120L Journal!

[tomtomtom1230]

You don't really need a 'full' cycle with this substrate if you plan to use plants to a moderate level in your tank, either. It claims to have all the correct bacteria in the black-water it comes packaged with. I've been keeping a close eye on my stats and neither ammonia, nor nitrites have risen yet and I've got a 60% fish load in there!

The only reason my leaves started to brown was due to the fact I had to keep them in a bucket for 5 days before planting So nothing to do with the substrate. I cut off the dead leaves and left the salvagable ones left attached. I've started dosing ferts (Seachem Flourish, the complete version) but only in small amounts. 1ml every other day and then I'll do a 30% water change at the end of the week to 'reset' my water stats. I think I'm doing this correctly lmao nothing's gone horribly wrong yet!.

Where the journal is concerned, I've added a juvvie Bristlenose Pleco, I'm unable to tell what sex it is yet but they've taken to my Mopani/rock caves and the algae tablets to supplement his diet pretty quickly. I didn't feed him yesterday at all. Today, i offered half a tablet. I broke the other half up and my cories and neons ate it all At least he/she is eating. It's come out of hiding now, too and he seems to chew and 'bask' on a softer piece of Mopani that I had in my old tank. I'll be away on Saturday and Sunday so I'll feed them up today and they can fast over the weekend.

 

[ZoddyZod]

just a little word of caution - does your IKEA cabinet state what the maximum weight is that it can take?

Also, I hope your DIY skills are fairly good. Every piece of flat-pack I've ever put together has slowly fallen apart

 

[tomtomtom1230]

just a little word of caution - does your IKEA cabinet state what the maximum weight is that it can take?

Also, I hope your DIY skills are fairly good. Every piece of flat-pack I've ever put together has slowly fallen apart

Not that I can remember, I've heard no creaking though - that counts for something, right?

My DIY skills are at a moderate level. Probably not at a level to build a proper cabinet set for the tank, though. I've seen the actual stand for it and it looks pretty flimsy...

I managed to stand on it (surface area of my feet is a lot smaller than that of the tank). I'll have to contact IKEA to ask if they have any guide line weight limits.

I really have no idea how to work out the weight of the tank. I know 1 litre of water at 20 degrees C is almost equal to a kilo and there's 115 litres (displacement of the water taken into account). I keep my tank at 24 degrees C. The tank when empty weighs 20kg (give or take 5kg). The total weight of the substrate is equal to approx 14kg and the wood in total weighs around 2.5kg.

Any advice on how to either reinforce it or help spread the weight would be great.

 

[Teacher Martyn]

just a little word of caution - does your IKEA cabinet state what the maximum weight is that it can take?

Also, I hope your DIY skills are fairly good. Every piece of flat-pack I've ever put together has slowly fallen apart

Not that I can remember, I've heard no creaking though - that counts for something, right?

My DIY skills are at a moderate level. Probably not at a level to build a proper cabinet set for the tank, though. I've seen the actual stand for it and it looks pretty flimsy...

I managed to stand on it (surface area of my feet is a lot smaller than that of the tank). I'll have to contact IKEA to ask if they have any guide line weight limits.

I really have no idea how to work out the weight of the tank. I know 1 litre of water at 20 degrees C is almost equal to a kilo and there's 115 litres (displacement of the water taken into account). I keep my tank at 24 degrees C. The tank when empty weighs 20kg (give or take 5kg). The total weight of the substrate is equal to approx 14kg and the wood in total weighs around 2.5kg.

Any advice on how to either reinforce it or help spread the weight would be great.

I had originally planned to put my tank on an IKEA product and received some really good information from a fish shop guy.

He said that although the IKEA furniture could probably take the weight, it was the risk of it collapsing sideways that was the problem. I can't think of the word that adequately describes what I mean but it made complete sense to me when he told me.

You know, like two dominoes being pushed over in the same direction. They may be able to take the downwards weight but any hint of instability and there's no reinforcement that would stop the disastrous sideways slide.

Good luck.

 

[tomtomtom1230]

just a little word of caution - does your IKEA cabinet state what the maximum weight is that it can take?

Also, I hope your DIY skills are fairly good. Every piece of flat-pack I've ever put together has slowly fallen apart

Not that I can remember, I've heard no creaking though - that counts for something, right?

My DIY skills are at a moderate level. Probably not at a level to build a proper cabinet set for the tank, though. I've seen the actual stand for it and it looks pretty flimsy...

I managed to stand on it (surface area of my feet is a lot smaller than that of the tank). I'll have to contact IKEA to ask if they have any guide line weight limits.

I really have no idea how to work out the weight of the tank. I know 1 litre of water at 20 degrees C is almost equal to a kilo and there's 115 litres (displacement of the water taken into account). I keep my tank at 24 degrees C. The tank when empty weighs 20kg (give or take 5kg). The total weight of the substrate is equal to approx 14kg and the wood in total weighs around 2.5kg.

Any advice on how to either reinforce it or help spread the weight would be great.

I had originally planned to put my tank on an IKEA product and received some really good information from a fish shop guy.

He said that although the IKEA furniture could probably take the weight, it was the risk of it collapsing sideways that was the problem. I can't think of the word that adequately describes what I mean but it made complete sense to me when he told me.

You know, like two dominoes being pushed over in the same direction. They may be able to take the downwards weight but any hint of instability and there's no reinforcement that would stop the disastrous sideways slide.

Good luck.

