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Angela's Roma 240L

angelah

Member
Joined
3 Jan 2011
Messages
63
Location
west London
At last I have the tank set up and running. It's been a while since I originally bought it which was shortly before Christmas 2010, so I have been very patient. But with a long move in the offing from London to Wales I felt it better to wait.
Now it's settled in place, has AquabasicPlus substrate covered with a light coloured sand, bogwood and fairly well planted. It's running a fishless cycle at the moment so is a bit milky, but far better than the deep brown about 4 hours ago when my son did a huge media squeeze into it from his two externals this afternoon.
My filtrations is a Fluval 305 with it's original media, but that will be changed to polishing pads and I'll lose the carbon sections. Also a JBL CristalProfi e 1500 which really pumps water around at a rate of knots. I am not unduly worried about that at the moment but will slow the flow nearer the end of the cycle.
There are also 2 heaters, a 300W and a 200W as a backup. Tank temperature is 24C.
Ammonia is about 7 ppm at the moment, Nitrite is zero so that will begin to go up soon as it has only been running a couple of days. Po4 is 0.5. Not much point in testing anything else until it settles down.
Lighting is 2 40W T8's, one Power Glo and one Aqua Glo, so low tech. All plants are also low tech.
Once the water clears a bit more I shall take some pix and post them.

Angela
 
Good luck with it angela,make sure your son does two water changes a week for you,

regards,
john.
 
john starkey said:
Good luck with it angela,make sure your son does two water changes a week for you,

regards,
john.

Him do 2 a week! I'll be lucky, he doesn't do his own that regularly.... Nope, it's down to little me, I took on the responsibility of the tank so I must see it through.
It's cycling right now. Yesterday Andy did that big media transfer of bugs and the tank went dark brown, that was just gone 1600 hours. By 1800 hours it was pretty much clear apart from the usual milkiness of a cycle starting up, so the 2 big externals really did their jobs.
Later yesterday we went over to Cardiff (Pughs Garden Centre) to the big MA shop that has recently moved to a new building and I got bogwood and plants and a few other bits, like ferts. All planted up for now, just waiting to see how they fill out, should see some movement by the end of the fishless cycle.
I am well chuffed with it...

Angela
 
Hopefully, and if things work out, I should be able to get a picture up now.
The tank is still slightly milky, but that's only to be expected as it is just 3 days into the fishless cycle, albeit with the help of that huge medie squeeze my son put in it.

Roma_planted_day2new.jpg
[/img]

Good heavens, it worked!

Angela
 
looking good angela :D finally its filled hehe, looks really good! id say get a few more plants if you can though, finalised your stocking yet?

Regards, Gus.
 
Looks good Angela. Will look really good once it's been stocked with fish.

Off Topic: Your user name looks familiar, would you be the same angelah from the Auran Trainz forum?

Cheers,

Sam
 
samkiller42 said:
Looks good Angela. Will look really good once it's been stocked with fish.

Off Topic: Your user name looks familiar, would you be the same angelah from the Auran Trainz forum?

Cheers,

Sam

Hiya Sam,
Yep, the very same, I get everywhere, rather like a virus...haha.
Well spotted, and thanks for your comments
 
fozziebear said:
looking good angela :D finally its filled hehe, looks really good! id say get a few more plants if you can though, finalised your stocking yet?

Regards, Gus.

Hi Gus,
Thanks, but there's a bit more to do yet which will make it look better (I hope!).
I had a list of plants but they were out of stock over at Cardfill MA. Tried the Bridgend shop but with no more luck. I need a couple more for the background really, but the ones I have will fill out.
Tank will be a biotope of south Amercan species, Tetras mainly, Cardinal, Rosy and Black Neons. Then, after a while a gang of Corys for the substrate.
I have cunningly left room for a metre long tank beside this one and am considering some cichlids for that, guided by my son who is very keen on those.

Angela
 
Looks great Angela,a few more plants would help keep any algae issuses at bay,love the fishless cycle thing it's the way to go,
John
 
Hi,
Just for your info, it will be a biotope containing South American species. Just done a series of tests and they came of slightly over very soft and acidic, so should suite Tetras fine. PH is a bit up on what I would like at 7.2 though.
Planned fish will be shoals of course, about 12 in each as a starter Cardinals, Rosy and Black Neons, then when the tank is a bit more mature a gang of Corydors, maybe 3 lines and/or Pandas.

Cunningly left enough space left of this tank for a Roma 200L later if funds allow, maybe cichlids in that as a complete change.

Angela
 
angelah said:
Hiya Sam,
Yep, the very same, I get everywhere, rather like a virus...haha.
Well spotted, and thanks for your comments

Haha, thought you may have been. Given up on TRS? Seems to have seriously gone down hill. Still, At least fish keeping is better.

Look forward to the updates.

