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Oldwhitewood's new 60cm NA

oldwhitewood

Member
Joined
11 Jul 2007
Messages
356
Oi oi,

At the request of Mr Farmer I'm putting up a thread here about my new layout. This is what it looks like ...

4539015636_002621ab80.jpg


I've had a lot of trouble setting up this aquarium over the past few months, I found out my heater had packed in, my inline heater, the light decided to stop working midway through the initial planting and I'm experiencing a lot of algae blooms now two weeks in. Aside from that it's been great :) Added 10 c. japonica yesterday.

Below is some techie data ...

Hardware

60x30x36 opti-white
ADA style stand (custom built by yours truly)
ADA Solar II light with 100VA transformer
Eheim Ecco 2234
Hydor external heater
D&D disposable CO2 kit with solenoid

ADA Products used

ADA lily pipe inlet & outlet, p2 & v2
ADA diffuser
Do! Aqua diffuser (swapping both around for cleaning etc)
ADA CO2 grey parts set
ADA Drop Checker
ADA thermometer (if you own just one piece of ADA glassware make it one of these 8) )
ADA Aqua Soil Malaya
ADA Forest Sand Xingu

Plants

Echinodorus tenellus
Vesicularia dubyana
Microsorum pteropus 'Narrow'
Limnophila aquatica
Heteranthera zosterifolia
Hygrophila lacustris (no idea about this plant at all, does anyone know anything?)

Hardscape

2 different grades of gravel from TGM
Golden Slate stones (I think they were that they were from a garden centre)
Redmoor wood, 3 pieces
Slate pieces (to weigh down the redmoor until it sinks)

I will be doing some stuff with this tank over the next few months so will let you know how it goes.

Side view ...

4539015628_cfa6287d0b.jpg
 
Very nice, Neil, and thanks for sharing!

Sorry to hear about your teething problems. I'm sure this will grow from strength to strength.

How do you find the ADA Solar II? Is that with the 2 x 36w PC T5? What tubes are you using?

What ferts are you dosing?
 
George Farmer said:
Very nice, Neil, and thanks for sharing!

Sorry to hear about your teething problems. I'm sure this will grow from strength to strength.

How do you find the ADA Solar II? Is that with the 2 x 36w PC T5? What tubes are you using?

What ferts are you dosing?

We shall see Sir, I will just keep on with it I'm not stressing over this tank. I'm pleased with the wood and stone arrangement so as long as that stays solid I'm happy.

The Solar II; where do I start? Now it's working it's wonderful it is without a doubt a beautifully designed piece of hardware as with all ADA stuff the aesthetics are up there with Apple, Leica etc. It just looks amazing. The intensity of light from it is incredible, I reckon you could use it over a 90. I did however have a lot of issues getting it working and finding the right transformer, if anyone wants more info on that or me to talk in more detail about what you need please let me know.

The tubes are the 8000K ones which come with the light, 36w T5's - the colour rendition is lovely, I had 2 6500k lights over it before, you could really notice the different between the interpet tubes and the ADA tubes.

Ferts I am trying Tropica Plant Nutrition +
also ADA Green Gain after trimming
I've also got hold of some ECA and Phyton Git, never used it before but I had to have something called Phyton Git in my life :lol:
 
That is very, very pretty indeed. I was never a big fan of opti-white just because i didn't think the cost was worth it but the more tanks i see.....
Does all the ADA stuff come with pre-printed Divorce papers? (My wife would want them...:))
Beautiful, beautiful tank - well worth working through the apparent problems!
Matt
 
Looking good :) as expected from you hehe
Looking forward to seeing this develop, not much to point really, hardscape is looking great great.

Congrats on another great tank ;)
 
bigmatt said:
That is very, very pretty indeed. I was never a big fan of opti-white just because i didn't think the cost was worth it but the more tanks i see.....
Does all the ADA stuff come with pre-printed Divorce papers? (My wife would want them...:))
Beautiful, beautiful tank - well worth working through the apparent problems!
Matt

Thanks very much Sir. I'm not sure about opti-white tanks either, there's a difference between it and float glass in terms of clarity, but to me it's more about the colour of the silicone and the lack of bracing.

LondonDragon said:
Looking good as expected from you hehe
Looking forward to seeing this develop, not much to point really, hardscape is looking great great.

Congrats on another great tank

Thanks very much.
 
Very nice. You appear to have some surface scum in the second picture though? I like that it doesn't use landscape rock, it's a very refreshing thing on this side of the pond.
 
Garuf said:
Very nice. You appear to have some surface scum in the second picture though? I like that it doesn't use landscape rock, it's a very refreshing thing on this side of the pond.

Yeah it's probably a mixture of scum and bubbles from the pearling, towards the end of the photo period there is a lot of stuff on the surface so I have just been raising the lily pipe a bit to drive it off. The water has been a bit cloudy and scummy from believe it not the sand, I don't think the ADA sand is washed that well, I didn't bother to wash it I thought it would be OK but I would say it deffo does needs washing a bit. And thanks, I love the Amano tanks with sand and wood so I wanted to copy that idea basically ;)
 
Do you have any larger pictures? It looks like there's a lot of detail that is lost with it being so small.
 
