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Joe's tank

mrjackdempsey

mrjackdempsey

Member
Joined
7 Jul 2010
Messages
220
Yesterday myself and son, Reuben went visiting ( where we pop in to see friends totally uninvited) in West Cork ,about 50 miles from where we live (East Cork) to a good friend Joe who is a landscape gardener and a avid fish keeper who keeps a wide range of fish especially a few different Geophagus species.Joe has for the last few months as been experimenting with his low light planted tank (55 watts over a 6 foot tank).Always found visiting Joe a great craic,good coffee and plenty of food and he is a fountain of knowledge but what I would like to share is a video of Joe's tank to see if you like it too.The tank is only two thirds full and he has anubis and other plants growing out of the water and his spraybars are above water to keep the plants wet (like rain). Just click on the picture with your mouse and I apologise for the quality as I took it with my phone
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Hope you enjoy
 
hello Dave,
just signed up at to the forum at your recomendation, sure you make me out to be such a knowledgeable friendly fella i would nearly call in to see myself :lol:
regards
joe
 
Hello Joe and a big welcome, delighted to have you here ,you never know you might develop a sense of humour here 😀 and it is nice to have someone with a horticultural background to tell me the proper latin names of plants rather than me saying the small plant with round leaves
 
That looks awesome 😀

You should definitely share some more pictures/vids and details of the setup. I love these low tech setups....fantastic
 
Congratulations, Joe, and welcome to UKAPS!

That's a really lovely set-up.

Thanks for sharing guys.
 
Hi ! 😀

Wow!! The plants are looking really healthy & well settled,...Congratulations. Hope to see more pics soon please!!!

Faizal
 
Mark Evans said:
welcome Joe.

mrjackdempsey said:
rather than me saying the small plant with round leaves
Click to expand...

:lol: Dave! that'd be rotundifolia right? :lol:
Click to expand...
Not to sure , I 'borrow' plants from Joe's tank when he is not looking then leave it a couple of days then ask 😉 . Do the same with his garden but it's big enough to harbour a hidden town so he doesn't notice that as quick. Have to be quick as Joe has a black belt in something or another. Seriously though the tank looks seriously cool in the flesh and a video from a phone could never do it justice. Makes me wonder what your tanks looks like in the flesh, Mark think I would go home and cry if I ever saw them as I could never even get close
 
thanks for the warm welcomes guys, i have skimmed over some of the many postings here, there is a mine of information posted i am looking forward to sitting down and reading through lots of it over the next while.
As for more pictures, well i will get Dave to video or take some shots when he calls down next, that video is from about a month or so ago i think, so the tank would have grown a lot more since then.
the details of the tank are
tank size, 72" long, 27-28" high and 18 " from front to back.
about 18-19 inches of water in there, 80gallons (i actually did do a calculation at some stage!)
55 watts approx of lights, bit of a mish mash of lights, 2 spots, an under kitchen light unit and 2 20 watt tubes, all on one timer to come on for 3 and a half hours, then 4 hour break then back on for 3 and a half hours
substrate is about 2" of silica sand, it is dosed daily (unless i forget) with 8 ml of Lidl liquid plant food and i do approx 25 litre water change most days. thats mostly it i think, i started adding easi carbo recently as some of the plants i aquired had a bit of BBA on them, i was hoping that it would just fade away once under different conditions, but it seemed to just sit there, not growing , but not dying either, and then it started to irritate me and became the one thing that my eyes were drawn to every time i looked at the tank!, so i have been using a srynge to squirt 5ml onto the algae daily and it is now starting to turn white and fall off the plants, slowly but surely!
 
Poor ol' Joe is in a little dilemma here, does he let me into his place to take a new video of the tank and risk me taking more plants, drinking more coffee or is it safer to keep me out :lol: Joe, I promise I won't take more plants than the last time but might 'liberate' some cardinals plus I heard a rumour you might be a proud owner of some Morpho Tetras and some new Apistos. A calculated risk 🙄
http://www.fishfiles.net/up/1010/4o1tc4 ... _Tetra.jpg
 
plenty of cardinals and geos down here at the moment, morpho tetras, checkerboard cichlids, biotodoma wavrini, cories, brochis multiradiatus ,oto cocama wild discus and apisto inca sp1, barlowi and trifaciata 'Blue Flash' for your choosing at the end of the month onwards 😉
 
Well done Joe, you know how to keep your light handed friends happy just don't hide the fish nets
 
here are two updated pics of the tank taken yesterday, excuse my poor quality photo skills!, just not a clue how to work a digital camera correctly 😳
i have taken one of each side of the tank, most of the other pics are too poor to post!

one of the most enjoyable things i have found with the tank water level so low is not just the view above the water, but that third dimention of looking at an angle down into the water, thats what i was trying to show here.

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Hi Joe, great to see you're finally pulling yourself out of the dark ages and using a camera, you might next be tempted to use a extra watt or two of light :lol: Still your tank is looking great and contains some great and interesting fish so try your hand and show the good folks here some of the beauties that are lurking beneath the water in your tanks though I would love to see you capture a Morpho tetra in your lens 🙄 .Also a little birdie has told me that your checkerboard cichlids have done the deed and laid some eggs, again if you could catch that for all to see
 
I love the tank its just like looking into a flooded Amazon Rainforest. I was thinking of trying this myself by only filling the tank two thirds full, then I was either going to have a spraybar with rain, or construct some kind of small waterfall and have plants growing around it!
 
yes Dave, i could bore the readers to death if i got into taking and uploading pics
when i meet up with you next i will bring the camera along and you might fill me in on what all the different settings do.
i have taken a few of the fish, not as easy as a non moving tank though!
 
bogman said:
yes Dave, i could bore the readers to death if i got into taking and uploading pics
when i meet up with you next i will bring the camera along and you might fill me in on what all the different settings do.
i have taken a few of the fish, not as easy as a non moving tank though!
Click to expand...
You are popping down Saturday? I probably break the camera knowing me rather than be able to show you how to use it.Talked the good wife into buying me a camera for our anniversary 😀 but I have to buy her a i-pad 🙁 Still at least it beats another pair of socks
 
Finally got myself the camera from my good wife (after she was able to prise the i-pad from my fingers) and went to Joe's yesterday to meet up with other fish keepers for enjoyable day out. The tank is looking very well and there are some interesting fish lurking in there so armed with said camera you know where this is going!One thing worth mentioning is that Joe's tank is low tech with 'candles' for lights, don't think it's 60 watts over the 6' tank but Joe can fill you in there ( he doesn't know I'm doing this, a 'surprise')
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Some of Joe's checkerboards mixing with the cardinals
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Same cichlids having a pose
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Forgive the reflections 😳
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Zebra otto chilling
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Expensive wood???Ivy long dead and debarked by bristle nose plecs
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Joe's other tank with his Geophagus and other delights
 
here's a little guy you missed Dave, I would highly recommend them for any heavily planted tank, a fantastic fish with a very interesting breeding habit for a tetra plus great colours but a very discrete fish for a planted tank and will not outshine or distract from the plants it that is the main purpose of the tank
P1060819.jpg
 
Missed this Joe but there was a reason I didn't post a picture of your Morpho tetras as a friend saw these charming lads in your tanks and took over 20. If I posted the pic then the remaining ones would soon be gone before I could mount a raid to 'liberate' them
 
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