stuwags
Seedling
Hi there,
This journal is my first real post to the forum so I hope it's not too long
Feel free to comment. I'll update as the tank progresses
History
I had some experience from about 20 years ago with a 6’ x 2’ x 2’ community tank and a few smaller tanks. The emphasis was on fish (mostly community) and a a few plants to fill up the space!
20 years later and a move to a new location prompted the desire to have a planted tank set-up. I was inspired by the look of the Dutch aquariums and thought I’d have a go. After discovering the concept of a natural ‘low tech’ set up the idea appealed to me as a low cost easy way back in to the hobby.
The tank I ended up with is 48” x 18” x 15” on a cabinet, which I found second-hand for £100. It came with an internal textured background, a heater and a lid which I decided I’d discard and go for hanging lights. I picked up a 36” Aqua One hood with 3 x 39 watt T5 fluorescent tubes cheaply from my LFS (Aquamania in Eastbourne, East Sussex) and hung it above my newly positioned tank.
Initially my plan was to have an ‘El Natural” set-up with no filter or CO2. As a consequence I had a compost substrate capped with 2-3-mm gravel.
The aquascaping was very basic and not very effective. I had a selection of about eleven different plants to start the tank off and once the tank was up and running for a week or so I started adding fish over the next few months.
I ended up with: 5 Corydoras julli
5 Bolivian Rams
20 Neon Tetras
20 Pretty Tetras
5 Otocinclus affinis
5 Leopard Danios
Having discovered UKAPS the bug started to hit and I became envious of the lush plant growth and aquascapes I could see other people had achieved! As a consequence I decided to abandon ‘El Natural” and go high tech!
I purchased a JBL CristalProfi 1500lph canister and a JBL Proflora u402 CO2 set-up. To increase flow rate I also bought a Hydor 900 powerhead and an internal Fluval 1200lph Filter.
Unfortunately, over the next 2 years, due to inexperience and lack of discipline (especially with the CO2) the tank deteriorated and became over run with algae and poor plant growth and was looking very sorry for itself!
I decided it was time for a strip down and a re-scape. After extensive reading at the UKAPS forums (special thanks to ceg4048 for his no-nonsense, common sense informed posts)! I was inspired to ‘get it right’ this time and planned my new tank set-up.
Time for some hard work, planning and a little patience I think!
On to the re-scape.
Strip Down and Re-scape
The old set-up was stripped down after having moved the fish to a large plastic container with about 10 gallons of tank water. The filters were used to cycle the water in the container and to keep the filter bacteria happy.
The old gravel and compost substrate were removed and the tank was given a thorough clean. The internal backing was removed and the silicone glue was scraped from the rear glass with a razor blade. The backing was a great place to grow algae and disrupted the flow of water around the tank. It also made the tank quite dark and reduced the tank width by about 2”. The glass was cleaned with a diluted bleach solution and then rinsed and dried.
I decided, after reading quite a few post on the subject at the UKAPS forum, to go for a cat litter substrate. I used ‘Spohisticat Pink’ non-clumping litter at £10 for 30L, a bargain price for so much gravel. It is scented and very dusty so required much rinsing.
The Hardscape
For the hardscape I planned on using two pieces of bog wood and a couple of rocks from my old set-up, with the addition of a few more rocks sourced from Aquamania. The wood and stones from the old set-up had to be thoroughly cleaned as they were all covered in algae. I soaked them in a bleach solution and then used a scrubbing brush to remove the algae before soaking and rinsing in clean water.
My plan for the hardscape was to have a raised section with rock, use the wood to give some height further along the tank (roughly following the 1/3s idea) and leave some open area to grow a carpet. You can see my endeavours in the above photo. I left the tank open and empty for a couple of days to live with the layout as I didn’t want to get a few weeks down the line and want to start moving things about. It also allowed the last of the scent from the cat litter to dissipate.
My next task was to position the tank hardware to be as inconspicuous as I could and get good water flow and CO2 distribution. I decide to use a spray bar so that I could get a more even water flow across the tank. As I would also be injecting the CO2 via the filter intake it would also aid in CO2 distribution. As the bar was going to be longer than the JBL bar supplied with the filter I would also use two power-heads, to make up for the loss in pressure from the longer bar and obviously increase water flow. I was particularly keen to ensure that I had good flow along the substrate to give myself a better chance of getting a carpet to grow.
