After losing one of my favorite bala sharks to a head injury I decided to hurry the process along and buy the pre-made Juwel backgrounds. They cost a few pennies, but with bala sharks at £40 for a good size specimen, losing another shark would pay for half the background so I gave in and got the panels.
They are nice and sturdy and cut easily, but the filter pack is a waste, it leaves massive gaps...so I ripped mine off and using the left-overs of the main background constructed a more sturdy filter cover with no gaps.
The next job was to fill the seams, so they are not visible. I got a tube of Gold Label 'one shot' silicone and my wife mixed acrylic paints with the silicone until it matched the base grey of the background. I then filled all the seams, making sure to make cross cuts through the seams to break them up to the eye! I then painted the effected areas with grey acrylic and when dried, dry brushed an off white onto the high points to blend it into the rest of the background.
Final step - got 2.5L of clear G3 sealer for £14 from a shop in the middle of nowhere (LFS sells it for £88!!!!) and gave the background a thorough 3 coats which left a very nice polyurethane layer on top, very high gloss, but invisible once underwater, phew!! Don't bother trying to clean your brushes, even with acetone, they will die, so I had to dispose of my favorite household touch-up brush. 72 hours cure time, otherwise lethal to fish, but I anyway was waiting for gravel so it was not a problem.
I then added untreated 25L of John Innes No.2, followed by 15kg of black sand and finally 25kg of black silicate based gravel. I should have got John Innes no. 3 as I already have algae, but you live and learn! Clouding was quite bad, but its getting better and better by the day.....not sure what caused the clouding as it was white, but I assume bacteria from the soil.
I then added my trusty ammonia machines who have done 3 tanks for me already, 5 x zebra danios and 2 x red platies......I did have this tanks secondary filter (Fluval 406) running as a tertiary external filter on an established tank.....not sure if that helped seed it at all, but since moving it to new tank and 2 weeks of expecting both the soil and fish to produce ammonia spike, it still hasn't happened.....not sure whats going on there, might be a bit delayed!
Today my HC arrived from ebay, brilliantly packaged and excellent quiality, I've been making iron hooks to anchor it down until it roots, then I've left 'handles' on the anchors so I can pull them out once they have rooted. Pending the opinions on my lighting, I'll probably start on a DIY CO2 reactor very soon, I'm thinking of hiding a 25L drum under the aquarium doing the nasty work, I think that should produce enough CO2 hopefully until I can afford a professional system, if I even bother to go down that route, time will tell!
Now the minute I figure out how to add photos, I will......
Tricky
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