Sam
 
samkiller42 said:
angelah said:
Hiya Sam,
Yep, the very same, I get everywhere, rather like a virus...haha.
Well spotted, and thanks for your comments

Haha, thought you may have been. Given up on TRS? Seems to have seriously gone down hill. Still, At least fish keeping is better.

Look forward to the updates.

Sam

Hi Sam,
Just resting...I don't work in Trainz any more but I do 'play' with gmax, as you may know.
So having a rest from that while I sort out my life a bit then I can complete the big Civic Centre I was working on.
I agree, Trainz really has gone downhill, it's very different from when I first joined up way back when, that was the original Trainz. The forum isn't such a nice place either and I expect because I don't work in the latest version with silly waving trees I feel outside of it. Maybe that's for the best, eh?

Angela
 
Hi Angela, good work on getting it setup! The Anubias that you've planted should really be strapped to your wood or a rock, if the roots are planted they will rot. Cheers, Dan
 
Hi folks,
Well, time flies and now we are 10 days in.
The fishless cycle is running to order, filters now dealing with 4 ppm ammonia in 12 hours back to zero.
Nitrite is well and truly up so it's on the second part and may be down by the weekend with a bit of luck. My other tank did that, nitrite well up and then next day it was down - well, one can hope... ha ha.

Added a few more live plants as well to fill in the back a bit more and the Cabomba is growing apace, about 2 inches so far.

I changed some of the carbon in the Fluval for some media my son gave me and MA say they will have the pads in by Thursday, so I can do the rest. I don't think it will spike the ammonia because I have the JBL e 1500 running with it and that should handle any likely problems on its own.

A couple more shots...

Roma_day_10.jpg


Roma_day_10a.jpg
 
Hi all,
News is that I think the tank has cycled... woweeeeeeeeee
Did a nitrite reading this morning, it was 5.0. notight the big 0.

My last tank did that, dropped very suddenly.

But I am not taking any chances so have dosed with ammonia to 4 ppm again and I'll test again in the morning as it might just be a glich. I need it steady at Double Zero for at least 2 days.

Angela
 
Hi all,
Well sadly that was a false alarm.... and demonstrates why it is so important to take further tests before dashing off for fish.
I expect the filters to deal with 4 ppm ammonia in 12 hours, that's my target, and they failed.
Ammonia is still at 0.50 and nitrite 2.0 ppm
The tank will most likely be clear by lunchtime, but that's not good enough. So I am still waiting but confident it is getting there, it won't be long now.

Angela
 
Good luck Angela. I'm sure your tank is going to be a stunner :)

Regarding cycling you can use some floating plants like water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) or water lettuce (Pistia stratoides) to keep ammonia in check, they are really good at this.

Cheers,
Mike
 
clonitza said:
Good luck Angela. I'm sure your tank is going to be a stunner :)

Regarding cycling you can use some floating plants like water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) or water lettuce (Pistia stratoides) to keep ammonia in check, they are really good at this.

Cheers,
Mike

Thanks, but the idea of a fishless cycle is to dose to whatever you amount wish, max 4 ppm (which is the level I go to), and then let the filters create the bacteria to deal with ammonia. Which means I need to leave it well alone.
Filters are almost dealing with that amount in almost 12 hours but nitrites are taking a bit longer as they are slower growing bacteria. Should be there by the weekend.

Must just be patient....

Bless you,

Angela
 
A problem has developed that I don't understand.
As you all know the cycle started well enough with a good ammonia reading and when that dropped nitrites picked up - all well and good so far.
But when the nitrites dropped after 4 days the ammonia count went up again, 0.50 the first day and 1.0 the next. The third it was 1.5 ppm yet nitrites were still at 0.0.
The very next day I thought it was resolving because ammonia dropped again to 0.25, but then found titrites were also 0.25. And that's how it's stayed all along. Get one to zero the other goes up, get that down to 0 then the other one goes back up.
Then, and because this had been going on for a while, I tested ntrates. That read off the scale, I had no idea what it was, far higher than it should be.
So as the cycle had stalled I did a 40% water change, but that didn't make any visible difference to the nitrate reading. Next day I did a 50% change and still no difference, although I must admit there may have been a verys slight one on the API chart.
As I am very unwell with a nasty bug I haven't the energy to do any more changes, although somebody did recomment an 80% change. I have not done that.
Taoday the readings are; Ammonia 1.00, nitrite 0.0 (yesterday that was 2.0).
So still all over the place. I cannot make out where all that nitrate came from so maybe somebody here can give me some clues...
I used the JBL AquaBasicPlus as a base covered with about 30 mm of sand from MA, I think it might even have been JBL sand, it wasn't cheap.
Have been running a fishless cycle to (initially) 4 ppm, now dropped to 3 ppm
Other readings are; iron 0.0, GH (Nutrafin liquid) 80, KH 20, Po4 1.0.

Any ideas folks?

A very bemused Angela

Roma_day_17.jpg
 
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