Thanks pal, that is some pretty invaluable advice right there! I did a bit of DIY as I was putting it up to prevent the side-ways tumble. Rather than using their chip-board backing, I bolted a sturdier board to it, attached the top the sides with small brackets and the front of the drawers, right at the bottom is another plank of wood to help hold the sides outwards (likewise at the top). I did what I could to prevent this. I've had the tank up nearly a week now (?) and there's no sign of the downward weight of the tank bowing the top or anything and as far as the side-ways fall is concerned, it's pretty sturdy at the minute. I also made sure that the tank was positioned at the back of the drawers where I included a center bar holding the rear of the top surface. Looks OK to me now but I'm swapping it for something else (probably the crappy stand that Interpet supply you with) at the first sign of any degradation of the rigidity of the structure.

I plan on pruning my plants later on. There are a few melted leaves so I'll remove those and new shoots are starting to come through. On some of the salvageable leaves, they're beginning to go brown at the ends and then a yellow band before returning to a lush green colour before the stem. Is this just because I haven't had time to do a bit of tidying up for them yet or is it some sort of deficiency?

I'll ask in planted chit-chat, too

 

[tomtomtom1230]

Turns out it's probably just the change in water conditions. I'm a worrier when it comes to my tank inhabitants

That said, here's a picture of it so far:



I'm dosing Seachem Flourish Comprehensive (1ml every other day) and the plants are really perking up, despite me running carbon (sponge and sachet-style) in my filter. I was a bit skeptical at first but since some of the more veteran plant-keeping members on here use it I thought "to hell with it, I'll leave my carbon in"

The smaller plants at the front were gifted to me. I think they're Anubias Bateri Nana but if anybody can confirm/correct then that'd be great!

I had a wobbly start but it's all coming together slowly. Shame I nearly lost all the plants but they're getting greener by the day! Bloody snails keep nibbling on them though which is irritating... Any recommendations? I suppose I could buy a pair of Assassin Snails? Naturally, I'd call one Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad and the other would have to be Ezio Auditore da Firenze I'm such a nerd...

 

[Judgejudy]

What fish have you got in there?

 

[SamLovesCorys]

Turns out it's probably just the change in water conditions. I'm a worrier when it comes to my tank inhabitants

That said, here's a picture of it so far:



I'm dosing Seachem Flourish Comprehensive (1ml every other day) and the plants are really perking up, despite me running carbon (sponge and sachet-style) in my filter. I was a bit skeptical at first but since some of the more veteran plant-keeping members on here use it I thought "to hell with it, I'll leave my carbon in"

The smaller plants at the front were gifted to me. I think they're Anubias Bateri Nana but if anybody can confirm/correct then that'd be great!

I had a wobbly start but it's all coming together slowly. Shame I nearly lost all the plants but they're getting greener by the day! Bloody snails keep nibbling on them though which is irritating... Any recommendations? I suppose I could buy a pair of Assassin Snails? Naturally, I'd call one Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad and the other would have to be Ezio Auditore da Firenze I'm such a nerd...

Are you finding seachem flourish effective?

And Lol at the Assassins creed reference!

 

[tomtomtom1230]

What fish have you got in there?

In my sig. But if you're reading this on a phone:

6 neon tetras
5 peppered cories
4 gold zebra danios
1 blue moscow guppy (a refugee from an LFS that didn't have a clue)
1 juvenile Bristlenose Pleco.

A bit of a mish-mash I know. The Danios are from my little brother's old tank and my new LFS refuses to take them in for various supply reasons. I would like to put a trio of Dwarf Gouramis in there (1 male, 2 female) and then that'd be that until I get a bigger tank!

Thanks for noticing the AC reference

Seachem is proving pretty well. I'm not following the dosage instructions on the back since I'm a really basic, low tech tank. I've had no algae issues yet which I believe is a common problem for the Anubias Barteri var. Nana (I hope that's how you say/spell/punctuate/write it out) on it's older leaves. Everywhere I read says it's a slow grower, but not mine! I've had about 9 new leaves across the two individual plants I bought and I've actually managed to raise 5 Dwarf Amazon Sword plants from the near-dead!

As you can tell, I'm Ok with fish but not so much with plants hopefully this all works out. I add 1ml of Flourish (comprehensive) for every bucket (10-15 litres) of water in my tank when I'm changing. I know not many people like/recommend it but I thought I'd give it a shot since they sent me a 100ml bottle for free 'cause they screwed up my order on small/medium Mopani wood pieces

 

[Naringlo]

Nice job with making the tank look nice. Due to the lighting, I thought it would be near impossible to make the tank look nice but you've done it.

The cabinet for the fish pod is actually quite sturdy.

 

[tomtomtom1230]

Nice job with making the tank look nice. Due to the lighting, I thought it would be near impossible to make the tank look nice but you've done it.

The cabinet for the fish pod is actually quite sturdy.

I had some first hand reviews of the 64 litre version of the stand and what I heard worried me a bit! For future reference though, thanks! Perhaps the 120L version has better support.

Thanks for the complement, I've moved some stuff around and I've got some Flame Moss on order from AquaEssentials. Can't wait

 

[Naringlo]

Flame moss is great, grows really well. I recently bought some flame moss (but not for £10! ) for my 12L and it's already shooting up after a week. Can't wait for the pics, it's helping me piece mine together with what I can work with successfully.

 

[tomtomtom1230]

Yeah, normally I wouldn't pay a tenner for it but I really like AquaEssentials, none of their plants have melted on me or anything like I thought they would. I think they rear their plants completely submerged. Flame moss is almost in. It's in my tank but still on the metal mesh until Thursday evening, when I'll do a water change and attach it to either a rock or the Mopani wood I put the root foam on the corners so my fish wouldn't catch themselves on the mesh.

Thanks for the complements, too. I'll see if I can't get some pictures up on Thursday to show TFF how it's going

 

[tomtomtom1230]

Just got a trio of Dwarf Gouramis - 2 females and a large male. Pics of the latest scape and of the fish to follow

 

[Llegmore]

Sorry to drag the thread up, how's the tank doing? My snails are called Altair and Ezio too!!