Cooper2085's New Tank Journal

[Cooper2085]

Well after 7 weeks of waiting i have recieved the call saying my tank will be ready next week. Im starting a journal here to show how my setup goes and the changes that are made from my first ideas to the finished product. So without further ado lets move onto;

The Tank

• 72"L x 24"W x 30"H (6ft x 2ft x 2.5ft)
• Holds 850L of water
• Maple cabinet and hood to match room decor
• 4 Light tubes from 2 seperate controllers
• Fluval FX5 Filter with a secondary as yet undecided 2nd external filter
• 2 300w external inline heaters
• 3D Amazon rock and route background

The nitty gritty

• 1 x Tub of JBL Proflora Start
• 4 x 2.5L JBL AquaBasis Plus
• A layer of sand/gravel mix hopefully similar in looks to coral sand
• 1 x JBL M602 Co2 Kit
• 1 x Humungus piece of twiggy, holey, bogwood.

The Plants

• Ammannia Gracilis
• Bacopa Caroliniana
• Mixed Cyptocoryne
• Mixed Anubis
• Java Fern
• Hygrophila Polysperma
• Limnobium Laevigatum
• Rotala Macrandra (Temp dependant)
• Rotala Rotundifolia
• Vallisneria Asiatica Var. Biwaensis
• A form of carpet plant
  

Please note this list is not final, im still very undecided and may keep the number variety of plants to a minimum in the end.


The Plan

So there we have the ingredients, but what are we actually making?

I envisage a piece of bogwood around 2ft high at its peak running in a diagonal line from the back right of the tank to the front left. The filter inlets will be placed at the back left of the tank and the back center of the tank. The outlets will be a spray bar on the right hand side wall of the tank running left and a normal outlet at the bottom right corner of the tank facing in a similar direction as the bogwood.

Substrate will be used mainly behind the bogwood and on the right hand side of the tank, planting the larger of the plants at the back and back right sloping down to the more dwarf variety of plants at the front right, and front center, with a carpet type plant to be used at the very front left of the tank. The Co2 diffuser will be placed out of sight at the back right of the tank with the filter outlet to help disperse it around the tank.

I hope someone can stand to look at my fantastic MS Paint skills! The blue bar and arrows are the FX5 spray bar and flow. The orange dot and arrows are the 2nd filter outlet and flow. The grey dot is the Co2 Diffuser and the purple dots are both filter inlets (one should have been in the middle). The black rock in the middle is bogwood, or i hope it will be! The dark green represents tall plants while the light green is mid level plants. The red shows small plants and hopefully a nice carpet. It wont be as heavily planted as the picture shows, im a cory lover so there will be plenty of space for them in amongst the plants. The wood will be planted with fern and anubis of varying families depending on what the wood looks like when i pick it this Thursday.

The Stock

• 24 x Congo tetras
• 24 x Galaxy Rasboras
• 24 x Harlequin Rasboras
• 24 x Cardinal Tetras
• 24 x Neon Green Rasboras
• 24 x Cherry Shrimp
• 2 x BN Plec
• 24 x Undecided Cory

Thats the starter anyway I wont make a final stocking list but i want lost of shoals of small fish, for that wow effect

I can take any critisism thrown my way, im open to any ideas and any advice you veteran fish keepers have for me. This is supposed to be my dream tank and im like a giddy schoolkid at christmas waiting for it to arrive!

I have the Co2 system and substrate already, i will be picking up gravel/sand/wood from Wharf Aquatics on Thursday. Then my plant order goes in at Maidenhead Aquatics, il get it scaped and setup before i go away for a week and then look at the fish when i get back!

Pictures will be forthcoming and i will update this thread on a regular basis!

Cheers for reading

Aaron

 

[KkAaNnEe]

Hehe nice! Looking forward to see this. Any reason for all the 24s? LOL

 

[Cooper2085]

Well on smaller setups I used to go with shoals of 6, anything 200l and up was shoals of 12. I figure shoals of 20+ will give plenty of scope for a variety of species and 24 is a nice even number

 

[KkAaNnEe]

Love schoaling fish, so thumbs up from me.

Only thing, I just worry that the schools wont schoal so well and it might end up a bit of a mish mash, kinda like when you see a fully stocked tank of guppies

If it was me, something like two schoals, with completely different colours such as cardinals and harelquins/green rasboras, say 40 of each. But as you say, you only want schoaling fish, so that would be really understocked...

