harper
Seedling
- Joined
- 30 Dec 2009
- Messages
- 10
Hello, been reading the forum for a couple of years, this is my first post and journal, hopefully everything I've learned from the site comes together in this scape! Its not my first planted tank and had some (limited) successes in the past but hopefully this will be the first to turn out the way I planned. Initially I had tried to convert my 350l discus tank to high tech planted but have struggled with getting decent CO2 distribution without blowing the fish away, big problems with BBA and I think the bio-load with 6 discus in the tank is maybe too high so have decided to revert back to a sparsely planted low-tech tank for the discus with lots of wood, and set up this tank to have a crack at a decent planted tank, seen so many amazing tanks on this site. I'm not looking to win any awards here, would just be nice to get a tank looking good, plenty of plant growth and limited algae!!
Tank dimensions (cm) - 100x48x60h (Approx. 250 litres)
Lighting - 2x25W, 2x18W, all T8 tubes fitted with reflectors (might upgrade to T5 in the future if I need to)
Filtration/Heating/CO2/Circulation - All Pond Solutions 1400l/hr external filter with Hydor Eth 300W heater and FE CO2 injected via UP atomiser on the outlet side, returning to the tank via a full length spraybar. Also an internal All Pond Solutions 1200l/hr pump connected to a full length spraybar.
At the moment I'm running with an 8 hour photoperiod, gas on 3 hours before lights on and off again 2 hours before lights off. Drop checker is lime green at lights on, turning yellow within a few hours, once I add livestock I'll reduce the amount of CO2 so it stays green. Substrate is Tesco cat litter with osmocote under. I'm dosing EI ferts as per the UKAPS tutorial, and in addition adding Ca SO4 as my tap water is very soft.
Plant list is Vallis, Java Fern, Java Moss, various crypts, Anubias Barteri and E. Tennellus so hopefully nothing that should pose too many problems.
Planned stocking is maybe 6 otos, 10-15 amano shrimp and 25-30 cardinals
The tank has been running for a week now, so far so good, no algae to speak of, not a lot of melt and things are starting to show some growth. I'm changing 50% water every two days just now, I'll reduce that after another week or two and eventually get down to one 50% change a week.
So onto the one week pics, all comments on any of the above and below are welcome!
2012-04-14 21.01.22 by harperaqua, on Flickr
2012-04-14 21.01.48 by harperaqua, on Flickr
Tank dimensions (cm) - 100x48x60h (Approx. 250 litres)
Lighting - 2x25W, 2x18W, all T8 tubes fitted with reflectors (might upgrade to T5 in the future if I need to)
Filtration/Heating/CO2/Circulation - All Pond Solutions 1400l/hr external filter with Hydor Eth 300W heater and FE CO2 injected via UP atomiser on the outlet side, returning to the tank via a full length spraybar. Also an internal All Pond Solutions 1200l/hr pump connected to a full length spraybar.
At the moment I'm running with an 8 hour photoperiod, gas on 3 hours before lights on and off again 2 hours before lights off. Drop checker is lime green at lights on, turning yellow within a few hours, once I add livestock I'll reduce the amount of CO2 so it stays green. Substrate is Tesco cat litter with osmocote under. I'm dosing EI ferts as per the UKAPS tutorial, and in addition adding Ca SO4 as my tap water is very soft.
Plant list is Vallis, Java Fern, Java Moss, various crypts, Anubias Barteri and E. Tennellus so hopefully nothing that should pose too many problems.
Planned stocking is maybe 6 otos, 10-15 amano shrimp and 25-30 cardinals
The tank has been running for a week now, so far so good, no algae to speak of, not a lot of melt and things are starting to show some growth. I'm changing 50% water every two days just now, I'll reduce that after another week or two and eventually get down to one 50% change a week.
So onto the one week pics, all comments on any of the above and below are welcome!
2012-04-14 21.01.22 by harperaqua, on Flickr
2012-04-14 21.01.48 by harperaqua, on Flickr
