95 Litre "nature"

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Blubble37

Ohai dere c:
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After an extended break, I'm gonna do a little piece on my main tank. Low maintenance and looks good.
 
Equipment:
Marina 95 Litre tank, comes with a slim S20 HOB (very useful actually), a 240l/h Interal Power Filter hooked up to a AV Mini air pump and a 100w heater
 
TetraTec EX 700 External filter:
Has a minor clean every week and on the fourth week has a major clean
 
[Bio-Balls & Crushed Ceramics]
[Ceramic noodles with a filter pad]
[Double foam]
[Double foam]
[Excess BioBalls and Ceramics floating in the bottom]
 
Full length spraybar is used.
 
Slim S20 HOB setup:
This was designed as a settling chamber for solids picked up in the water and a biological filter at the same time. It requires cleaning with my current status once every two months.
 
1.) Removed all the original cartridges
2.) Filled the "chambers" with 2 inches of fluval ceramics each
3.) Fabricated a small piece of plastic to make sure water is not just sent over the surface and back out - at least 50% of the flow needs to be through the ceramics for the best effect.
 
Powerhead setup:
1.) Removed all media from the powerhead
2.) Placed in the opposite corner from my spraybar and attached to low-power air supply
 
Heater set to 24.5C with a digital thermometer and a backup glass thermometer.
 
Planting:
Vallis! It started with three weedly little plants. There is nothing but vallis in this tank, I wanted an overgrown gravel riverbed look.
 
For wood, I have 3 lumps of bogwood, I placed them down and i've let them settle in to the gravel
 
Gravel:
Wildwoods' white semi-fine gravel
JBL Riverbed gravel
Playsand
 
Vallis seems to love this substrate. As do the cory's
 
Stocking:
2x Bronze Corydoras (their friends died of age)
3x Kuhli loach (they've been there since my originals)
4x Neon Tetra
5x Male Guppy
1x Female Guppy (not ideal, but I couldn't let it be thrown, took pity on a sick little fish in an LFS)
2x Ancistrus sp. (I had one that had a fin ripped off from the LFS being vicious in catching it and another which had a bloodied stump for a fin for being in a tank with an aggressive species. Both pity-buys, both perfectly healthy, fat, fully finned and happy now).
Countless numbers of assasin snails and shrimp.
 
Everyone has their own space and nobody fights. It's really quite nice to see.
 
Photographs:
Apologies for the cloudyness, the fliter ejected a load of air and some crud from the pipes was ejected too. It's coming up for their monthly clean.
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The last one is the little plec I rescued from a vicious fate with an angry fish. No idea what it was.
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Maintenance Schedule:
It is a four-week cycle
 
 
W1 - Change 15 litres of water, lightly wash out the filter pads in the EX700, rinse off the ceramics and bioballs. Drain the HOB and allow it to re-fill. Typically 25 minutes.
 
W2 - Same as W1, cut vallis. 35 mins.
 
W3 - Same as W1 but clean the inlet strainer on the HOB. 30 mins
 
W4 - Fully clean filter pads, wash the ceramic media and bio-balls in tank water, rinse out bottom of filter bucket. Clean HOB ceramics in tank water. Clean out the internal workings of all filters including the powerhead. Change 40 litres of water. 50-60 mins.
 
Future Plans:
1.) Put ceramics in the internal powerhead.
2.) Fill the HOB up to half way with ceramics
3.) See if i can get a ground plant to spread like wildfire across the tank
4.) Replace the filter tap manifold and taps and the spraybar, U bend, Elbow pipe and spraybar stopper to replace wearing parts.
5.) Replace Bio-balls with ceramics entirely
6.) Eventually upgrade the HOB if I can find anything else that fits
7.) Slightly wider gauge pipes if possible to limit the clogging flow issues
8.) Re-Install my inline media bucket and fill it with the bio-balls i took out in 5.)
 
Liv15 said:
I see you use Wilko products!
they're inexpensive and do the dechlorination nicely, never had issue with them, i use JBL for ferts when i do fert the tank
 
Blubble37 said:
I see you use Wilko products!
they're inexpensive and do the dechlorination nicely, never had issue with them, i use JBL for ferts when i do fert the tank
Same! I use their dechlorinator & I used their 'weekly clean' when I first set up the tank to help with bacteria growth. They're so cheap but do the job
 
Liv15 said:
 
 

I see you use Wilko products!
they're inexpensive and do the dechlorination nicely, never had issue with them, i use JBL for ferts when i do fert the tank
Same! I use their dechlorinator & I used their 'weekly clean' when I first set up the tank to help with bacteria growth. They're so cheap but do the job
 


weekly cleaner was a load of crud, but cheap sodium thiosulphate isn't a bad deal.
 
Blubble37 said:
I see you use Wilko products!
they're inexpensive and do the dechlorination nicely, never had issue with them, i use JBL for ferts when i do fert the tank
Same! I use their dechlorinator & I used their 'weekly clean' when I first set up the tank to help with bacteria growth. They're so cheap but do the job

weekly cleaner was a load of crud, but cheap sodium thiosulphate isn't a bad deal.
Ah right, I did wonder whether the weekly cleaner one was any good or not
 
nah, you might aswell add bottled water to the tank in all honesty
 

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