Jan Larsen
Member
Hello from a new member on the coast of south Wales.
Total information spam, kind of posted this already in the "how many tanks" thread in the chit chat forum:
I've only recently gotten into the hobby, well I did have an aquarium as a kid, and then two terapins after that, but that's twenty years ago now.
It all started about 6 months ago when I moved from a house to a flat and we had to sell my daughters drum kit, She is only here once a week so I kind of spoil her a bit, I said she could either have an electronic musical instrument with headphones or a fish (at this point I was thinking a nano with a betta in it or something)
She was keen on the fish, so we went to LFS and got her a 34L tank with built in filtration lighting and all that, some pink pebbles, a plastic plant and a pretty castle (hey don't judge, she's an 8 year old girl) . Took that home and set about cycling it. came back to LFS some weeks later and got some tetra's and a dwarf pleco. That was kind of it I reckoned.
But then it happened, in typical me fashion I started getting neurotic that the pleco was probably unhappy about all that bright stuff in there, so we went back to LFS and got a piece of bogwood and some java moss to make him a little cave. She convinced me to buy some pretty male guppies as well and I was all "Ok but no girl guppies or we will be drowning in guppies before you know it."
Fast forward a bit and I couldn't get the thought of that sole Betta in a tank out of my head, in the mean time we had picked up a little 15L my little mermaid themed tank with filter, heater and all at a boot sale because it was like, a fiver. I thought "Hey it might be handy as a hospital tank or something."
I was thinking about fishes and stuff pretty much every day, then we went into pets at home one day to look at the gerbils and geckos and such (it's always a good way to keep a child entertained for half an hour) Came out of there with an Aquanano 30 that was on special offer, thinking now _I_ could get my own little tank and keep a Betta fish in it, my inner child was vibrating with excitement.
I set it up in my lounge and set about playing about with rocks and such. not long after a spike happened in my daughters tank and a guppy pegged it, testing confirmed what I suspected had happened, the my little mermaid tank was not set up, a quick water test confirmed that my nano was suitable and the remaining fishes were med-evac'ed to there.
During the night three of the remaining 4 guppy boys crazed from stress and dumb as doorknobs jumped out of the gap around the top glass. Much sadness ensued.
After the fish had moved back into the pink tank and things had settled down we decided that Guppy was looking sad so we got him a girlfriend, a snakeskin called Anne Boelyn, she was mighty boisterous so not long after we got another girl called Jane Seymor hoping that things would calm down. They did.
Anne Boelyn got pregnant, became all kinds of aggressive and battered Guppy around something fierce. At this point we had the my little mermaid tank set up next to the pink community tank so she got put over there where she could chill out and have her babies, a whole bunch of, well bunched, plants were bought and put in there to protect the babies, some were also planted in the community tank.
Stuff was snowballing out of control by now, my nano tank was starting to get shrimp in it and some 1-2 grow pots were bought, pieces of wood were installed and so on. There are now quite a compliment of guppies in my daughters pink community tank, which is really quite nice by now and a vat full of guppy fry next to it.
Anyway this is turning into a small novel. Fast forward to today;
Recently I acquired, from an airman who was being deployed abroad, a very nice open topped 100L tank with a stand, a shedload of accessories, big canister filter, inline heater, 4 fire extinguishers, solenoid controlled regulator, bubble counters, diffusers and all sorts of powders and fluids and things. Also a nice Aqua one 3x T5 light fitting and a whole host of other things, really pleased with that deal. I'm not allowing myself to set that up before I have gotten a bunch of things I want to do to the flat out of the way.
However, by a little accident I acquired a 50L tank with a hood containing a T8 arcadia tube, I've kind of filled that with a bunch of pieces of wood that was laying around, some scoopfuls of fine gravel and a couple takeaway containers with some substrate in them covered with gravel, in that I have literally dumped any and all pieces of plant cuttings and such that I have encountered into, I have maybe also by accident set up a fire extinguisher with that regulator a check valve and then straight into a ceramic diffuser and wired all that to a 5 + 4 hour cycle timer. It's got an internal filter and a heater running all the time and a wave maker next to the diffuser running during lights on. No idea if this is any kind of right but all the little bits of plant is growing like mad
So in summary I think it is safe to say I am quite into this whole planted tank malarky now, I have my little nano 30 set up and kind of scaped with a few plants growing in it, not entirely satisfied with it but I guess reshaping and replanting a lot is normal when getting into it.
Looking very much forward to setting up the big tank sometime soon with all of the things in it and will be asking all of the questions once that time comes - I am particularly confused about how to properly set up the CO2 system.
