Hi,
My smallest child, Rose, is the perfect excuse for buying a fishtank - she is mesmerised by fish. At Christmas we looked after a friend's tank and Rose uttered one of her first words - "fish!!"
We have a bit of a strange shaped lounge and went for the AquaOne 620T because it fits nicely into an alcove away from sunlight and too much throughfare. Whilst waiting for the tank to arrive we saw some of the popular aquascaping sites and thought it might be nice to give it a go.... so this is the tale of our attempts, its likely to be full of mistakes and errors, but hopefully it won't result in us becoming fish murderers!
There have been sketches drawn and numerous visits to local garden centres and fish shops to pick the right 'rocks.' My partner decided we needed rocks with 'character.'
We purchased sand and gravel online as there seemed to be a shortage of more 'natural' colours in the shops near us.
on 29.03.11 water, rocks, sand and gravel went in.
On 01.04.11 the plants arrived from a mister on ebay - they were rather distressed as some wally (namely me) took them to work in the envelope mistaking them for something else and they spent the day in a hot, sweaty office with lots of distressed, busy people!
At some point between then and today 2 leopard danios, 2 zebra danios, 1 male guppy, 2 lady guppies, 3 apple snails (yellow, blue, purple) 1 nerite snail, 1 african dwarf frog, 6 neon tetras, 2 flying fox/siamese algae eaters (they were labelled flying fox but many hours spent with the internet suggest they may not be) went into the tank.
Initially the plants grew nicely and have bushed out - but it all seemed to stop after about 3 weeks. I have bought Seachem's Flourish fertiliser and a Nutrafin CO2 natural diffuser.
Last week I purchased some Java Moss from Maidenhead Aquatics.
Today we went to a LFS and got 2 Alternanthera in pink, a Hemianthus callitrichoides 'cuba', and a lilaeopsis Mauritania.
I think we are probably bodging it up royally - but its a start. Desperately trying to read lots and learn as we go - which is a fairly stupid thing to do - but so far its really good fun
My smallest child, Rose, is the perfect excuse for buying a fishtank - she is mesmerised by fish. At Christmas we looked after a friend's tank and Rose uttered one of her first words - "fish!!"
We have a bit of a strange shaped lounge and went for the AquaOne 620T because it fits nicely into an alcove away from sunlight and too much throughfare. Whilst waiting for the tank to arrive we saw some of the popular aquascaping sites and thought it might be nice to give it a go.... so this is the tale of our attempts, its likely to be full of mistakes and errors, but hopefully it won't result in us becoming fish murderers!
There have been sketches drawn and numerous visits to local garden centres and fish shops to pick the right 'rocks.' My partner decided we needed rocks with 'character.'
We purchased sand and gravel online as there seemed to be a shortage of more 'natural' colours in the shops near us.
on 29.03.11 water, rocks, sand and gravel went in.
On 01.04.11 the plants arrived from a mister on ebay - they were rather distressed as some wally (namely me) took them to work in the envelope mistaking them for something else and they spent the day in a hot, sweaty office with lots of distressed, busy people!
At some point between then and today 2 leopard danios, 2 zebra danios, 1 male guppy, 2 lady guppies, 3 apple snails (yellow, blue, purple) 1 nerite snail, 1 african dwarf frog, 6 neon tetras, 2 flying fox/siamese algae eaters (they were labelled flying fox but many hours spent with the internet suggest they may not be) went into the tank.
Initially the plants grew nicely and have bushed out - but it all seemed to stop after about 3 weeks. I have bought Seachem's Flourish fertiliser and a Nutrafin CO2 natural diffuser.
Last week I purchased some Java Moss from Maidenhead Aquatics.
Today we went to a LFS and got 2 Alternanthera in pink, a Hemianthus callitrichoides 'cuba', and a lilaeopsis Mauritania.
I think we are probably bodging it up royally - but its a start. Desperately trying to read lots and learn as we go - which is a fairly stupid thing to do - but so far its really good fun
