Carl's 4Ft Of Glory

[Bartash]

Ok ive started planning the re-scape of my 4ft tank

Im going to be using some wood i pulled out of a river local to me about a year ago, its been sitting in my garden drying out and is totally dead.
Because the pieces are too large to boil up im going to run a bath of scolding hot water and give them a good scrub. This will hopefully be enough to kill anything that might have made the wood its home.

Ive tried to plan this tank so it will be suitable for Cory's as i would like to have a shoal of them

I decided to have a play around with a layout on the hood of my tank.

Ignore the long line of string going from one end of the tank to the other, the plan is to have 2 separate planted ares as marked out by the other two pieces of string. The area at the front of the is going to be filled with sand.

I have already bought the sand i am going to use at the front, im using JBL Sansibar "River" this is a nice small rounded sand which will be perfect for the Corys.

Currently in my tank i am using aquabasis and manado but after about 18 months of use its looking quite discoloured and dirty. I am going to reuse some of this in stocking bags to build up mounds but also to give the added benefit of live bacteria.

I have not decided what substrate to use as the cap for the planted areas yet but i think a nice dark colour to contrast against the light coloured sand will be good.



I also need to find some nice rock to place amongst the wood

My current filter is coming towards the end of its life so im planning to buy one of the 2000LPH external filters from:

http/www.allpondsolutions.co.uk/aquarium-1/aquarium-filters/external-filters/aquarium-external-filter-2000-l-h-9w-uv.html

My tank is 4ft long and 18" high but only 12" in depth, if i had the money i would go out and get a tank that is 18" depth because i find hard working with a thin profile tank.

Ok thats it for the time being i will update soon

Feel free to comment of recommend things

Thx

Carl

Ok so i finally got round to doing the re-scape,

One last time messing with layout

Ok so after i caught the fish, stripped out the plants and rocks and drained all the water i piled up all the old aquabasis and manado into the 2 main planting areas.

I placed the wood and rocks roughly where i wanted them

I then added the JBL Sansibar "River" Sand to the front of the tank

I then capped the old manado mix with a fresh bag of manado and tied mosses onto the wood and planted the plants

Sorry but i forgot to take photos at this point

Then i started to fill the tank with some containers of of the old water i saved and fresh water

and the final picture

This is a good starting point for this project

Next update i will tell you what plants i used and tell you more about my setup

You can see a video here of my angel fish in this new setup:

http/youtu.be/8ytcdVynY_o


Thx Carl

 

[minnnt]

Looks great Carl, I really like it. I would have to go with a black background though.

 

[Salam]

Love it! Very beautiful wood

 

[Ps3Steveo]

Looks great, I'm off down the road to my local river today for some wood scavenging.

 

[ZoddyZod]

very nice indeed. Beautiful angels!

 

[frothhelmet]

Wow, those are the prettiest wild-form scalares I have seen. Are they F1s? They almost look like they are part altum. Where did you get them?