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Welcome :) Tell us about yourself

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Hi all, I'm Nicky. I kept fish in a very low tech way for years and started to enjoy my plants and then started travelling quite a bit and had to wind my tank down. Settled in Nottingham now. B/f also used to keep fish and his empty tank started to get on my nerves, so for his 40th birthday got him everything he needed to get the tank up and running again. He reckons it was the best present ever! 😀

Fast forward a couple of years and we've moved to accomodate my planted Vision 180, his marine nano, our new Rena Panorama 120 marine tank (LR due this weekend 😀 ) and my brand new accidental purchase - a little 55ltr tank to breed corys in. We have little time for anything but our fish these days 😳 , but I guess there's a few others on here could say the same!

Will confess to lurking round a few forums reading lots, but like this one as a) people know what they're on about! and b) don't give you a hard time for not knowing stuff 😳
 
Just seen this.

My name is Andy and i'm an alcoholic....ooops, wrong forum !!!

Been keeping trops for around 30 years now. Had a 20 year spell with marines and reef keeping too but have always loved my trops and especially planted tanks.

I've also got a few little breeding projects going on too....going to start with Siamese fighters and then maybe Rams. I've also got an amition to set up a large tank for arowana one day and also a paludarium.

Apart from that, i have an 800 gallon pond and a 3,000 gallon koi pond.

I'm married with a 9 year old daughter who loves the fish and i'm a head gardener at one of the biggest municiple rock gardens in Europe (For Brighton parks dept)

Apart from my love of fish and gardening, i enjoy fishing (coarse), cooking, West Ham utd FC, and generally spending time with my family and friends.

2 cats and a loopy English springer spaniel called Murphy complete the household.

Andy
 
Hello all

My name is Joe, I'm 21 and a Zoology BSc student at Swansea University (wales!)
I'm new to all this planted stuff, currently have a low-tech Rio 180 community setup (ehein 2026 external, juwel internal removed) with some simple fast growers in there to combat the algae etc.
Been keeping fish on and off since I was about 10 (goldfish, airstone, no filter, weekly 100% water change, no dechlor, you all know the score) but only been keeping trops seriously for about 2 years, so still got a lot to learn
Been lurking here for a while, reading/learning/taking it all in.
Will hopefully be setting up a decent planted setup with pressurised CO2 etc once I graduate and get a house of my own in a few months time (landlord doesnt like me having fish 🙁 )

JC
 
intro

Hi All, thought i would follow suit, my names john some of you may have seen me in tff planted section, i used to work for royal mail as a logistics manager, i then took early retirement last year and i know work part time in a fishing tackle shop, i live in worcester in the west mids i have been married to my wife ann for 28 yrs we have two lovely sons lee and ben but unfortunatly ben passed away in 2006 from liver cancer, i have kept trops on and off for forty years but i now am totally smitten with planted and follow ei my seup is a 5 x 2 x 2 made by warfe aquatics nr nottingham, my style is more jungle than Amano but i plan to do a 2 x 2 x 2 Amano style setup some time towards the end of this year, keep up the good work all you mods and techi guys regards john
 
Since everyone seems to be doing it, here it goes 🙂

I am Paulo, I moved to the UK back in 89 when I was 13, no choice of mine my father came to work here in 87.
I am originally from a city in the north of Portugal, Vila Nova de Famalicão, which is near Porto and I support the great club of FC Porto 😉 one of my other passions is football (or soccer for fellow americans).
I was given a small 20l tank 6 years ago and got a goldfish for it to find out very quickly that is was too small for it, so after a few months upgraded to a Juwel Rio 125. Chucked in some gravel and water let things settle for a couple of weeks and moved the goldfish, since that was not challenging enough I re-homed the goldfish and started to get some tropicals about 5 years ago, still have my first fish in the tank a Clown Pleco which doesn't seem to grow that much, thought I had lost him until I moved some of the plants about a couple of weeks ago and found it was still well and alive in the tank (hadn't seen it for about 10 months). Used to keep a mixture of fake plants and wood, got some plants but they kept dying off except for the anubias.
About 12 months ago I got the planted tank bug, upgraded the lights, the filter, added DIY CO2 and started buying some plants. Started dosing with Kent Botanica range using Fe, Kh, Vita and Grow. Then moved on to dry ferts and TPN, now in the process of moving completly to dry and my pressurized CO2 is on the way 🙂
My other hobbies are photography and computing, I work for a University in Central London as a Network Analyst. Basically I am responsible to maintain the University (4000+ computers) connected to the internet and ensure all network connectivity between all sites, look after all the network equipment, new connections to the network, wireless infastructure and also the Students Halls of Residence, keeps me out of trouble 😉

Been enjoying the forum, very helpfull people here and received some very good plants from a couple of members. Thanks for all the help guys 🙂

Thats about it for now 🙂
 
Hi all,

I'm Helen, a 26yr old PhD student at the university of Surrey studying computer vision (more specifically I'm trying to get a computer to understand sign language).