 

[Ric]

Can't wait to see how this goes!

I'm really new to keeping fish so enjoy seeing how everyone else does it. good luck with it!

 

[Tizer]

nice i'd personally drop two a few species and go full out mad on two or three of the others

I mixed up lots of fish on my old 200litre and it didnt have a wow impact at all. This time around sticking to rummynose and tiger barbs it looks far better, tiz the only advice i can give.

 

[SchottayB]

I'll be keeping my eye on this one! Sounds good .

The post above is right IMO, more of one fish is better than more mixed. But thats my opinion

 

[The.FL.Keys]

This shall be a superb fish habitat, but I'd stock the more exotic pleco species if possible

 

[Cooper2085]

The tank arrived yesterday, iv taken plenty of photos of it so when I get in from work il upload them all and update the thread!

 

[minnnt]

Sounds great, but there is no way i would have a tank of this size without some big fish in there, but i guess thats what makes fish keeping so interesting and exciting, everybody is different.

 

[Cooper2085]

Right then, first off let me apologise for the lateness of this update! Secondly let me tell you something; Big tanks are heavy. Im not kidding, they are ridiculously heavy. It took 4 of us to get the cabinet in and 4 of us about an hour to get the tank in.

But we managed to get it indoors and on the cabinet.

I expected the tank to be huge but the sheer size of it when on the cabinet startled me. It was literally big enough for my 2 sons to swim in.

They had fun playing hide and seek in the cabinet for a while aswell

I added the bogwood first;

Followed by the pro flora plant food;

Then finally the sand and a few rocks;

Welcome to the problems.


I then made the mistake of adding water. I really really should have waited because the amount of problems im running into now could have been helped alot by NOT ADDING WATER!

First off there was no where to attach my heaters, the FX5 outlet pipe was too large for standard external heaters so i opted for 2 300W internals instead. I ended up sticking them down the back of the 3D background which then gave me the problem of how to circulate the heat. I moved my 2nd external filter inlet behind the 3D background on the opposite side to the heaters to suck the warm water into the heater and distribute it evenly across the tank. I managed to get the spray bar to fit over the 3D background and the water distributes from left to right. I ended up using a maidenhead aquatics own brand 1400l P/H external filter for this. Its quite neat and tidy and you dont see any of the filter attachments when the hood is on.

Then onto my FX5. #93### #33### this filter is an abomonation to use with my 3D background. The pipe holders that fit onto the tank dont have any give to get them over the 3D'ness of my background. I manage to mish mass the inlet pipe in and it sits on the right side of the tank glass in the center, the outlet (not impressed it only came with the 1 option to use) is hooked around the top of the inlet pipe and points down from right to left and down from back to front. This gives the tank a steady circulation of upto 2900l P/H if you believe the writing on the box.

I was meeting up with a family member the next day and he was giving me a hand getting the lights fitted and setting up the Co2 kit so i went and bought a few plants to test the water so to speak. The plants went in but the help never happened as we ended up watching the footy >.> We had a party to go to that night and then i went away the day after for a week returning tonight.

Well you can guess whats happened.

The water is BLACK from the tannins as iv been away and not been able to do water changes and of course the majority of plants have melted because i just forgot they were in there >.>

Onwards and upwards though, it shouldnt take long to sort out, just lights Co2 and some big water changes and we should be back on track.

A quick question to big tank keepers, whats the best way to get a good flow running the tank as i dont think mine is good enough at the moment.

 

[minnnt]

Awesome mate, looks like you had a lot of fun with it!

That is the exact reason I don't use 3d back grounds, I have too many things I need to stick to the back panel of the tank.

This will look great as a planted tank!

Get some pics with the black water, never seen one that bad!

 

[KkAaNnEe]

Wow its coming on just how i imagined, looking great mate!

I dont have a massive tank but its close to a 4x2x2. Powerheads or wavemakers are your best bet for circulation, a couple 3000lph would probably do. Try ebay, they're cheap on there.

 

[Tizer]

That bogwood is brilliant, but i cant help but think it will leak tannins for months

 

[SchottayB]

Looks great! Done such a good job of that bog wood looks great where it is!

Will be a shame to see the water stained though lol