I fashioned a spray bar from some 16 mm aquarium tube and used a paired down cork to plug the end not connected to the filter pipe. The bar traverses the width of the tank with a couple of inches at each end to allow me to fit a powerhead at each end of the tank. The inlet and outlet pipes, heater and CO2 diffuser will all be placed in the back-right hand corner to be hidden by plant, rock and the raised bed.
Planting
Now came the fun bit, the planting. I decided to dry plant, although the substrate was still wet from it’s rinsing as I’d place the glass lids on the tank after set up to keep the moisture in before planting started.
I kept some plants from the previous tank set-up and had placed them in the same container as the fish. Without much light most of the algae had gone from the leaves and any that hadn’t was pruned off the plant. I kept 3 Java Ferns (Microsorum pteropus), 3 Amazon Sword plants (Echinodorus bleheri), about 10 what I think is Vallisneria nana, about 5 very sorry looking Cryptocoryne parva with a lot of root attached, a Nymphaea lotus (stella?) and a plant that looks rather like a small cheese plant which I think is Anubias nana.
To these I added two pots of a small delicate stem plant I can’t identify, 2 pots of tallish hair grass, a cryptocoryne legroi and a cryptocoryne bullosa ?(although these classifications may be wrong). I couldn’t find any Eleocharis acicularis locally which is what I had had in mind for the carpet.
I had a think about plant location after browsing picture of aquariums with similar hardscapes to mine and then placed the TetraPlant Cryoto tablets in the substrate at locations where the plants would be placed.
Before planting the roots were trimmed to encourage growth. The Vallisneria was cut back to about an inch in height and planted individually about an inch apart behind the smallish rock to the right of the tank extending up the rear bank of the substrate ‘island’. To the left of these at the back-centre of the tank were placed the stemmed plants planted in groups of three about an inch apart forming a roundish group and then to the left of these and behind the bog wood I placed the hair grass in a similar roundish group. The hair grass was trimmed to about 2 inches before planting in small clumps.
I found the planting quite awkward because the cat litter is quite light and as a consequence small landslides were inevitable. The plants had to be pushed well down into the substrate and then pulled back out a little to get the plants to stay rooted. I’m hoping that once the plants grow in a little that the roots will hold the plants a more securely so that when the fish go back in I won’t be continually replanting uprooted plants.
Once I was happy with the planting I decided to go ahead and fill the tank using a hose-pipe and a few boiled kettles to bring the tank to room temperature (about 24ºC at the time) as the heater is with the fish. I used Aquasafe to de-chlorinate and treat the water. I managed to fill the tank without any substrate movement or plant displacement. However, the water was very cloudy despite the thorough washing I’d given the litter, so I decided to let the water clear for a day or so before attaching the filter. I didn’t want to clog it up too much, although I will give it a good clean before the fish go back in.
I plan to run the filter on the new tank for a couple of weeks to cycle the tank. I’ll top the tank up using water that the fish are in to cover evaporation and prime the water a little for the fish. In the mean time they are quite happy in the container with the Fluval internal and the heater until transfer time.
Powering up
Lights
The light hood, reflector and the three 39w T5 tubes where given a clean and then hung at approximately 7” from the surface of the water. I may change the light height as I plan to use the sliding glass lids to reduce evaporation and O2/CO2 retention and am not sure if this will reduce the light at the substrate for the carpeting plants. I plan to have and eight hour photo period from 14.00 to 22.00.
Filter
Once the water had cleared a little I connected the canister filter inlet and outlet pipes and turned the filter on. I also switched on the two power-heads. The spray bar was angle up slightly to increase surface agitation and the power-heads angled straight ahead to the front glass. To my surprise the substrate stayed in place despite the flow and only one Amazon uprooted. At this point I added a generous dose of both Flourish Excel and Flourish fertiliser.
