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My first adventure into aquascaping - Aquael 125L Walstad

Exciting news - the plants and rocks have arrived! :D :D
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They all look beautiful, I'm so excited!

Question though - how best should I store them before I use them?

As you can see I've put them in a bucket with 22*C conditioned water with a light over it, with a small amount of fertiliser, does that sound okay?

I'm super excited so hopefully they won't be hanging around too long while I get things set up!
 
Plants in a bucket are prone to a chain reaction of melting. I think it is probably related to consuming all the available O2.

I would ensure some water movement or have an air pump in there.

Rocks, on the other hand, they don't care what's coming, they just keep on rocking.
 
LMuhlen said:
Plants in a bucket are prone to a chain reaction of melting. I think it is probably related to consuming all the available O2.

I would ensure some water movement or have an air pump in there.

Rocks, on the other hand, they don't care what's coming, they just keep on rocking.
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Good to know about the rocks. 👍

Oh man I was joking at work about how much project management setting up a fish tank requires! My filter hasn't arrived yet and I don't have an air pump! I can swirl the water a bit when I walk past...
 
I had a bit of a crazy evening setting up the hardscape & substrate!

@_Maq_ you'll be pleased to know my soil mix has become slightly less experimental - the top soil I wanted to use appeared to have gone anaerobic in the bag (it had turned to mud and stank of sulfur), so I just went with 4 parts aquatic compost and one part Melcourt farmyard (about 5 litres of it in total, maybe a bit less).

There's a bag of gravel in the back to add height, then approx 2-3cm of soil (with a gap at the edge and a slight slope front to back). I added some window screen mesh to separate the soil from the gravel, and then gravel which also banks up at the back.

I haven't finalised the position of the wood yet, I think I'll need to cut a bit off to get the right angle, and then find a way to attach it to the rocks.

I added a frosted background to the back, with help from my partner. It was a major headache and the finish still isn't perfect, will decide whether it's worth keeping once I know how it looks with water and plants.

The gravel is Dennerle natural quartz 1-2mm. It's much greyer than I expected, but it goes reasonably well with the rock (7kg seiryu). I dropped some gravel on the floor and it scattered everywhere, like a thousand tiny marbles, which was a bit of a low point. I've now got a towel on the floor and I've switched to using a yogurt pot instead of a trowel to move it into the tank.

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Thank you! :
LFNfan said:
That looks cool. Oodles of potential. Looking forward to seeing it planted up.

Also nice to see a '1-2mm gravel' person, like me. Although technically according to Wentworth we are 'very coarse sand' people :)

Hat tips to @_Maq_ and @Hanuman for clarifying that in another thread somewhere :)
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Thank you! :)

Ah interesting. I had noticed 1-2mm particles being referred to as both gravel and sand, good to understand why!
 
Hi - I have your make of tank on order, albeit the 240 version. Have strong hopes it will arrive from Poland before the turn of the decade. Hope to set it up broadly similar to your use of wood and rocks.

How do you feel about the finish and quality of your tank and its lights?
 
JohnCooke said:
Hi - I have your make of tank on order, albeit the 240 version. Have strong hopes it will arrive from Poland before the turn of the decade. Hope to set it up broadly similar to your use of wood and rocks.

How do you feel about the finish and quality of your tank and its lights?
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The finish seems pretty decent and looks good in my living room. I wouldn't say it's a premium product: the silicone seems quite thick (but then I've not compared it with other tanks), and lid is a little flimsy (just a sheet of plastic basically), but that's only apparent up close.

The instructions say you can either use the included plastic base on the tank or rest it on the stand (as I've done with some foam in between).

The lights are very bright and there's scope to add more (though I don't think I'll need to as I'm going low tech), which was a big reason for me for buying it. I don't like the night mode - it's very blue - but otherwise the colours are good. I might upgrade at some point to lights which fade in and out morning and evening if I can find a way.

Let me know if there's anything specific you want to know more about it!
 
My filter has arrived! 🎉 I went for the Aquael SAS 500 Surface Skimmer.

It turns out it's more of a pump really, as there's only a tiny piece of sponge inside, so I'll have to see how that goes. Hopefully my plants will be happier in their bucket now though!
 
With that in effect not being a filter at all, but really just a way to agitate the surface, you are kind of at the left field of the approaches, close to a 'no filter', so it'll be worth getting advice here. You may end up having to do a lot of water changes, or you may want to add a couple of cheap sponge filters as a boost – I use them along with a 'proper' filter, and they add to the capacity. They don't look bad at all once some planting is added. Or you may want to buy a more traditional filter in addition to the skimmer. You'll certainly want to plant heavily to add capacity, and go slow before adding fish. Lots of people here refer to a filter, rightly, as just a bucket with some sponges in, but it's still a thing most people use. Some people believe most of the good bugs that help the aquarium be in balance live just as well in sand/gravel and on plants. Some sewer by a filter to clean the water. Nothing wrong with being left field, but as I say, you'll be helped by the advice of the wise heads here.
 
AlecF said:
With that in effect not being a filter at all, but really just a way to agitate the surface, you are kind of at the left field of the approaches, close to a 'no filter', so it'll be worth getting advice here. You may end up having to do a lot of water changes, or you may want to add a couple of cheap sponge filters as a boost – I use them along with a 'proper' filter, and they add to the capacity. They don't look bad at all once some planting is added. Or you may want to buy a more traditional filter in addition to the skimmer. You'll certainly want to plant heavily to add capacity, and go slow before adding fish. Lots of people here refer to a filter, rightly, as just a bucket with some sponges in, but it's still a thing most people use. Some people believe most of the good bugs that help the aquarium be in balance live just as well in sand/gravel and on plants. Some sewer by a filter to clean the water. Nothing wrong with being left field, but as I say, you'll be helped by the advice of the wise heads here.
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Yes it's closer to the "pure" Walstad approach than I intended, will consider my options.
 
Exciting update this evening - I planted the tank!

Here's a photo from the front:
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And here's the view from the sofa:
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(There are a couple of rocks holding down the wood - really just out of caution as it's super glued in place too).

I had no problems with the soil coming through at all because of the window screen, although it did impede the planting a little as I couldn't push the plants down as deep.

Now it's time to cross my fingers and let nature do its thing!
 
Tank was a bit cloudy today and smelt a bit off, so I did a ~70% water change which has cleared it up for now. My current method for getting water into the tank is a 3.5L watering can, which takes really quite a long time and is a bit messy, so I think I need to find an alternative solution.
 
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