jimbooo
James flexton
Hi again, right time for tank 2's journal, my Juwel Rio 180 bought in December 04.
After all the fun I had with the Rekord 60 and with plant cuttings coming out of my ears I thought a bigger tank was the obvious next step. I was getting frustrated with the lack of depth in the smaller tank and wanted to get some big swords growing.
The first layout was done just before I learned about all the extra hardwear needed (see rekord 60 journal for details) from gf225. Sods law, about a month after planting I pulled it all apart to add the laterite.
Here is the original layout
very soon after that (same time as adding laterite and CO2) I sorted the lighting
the standard lighting is 2 x 30W tubes a miserable 1.25 WPG. I added 2 more tubes to give me 2.5WPG
here's the lighting
this next pic was taken a month after the upgrades, just look at the growth difference (sorry camera phone pic, pre digicam!)
the next few pics show the changes the tank has gone through since, I wont comment on them all see for yourself
things got a little out of hand with the Riccia so to speak. this stuff just keeps on growing.
so that brings me up to last Saturday.
I had put if off for weeks but the Riccia really needed some desperate attention so at 10.30pm I started to pull the tank apart.
step by step (you can see the hours flying away as you go)
the first step pulling the Riccia out
then after a good gravel vac (as I had the opportunity to see some of it!) comes the fun bit. putting the Riccia back together
for finer detail see my revised pinned riccia thread, i have added pics from this rebuild to illustrate the guide more clearly
so that brings us to about 3am with one big Riccia fluitians carpet in the left centre of the tank
there was still lots of open space in there which is never good in a planted tank in my opinion so I set to it repeating the process using dwarf Riccia on four pieces of slate.
5.30am and I was finished (in more ways than one
)
Right, thats it up to date and that last picture leads me nicely onto my next Journal, the 50G cube.
After all the fun I had with the Rekord 60 and with plant cuttings coming out of my ears I thought a bigger tank was the obvious next step. I was getting frustrated with the lack of depth in the smaller tank and wanted to get some big swords growing.
The first layout was done just before I learned about all the extra hardwear needed (see rekord 60 journal for details) from gf225. Sods law, about a month after planting I pulled it all apart to add the laterite.
Here is the original layout
very soon after that (same time as adding laterite and CO2) I sorted the lighting
the standard lighting is 2 x 30W tubes a miserable 1.25 WPG. I added 2 more tubes to give me 2.5WPG
here's the lighting
this next pic was taken a month after the upgrades, just look at the growth difference (sorry camera phone pic, pre digicam!)
the next few pics show the changes the tank has gone through since, I wont comment on them all see for yourself
things got a little out of hand with the Riccia so to speak. this stuff just keeps on growing.
so that brings me up to last Saturday.
I had put if off for weeks but the Riccia really needed some desperate attention so at 10.30pm I started to pull the tank apart.
step by step (you can see the hours flying away as you go)
the first step pulling the Riccia out
then after a good gravel vac (as I had the opportunity to see some of it!) comes the fun bit. putting the Riccia back together
for finer detail see my revised pinned riccia thread, i have added pics from this rebuild to illustrate the guide more clearly
so that brings us to about 3am with one big Riccia fluitians carpet in the left centre of the tank
there was still lots of open space in there which is never good in a planted tank in my opinion so I set to it repeating the process using dwarf Riccia on four pieces of slate.
5.30am and I was finished (in more ways than one
)
Right, thats it up to date and that last picture leads me nicely onto my next Journal, the 50G cube.
/showcase.aquatic-gardeners.org/2005...y=0&vol=3&id=98