CO2
The feed from he bubble counter was fed into a small JBL diffuser which was place at the bottom of the tank to allow me to position it below the filter inlet. A small piece of pipe was attached to the small outlet at the top of the diffuser and guided through a small hole I made in the bottom of the inlet filter. This would ensure that all the CO2 released from the top of the now (too) short spiral diffuser would be directed into the filter and so distribute the CO2 evenly around the tank. I used the shortened JBL diffuser as I had had trouble, using a small glass diffuser, getting the gas flow to start once the solenoid switched on.
I started the CO2 up and waited for the first bubbles to pass through the filter. After a few burps and gurgles the filter settled down. The gas escapes the diffuser a few large bubbles at a time and there is some noise as the bubbles get sucked up the inlet but I can live with it. The CO2 comes into the tank in incredibly fine quite hard to see bubbles. On closer inspection I can see that the water is saturated with the micro bubbles and that they flow all around the tank.
I placed the drop checker in the tank and set the regulator for 3 bps. I reduced this to 2 bps the following day as even before the CO2 came on drop checker was showing lime green. I’m having to use tank water in the drop checker until my 4dKH order arrives so I’ve no real idea what’s going on with the CO2 until then.
Up and Running
The tank has been up and running now for about 3 days. During this time I realised that the flat area at the left end of the tank for the carpet plants needed to be about another inch deeper or I was going to have problems keeping the plants in the substrate.
Also, being rather impatient, and not being able to source any Eleocharis acicularis locally, I found 3 pots of Hemianthus micranthemoides ‘Cuba’ and decided to give that a go instead.
After I had increase the ‘flat end’ substrate to about 2” I proceeded, with some trepidation, to prepare and plant the ‘Cuba’. I decided to plant with a small cube of rock wool attached to the roots, which I had trimmed in half, divided each pot in to six clumps and planted out about 1” apart. The whole process went remarkably smoothly.
I plan to run the tank for a couple or more weeks to allow the plants to grow in. It will also allow me to fiddle with the CO2 rate. I’ve also decided to try fertilising using Estimated Index and am currently awaiting the arrival of the relevant dry ferts.
This journal is my first real post to the forum so I hope it's not too long
Feel free to comment. I'll update as the tank progresses
History
I had some experience from about 20 years ago with a 6’ x 2’ x 2’ community tank and a few smaller tanks. The emphasis was on fish (mostly community) and a a few plants to fill up the space!
20 years later and a move to a new location prompted the desire to have a planted tank set-up. I was inspired by the look of the Dutch aquariums and thought I’d have a go. After discovering the concept of a natural ‘low tech’ set up the idea appealed to me as a low cost easy way back in to the hobby.
The tank I ended up with is 48” x 18” x 15” on a cabinet, which I found second-hand for £100. It came with an internal textured background, a heater and a lid which I decided I’d discard and go for hanging lights. I picked up a 36” Aqua One hood with 3 x 39 watt T5 fluorescent tubes cheaply from my LFS (Aquamania in Eastbourne, East Sussex) and hung it above my newly positioned tank.
Initially my plan was to have an ‘El Natural” set-up with no filter or CO2. As a consequence I had a compost substrate capped with 2-3-mm gravel.
The aquascaping was very basic and not very effective. I had a selection of about eleven different plants to start the tank off and once the tank was up and running for a week or so I started adding fish over the next few months.
I ended up with: 5 Corydoras julli
5 Bolivian Rams
20 Neon Tetras
20 Pretty Tetras
5 Otocinclus affinis
5 Leopard Danios
Having discovered UKAPS the bug started to hit and I became envious of the lush plant growth and aquascapes I could see other people had achieved! As a consequence I decided to abandon ‘El Natural” and go high tech!
I purchased a JBL CristalProfi 1500lph canister and a JBL Proflora u402 CO2 set-up. To increase flow rate I also bought a Hydor 900 powerhead and an internal Fluval 1200lph Filter.
Unfortunately, over the next 2 years, due to inexperience and lack of discipline (especially with the CO2) the tank deteriorated and became over run with algae and poor plant growth and was looking very sorry for itself!