I've changed it completely now for different wood, just wasn't happy with the way it was progressing. I've been battling with the idea of scrapping the open topped 60cm ADA style tank and getting a Rio 125 instead. The closed top thing appeals to me because I find you get a lot of spilled light from suspended lighting. This would mean doing away with my ADA NA style setup and going back to a Juwel tank, so at the moment I'm torn between the two. The ease of maintenance of a juwel, even with an internal filter is something which I'm finding hard to ignore, I'm getting a bit tired of having an open topped tank with a big external filter and lily pipes, I'm not at home much and am finding it quite hard to maintain to be fair.

Somebody talk me out of it! :D
 
That sounds like a choice between form and function. From what I've seen in your journal you make a stunning NA setup so I'd keep up with it :thumbup: - I've seen a lot of American tanks on other forums that are all bling with the ADA gear and then the actual scapes are turd, all show but no content.

Saying that I bet you can still make a tasty Jewel setup. You could even do something in between and make yourself up a DIY hood but with a flair of ADA minimalism?
 
Well I went and bought a Rio 125 tonight because the shop near me was doing a deal where you could get the tank and they throw in the cabinet for free. So I thought I may as well get it even if it doesn't work out I can still sell it and probably make a lot of it back.

Observations well they've changed a bit since I had one, different powerhead and heater for a start, you can work on the sponges without removing the powerhead which looks good. Quite impressed with the T5 lighting although why they ship them with two different colour tubes is beyond me, I really like the 'Nature' colour temp! In terms of scape I think I want to do something so incredibly low maint it is unbelievable, the only plant I wish to keep in there would be java moss probably, I quite fancy the idea of something with very mininal plants and just sand and wood forming the hardscape. Two tanks are really impressing me at the moment, George's fast flowing stream tank with the pebbles and white cloud mountain minnows and Jeff Senske's tank using just wood and sand. I want to do something between the two.

The problem I've got is if I'm in the room with the tank I'm bathed in a massive amount of cold white ADA light and it's not too good to be sat right near it.In the right setting it'd be bloomin' awesome but I've only got a small apartment so even though the Rio is physically bigger than my 60 it throws out way less light in the room.

Also not sure if this is Jeff's work but this tank I think is quite remarkable and is the most progressive thing I've seen in a long time.

3439778684_6593ba8d64.jpg
 
NeilW said:
That sounds like a choice between form and function. From what I've seen in your journal you make a stunning NA setup so I'd keep up with it :thumbup: - I've seen a lot of American tanks on other forums that are all bling with the ADA gear and then the actual scapes are turd, all show but no content.

Saying that I bet you can still make a tasty Jewel setup. You could even do something in between and make yourself up a DIY hood but with a flair of ADA minimalism?

Thanks appreciate it. I dunno I feel like I've ran an NA tank for so long I fancy a change. I find time is a factor and my laziness too, and I might feel differently about the hobby if I'm keeping more interesting fish than just tetras and ottos. I've had tetras for so long I can't remember what a cory looks like :lol:
 
oldwhitewood said:
I find time is a factor and my laziness too, and I might feel differently about the hobby if I'm keeping more interesting fish than just tetras and ottos. I've had tetras for so long I can't remember what a cory looks like :lol:

Agreed if you want a true Amano tank then the NA style limits what you 'can' have in terms of livestock. In my humble tanks I mainly look at what the NA style has done in terms of simplicity and minimalism. Georges biotopes showed me how interesting you can make it just by applying modern ideas in aquascaping to more traditional 'standard' fishkeeping.
 
NeilW said:
oldwhitewood said:
I find time is a factor and my laziness too, and I might feel differently about the hobby if I'm keeping more interesting fish than just tetras and ottos. I've had tetras for so long I can't remember what a cory looks like :lol:

Agreed if you want a true Amano tank then the NA style limits what you 'can' have in terms of livestock. In my humble tanks I mainly look at what the NA style has done in terms of simplicity and minimalism. Georges biotopes showed me how interesting you can make it just by applying modern ideas in aquascaping to more traditional 'standard' fishkeeping.

Spot on that's exactly it. We have learnt these techniques and aquascape approaches but they can be applied to biotope setups and stuff like that.
 
I'll be fascinated to follow this - partly because I'm lazy and want a low maintenance tank eventually - but also because part of my reason for going to a planted tank was to reduce the maintenance - as I understand it, the combination of (bacteria in the substrate and the filter + well grown plants) = uptake of ammonia and if I want to keep different, interesting fish at moderately high stocking levels, then I need more plants and more bacteria - so a quite densely planted tank...

but if a biotope can do it, with minimal planting, I'll be very impressed.

watching with immense interest.

good luck

m
 
magpie said:
I'll be fascinated to follow this - partly because I'm lazy and want a low maintenance tank eventually - but also because part of my reason for going to a planted tank was to reduce the maintenance - as I understand it, the combination of (bacteria in the substrate and the filter + well grown plants) = uptake of ammonia and if I want to keep different, interesting fish at moderately high stocking levels, then I need more plants and more bacteria - so a quite densely planted tank...

but if a biotope can do it, with minimal planting, I'll be very impressed.

watching with immense interest.

good luck

m

Well I wouldn't get too excited the design I have planned might not even be valid to post on a site devoted to plants! It will just be sand wood stones and moss probably and look very sparse, what I have planned I wouldn't class as planted aquaria or a biotope, it will be for corys mainly and I will have to home my existing neons and shrimp I guess. Maybe some anglefish or my faves, rams. But thanks for the interest.
 
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