Smells Fishy
Member
I was in Pets At Home a while back and I couldn't help but notice the Aqua One Aqua Aspire 130 because its a seriously gorgeous tank. I was there again this week taking my cat Lilly to their vets and the tank is no longer for sale in store but it still is online. For those of you who don't know it, the whole back hides the heater and filtration which is a pump that fires the water through a series of compartments, you get a nice looking LED light, the front glass is curved and its 130L. So yeah, I want one. Its affordable. Pets At Home is the place to go, £200 for the tank and the cabinet is £90. I want this tank to be my first attempt at using a planting substrate and actually making something that looks appealing to most people's eyes. I'm a Goldfish guy atm so that means maintaining plants with my goldies is a nightmare and its hard to keep the tank how I want it. Keeping Goldfish is great, I love them, but its not what this site is about and what I'm trying to say is I'm getting a bit fed up of my tank not being super tranquil and I want to achieve a higher level of underwater gardening. Doing this future project will help me feel I fit in a bit better here as well. Anyway that's the tank and cabinet price sorted now down to the really fun part of what fish I would like. Lately I've been re reading my PFK mags and if you remember the Acid House article then you're with me. Two fish that were suggested that really appealed to me were the Chocolate gourami and the Two-striped Aphyosemion. From another mag the Rocket panchax. All of these fish are tiny, biggest the Gourami tops out at 2inch. If anyone reading has experience with these fish please do tell me what you thought of them. These fish need a low pH and mine is 7.6 so I'll need to buffer it somehow. What's the best approach? I've been thinking Tropica. They do two different ones: a growth substrate and a powder... What's the difference? For a 130L I don't have a clue how many bags I'll need, does anyone know? I'm coming on strong with the questions, last one: I'll need root tabs for my Banana plant I wish to grow and also maybe a Tiger lotus as well, one on either side of the tank sounds good for contrast. A Lace leaf plant as well and I'll be happy. So if I've got those 3 that's a lot of roots right? This could be a massive ground breaking idea I'm about to share that could have you nodding your head in agreement or not, or slapping your forehead thinking "why didn't I do that!". Couldn't you just buy some root tabs and grind them up preferably with a mortar and pestle and then mix the root tab powder into your substrate before use?
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