Eden

[SLIM]

Tank - Aqua One 1800r
Heaters - Fluval E300 & Fluval M300
Filtration - Fluval FX5
Lighting - Stock, 4 T5 Tropical, 4 T5 Sunlight
Photoperiod - 8 Hours daily
Flow - Hydor Koralia 1600 (soon to be replaced by a 3200)
Substrate - Black sand
Hard Scape - Redmoor Root and Rocks
Ferts - Dry Salts and APF Substrate Capsules (Low Tech)
Plants - Iv seriously lost count. Probably most crypts, vallis, anubias, dwarf sag, Tiger
Lotus Ozelot Green, Ozelot Red, Indian Fern, Java Moss, Fame Moss, Stargrass and Needle leaf fern is on order
Fish - 25 Tiger Barbs, 2 Pearl Gouramis, 2 Angelfish, 15 Cardinals, a Bristlenose Plec and a L288
(I know there will be people who dont agree with my stocking but it works for me, i have no aggression or fin nipping)

Hi everyone

I thought i would put together some sort of journal for my forever changing tank so i can keep track of the progress and changes, and so i can get comments, suggestions, help and constructive criticism.
Please be patient as photos and updates will probably be a slow process.

So far my aquarium has been set up for 4 months now so it still very much a work in progress and still needs to do alot of growing in. Im forever changing things as i keep getting new ideas as the tank progresses.

First of all before i get too deep on my aqua one, a little background. Jus a little lol

I got into the hobby about 2 n a half years ago with my first 60L Tropical Plantless open top tank.
Like most of you when i started out i didnt know anything about cycling and water changes and of course every fish i bought kept dieing. LFS was no help
Heart broken and frustrated i turned to the internet for answers and found this forum.
I was quickly educated on fish in and fishless cycling. Armed with this knowledge i jumped into a fishless cycle and i was successful fairly quickly. My first fish in my cycled tank where guppies.
It wasnt long before i was looking to upgrade, and boy did i lol.
I traded in the 60L for a Fluval Vicenza 260L from seapets.
After some time had passed with my new 260L, I quickly got bord of the of the plastic plants and admired all the planted tanks on here so much i decided to go planted.
I did weeks of research and constantly pestered people on here for plant knowledge then dove in head first.
Again i was successful
As my tank got more and more heavily planted i eventually decided to learn all about Co2 injection and EI fertilization. It wasnt long before i had a full FE co2 kit up and running.

Here is a pic of my last tank. I was extremely proud of this

 

[SLIM]

 
 
And it was with this i proudly won tank of the month

 
 
 
About 4 months ago i moved house and i saw this as a perfect opportunity to upgrade once again. I knew i wanted big, i wanted really big so i went for a Aqua One 1800r as im pretty sure this is as big as you can go without having it custom made.
The rest is kinda history.
This time around i decided to go low tech as not only is it a big tank but Co2 Injection is jus too much of a constant fuss for me.
Plus i kinda wanted to prove to myself that you can have a healthy heavily planted tank without co2 and Flora Base
 
Anyway to bring you guys up to speed abit, here are some pics of setup up until now
 
Any thought or comments welcome

 

[Shelster]

Tank looks amazing!!

I have a planted vision 180, I know absolutely nothing about co2 and use with plants, but how do you grow them to look like they do without getting algae on them?
My tanks lights are on from 11-30 am to 6 pm and I have lts of algae

 

[SLIM]

Tank looks amazing!!

I have a planted vision 180, I know absolutely nothing about co2 and use with plants, but how do you grow them to look like they do without getting algae on them?
My tanks lights are on from 11-30 am to 6 pm and I have lts of algae

(

Its all about balance really. Ferts, light, flow and small water changes i find with heavily planted low techs.
Nice tank by the way.
What flow you got going? lph?
And whats your tank size?
what ferts do you use and how much how often?
and whats your water change prodcedure? how much how often?

