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Tom's Bucket O' Mud - The End

Khuulio said:
Hello BigTom, this tank has been a big inspiration for me and I plan on starting a similar tank in two months time, so naturally, I have a few questions.
1) When you planted the plants in the caddies, how deep did you place them in the tank, I've heard that the riparium plants can rot away if they are planted too deep?
2) How did you make sure the hills of gravel so they do not erode away? Especially where you planted your Lilly, was it separated with rocks or did you make some sort of special scaffolding?
3) How did you measure the amount of lights that your plants need, I know that 6500k is a good rating, but the WPG way is outdated, so I presume you used a PAR meter?

Thanks in advance for all the answers, and sorry for all the questions, I'm still a bit of a beginner...
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Hi Khuulio.

1. With the riparian plants I generally just try and have the roots submerged, with the rest of the plant above water. Caddies are useful for this, but these days I normally don't use them and just wedge the plants into hardscape at the water line.

2. The hills are just soil with sand on top and a few strategically placed rocks to shore them up. Nothing complicated. In the corners there are some piles of smaller rocks to produce little islands for planting the riparian plants.

3. No I've never measured the light. I started with a 70w metal halide spot light (only cost me £21 on ebay) and now have a slightly posher 36w Kessil a150 LED light which seems to have a roughly similar output. I just hang them at whatever height is needed to cover the tank. I don't worry about light really.
 
BigTom said:
Hi Khuulio.
3. No I've never measured the light. I started with a 70w metal halide spot light (only cost me £21 on ebay) and now have a slightly posher 36w Kessil a150 LED light which seems to have a roughly similar output. I just hang them at whatever height is needed to cover the tank. I don't worry about light really.
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Do you get a lot of natural sunlight? I have a 10 gallon dirted set up and it kinda struggles with 18w of 6500k CFL, so I'm kinda worried about getting the lights right :/
 
Khuulio said:
Do you get a lot of natural sunlight? I have a 10 gallon dirted set up and it kinda struggles with 18w of 6500k CFL, so I'm kinda worried about getting the lights right :/
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It got a small amount of diffuse light when it was in the window, but for the last two years it's been against a wall in a north facing room so very little incidental light and no direct light.
 
I just saw your video again Tom,....totally speechless. It looks like you took your camera into some remote underwater paradise,...doesn't "feel" like an aquarium at all. It's like I was watching it all through the eyes of that lovely fish,...so much character & poise.

You mentioned earlier that you don't worry about light,...could you be kind enough to elaborate please? Someday,...i hope to achieve what you and Alastair have accomplished here. It's absolutely inspiring to say the very least. Truly magical. Your fishes are very lucky to have you take care of them like this.🙂
 
faizal said:
I just saw your video again Tom,....totally speechless. It looks like you took your camera into some remote underwater paradise,...doesn't "feel" like an aquarium at all. It's like I was watching it all through the eyes of that lovely fish,...so much character & poise.

You mentioned earlier that you don't worry about light,...could you be kind enough to elaborate please? Someday,...i hope to achieve what you and Alastair have accomplished here. It's absolutely inspiring to say the very least. Truly magical. Your fishes are very lucky to have you take care of them like this.🙂
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Thanks very much indeed Faizal. With regards to light; what I mean is that I don't have any terribly demanding plants and everything seems to grow healthily and at a reasonable pace. I don't want fast growth really and I'm happy just to use whatever light I can get which is relatively cheap and looks nice. Perhaps I just got lucky with my choice in lights but they seem to have been perfectly adequate for growing plants. I don't worry much about photoperiod either - if I'm home all day then the lights will be on for 12 hours or more, if I'm away on holiday then I just put the timers on for 6 hours to keep things ticking over.
 
The video way back on page 31 is pretty stunning...that is your tank is stunning.
 
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