My Pfk Aquacube Journal!

[Sibelius]

Hello! Yes, it's my turn now! My Aquacube turned up at long last this morning in good condition - and so I'm going to have a go at doing my own journal so all you people can see my progress! Today I've been shopping for equipment, so this is what's happened so far:

I've bought: Silver Sand, an "Elite" 50W heater by Hagen, new filter media to replace the carbon that came with the aquacube itself, a thermometer, tetraplant complete substrate, and obviously the aquarium is here itself.

Once I've got the sand washed, and I've learnt how to operate the digital camera, I'll get pictures on here!

 

[KimA]

Glad you finally got it (& my favourite type of shopping, the fish/tank/accessories type)

Can't wait to see your pics

 

[Sibelius]

Hi again, sorry about the wait for a bit. As well as having started my work experience this week, my internet's been full of problems. Still, I've learnt how to work the camera so that's good. I'll hopefully have the sand washed, and the substrate in by this evening or tomorrow, so I'll have another photo soon, but for now, here's proof that the camera works! This is some of the stuff that I've got, and the tank in situ.

 

[Sibelius]

The tank has been cleaned in old water from my other aquarium, and the substrates have gone in.

This is what it looked like after the soil fertiliser went in.

And this is it's current state, with sand also!

Any comments welcome, especially ideas for planting and stock.

I'm thinking along the lines of a fairly wood-heavy tank, but with plenty of plants (which I intend to get from Greenline.)
The stocking plan, (also up for debate!) is as follows:
5 or 6 guppies (not for breeding.) 2 khuli loaches (as they'll prefer the sand in this tank to my other tank which has rounded gravel.) and possibly 3 corydoras (a small species.) I might drop the corys altogether if I think it looks busy already, after the other fish have been stocked. Oooh, and I'm thinking of a pair of amano shrimp too, to help with cleaning.

 

[Sibelius]

The plants have been ordered:
1. Limnobium Spongia (Amazong Frogbit Tropical.)
2. an amazon sword,
3. 5 dwarf sagittaria,
4. 5 small helsine (Mucranthemum Micrathemoides),
5. 5 Ammania Mini Species,
6. Green Ledwigia
7. creeping jenny.

My plan is: hide the filter with 6. This will go around 2, which will be the focal point, 7, will also be in the background, possibly growing out of the tank. 3 will be in the midground, as well as some wood, which should provide cover for the bottom dwellers. 4 & 5 will be scattered in the foreground, possibly with pebbles, whilst 1 is a floating plant, which will provide a small amount of cover, although I don't intend to block much light at all.

Any comments are more than welcome!!!!

 

[George Farmer]

Another potentially great nano.

I fear the supplied light and no CO2 will give you problems with some of your plants i.e. helsine and ammania, but you may be ok.

I look forward to seeing the progress.

 

[Sibelius]

Thanks, I'm looking into getting one of the sera sets for CO2 as shown on the PFK website article about how to set up the tank. I'll see how it goes with the lighting and hope for the best!

 

[Sibelius]

The plants arrived today and looked in good shape. I washed them as instructed to remove any copper residue.

The big bag at the top is 25 plants, (the PFK subscription offer.)

This is half way through planting.

and this is all of the plants in.

notice how at the front left there are some plants that I didn't order specially, they came in the free bundle. If anyone can identify them for me it woudl be appreciated. I'll probably remove them at some point as I'm going to get some wood to go there, but for the time being i'm hoping that they'll stop algea from taking over.

some of the "random" plants are shown here.

comments and criticisms would be useful, thanks! The only changes that I had planned are to take out those extra plants when the new ones bunch up, that I want to keep, then put wood in there. but I'd love to here your views.

 

[KimA]

Coming along very nicely

 

[Miss Wiggle]

looks really good

I'd put more than 2 amano shrimp in there and drop the cories tbh.

Cories like bigger groups than 3 (I know people say it's fine, to me thought they're miles happier with more) and they'll also be right buggers for disrupting your plants and causing havoc. Also if a tank's quite heavily planted it becomes nigh on impossible to keep the substrate clean, and then your cories start picking up infections etc. So I'd replace them in your stocking with the shrimp, get 5 in total

if your nto breeding guppies are you goign all m or f or are you just gonna leave it up to nature?

 

[Sibelius]

Thanks for your comments. I don't know whether I will get corys at all. If I do, I'm looking into getting 3/4 Pygmy corys, which I hope will do less "re-arranging" for me, than other full size species.

 

[Sibelius]

I got some wood, pebbles, and 3 amano shrimp yesterday. I'm boiling the wood at the moment, and I'll probably put it in this evening. More pics soon then! Sadly, one of the shrimp got out of the tank and died. I'm guessing it must've gone up a leaf that was poking out the top of the tank, as it couldn't climb an inch up of the glass vertical face? Anyway, that was saddening. Also, I'm ordering a co2 set off ebay. The plants are doing ok, except the helsine which seems to be struggling. Do people plant the tiny stems together in a clump? Or should I put them all seperate?

 

[Miss Wiggle]

I got some wood, pebbles, and 3 amano shrimp yesterday. I'm boiling the wood at the moment, and I'll probably put it in this evening. More pics soon then! Sadly, one of the shrimp got out of the tank and died. I'm guessing it must've gone up a leaf that was poking out the top of the tank, as it couldn't climb an inch up of the glass vertical face? Anyway, that was saddening. Also, I'm ordering a co2 set off ebay. The plants are doing ok, except the helsine which seems to be struggling. Do people plant the tiny stems together in a clump? Or should I put them all seperate?

awww poor shrimpy, they do get away sometimes, you need a nice tight fitting lid.

Ian had some red clawed crabs once, one of them climbed up and sat on the light bulb, then died when it got switched on the next day

you have to be careful with anything like that!

not familiar with that plant sorry!

 

[helsekia]

looking good,keep the pictures coming

 

[Tsi_User]

Sadly, one of the shrimp got out of the tank and died. I'm guessing it must've gone up a leaf that was poking out the top of the tank, as it couldn't climb an inch up of the glass vertical face? Anyway, that was saddening.

That's sad to hear you definately need a tight lid to keep them in. I remember one of our Amano Shrimp almost died by climbing the filter outlet while water was pouring down it!

The plants look like they shipped in fairly good condition though