I decided it was time for a strip down and a re-scape. After extensive reading at the UKAPS forums (special thanks to ceg4048 for his no-nonsense, common sense informed posts)! I was inspired to ‘get it right’ this time and planned my new tank set-up.
Time for some hard work, planning and a little patience I think!
On to the re-scape.
Strip Down and Re-scape
The old set-up was stripped down after having moved the fish to a large plastic container with about 10 gallons of tank water. The filters were used to cycle the water in the container and to keep the filter bacteria happy.
The old gravel and compost substrate were removed and the tank was given a thorough clean. The internal backing was removed and the silicone glue was scraped from the rear glass with a razor blade. The backing was a great place to grow algae and disrupted the flow of water around the tank. It also made the tank quite dark and reduced the tank width by about 2”. The glass was cleaned with a diluted bleach solution and then rinsed and dried.
I decided, after reading quite a few post on the subject at the UKAPS forum, to go for a cat litter substrate. I used ‘Spohisticat Pink’ non-clumping litter at £10 for 30L, a bargain price for so much gravel. It is scented and very dusty so required much rinsing.
The Hardscape
For the hardscape I planned on using two pieces of bog wood and a couple of rocks from my old set-up, with the addition of a few more rocks sourced from Aquamania. The wood and stones from the old set-up had to be thoroughly cleaned as they were all covered in algae. I soaked them in a bleach solution and then used a scrubbing brush to remove the algae before soaking and rinsing in clean water.
My plan for the hardscape was to have a raised section with rock, use the wood to give some height further along the tank (roughly following the 1/3s idea) and leave some open area to grow a carpet. You can see my endeavours in the above photo. I left the tank open and empty for a couple of days to live with the layout as I didn’t want to get a few weeks down the line and want to start moving things about. It also allowed the last of the scent from the cat litter to dissipate.
My next task was to position the tank hardware to be as inconspicuous as I could and get good water flow and CO2 distribution. I decide to use a spray bar so that I could get a more even water flow across the tank. As I would also be injecting the CO2 via the filter intake it would also aid in CO2 distribution. As the bar was going to be longer than the JBL bar supplied with the filter I would also use two power-heads, to make up for the loss in pressure from the longer bar and obviously increase water flow. I was particularly keen to ensure that I had good flow along the substrate to give myself a better chance of getting a carpet to grow.
I fashioned a spray bar from some 16 mm aquarium tube and used a paired down cork to plug the end not connected to the filter pipe. The bar traverses the width of the tank with a couple of inches at each end to allow me to fit a powerhead at each end of the tank. The inlet and outlet pipes, heater and CO2 diffuser will all be placed in the back-right hand corner to be hidden by plant, rock and the raised bed.
Planting
Now came the fun bit, the planting. I decided to dry plant, although the substrate was still wet from it’s rinsing as I’d place the glass lids on the tank after set up to keep the moisture in before planting started.
I kept some plants from the previous tank set-up and had placed them in the same container as the fish. Without much light most of the algae had gone from the leaves and any that hadn’t was pruned off the plant. I kept 3 Java Ferns (Microsorum pteropus), 3 Amazon Sword plants (Echinodorus bleheri), about 10 what I think is Vallisneria nana, about 5 very sorry looking Cryptocoryne parva with a lot of root attached, a Nymphaea lotus (stella?) and a plant that looks rather like a small cheese plant which I think is Anubias nana.
To these I added two pots of a small delicate stem plant I can’t identify, 2 pots of tallish hair grass, a cryptocoryne legroi and a cryptocoryne bullosa ?(although these classifications may be wrong). I couldn’t find any Eleocharis acicularis locally which is what I had had in mind for the carpet.
I had a think about plant location after browsing picture of aquariums with similar hardscapes to mine and then placed the TetraPlant Cryoto tablets in the substrate at locations where the plants would be placed.
Before planting the roots were trimmed to encourage growth. The Vallisneria was cut back to about an inch in height and planted individually about an inch apart behind the smallish rock to the right of the tank extending up the rear bank of the substrate ‘island’. To the left of these at the back-centre of the tank were placed the stemmed plants planted in groups of three about an inch apart forming a roundish group and then to the left of these and behind the bog wood I placed the hair grass in a similar roundish group. The hair grass was trimmed to about 2 inches before planting in small clumps.
