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Oaklands.....

Just a quick phone shot whilst I upload all the camera pics.

Hate this having to wait for it to cycle though
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Black water biotope by Mr-T-, on Flickr

Added some wood to the wall behind the tank to look like more roots in water and to try and create a bit of depth
 
Looks awesome Alastair, and I agree with BigTom, love the modern, shiny look, and especially the contrast with the tannin-rich, natural looking layout of the tank itself. It really looks like as if someone took a piece of nature, and it is being displayed as a memory of times gone past; would not look out of place in the Starship Enterprise, Captain's Ready Room; much better looking than the reef tank Picard had. ;)
 
Good to hear your move went well - by your description of your local area , doesn't sound like Denton though !!


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Looks awesome Alastair, and I agree with BigTom, love the modern, shiny look, and especially the contrast with the tannin-rich, natural looking layout of the tank itself. It really looks like as if someone took a piece of nature, and it is being displayed as a memory of times gone past; would not look out of place in the Starship Enterprise, Captain's Ready Room; much better looking than the reef tank Picard had. ;)

Thanks for the kind comments. I always always wanted one of the profiles, and it's a shame they stopped producing them. The only downside to them is that they have side opening doors which means fitting in an alcove could be tricky. Beautiful tanks though. Really well built too.
That was my exact aim, to make it look like I've literally taken the water rocks leaves sand bed etc from their habitat and popped it into my tank.
I kind of did take everything from nature, just not borneo ha.

P's I loved picards tank
Good to hear your move went well - by your description of your local area , doesn't sound like Denton though !!


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Hiya Richard
Yep sure isn't Denton. I'd be lucky to find a leaf for a tank. Here I have unlimited access to hundreds of alder cones, beech leaves oak leaves wood etc.
looking good mate.. any updates?

Great idea with the wood on the wall to add depth too :)

Cheers bud,
Update yes: the wood grew a not so nice looking fungus on as I'd intentionally left the bark on most of it, and despite numerous soaks, hot water etc it appeared and looked unsightly.
That took a while to go, and I also struggled massively with the cycle. It would start to show nitrite and the day after the cycle would crash.
Soooooo..... I reverted to drastic measures. I wasn't buying pure ammonia to dose daily, I used the next best thing, good old pee in a jug. Worked wonders :cool:

The tank is now fully cycled and ready for all my lovely choccos and paros to finally come back home.

The advantage of the massive delay due to it not cycling, has meant that there is now heaps and heaps of live food appeared in the tank overtime so I'm going to have some well fed fish.

Just goes to show though, or rather makes you wonder exactly what's in our tap water.

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I've also had some luck, the most that was on the wood when I collected it outdoors, hadn't died once underwater. It's become darker and much shorter and spreading slowly but very healthily across the wood and I've no idea what it is
 
A small brief update, I have a few photos but off my phone they don't look great due to the tank lighting, I'll get some with the camera tomorrow, but for now I hope these will do..

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IMG_20141120_115128 by Mr-T-, on Flickr

I have all my choccos, vaillanti and pharosphromenus in now, looking the healthiest I've ever seen, I dose the easylife cattappa x which is brilliant, and had a poorly chocco recently so used there multi purpose natural treatment, Voogle no.chemicals, and after 5 days it's as good as new :)

I also purchased 2 cobalt Discus, couldn't say no, there's a new store near to me called marine 23 who stock some gorgeous fish, plants ferts anything marine you name it, and are building tanks now too, and saw this pair and although I told myself I'd never get discus, I did. After seeing Dan Crawford many times before I lost my self control

I also bought this beauty a few days back
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Queen Arabesque L260 by Mr-T-, on Flickr
A beautiful l260 queen arabesque plec. Only stays 4 inches in size and is the most active plec I've ever had not afraid to come and say hello.

As with my planted tank I'll take some Hi res photos with the camera

Thanks for looking
 
Marine 23 ! New one on me - although I'm N Manchester I have a good friend in Bramhall so I'm down there on a regular basis . I'm guessing by your comments that it's certainly worth a visit - I've been favouring Aqualife , but it's a bit of a treck . Abyss can be OK , BUT whenever I'm there the best fish on show always seem to be being held back as they've just been added - too far for a return trip . Not a criticism just an inconvenience !

New project is looking good !


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Marine 23 ! New one on me - although I'm N Manchester I have a good friend in Bramhall so I'm down there on a regular basis . I'm guessing by your comments that it's certainly worth a visit - I've been favouring Aqualife , but it's a bit of a treck . Abyss can be OK , BUT whenever I'm there the best fish on show always seem to be being held back as they've just been added - too far for a return trip . Not a criticism just an inconvenience !

New project is looking good !


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Thanks Richard. It's not or doesn't seem too far for me, I'm now living on hyde/broadbottom border and although it says 34 mins drive it's far from that.
It's well worth a visit though definitely. They're growing slowly and investing in extra space etc. I'm even turning one of their big 6foot displays into an aquascape for them as people think it's more marine when they actually have a huge selection of aquascaping supplies and plants.
 
I'm down that way next week , certainly have a look . Was looking for some CPD or similar but all those at Abyss we're hollow bellied , poor shape - hope we're not seeing the start of inbreeding / poor choice of parent stock like with Neon Rainbows .


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Awesome. Thats actually my favourite pleco. Like them even more than Zebra pleco.

Couldn't agree more. These are stunning plecos. Really are. I've had a few and this is my fave.
I'm down that way next week , certainly have a look . Was looking for some CPD or similar but all those at Abyss we're hollow bellied , poor shape - hope we're not seeing the start of inbreeding / poor choice of parent stock like with Neon Rainbows .


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Definitely go down and have a look, I know they have chilli raspbora, celestial pearl danios, chocolate gourami and vaillanti gourami coming in amongst others this week. I can't wait :)
 
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