Cats Amazonia - first planted tank adventure

[faizal]

Re: GoodWood - first planted tank adventure

Hi Andy,....just read through your journal. I think it's wonderful to see just how far you've come. Love the tank. Keep up the great work.

 

[AndyVox]

Re: GoodWood - first planted tank adventure

Hi Andy,....just read through your journal. I think it's wonderful to see just how far you've come. Love the tank. Keep up the great work.

Thank you, I cant believe how bad my tank used to be!

Update:

Things are moving on nicely, tank photos taken 5/7/12.
Need a big trim next weekend!

Glosso is slowly carpeting (front left)

HC is taking off finally (front right)

Also starting a new tank:
Got it dirt cheap in a bad way, refinished in white and cleaned.
New finish left, old finish right

Finished article, not sure what to do yet, I need some CO2, luminaire first. At the moment its looking a little sad, I might try some emmersed growth see how that goes.

 

[HarryRobinson]

Re: GoodWood - first planted tank adventure

That New tank would benefit alot from having some nutritional substrate covering the gravel, e.g// some Ada aqua soil or Fluval shrimp stratum. This will help ALOT with plant growth and also keep your carpeting plants happy so they can take good hold in the soil. What lights are you thinking of using on the tank? What are the dimensions, and how many liters? Nice paintwork btw

 

[AndyVox]

Re: GoodWood - first planted tank adventure

That New tank would benefit alot from having some nutritional substrate covering the gravel, e.g// some Ada aqua soil or Fluval shrimp stratum. This will help ALOT with plant growth and also keep your carpeting plants happy so they can take good hold in the soil. What lights are you thinking of using on the tank? What are the dimensions, and how many liters? Nice paintwork btw

I was thinking of using Eco-Complete again. I had a bag of gravel, the stones and the wood, they were in the way so I stuffed them into the tank to get them out of the way of the Mrs and make it look ok before its sorted out, planted and filled.
I'm currently in the process of building a 2xT5 luminaire to go over it. Doing it DIY style, then need to get another CO2 setup. The tank is 81x31x46cm and is about 100l, so fairly small but should be easier to work with than my back breaking 300l. I've got an external filter waiting for it.
Believe it or not I didn't paint the wood, I used exterior grade car vinyl, its done the job a treat. I'm going to use that to cover the luminaire too, I was thinking black and white to match the rest.

My plans for the new tank are Starougyne forground and stellata at the back. Need to add a few more, but its going to house shrimp and probably a big group of tetras.

 

[HarryRobinson]

Re: GoodWood - first planted tank adventure

Wow, that is very innovative using the vinyl, good job! I would go with covering the luminaire in white, because then your eyes are drawn to the tank and not the big black box above it Plants and fish ideas sound great, look forward to seeing it come together

 

[darren636]

Re: GoodWood - first planted tank adventure

you have made great progress. Much like my experience with my tank.

 

[AndyVox]

Re: GoodWood - first planted tank adventure

Right my rescape is nearly complete.


Caught all the fish and gave them a new home for a few hours.
Really like this tank, I cannot wait to get things moving on it!

Empty at last

Bog wood out... So heavy filled with water.

Nice deep layer of Tesco cat litter (suffice to say after hours of washing this stuff was well worth it.
I left a layer of eco-complete at the bottom.

I removed all the moss from the bog wood and reattached on the side I intend to use.

Much prefer this side of it. Also added a couple of small java ferns and some anubias nana.

Bogwood in, looks like a completely different piece. Dug it right into the substrate and then put more in on top to make it look as natural as possible.

Unlike before I planted the glosso and HC individually, never had much luck with either before so I thought it would be best to start out the right way. Seems to be paying off so far, took hours due to the amount of space there is now in the tank.
Glosso

HC

Filling slowly not to disturb the plants

Filled out the back left with Vallis, Bacopa caroliniana, Amazon Sword and a crypt.
Decided to try out a full length spray bar again, now that there is some more space.

Koralia is absolute overkill for the tank no with so few plants. Taking it out for the time being.

Should carpet nicely! I hope.

I decided I didn't like all the open space so added Limnophila sp. 'Mini' to the left hand side and removed an amazon sword.
On the right I have added pogostemon helferi, more HC, anothe crypt and a couple of other stems that I can't, any help? I've moved the front left amazon to the middle and filled it in with more glosso. I have about half a pot of HC to plant still, need to get that done tonight. I'm hoping to add some hygrophila sp. starogyne and stellata to the right hand side eventually. It's fairly regimented at the back right at the moment but I'm really hoping it'll grow into a tiered bush given the right trimming technique.

