Steveos Aquatic Paradise

[stevej696]

Hi,
 
Welcome to Steveo's aquatic paradise project.
 
Background:
 
Ok so i have experience with cold water tank mainly kept goldfish and other little tanks over the past few years and have got a bit bored. Dont get me wrong they are easy to maintain and look good when cleaned but they dont have any 'Wow'. So last year i took a trip down my Local Fish Store which happens to be 'Green Machine'in my opinion one of the best places for tanks and my idea of paradise!
 
After looking around at the various gorgeous aquascaped tanks the thought of having my own piece of paradise has played on my mind ever since. So after months of resisting i have now decided that i am going to create my own planted aquarium and learn the tricks of the trade along the way.
 
What im after:
 
Ok so i currently have a fairly old model Juwel rio 125 tank and stand of which i have acquired for free. The tank is perfect minus a few wear marks which doesnt really bother me. After all it whats on the inside that matters. The plan is to clean it up paint or vinyl the background to matt black (advised that this will help highlight the colours under lights) and develop my own low maintenance tank that requires little maintenance as im out of the house 15 hours a day.
 
What i paln to stock.
 
After looking around on various sites and asking various people i have decided that the best sort of plants would be low or no Co2 plants that glow slowly and look after them selves. Also the lighting i have is currently around 1 watt per litre so not a great lot.
 
 At this stage im not planning on running Co2 as i want to develop and maintain the tank and gradually upgrade. Alongside plants i will be stocking Amano shrimp, Salt and pepper cory's and some sort of Tetra.
 
For the tank setup i am going to purchase ADA Aqua soil as a thin base layer followed by approx 1 inch Black sand for the substrate. Is this an ok start?
 
So thats the plans for now i do have pictures of the tank which will be uploaded as soon as i can.
 
Any comments/ Suggestions are very welcome

 

[techen]

As far as I can see, Everything you've said is spot on. I see no issues, The only thing you'll want to keep ontop of is dosing daily ferts and a waterchange once a week and you should be fine.

 

[DerpPH]

Another suggestion is to avoid having pest snail infestations. If you do it is best to have an assassin snail.

 

[stevej696]

Am i right in thinking its best to dail dose ferts in little amounts rather than dose weekly in one hit?? If i could would prefer to be as maintenance free as possible at first so planning on plants such as java fern and annuabis with some sort of grass effect everywhere else.
 
Are there any easy maintenance plants that look good together as a foreground/ background combo?

 

[DrRob]

If you want to go very low maintenance then you can get away with weekly dosing. Thing to remember is that the more energy you add to the system the faster things change and therefore the more frequently you need to sort things out. In our case energy is largely light, so if you keep the intensity and photoperiod down then you'll keep the algae low and keep the fert regime simple. People often get carried away with too much light and create algae farms.
 
You're right to go for java fern and anubius type plants for this sort of set up. So long as you're water isn't too soft then plants like vallis and some of the hygrophilas can be good. Other than vallis and cyperus the grasses tend to want higher lights than you're likely to want on your set up to look good.
 
Oh, and crypts, most of the crypts are great, and come in all sorts of shapes and sizes.
 
I am also jealous of you for living near TGM.

 

[DerpPH]

Dwarf sagittaria is a lowlight low fert grass that is great for the planted newbie!