I first set up my 2ft tank about 18months ago and while it's always had live plants it's only recently that I've decided to go for a 'planted tank'. So I've upped the lighting, got a yeast based CO2 system and bought some ferts, then (after having it pointed out on TFF) realised that I didn't have anywhere near enough plants... I decided to bite the bullet and ordered enough to sink a battle ship. At the moment just mixed generic plants to see what grows well in my set up and which ones I like. Any surpluses I shall probably send to my friend who has a plec that eats most of his plants within a week of putting them in and who also has a tank at the school where he teaches (unless of course they're totally unsuitable).

I'm also one of the new generation who have got almost all my fishkeeping info from the net; though I've supplemented this nicely with PFK 😉

Other hobbies include gardening, wandering gently round the countryside and when I get the chance sitting down with a good book. Other than that I'm out with friends on a regular basis doing what ever takes our fancy at the time... and strangely enough for a student it doesn't always include alcohol... though I rarely say no to a nice glass of red or a g&t!

Thanks to everyone who's put in so much work to this site, it's been a veritable gold mine of information and along with TFF has really helped me sort what I ought to be doing to keep my tank looking good. 😀
 
A little belatedly seeing as I joined in the first couple of weeks. lol

I am Andy (Cole) and I am Super.

I am 33 and have lived in Lincoln all of my life (which is in the county where all the good planted folks are. lol) I am married to a black Portuguese girl from a village nr Lisbon and have 2 boys aged 1 and 2. I am often called a racist by.....the wife because......I love England and I love to tell her that England is the best and that there are too many foreigners here. Sorry Joe and London.....and Ulsterexile etc. he, he.

I had always looked at Fish tanks and thought 'that looks crap' because they were all very dark and some people's ideas of coloured gravel and decorations are....not to my taste<----being polite.

My wife kept nagging me because she wanted a fish tank and after a year or so of it I gave in and bought a 125Ltr off ebay from someone else in Lincs and collected. Within a day of finding out about water changes, cleaning etc It was mine. I joined TFF and there spotted the beautiful planted fish tanks and more importantly......Wow you can actually see inside the tank without having to use an industrial spotlight, so from that point I was a planted nut.

I have gone through the upgrading light phase as I was following all the advice from the light obsessed Americans and for the last 9 months have been downgrading as I prefer the lower light setups which these days are as much light as the former high light ones (Don't get me started on this subject. lol.)

I'm a huge fan of Marillion and am into almost all guitar music (apart from the crap stuff). I can play Guitar, Bass and Keyboards. I support the Saints (Family is from Winchester). I like most sports and comedy. I am captain of a top premier league pool team and play to county level (although I don't bother with qualifying as I can't be arsed with the travelling.) I cannot drive nor have ever had a lesson (or want to.) I cycle everywhere including 6½miles to work and 6½ miles back. I am currently working as a Welder's mate (Labourer) but in my time have been a publicity asst, trainee cost accountant, an operations manager, an egg packer, a logistics administrator (In that order).

I haven't been to any UKaps gatherings which is a pity really although for the homeowner a relief because once I start drinking I don't stop to everyone's embarassment (or delight depending on the company I am with.)

p.s. I can get very 'snappy' on the forums but please ignore me. I am just venting my anger at being married to an idiot.

Sorry for the long one but beleive me this is the short version. he, he. the novel will be out in a few months. I'll find out the ISBN for you all.

Andy
 
hello Folks

My Name is Neal and i've just joined the forums having got back from the Green Machine demo day (i was the one who looked like he'd just got out of bed!) Ive been keeping fish for many many years but i'm - after a gap of 3 years- setting up my tank again whilst trying to get my head around what it takes to get the plants looking as good as the tanks i've seen on here and at the "Green Machine".

see yeah

Neal
 
Might as well add myself to this as I met a few of you today...

I'm Clark, 25, born in Hull now living in Halifax. Moved to Halifax in Jan-05 after Graduating from University, work as a statistical consultant in the financial services industry and also part time web developer.

Started up fish keeping after decorating my living room and having a spare alcove, so decided to put an aquarium in there. That was around August-07 and have started liking the look of the planted aquarium.

In my spare time (guess second job), I'm a graded rugby league official so that takes up most of my spare time with games on Friday-Sunday and then training the rest of the week in the gym or out on the field.

So that's me 8)

PS: My surname is KENT!
 
