• 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

Starting Again From Scratch - Help & Advice

A

Avro Vulcan

New Member
Joined
7 Dec 2024
Messages
7
Location
UK
Hi,
I am planning on stripping and restarting my aquarium and am looking for some advice. I had a Sailfin Pleco that prevented me from having a really nicely planted aquarium, so now he's gone, I am looking to restart and have a really nicely planted aquarium with some smaller sized livestock (Guppies, Neons, Glowlights and Cory's), we are also redecorating the area where the aquarium is, so it has to be completely drained down and moved, so that is another reason to restart the tank soon.

I have a 240 litre tank (4ft x 15inch wide x 20inch high). I have a DIY CO2 system (Colombo CO2 Reactor), that I know is not really big enough for my tank, (I have to refill it every week), but I just wanted to get a feel for it before investing in a better set up, which I'm thinking of buying from CO2 Supermarket and using disposable CO2 bottles.

I have an Fluval Smart Fresh & Plant 800mm LED light, (which has replaced my Aquasky 910mm LED light I had before) I have the CO2 and light on a 'Siesta' pattern:
09:00 -10:00 sunrise
10:00 - 12:00 light on the following: 100%red, 0% blue, cold white 73%, pure white 100% and warm white 80%.
12:00 - 13:00 sunset
13:00 - 17:00 light on 1% red
17:00 - 18:00 sunrise
18:00 - 20:00 light on the following: 100%red, 0% blue, cold white 73%, pure white 100% and warm white 80%.
20:00 - 21:00 sunset
21:00 - 22:35 light on 2% red
22:35 - 09:00 light off completely

CO2:
08:15-12:00 on
12:00 - 16:00 off
16:00 - 20:15 on
20:15 - 08:15 off

I had the siesta set up after discussions on another aquarium forum (before I found here) as a help to reducing algae, but I'm not sure I'm really seeing any benefit. Most of the plants I had (Alternanthera rosaefolia, Limnophila hippuridoides, Ludwigia palustris red) thrived at first, then melted away, only the Anubias survived well and a couple bronze crypto.

The filter I have is an Aquamanta EFX 400 from Maidenhead Aquatics, the spray bar has been reduced from 3 sections to 2 , so that the outflow flows down the length of the tank, rather than across the short side.

I have a Newa Wave 2 3200 wavemaker under the spraybar and above the CO2 diffuser to encourage a circular flow around the tank, which does seem to work fairly well. The drop checker is usually a mid green.

The substrate is a 5L bag of Tropica substrate covered with fine sand. I have 3 - 4 large pieces of bogwood that the anubias are attached to.

I am looking for advice on what plants will work well for the set up I have, and a lighting and CO2 regime that will suit the plants and the type of livestock I'm planning to have.

I am interested in maybe a hybrid type setup, or something that doesn't need an awful lot of looking after.
 

Attachments

  • IMG_20241219_115625.jpg
    IMG_20241219_115625.jpg
    1.6 MB · Views: 28
  • IMG_20241219_115637.jpg
    IMG_20241219_115637.jpg
    1.2 MB · Views: 28
I have seen a few people doing complicated stuff, however I like to keep things as simple as possible.

I personally do low light (25% power on a Chihiros wrgb) for 8 hours a day (9-5).
I do low co2 (dark green on a drop checker) starting two hours before the lights come on and finishing an hour before they go off.

I have absolutely zero algae issues and my epiphyte plants do great (even have been selling propagated spares in a grow on tank the same lighting approach).

I would call it medium tech. Easy epiphytes, low co2 and low lighting for a low maintenance tank.
 
Last edited:
I have all Bucephalandra - and some temporary floating plants to help with start up.

However it’s not normally advisable to use Bucephalandra in a new tank.

I had all my equipment and filter media cycling in a bucket for many months to get a more stable start.

I’m also slowly adding more Bucephalandra every two weeks as it tends to melt when first added to a new tank.

Melting leaves need to be manually removed so spreading the work out over a few months
suits me better.

IMG_3132.jpeg

The tank before this one had lots of Anubias - it’s faster growing and easier to move to a new tank. I have sold it all off now as wanted to switch to all Buce.
 
simon_the_plant_nerd said:
I’m very boring and say this a lot but if you can go fire extinguisher you should. It’s easily the cheapest way of getting CO2 by a long way. My local FE servicing guy sells me 2kg cylinders for £15. Sometimes less depending on the change I have in the car!
Click to expand...
I too have gone the fire extinguisher route, not as cheap as you have secured but even via Amazon a lot cheaper than disposable cylinders from Halfords. I however, get a 5kg and have it delivered, even if its size and potential for damage slightly intimidates me, 5kg lasts me roughly a year on 4 foot tank with moderately hard water.
 
Connswater said:
I too have gone the fire extinguisher route, not as cheap as you have secured but even via Amazon a lot cheaper than disposable cylinders from Halfords. I however, get a 5kg and have it delivered, even if its size and potential for damage slightly intimidates me, 5kg lasts me roughly a year on 4 foot tank with moderately hard water.
Click to expand...
I do have a good deal to be fair. I think there’s probably plenty of small independent fire companies who will happily sell you a cheap cylinder but even buying them off Amazon will still be cheaper than disposables or soda stream, never mind something aquarium branded!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top