• You are viewing the forum as a Guest, please login (you can use your Facebook, Twitter, Google or Microsoft account to login) or register using this link: Log in or Sign Up

Setting up a 'higher' tech planted tank

Matt Holbrook-Bull said:
thats a great article 🙂 good job.

would you gravel over the aquasoil Ed? I seem to be finding different schools of thought on this.
Click to expand...

Thanks Matt.

Personally I'd never do that. It's such great stuff to plant into and looks so good that why would you want to cover it?!!! Have to say I'd use Powersand and mulm under Aquasoil again as I seem to be getting much better results in the tank that uses it as opposed to the one where I didn't, probably because of my much lower water coloumn dosing than many on here (or it could be a thousand and one other factors of course!).
 
I must admit Id like to leave it uncovered as it should look very nice. If I run into terrible problems by leaving it uncovered then its no big deal to add gravel afterwards if I have to. Save me a few quid in gravel too!

Ill give it a test. I wasnt planning on putting anything under it though.
 
Matt Holbrook-Bull said:
Ill give it a test. I wasnt planning on putting anything under it though.
Click to expand...

Clive would say it's a waste of money, but I'm not too sure! I wouldn't worry about it Matt, it's great stuff on it's own. I do tend to not dose my tanks for days (or even weeks!) at a time!
 
going to be quite fun to start over. My tank is in one hell of a state.. ive not been able to keep the hair algae under very good control for some reason. The plants are struggling even with good EI and solid co2. Theres alot of gas trapped under the current sand substrate, which I hold responsible for suddenly killing off my entire Glosso carpet, which was flourishing until about a 3 week period, when it all went. Was a very strange thing indeed.

Since then, everything has struggled.. I can only think that the whole substrate has gone nasty underneath, no amount of root tabs or any other extra substrate fert made any difference. Even tho I had some soil content in the sand, but then, it IS a year old now. I think the combo of the soil and no water circulation through the sand was a very bad combo.

Anyway, time to rip apart.. try to save as many plants as I can and start over.

I cant expect a garden to do well without a decent soil can I? Its no different for aquatic or terrestrial.. so its about time I applied some of my terrestrial expertise and used common sense!
 
Hi,
This is my first post as only joined yesterday, and have been reading lots of these wonderful articles.
This is a great write up, but some of the links no longer seem to work.

I guess the suppliers may have changed their web sites.

Could someone please advise what is an ADA catalogue? and where I get one?

Best regards

Alex.
 
alex b said:
Could someone please advise what is an ADA catalogue? and where I get one?
Click to expand...
ADA stands for Aqua Design Amano, japanese manufacturer of some of the best equipement you can get for your tank, the catalogue is available from Aqua Essentials.
 
LondonDragon said:
alex b said:
Could someone please advise what is an ADA catalogue? and where I get one?
Click to expand...
ADA stands for Aqua Design Amano, japanese manufacturer of some of the best equipement you can get for your tank, the catalogue is available from Aqua Essentials.
Click to expand...

and dearest!
 
aaronnorth said:
and dearest!
Click to expand...
Maybe that why I haven't got any ADA stuff LOL I do have Aquasoil in my shrimp tank for some reason! not that it needs it LOL and my planted has plain gravel! go figure lol
 
aaronnorth said:
aquasoil is the only thing i think i would buy as part of the ADA product chain, anything else it would be some cheap (or cheaper brand) for example drop checkers, £40 ADA, or £4 ebay... hhmmm hard decision :lol:
Click to expand...
Well said 8)
 
A lot of the links were to AquaEssentials website, one of our sponsors. They have just updated their website so I imgaine that has ruined lots of the links - I'll try to update them at some point when I have time (don't hold your breath!!!!!). If you go to their site and search for the product it will appear. Aqua Essentials sell the ADA catalogues too.

To be fair the only ADA products I recomended were Aquasoil and Powersand. After setting up a tank without I'd use Powersand again when setting up another tank. I do know some people do swear by the ADA glassware though. Apparently the bubbles are finer. I'm never going to stump up the cash to find out personally though...
 
Ed Seeley said:
A lot of the links were to AquaEssentials website, one of our sponsors. They have just updated their website so I imgaine that has ruined lots of the links - I'll try to update them at some point when I have time (don't hold your breath!!!!!). If you go to their site and search for the product it will appear. Aqua Essentials sell the ADA catalogues too.

To be fair the only ADA products I recomended were Aquasoil and Powersand. After setting up a tank without I'd use Powersand again when setting up another tank. I do know some people do swear by the ADA glassware though. Apparently the bubbles are finer. I'm never going to stump up the cash to find out personally though...
Click to expand...

they are so easily broken too :?
 
Very well-written and organized article explaining a setup of that particular type. You should be very proud.

llj
 
lljdma06 said:
Very well-written and organized article explaining a setup of that particular type. You should be very proud.

llj
Click to expand...

Thank-you very much; I'm glad you enjoyed it and hope it proves useful to people. 😀
 
Ed Seeley said:
Thank-you very much; I'm glad you enjoyed it and hope it proves useful to people. 😀
Click to expand...

No doubt it will be useful to members. I personally do not use this method, but that doesn't mean that I don't appreciate a fine explanation of it. Clear articles like this help me better understand other methods, so I can then have a larger knowledge base to help people with. Not everybody has the same goals within this hobby and people shouldn't limit themselves to the understanding of only one method to keep planted tanks. I wish we had a few more setup tutorials out there. I think it would be helpful.

Again, great work. The tank is pretty too. Is it still running?
 
Thank you very much for such an informative write up!

Im just getting together everything I need for my first attempt at a planted aquarium and this has helped me feel more confident about what it is I am doing!!!
 
samd0912 said:
Thank you very much for such an informative write up!

Im just getting together everything I need for my first attempt at a planted aquarium and this has helped me feel more confident about what it is I am doing!!!
Click to expand...

Glad it has helped! This is just one way to do it though, but it's worked well for me!

lljdma06, this tank has just been converted over to a Tanganyikan scape. It was still working fine but I'm a lot busier at work at the moment and didn't have time to keep the scape looking as good as it did. I also got bored of it and fancied some different fish! The journal of it is here, http://ukaps.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=701
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top