Well Im On My Way.....

[Behold]

Just bought my

ex700 = 50 quid
Jager heater = 10.74
and api kit = 15.50

Next is choose gravel or sand.... still not sure

get some chlorine remover and ammonia and get my cycle running....

Plants.... Any sugestions on must have plants and easy to keep

Also is there any good places to get new lighting for my hood???

 

[bubblesburst80]

Hi, Congratulations on your purchases, personally i have gravel, I look into sand as its really nice but just seems like waaay to much hard work. As for plants, for now i'm sticking to the plastic kind.
I'm sure there will be more people along who can help you out more

xXx

 

[merry78]

on the plants, i'm sure more experienced plant people will know more, but i have always found that elodea, java ferns, java moss (tied to ornaments) and corkscrew val are very tough to kill, quite cheap, don't get eaten too much by fish (except they might pick at elodea, as plants are usually healthy for most fish types to pick at, this isn't a bad thing), and are fast growing and don't require heaps of light, which will help keep your algae down.
Check out the plants and planted section further down on this forum, there's heaps of great info there including some excellent pinned topics on things like algae control.

 

[ShoC]

I am totally in love the,

Amazon Sword plant,
Hornwort,
and Java fern,

I consider them Very easy to keep,
And you could get some java moss tie it to some wood/rock and watch it boom,
But be ready for some pruning

they all produce superb oxygen and hornwort grows and an exceptional speed,

Hornwort in the middle,

2x plants to the left are amazon sword,

the silly little rock that look crud is my new java moss,
and the one on the red rock im not sure what it is,
I think its Anubia but grows and looks fantastic,

Im using no Co2 and my lights are only 25w


p.s the small hairy thing is Dwarf hair grass,
WONT grow in my tank Stupid but I bought it

pp.s Check the live plants you buy for snails and eggs,
If you have no fish I would treat your tank with plant safe snail killer,
they are obliterating my tank at the moment (and my plants)

The substrate im using is Gravel but finer than most the plants seem to root well in it I find,
thought I have heard smaller ones can crush the roots,
My catfish loves to dig but causes disturbance with the plant roots. (make sure you have smooth rounded gravel else your algae eaters can get hurt on sharp edges,