I found the planting quite awkward because the cat litter is quite light and as a consequence small landslides were inevitable. The plants had to be pushed well down into the substrate and then pulled back out a little to get the plants to stay rooted. I’m hoping that once the plants grow in a little that the roots will hold the plants a more securely so that when the fish go back in I won’t be continually replanting uprooted plants.
Once I was happy with the planting I decided to go ahead and fill the tank using a hose-pipe and a few boiled kettles to bring the tank to room temperature (about 24ºC at the time) as the heater is with the fish. I used Aquasafe to de-chlorinate and treat the water. I managed to fill the tank without any substrate movement or plant displacement. However, the water was very cloudy despite the thorough washing I’d given the litter, so I decided to let the water clear for a day or so before attaching the filter. I didn’t want to clog it up too much, although I will give it a good clean before the fish go back in.
I plan to run the filter on the new tank for a couple of weeks to cycle the tank. I’ll top the tank up using water that the fish are in to cover evaporation and prime the water a little for the fish. In the mean time they are quite happy in the container with the Fluval internal and the heater until transfer time.
Powering up
Lights
The light hood, reflector and the three 39w T5 tubes where given a clean and then hung at approximately 7” from the surface of the water. I may change the light height as I plan to use the sliding glass lids to reduce evaporation and O2/CO2 retention and am not sure if this will reduce the light at the substrate for the carpeting plants. I plan to have and eight hour photo period from 14.00 to 22.00.
Filter
Once the water had cleared a little I connected the canister filter inlet and outlet pipes and turned the filter on. I also switched on the two power-heads. The spray bar was angle up slightly to increase surface agitation and the power-heads angled straight ahead to the front glass. To my surprise the substrate stayed in place despite the flow and only one Amazon uprooted. At this point I added a generous dose of both Flourish Excel and Flourish fertiliser.
CO2
The feed from he bubble counter was fed into a small JBL diffuser which was place at the bottom of the tank to allow me to position it below the filter inlet. A small piece of pipe was attached to the small outlet at the top of the diffuser and guided through a small hole I made in the bottom of the inlet filter. This would ensure that all the CO2 released from the top of the now (too) short spiral diffuser would be directed into the filter and so distribute the CO2 evenly around the tank. I used the shortened JBL diffuser as I had had trouble, using a small glass diffuser, getting the gas flow to start once the solenoid switched on.
I started the CO2 up and waited for the first bubbles to pass through the filter. After a few burps and gurgles the filter settled down. The gas escapes the diffuser a few large bubbles at a time and there is some noise as the bubbles get sucked up the inlet but I can live with it. The CO2 comes into the tank in incredibly fine quite hard to see bubbles. On closer inspection I can see that the water is saturated with the micro bubbles and that they flow all around the tank.
I placed the drop checker in the tank and set the regulator for 3 bps. I reduced this to 2 bps the following day as even before the CO2 came on drop checker was showing lime green. I’m having to use tank water in the drop checker until my 4dKH order arrives so I’ve no real idea what’s going on with the CO2 until then.
Up and Running
The tank has been up and running now for about 3 days. During this time I realised that the flat area at the left end of the tank for the carpet plants needed to be about another inch deeper or I was going to have problems keeping the plants in the substrate.
Also, being rather impatient, and not being able to source any Eleocharis acicularis locally, I found 3 pots of Hemianthus micranthemoides ‘Cuba’ and decided to give that a go instead.
After I had increase the ‘flat end’ substrate to about 2” I proceeded, with some trepidation, to prepare and plant the ‘Cuba’. I decided to plant with a small cube of rock wool attached to the roots, which I had trimmed in half, divided each pot in to six clumps and planted out about 1” apart. The whole process went remarkably smoothly.
I plan to run the tank for a couple or more weeks to allow the plants to grow in. It will also allow me to fiddle with the CO2 rate. I’ve also decided to try fertilising using Estimated Index and am currently awaiting the arrival of the relevant dry ferts.
