xxBarneyxx
Fish Aficionado
Well it took me months to get round to it but I have finally got my Planted tank up and running.
I decided to go the ADA route with substrates and dosing because it was just a lot simpler to get to grips with and means that I don’t have to make any major changes to my tank maintenance.
Equipment bought:
X3 9L Bags of ADA Ama Soil
X3 2L Bags of Power Sand
Tourmaline BC
500ml Brightly K
500ml Green Birghtly step 1
JBL CO2 kit
JBL Bubble Counter
Ferplast soloniod (needs to be replaced I think as it is so hot it melts the CO2 line!)
Eheim 2324 Professional Thermo (Replacing a Fluval 305 which was very loud and the in tank heater).
Arcadia 120cm Freshwater with T5 lamps 4x54W
Shed load of Plants
Setup:
Originally I did intend to to have part of the tank covered with small pebbles. When I actually did this though it looked really crap so I had to scoop out all the pebbles (which is why there are still a few mixed in with the soil
).
I think everyone here has seen substrates put down before so I will skip them pics. Basically put down 2cm of power sand and 6-12cm of soil on top. The main hardscape feature (and only hardscape) is the slate "pile". I used 2inch diameter PVC pipe to make stable "saves" under the slate then piles the slate over the top to cover the pipe. This actually took about an hour to get it looking natural (and to get it together in a way so it won’t fall down!)
From this angle you can see the pipe but in the finished tank you can’t see it at all.
I ordered about 200 plants from an online store they had “Collections†which suited me as I know nothing about the different plants so I wanted to get a selection and see how they all grow. The plants weren’t in brilliant condition though and I’m still waiting for my riccia which is going to go over some of the slate.
Planting took ages. Then once I had it all planted and filled with water I didn’t like the layout so I took most of it out and replanted it
This is the (almost) finished tank. I still need to cut down the pipes for the filter and if my riccia ever turns up this will be tied to the slate.
I have too many different plant types in there at the moment for my taste but I wanted to get it planted up as much as possible and like I said I wanted to see how they all grow. As time goes on I will probably take out the ones I don’t like and spread the others out.
CO2 is currently on about 3-4 bubbles per second and the drop checker is showing green. I’m going to build an internal reactor soon as a lot of the CO2 is getting waste in the diffuser. I’m not sure how much CO2 is actually in there at the moment. The drop checker is green (was yellow until I put the new lights on and dropped very quickly once the light was turned on). When I checked the KH and PH today though the CO2 worked out to be about 8ppm, with the buffering of the Aquasoil though and the poor accuracy of the KH test kit I was using I’m pretty sure this is not correct. I’m going to have a go at making the 4dkh drop check solution which will hopefully give me a much closer idea of the actually CO2 content.
Plants are all bubbling nicely which I take to be a good sign
Floating plants who’s name I cant remember
Some pearling which doesn’t show up so well in this picture.
This is the Slate with the water and plants in. There are actually 5 entrances to the pipes inside and they are all connected. I plan on getting clown loaches so this is their home
You can’t see the pipes at all and I’m really pleased with how it looks.
For dosing I’m just going to use Brightly K and the Step traces. Once these run out I might look at cheaper alternatives but will see how things go.
Tomorrow I'm going to cut down the filter pipes and go out and grab a powerhead to build a CO2 reactor.
I decided to go the ADA route with substrates and dosing because it was just a lot simpler to get to grips with and means that I don’t have to make any major changes to my tank maintenance.
Equipment bought:
X3 9L Bags of ADA Ama Soil
X3 2L Bags of Power Sand
Tourmaline BC
500ml Brightly K
500ml Green Birghtly step 1
JBL CO2 kit
JBL Bubble Counter
Ferplast soloniod (needs to be replaced I think as it is so hot it melts the CO2 line!)
Eheim 2324 Professional Thermo (Replacing a Fluval 305 which was very loud and the in tank heater).
Arcadia 120cm Freshwater with T5 lamps 4x54W
Shed load of Plants
Setup:
Originally I did intend to to have part of the tank covered with small pebbles. When I actually did this though it looked really crap so I had to scoop out all the pebbles (which is why there are still a few mixed in with the soil
).I think everyone here has seen substrates put down before so I will skip them pics. Basically put down 2cm of power sand and 6-12cm of soil on top. The main hardscape feature (and only hardscape) is the slate "pile". I used 2inch diameter PVC pipe to make stable "saves" under the slate then piles the slate over the top to cover the pipe. This actually took about an hour to get it looking natural (and to get it together in a way so it won’t fall down!)
From this angle you can see the pipe but in the finished tank you can’t see it at all.
I ordered about 200 plants from an online store they had “Collections†which suited me as I know nothing about the different plants so I wanted to get a selection and see how they all grow. The plants weren’t in brilliant condition though and I’m still waiting for my riccia which is going to go over some of the slate.
Planting took ages. Then once I had it all planted and filled with water I didn’t like the layout so I took most of it out and replanted it
This is the (almost) finished tank. I still need to cut down the pipes for the filter and if my riccia ever turns up this will be tied to the slate.
I have too many different plant types in there at the moment for my taste but I wanted to get it planted up as much as possible and like I said I wanted to see how they all grow. As time goes on I will probably take out the ones I don’t like and spread the others out.
CO2 is currently on about 3-4 bubbles per second and the drop checker is showing green. I’m going to build an internal reactor soon as a lot of the CO2 is getting waste in the diffuser. I’m not sure how much CO2 is actually in there at the moment. The drop checker is green (was yellow until I put the new lights on and dropped very quickly once the light was turned on). When I checked the KH and PH today though the CO2 worked out to be about 8ppm, with the buffering of the Aquasoil though and the poor accuracy of the KH test kit I was using I’m pretty sure this is not correct. I’m going to have a go at making the 4dkh drop check solution which will hopefully give me a much closer idea of the actually CO2 content.
Plants are all bubbling nicely which I take to be a good sign
Floating plants who’s name I cant remember
Some pearling which doesn’t show up so well in this picture.
This is the Slate with the water and plants in. There are actually 5 entrances to the pipes inside and they are all connected. I plan on getting clown loaches so this is their home
You can’t see the pipes at all and I’m really pleased with how it looks.
For dosing I’m just going to use Brightly K and the Step traces. Once these run out I might look at cheaper alternatives but will see how things go.
Tomorrow I'm going to cut down the filter pipes and go out and grab a powerhead to build a CO2 reactor.
