Arrrahhh Why?!?!?!

[George Farmer]

Scroll down to the bottom of this page and see if anything suit you here.
http/www.dartfrog.co.uk/equipment/landscape.html

Nice link BigC - is cork ok in water though?

Great to see you active in planted again mate .

 

[big mick]

That link is great!!.......I could (and probably will) spend a small fortune on there!

Nice one BigC

 

[oldwhitewood]

That link is great!!.......I could (and probably will) spend a small fortune on there!

Nice one BigC

I have emailled them asking which of their woods is suitable. Looks bloody interesting regardless.

 

[George Farmer]

I have emailled them asking which of their woods is suitable. Looks bloody interesting regardless.

Let us know how they respond mate. I'll be after some soon no doubt.

 

[shrimply]

I don't know if cork wood will be any good. I use cork bark for my snakes and when I wash it a lot of colouring comes out.

On the other hand maybe this is something which would pass and since it can be used in such humid conditions it might work well.

 

[paulioo]

Aquaessentials sell branches but they cost £80, which is pretty expensive. They also sell mangrove roots but i dont think they look like the Mangrove roots shown earlier in this thread.

The problems with using cork is that it will float, so you;d need to silicone it to come slate or something. No big deal i suppose.

Paul

 

[fi$hys]

you can buy them n ebay usually with java moss on but they arn't cheap they are around £25-75 i have seen them.

 

[oldwhitewood]

Hey guys, well I got a response from them regarding what would float or not, as you say I mean its not a huge issue as you can always tie these things together with fishing wire to form the nested root and then weigh them down with stones or slate as suggested.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hi Neil,
I can confirm that the medium cork branches float. The only woods that I checked which sink immediately are the mangrove root and mopani wood. The liana's we sell partially sink (tend to sit suspended depending on the density of wood across the length). The opuwa wood would probably sink over time.
Regards
Mark

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm going to write back saying "look basically get us wood like this

and that everyone over at the plants and planted tank forum will buy it and see what he says

Aquaessentials sell branches but they cost £80, which is pretty expensive. They also sell mangrove roots but i dont think they look like the Mangrove roots shown earlier in this thread.

The problems with using cork is that it will float, so you;d need to silicone it to come slate or something. No big deal i suppose.

Paul

Aquaessentials do sell the old black wood by ADA, but it's more of your normal bogwood type pieces and not these long roots and branches ADA seem to use, to be honest the mangrove roots are probably more like what you would want, but they're pretty big and I had to saw mine position them carefully to create a natural layout, see attached picture below...

 

[paulioo]

I found this website that sells loads of nice wood and stones for aquariums..

http/www.aquadeco.com/english.html

Unforunately it seems you need to have a trade license in order to make orders with them. No doubt their prices would be hugely over the top.

Paul

 

[George Farmer]

Very nice Neil. What lighting is that?

 

[oldwhitewood]

I found this website that sells loads of nice wood and stones for aquariums..

http/www.aquadeco.com/english.html

Unforunately it seems you need to have a trade license in order to make orders with them. No doubt their prices would be hugely over the top.

Paul

I know what you mean, that site as you say looks to be for dealers only, they have some great wood though dont they??? gits!

Very nice Neil. What lighting is that?

Thanks Sir! The lights are the arcadia 4 39w T5 luminaire, but I have modified it slightly replacing the plant pro tubes with Geismann 6500k midday tubes and a suspension kit, the frame if you will is IKEA turned out to be exactly the right width for my tank and cost me about a tenner.

 

[George Farmer]

Great job, looks almost ADA in finish - no mean feat!

I'm tempted to go for the 32" 4 x 24W T5 Arcadia Luminaire and spray paint it matt black. £160 is the cheapest I've seen so far (with tubes) - how did you find the Plant-Pros colour wise?

 

[oldwhitewood]

Great job, looks almost ADA in finish - no mean feat!

I'm tempted to go for the 32" 4 x 24W T5 Arcadia Luminaire and spray paint it matt black. £160 is the cheapest I've seen so far (with tubes) - how did you find the Plant-Pros colour wise?

I wanted a black one too but arcadia just dont do them. The plant pro tubes I really didn't like at all. They have a very pinkish tinge to them and reminded me a bit of a triton light. I really dislike anything with a red tinge to it I much prefer a yellow or blueish tint, but now I stick to lights exclusively in the 6000 - 6500k colour temp as I find the clean white light to be the best for me.

It is basically me trying to do an ADA tank without being able to buy an ADA tank, I estimate a tank of that size using ADA equipement for every part of it would cost about 5K, the stuff just isn't in this country yet but the fact that aquaessentials can get a lot of ADA stock has to be a good thing and hopefully the popularity of it will increase and more people will get into nature aquariums in the UK.

 

[George Farmer]

I'm with you on the anti-pink brigade!

Your tank certainly looks very professional in terms of finish. I really like the lighting and frame. I'm also very impressed by the filter set up on the tank's side. I assume this fits in with your no-background concept? Is the filter output a pipe end or will you run a spray bar? What size tank is it?

I sincerely hope you intend running a journal on this baby!

May also pick you brains on your luminaire?

1. Does it come with just the one plug?
2. Are the lights independently switchable, if so how do you automatically stagger if there's just one plug?
3. Are the reflectors integral, are they any good? Any chance of a photo from the bottom up?
4. Would you say that Watt for Watt the T5 tubes are much more intense than their T8 counterparts i.e. would 100W of T5 be brighter than 100W of T8?

Apologies for all the questions and deviating from the original thread - but I'm sure you don't mind helping out another Nature freak!

I'm just about to order the ADA catalog BTW, the more I see designs like yours the more I want that bespoke look for myself! Not sure my missus will be too happy though (£££).

Happy New Year my friend!

 

[RYO]

Hi Neil
don't know if you been to the world of water near you , last time i was there they had a good selection of wood from the mangrove roots trough to huge chunks and pretty cheap too.
http/www.worldofwater.com/manchester.htm