Hi All, I'm Phill. I'm a 33 year old teacher from the Wirral, married with two great (although insanely energetic) kids.
My fishkeeping has been a bit odd as I always do things the wrong way round. Having had a biorb for years I bought my first proper tank last Jan. Since then I've done it all. I've kept marines, tried nanos, had a low light planted tank etc. I've had four fish tanks in 15 months and set up each one about a week BEFORE finding the people who could help me do it properly so regretted my initial set up.
I now hav a Juwel Rio 180 set up as an Mbuna tank, an Aqua one aquience 65cm cube recently replanted as a jungle scape and a little 45cm 25L tank set up as an ADA nano (this one is a little comp with my brother in law).
When I'm feeling a bit more confident with the tanks I'll post some photos until then nice to meet you all.
 
Hi all, my name is Ong. (surname actually). I'm from Malaysia. I started on planted tank since last year. It started when i visited an aquarium shop with nice display aquariums. By then, i knew that i have to set up one like that 😛 But so far i havent been quite successful. Didnt have much knowledge on it and the shop guys didnt really manage to give me much advice and solutions to my problems.
This forum is wonderful as there's many helpful experts around. I'm still reading through many of the treads here learning along the way. Thanks guys! I dont have any friends that is into planted tanks here, so it is really nice to be in this forum.
I also like scuba and outdoor activities. As such, I avoid buying sea corals and fish because i think most are harvested illegaly. It aint easy to grow corals to that size,and it can take many years.
 
My name is Daniel. now living in stoke on trent and work in the hospital as a junior doctor. I've been having planted tank for the past 3 years but only recently that I start going high tech and planting more difficult plants. Previously it it was mostly mosses and fern plants as I used to breed loads of cherry shrimp. Now that has stopped I'm trying to attempt a high tech planted tank (I've just recently posted a 16 gallon rescape in the journal section). Will reattempt to breed high grade CRS soon in a few weeks time. Hopefully I will succeed this time. Don't even know why I failed so miserably the last time.
 
I kept seeing this post and meant to sit and type up my intro but always had to go off and do something else. Anyway here is a little info about me;

My name is Kel, I'm 24 I used to work in accounts when I lived in Liverpool(my hometown) but gave that up when I moved down south, I'm waiting until my daughter goes to school and then I will either go back into accountancy and do an OU course in web design & computer maintenance(or equivalent) or I might just go back to college and study full time rather then having to cram it in after work / before coming on the net :lol: I'd probably take up psychology again if I went full time as that's a nice easy / interesting subject. I'm married to nick who's 30 and a writer, we got married on halloween 2004 and had a very non traditional wedding 😛 We have a daughter called Kyoko who will be 3 in June most people comment on her unusual name so I'll quickly explain, we love japan and all things japanese so gave her a traditional japanese name, it also has a lovely meaning 'reflection'(as in to reflect upon something not as in a mirror reflection).

I'm a plantaholic 😛 I also love video games, music, films, clothes(making & buying), old TV shows from the 60's/70's/80's & hair falls.

I've been around fish virtually all my life, my dad always had a tropical tank and I quite often had goldfish in bowls 🙄 Then after a few years of having neither I decided I wanted a tank and some goldfish, so my dad got me a 2ft tank and 4 fancys, that was around the age of 12, they lasted around a year I think. I kept a menagerie of rodents, birds & dogs until I was about 15 when I got rid of all but the dogs and my old budgie.

Then in 2006 my husband bought me a black moor in a bowl as a present off our daughter for my birthday,poor little guy was in the bowl overnight with brown paper over him as soon as I unwrapped him I changed his water and we went out and I got him a 17L plastic tank & filter the same day(I didn't know much about fish then but I knew he needed a bigger space and a filter). Then after a few weeks I got him a 70L tank and a friend, still knew virtually nothing about fish. Then in January 2007 I bought a secondhand rio 240 off ebay intending to put my goldies in it but it came with 4 tropicals, a geophagus, a 3 spot gourami and 2 gold corys. Well my husband talked me into keeping them all and getting a bichir. The geo bullied the bichir so had to go, got another bichir, 3 more gouramis and a couple of bn plecs. I removed the gold corys the day I got the tank because they were terrified of the geo so they got their own 50L tank, I also started posting on TFF.

Fast forward to march 07 when I decided I wanted to add some real plants after seeing alot of planted tanks and being really inspired. I managed to grow the plants with minimal effort, I had one of those greenline grow bag things and that seemed to do the trick, didn't really aquascape I just put them where they looked nice.

Today I have 4 planted tanks(and 1 non planted) and will be setting up another 2 in late august / early september and probably another small tank towards the end of the year(sooner if I have the cash). I wouldn't say they were real scapes, they still just look like the plants have been chucked in but I'm trying and learning every week that goes by 😀
 
Hi , I'm Niels..

