Hello all!
I've always been drawn to aquaria for as long as i can remember. I just never felt like the time was right to delve in, because when i start with something i like to really immerse myself in the subject matter and this takes time which i haven't had much of in the past few years.
Life having settled down a bit, it felt like the time was right to finally give it a shot. I figured i'd be pleased with just a 30l nano tank and that would be it, but after having that planted out and waiting for occupants, my wife and i felt the tingle... We both just felt the love and decided we'd need a bigger tank right off the bat. We did a bit of rescaping of our house furniture to make room for a 1m wide tank. Faith was apparently on our side because we soon found a secondhand juwel rio 180 near us with furniture. This tank had been running for a good year but it's owner had been battling algea constantly and decided to throw in the ring. This ment i had a cycled filter, fish that needed a home, and a filthy tank that needed a cleaning.
I had initially planned on taking the time to do more research, but as there where already fish living in that tank i was pressured into setting it up quickly, with whatever knowledge i had gathered up to that point, which in the grand scheme of things wasn't all that much really.
So what did i end up with?
A juwel rio 180 tank. 100 x 40 x 50. No fancy rimless aquascaping tank with skylights but still absolutely overjoyed! I enjoy keeping the costs down somewhat so this was a great deal.
The lights where originally t5's, but the previous owner threw money at it and upgraded to Sera t5 Led tubes with electronic controller. There's a daylight sunrise tube, 22w, 6000-8000 kelvin. And a plantcolor tube, 11w, 2800 kelvin. No PAR readings found as of yet.
Pump is standard internal, though pimped a little with 3 cirax boxes in the lower basket of the filter. Will this flow enough? Probably not, how will i know? Still figuring this out. Apparently i can switch out the 600l/h pump for the 1000l/h pump. How will my gourami's like this i wonder...
Soil is dennerle deponit. Substrate is a black 'quartz' type gravel.
Stone is dragonstone, wood is red moor i believe?
Plants... How i enjoyed picking these out!
Foreground: Micranthemum MC, Eleocharis, cryptocoryne parva, hydrocotyle vulgaris.
Mid: cryptocoryne wendtii, anubias, bucephalandra, microsorum, alternanthera mini.
Rear: echindorus, ludwigia, ceratophylum hipporoides? Valisneria gigantea, rotala.
Moss is christmass moss.
Floaters are limnobium laveagata and salvinia.
Forgot some of the full plant names but that's ok, the chaos within me can't be contained even though i have plenty notebooks and plenty of pledges that i'll finally start using them...
I picked the tank up on the 24th of december and spent the entire day cleaning it up, scaping in a hurry, faster then i really wanted to, planting, filling, and finally after christmass dinner reintroducing the fish that where left in it being a false rosy tetra, a hockeystick tetra, a female betta and a clown loach. We weren't really keen on these fish except for the false rosy tetra. My wife liked it so he was allowed to stay while i found a new home for the other little buddies, the hockeystick tetra and clown loach found a very big tank with friends of the same type and the female betta was adopted by another very enthousiastic fish keeper that was looking for a betta.
Over two weeks we got 6 ottocinclus affinis, 7 false rosy tetra (with the one we had allready), 18 cardinal tetra, 3 honey gourami and 4 amano shrimp.
Being in a rush this was the first picture i took...
I'll ad more tomorow including some of the plants thay seem to be doing less than well now... Rotala and alternanthera have pretty much disappeared!
I've always been drawn to aquaria for as long as i can remember. I just never felt like the time was right to delve in, because when i start with something i like to really immerse myself in the subject matter and this takes time which i haven't had much of in the past few years.
Life having settled down a bit, it felt like the time was right to finally give it a shot. I figured i'd be pleased with just a 30l nano tank and that would be it, but after having that planted out and waiting for occupants, my wife and i felt the tingle... We both just felt the love and decided we'd need a bigger tank right off the bat. We did a bit of rescaping of our house furniture to make room for a 1m wide tank. Faith was apparently on our side because we soon found a secondhand juwel rio 180 near us with furniture. This tank had been running for a good year but it's owner had been battling algea constantly and decided to throw in the ring. This ment i had a cycled filter, fish that needed a home, and a filthy tank that needed a cleaning.
I had initially planned on taking the time to do more research, but as there where already fish living in that tank i was pressured into setting it up quickly, with whatever knowledge i had gathered up to that point, which in the grand scheme of things wasn't all that much really.
So what did i end up with?
A juwel rio 180 tank. 100 x 40 x 50. No fancy rimless aquascaping tank with skylights but still absolutely overjoyed! I enjoy keeping the costs down somewhat so this was a great deal.
The lights where originally t5's, but the previous owner threw money at it and upgraded to Sera t5 Led tubes with electronic controller. There's a daylight sunrise tube, 22w, 6000-8000 kelvin. And a plantcolor tube, 11w, 2800 kelvin. No PAR readings found as of yet.
Pump is standard internal, though pimped a little with 3 cirax boxes in the lower basket of the filter. Will this flow enough? Probably not, how will i know? Still figuring this out. Apparently i can switch out the 600l/h pump for the 1000l/h pump. How will my gourami's like this i wonder...
Soil is dennerle deponit. Substrate is a black 'quartz' type gravel.
Stone is dragonstone, wood is red moor i believe?
Plants... How i enjoyed picking these out!
Foreground: Micranthemum MC, Eleocharis, cryptocoryne parva, hydrocotyle vulgaris.
Mid: cryptocoryne wendtii, anubias, bucephalandra, microsorum, alternanthera mini.
Rear: echindorus, ludwigia, ceratophylum hipporoides? Valisneria gigantea, rotala.
Moss is christmass moss.
Floaters are limnobium laveagata and salvinia.
Forgot some of the full plant names but that's ok, the chaos within me can't be contained even though i have plenty notebooks and plenty of pledges that i'll finally start using them...
I picked the tank up on the 24th of december and spent the entire day cleaning it up, scaping in a hurry, faster then i really wanted to, planting, filling, and finally after christmass dinner reintroducing the fish that where left in it being a false rosy tetra, a hockeystick tetra, a female betta and a clown loach. We weren't really keen on these fish except for the false rosy tetra. My wife liked it so he was allowed to stay while i found a new home for the other little buddies, the hockeystick tetra and clown loach found a very big tank with friends of the same type and the female betta was adopted by another very enthousiastic fish keeper that was looking for a betta.
Over two weeks we got 6 ottocinclus affinis, 7 false rosy tetra (with the one we had allready), 18 cardinal tetra, 3 honey gourami and 4 amano shrimp.
Being in a rush this was the first picture i took...
I'll ad more tomorow including some of the plants thay seem to be doing less than well now... Rotala and alternanthera have pretty much disappeared!