Apologies for the slightly murky water.

I have removed my CO2 diffuser and instead I'm using this

It's attached at the back right on the spray bar, I've managed to put an airstone into the pipe to break up the bubbles. So far, after a days use I found I had to reduce my bubble count, my CO2 indicator was lime green near yellow and very few bubbles are coming out the spray bar, you can see a very micro mist if you get right up close to the tank. Everything is pearling like crazy so I can only guess that its working a treat.
I was trying to use an old external filter with a pipe bringing the water from the bottom of the filter to the outlet with the co2 on the inlet as a reactor, but I couldn't get it to work. Worked great in the sink, couldn't for the life of me manage it on the tank, it just wouldn't pressurise. I will give it another go at some point but at the moment I'm happy with how its doing.

Just need to plant the rest of the HC and wait for it to grow for the moment.

I'm considering removing all the fish bar my 20 neon tetras, 20 glowlight tetras and 15 oto's, potentially adding another specie of schooling fish, or even just more tetras, otos and glowlights, but I want to add some shrimp. Thinking red cherry shrimp or amano. Which would be best?
Also any ideas for a shoaling fish that might look nice with the current ones and layout would be welcome.

 

[AndyVox]

Re: GoodWood - 3rd rescape lucky - first planted tank advent

5 days of growth.
In the meantime I have built a DIY co2 reactor in Rex Griggs style, basically my external filter out put goes into a 22mm waste pipe, which joins a t with the co2 input on, then I have 4ft of downward 22mm pipe, loaded with bio balls and a piece of rubber tubing inside the very end to prevent the bio balls leaving and to reduce the amount of bubbles coming through. This then returns upward after 2 90degree waste pipe bends and goes int the spray bar in the tank. So far, beyond lime green drop checker with the same co2 rate. I've had to turn it down and I can happily say I've never had any co2 bubbles come thru into the tank not even when I really increased the co2 to unusable levels to check. We're talking 10 bps or more.

I've added 30 cherry shrimp, which surprisingly my glowlight tetras quite like the taste off, what an expensive meal that was, saying that there are a few left including a prego female.

Excuse the iPhone quality camera.

Here are some up to date photos. Only issue is pogo helferi seems to be yellowing and melting, everything else is brill, loads of growth loads of pearling, I'm rather chuffed!

Things on the cards for the next few weeks are:
Black background, black spray bars, glass drop checkers ne for each side to make sure co2 is correct, some pogo stellata for the back right, and then grow grow grow.
Any comments welcomed, particularly thoughts on my failing pogo helferi.

Cheers, Andy.

 

[AndyVox]

Ok so the new tanks been going for 12 days.
I've had some leaking issues from my Rex Grigg style co2 reactor which has caused some algae issues, green thread mostly because I can't get the co2 level right so last night I ripped it out and changed it for another one I've made, it's made from clear pipe, so I can see exactly what's going on in there. Seems to work much better so I'm pleased with it so far, no leaks that's for sure! The gas seemed to be leaking slowly out the top of my old one. I've upped the bpm but whilst I'm at work it scares me that I'll over do it and gas the fish.
I'll try and get it right but I may need to do a 3 day blackout, the worst areas are within the hc carpet and the java moss on the bogwood, bit gutted because everything was going great. Nevermind.

Day 12 photos:

Couple of my favourite shrimp, red with a bright white line down her back :]
You can see some of the green thread and BBA on that close up, any hints on battling it would be great!

 

[darren636]

the algae just needs a bit more flow or co2. Maybe both.

 

[AndyVox]

the algae just needs a bit more flow or co2. Maybe both.

That was my thought, so now I've established that my reactor was leaking ive fixed that to hopefully up the CO2, and also added my koralia over the problem areas.
There is some thread algae on leaves directly by the outlet from the filter though which made me consider that it was more co2 related than flow related.
My lights are only on for 6 and a half hours, and I've used this lighting setup in the past with good results and no algae.

Could the lack of beneficial bacteria in the new substrate be a cause for this?
Oh and I'm now dosing using the EI method to prevent from any issues with lack of nutrients.

 

[AndyVox]

I have now closed down this tank and rescaped.