Happy to find this forum! After trips to Germany and seeing how heavily plants are promoted there (albiet in the Old School way) it has always struck me how different it is here in the UK with little emphasis on plants so far. (though things seem to be changing. My LFS is the Goldfish Bowl in Oxford which seems to be becoming quite `German' now ...as mentioned in another thread here)

So I'm new here but I did frequent usenet groups 10+ years ago.. groups with names like `rec.alt.aquaria.plants' or somesuch and now all archived on TheKrib, in the days before `the Web' thingy. Loaches and plants were my game. Back then `New School' was Old School really and everyone aspired to heating cables etc. It was sort of freshwater reefkeeping. And of course the absolute priority back then was to eliminate nitrates and, of course, phosphates. I was quite good at doing those things. Especially nitrates! My levels were always <0. I was so proud. But my tanks would flourish for a year or so and then from out of nowhere blue-green algae would take over. So I would do more nitrate and phosphate removing (even though we all knew B-G algae fixes its own of the former) getting rid of these `twin evils of pollution' and of course the plants would grind to a halt. So I was in a cycle of a few years of enthusiasm and `success' followed by a few years of having a somewhat smelly turquoise tank languishing in the room. Tried the biological warefare route out of desperation and would have friends in the States send me `Maracyn' `anti-biotoic' tablets. That worked ... for a while. But I pretty much gave up because of B-G algae! I truely despise that stuff.

Then, last year, I was googling away one day for `algae' and noticed a Tom Barr thread about *adding* nitrates as well as a Dutch hobbyist who had a ratio for nitrates/phosphates that he said algae was not optimized for. Well, `whatever', but suddenly it all came together in my head. More googling and I was ordering some KNO3 from AE ... fairly shovelled it into my B_G infested tank and with a few days my crypts exploded with new growth and the B-G algae melted away! Obviously I am being a bit over-simplistic but after years, nay decades, of anguish the results were hilarious.
So I've been pretty happy since then and am playing about with adding the other dry ferts and lighting /CO2 levels and seeing what the minimum water-change tolerance levels are!
Unlike most here I am no big aquascaper... I don't like to prune ! I sort of like to let a tank evolve its own jungle and since I still like loaches they don't seem to mind that.
I am now working on a small/nano shrimp tank with a carpet of HC. I have had some problems with designing a HOB filter-with everything-in-it and also some CO2 probs (Lunapet reg. in the hardware thread), resulting in a green water tank! But I will get there in the end!
Anyway... thats my intro spiel for now!
 
But my tanks would flourish for a year or so and then from out of nowhere blue-green algae would take over. So I would do more nitrate and phosphate removing (even though we all knew B-G algae fixes its own of the former) getting rid of these `twin evils of pollution' and of course the plants would grind to a halt. So I was in a cycle of a few years of enthusiasm and `success' followed by a few years of having a somewhat smelly turquoise tank languishing in the room. Tried the biological warefare route out of desperation and would have friends in the States send me `Maracyn' `anti-biotoic' tablets. That worked ... for a while. But I pretty much gave up because of B-G algae! I truely despise that stuff.
Click to expand...

That sounds just like me!

I am Sanj btw,

been keeping fish on and off for about 20 years (oh....its that long!), living in Coventry now, well since uni and as soon as i got my house I bought an aquarium (before decorating, had to get priorities right). I then went mad ended up with five ranging from 180-400 odd litres. Couldnt cope, had a major tank disaster and went cold for over a year.

Now ive turned the corner and putting life back into the hobby...oh and have ordered(like 3 weeks ago) and not yet received a Python!! so maybe one the most dreaded chores of the hobby will become somewhat easier.

Oh and i hope this time like the fella above, dont have to suffer BGA comedown.
 
Hi,

Just getting back into fishkeeping, my previous tank, a 350L was dismantled when we moved house 4 years ago.

I've just picked up a panoptic 560 tank cheap from the local garden centre, as getting the 350L tank back is a while away still following the arrival of #2 son 2 weeks ago.

I'm planning a planted tank with panoptic, which comes complete with light (24w Compact Flor) 200W heater (I'm sure this is way too much for a 60L tank) and internal filter (700LPH).

I'll be re-using my CO2 system from my previous tank (one the uses those disposable welding cylinders).

Since it's been a few years it's all a bit new to me, although members tanks and journals are providing inspiration already.

Previously my CO2 injection was by a tower unit connected to the output of a powerhead, however this appear to be have not survived the move, so I'm looking at alternatives, probably a glass diffuser any guidance on this ?

Cheers

Stuart
 
webworm said:
I've just picked up a panoptic 560 tank cheap from the local garden centre, as getting the 350L tank back is a while away still following the arrival of #2 son 2 weeks ago.
Click to expand...

Wow, a new born and you're setting up a new tank?! You're certainly more organised than our family!

Previously my CO2 injection was by a tower unit connected to the output of a powerhead, however this appear to be have not survived the move, so I'm looking at alternatives, probably a glass diffuser any guidance on this ?
Click to expand...

The Rhinox diffusers are well though of, though not tried them myself.


A big welcome to all.
 
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