'The Full Monty' One Year On!
Well folks it's surprising how time flies! It has been almost a year since I bought the Eheim Incpiria 400 litre aquarium from the Abyss Aquatic Warehouse and started my journal 'The Full Monty'. In that time I have become a grandad and the little fellah is 1 year old this month, honestly where does the time go?
After doing a massive water change and some serious pruning yesterday I decided I would show some before and after photographs to show the results of my handy work. After removing what looked like a bucket full of plants, mainly Echinodorus Tenellus which had more runners than the London Marathon, and trimming the stem plants, it looks a bit tidier now (I think).
After one year and fifty two weeks of 50% water changes = 10,400 litres of water, good job I am not on a water meter
I also thought it would be good to do a step by step bit to show how it has evolved over the last twelve months, so here goes.
After lots of gentle persuasion I finally managed to persuade my wife to let me knock a wall down to make room for where I wanted the new tank to go.
Then get the floor tiled where the new tank was going to sit.
Then through the subtle art of subterfuge I knocked up a simulation of how big the tank was going to be, (I hoped)
Then after lots of research I finally stumbled on this, the Eheim Incpiria 400 liter tank at the Abyss Aquatic Warehouse. All In had to do now was convince my wife this is the one I (
we) should get!
This is it after arriving safely and installed in its new home complete with built in dry weir and very nice sliding smoked black lids.
This is it after I had sweated buckets trying to stick the black backing on. Still got about 2 gallons of JBL backing glue left!
This is it filled up, and the start of a six week cycling period, two weeks of which I was on holiday. Complete with ADA Substrates including Penac P, Penac W,
Powersand, Amazonia Soil and powder topped around the front with La Plata Sand.
Back off holiday and ready to start planting after a water change.
Water a lot clearer after big water change.
The first lot of plants going in.
Not much happening after a week.
Some very expensive rock used here which was completely unnecessary as eventually the plants grow in you can't see the rock anyway!
Two weeks and plants starting to spread.
Then I got the dreaded hair algae, filamentous brown diatom algea and the usual battle began to combat it. I finished up ripping out all the hair grass and the Monte Carlos and replacing it with Echinodorus Tennellus.
After experimenting with UV, O2, Co2, EI, lots of light, low light, no light to black out, massive water changes and a combination of sheer bloody determination I managed to sort out the algae problems.
The messing about with 'Flow' rates, direction and spray bars!
After several adjustments and introduction of all the fish and several new plants this is how it looked yesterday before the water change and the trim.
The Echinodrus Tennellus spreading everywhere.
Now after removing a lot of Tenellus and a trim of the stem plants, removing some dead leaves and a huge water change.
Before I did the water change I cleaned out the Eheim 650 Thermal T3 Filter and scrubbed out all the pipework. I also switched the Eheim easy connectors around so that I can remove the pipes and filter much easier. Now I have got all six green lights showing on the flow display instead of only three as before. This was mainly due to the amount of clag built up in the pipes.
Within an hour of the filters going back on and the lights on, the Blue Diamond Discus are out and the plants are beginning to pearl.
Well folks, that's just about it on the Full Monty for now, I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. The next update will probably be when the Discus are showing signs of breeding behaviour!!
The only questions I have now is whether to experiment with an Arcadia Stretch LED Lighting unit and whether to start using an RO unit for my water changes in the future.
Thanks for looking,
Cheers,
Steve.