//Jan
Total information spam, kind of posted this already in the "how many tanks" thread in the chit chat forum:
I've only recently gotten into the hobby, well I did have an aquarium as a kid, and then two terapins after that, but that's twenty years ago now.
It all started about 6 months ago when I moved from a house to a flat and we had to sell my daughters drum kit, She is only here once a week so I kind of spoil her a bit, I said she could either have an electronic musical instrument with headphones or a fish (at this point I was thinking a nano with a betta in it or something)
She was keen on the fish, so we went to LFS and got her a 34L tank with built in filtration lighting and all that, some pink pebbles, a plastic plant and a pretty castle (hey don't judge, she's an 8 year old girl) . Took that home and set about cycling it. came back to LFS some weeks later and got some tetra's and a dwarf pleco. That was kind of it I reckoned.
But then it happened, in typical me fashion I started getting neurotic that the pleco was probably unhappy about all that bright stuff in there, so we went back to LFS and got a piece of bogwood and some java moss to make him a little cave. She convinced me to buy some pretty male guppies as well and I was all "Ok but no girl guppies or we will be drowning in guppies before you know it."
Fast forward a bit and I couldn't get the thought of that sole Betta in a tank out of my head, in the mean time we had picked up a little 15L my little mermaid themed tank with filter, heater and all at a boot sale because it was like, a fiver. I thought "Hey it might be handy as a hospital tank or something."
I was thinking about fishes and stuff pretty much every day, then we went into pets at home one day to look at the gerbils and geckos and such (it's always a good way to keep a child entertained for half an hour) Came out of there with an Aquanano 30 that was on special offer, thinking now _I_ could get my own little tank and keep a Betta fish in it, my inner child was vibrating with excitement.
I set it up in my lounge and set about playing about with rocks and such. not long after a spike happened in my daughters tank and a guppy pegged it, testing confirmed what I suspected had happened, the my little mermaid tank was not set up, a quick water test confirmed that my nano was suitable and the remaining fishes were med-evac'ed to there.
During the night three of the remaining 4 guppy boys crazed from stress and dumb as doorknobs jumped out of the gap around the top glass. Much sadness ensued.
After the fish had moved back into the pink tank and things had settled down we decided that Guppy was looking sad so we got him a girlfriend, a snakeskin called Anne Boelyn, she was mighty boisterous so not long after we got another girl called Jane Seymor hoping that things would calm down. They did.
Anne Boelyn got pregnant, became all kinds of aggressive and battered Guppy around something fierce. At this point we had the my little mermaid tank set up next to the pink community tank so she got put over there where she could chill out and have her babies, a whole bunch of, well bunched, plants were bought and put in there to protect the babies, some were also planted in the community tank.
Stuff was snowballing out of control by now, my nano tank was starting to get shrimp in it and some 1-2 grow pots were bought, pieces of wood were installed and so on. There are now quite a compliment of guppies in my daughters pink community tank, which is really quite nice by now and a vat full of guppy fry next to it.
Anyway this is turning into a small novel. Fast forward to today;
Recently I acquired, from an airman who was being deployed abroad, a very nice open topped 100L tank with a stand, a shedload of accessories, big canister filter, inline heater, 4 fire extinguishers, solenoid controlled regulator, bubble counters, diffusers and all sorts of powders and fluids and things. Also a nice Aqua one 3x T5 light fitting and a whole host of other things, really pleased with that deal. I'm not allowing myself to set that up before I have gotten a bunch of things I want to do to the flat out of the way.
However, by a little accident I acquired a 50L tank with a hood containing a T8 arcadia tube, I've kind of filled that with a bunch of pieces of wood that was laying around, some scoopfuls of fine gravel and a couple takeaway containers with some substrate in them covered with gravel, in that I have literally dumped any and all pieces of plant cuttings and such that I have encountered into, I have maybe also by accident set up a fire extinguisher with that regulator a check valve and then straight into a ceramic diffuser and wired all that to a 5 + 4 hour cycle timer. It's got an internal filter and a heater running all the time and a wave maker next to the diffuser running during lights on. No idea if this is any kind of right but all the little bits of plant is growing like mad
So in summary I think it is safe to say I am quite into this whole planted tank malarky now, I have my little nano 30 set up and kind of scaped with a few plants growing in it, not entirely satisfied with it but I guess reshaping and replanting a lot is normal when getting into it.
Looking very much forward to setting up the big tank sometime soon with all of the things in it and will be asking all of the questions once that time comes
- I am particularly confused about how to properly set up the CO2 system.//Jan
