
3- white sand
4- 36 watt light
5- HANG ON BACK FILTER
NOTE- since i dont hav a chiller so monte carlo carpet will br all ohk while in summer days (in summer days temperature reach till 40 )
kindly do respond

Sent from my SM-J700F using Tapatalk

 

[GotCrabs]

What the? You live in Bergen and don't listen to Black Metal! Bergen is the capital of BM!

Tank is going really well! I need to sort my crap out and plan these tanks, mind you, we pick up our new car today so might have to wait a little.

 

[GotCrabs]

Roger that!
I'll modify it in a week, hope it survives until then


That might be because I'm French

That explains everything then, haha, what took you to Norway?

 

[kpdp54]

They took me to Norway!
They came at my uni and selected a few of us for some nice jobs in paradise. Couldn't say no

You likely can further decrease the photperiod to 5-6 hours to limit algae (while away)

Fantastic tank!

- though I'm wondering how you take photos & do water changes while away

Thanks for the tips!
I tried to put them off centred but the wood sticks are not strong enough for that. So I just stuck them together and left for work (I work offshore in the North Sea).
Water changes and photos come from my flatmate. But he is kinda clumsy so he can't do any major change for the tank

 

[kpdp54]

Let's talk fishes!
I made the following list. It might be too many fishes, or too many species.... feel free to comment

I'm not sure about the boraras, do they really stay close to the surface? Or maybe I could reduce their number.
To reduce the number of species, I could also remove the amandae and put more hengeli ?!

Anyone would know if the golden ram could eat the small red crystal shrimps?