 

[techen]

Your tank looks really nice.
 
My 200L is getting its CO2 gear set up too cant wait

 

[SLIM]

Im actually keeping this one low tech mate. My last tank (top) was injected

 

[SLIM]

Your tank looks really nice. 
My 200L is getting its CO2 gear set up too cant wait

Thanx mate, love your tank too. Amazing bit of hard scape.
Very nice!
Im actually keeping this low tech, iv been down the high tech route before but thought ild try a different method this time.

 

[Ps3Steveo]

Lol thought I was about to look at my old journal with same name for a minute lol, nice scape.

 

[SLIM]

Lol thought I was about to look at my old journal with same name for a minute lol, nice scape.

Is that what your last scape was called? Dammit!! Lol Oh Man I even typed eden into the tff search bar before posting, nothi g came up

Really? I cant say Dammit? lol


This actually is not how the tank looks now, told you i keep changing it.
I took out most of the rocks on the left hand side and put the redmoor root in i bought off ps3steveo.
I also planted a Ozelot green and a Ozelot red behind that.
Looks abit bare to what it did but hopefully itll fill out abit when i put in some Needle leaf fern on the root when you send it next week!
Heres some up to date pics so you can see what im talking about.

 

[Ps3Steveo]

Wheres the new pics?
 
Here's my old one.
 
http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?/topic/376138-eden/

 

[SLIM]

The Dwarf Sag has not long been planted.
Its only just recovering from the first inital melt and is only just putting out runners.
This is why it looks abit untidy at the mo.
Eventually i want the whole floor covered with a thick carpet of dwarf sag.

Wheres the new pics?
 
Here's my old one.
 
http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?/topic/376138-eden/

Wow i love you scapes. I honestly have never seen this or i would of thought of another name lol
New pics are up

Please any suggestion improvments go ahead, thats the whole point of the journal

 

[daizeUK]

Awesome tank, I love it.  I am gathering ideas for a low-tech planted tank in the future so this beautiful setup is an inspiration to me.
 
I did love the rock layout and the tall plant on the far left (was it a needle leaf fern?) but the wood looks good as well.  I think that I would consider swapping the two bits of wood on the left, in order to have the larger ornamental wood in a prominent position a third of the way along the tank (can you tell I've been reading about rule of thirds in the aquascaping section )

 

[SLIM]

Awesome tank, I love it.  I am gathering ideas for a low-tech planted tank in the future so this beautiful setup is an inspiration to me. I did love the rock layout and the tall plant on the far left (was it a needle leaf fern?) but the wood looks good as well.  I think that I would consider swapping the two bits of wood on the left, in order to have the larger ornamental wood in a prominent position a third of the way along the tank (can you tell I've been reading about rule of thirds in the aquascaping section )

Thankyou very much
I totally agree with you. Im still not 100% happy with the left side. The wood i got from ps3steveo looks kinda randomly placed.Maybe its too small for my tank and i do indeed need a much larger piece. Trouble is finding the perfect piece.I guess i was hoping covering it with needle leaf and once the dwarf sag grows under it, itll look more natural. Kinda disguised with randon sticks sticking out of thick green foliage lol that was my vision anyway lol.The plant i pulled out in the far right hand corner was just ordinary Java Fern. It was the first plant i ever bought and i guess i was bord of It. I replaced it with startgrass. Its still kinda small at the mo but its growing fast and im hoping to have a big thick bush of it in the right corner soon

Oh sorry you said tall plant on the far left didnt ya?Thats actually a Crypt. Crypt Balansae i believe

 

[SLIM]

Ok this is turning into a addition. Lol! Iv jus ordered a Echinodorus Paul Klocker, another Echinodorus ozelot green and 2 more Echinodorus ozelot reds. Think im gona bin the tall Anubias on the right and replace with all these Echinodoruses.

 

[Ps3Steveo]

I like it, the name is cool mate,great minds think alike lol.