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Henry

Member
Joined
20 Mar 2013
Messages
899
Location
Salford
Hello all, it's been a while. With mass debt and many house-moves coupled with no longer receiving student loan handouts and having to face reality, I haven't been in the hobby for a few months. Thankfully, the one thing that didn't sell in my clear out sale was a 40x20x20 Clearseal, along with associated bits. Having moved into my new home, and with a bit too much time on my hands, I decided to get something set up with the remainder of hardscape and plants I still had.

With the sale of my beloved CO2 equipment, it had to be a low tech, but I was keen to maintain the carefully aquascaped look of high tech tanks. Remainders of redmoor root, mini landscape rock, and Aqua Essentials Baltic Rock to create an entangled root look I'm so very fond of. Planting was kept fairly simple to allow for minimum maintenance, apart from vacuuming the snail poop off the sand every couple of days.

Obligatory specs list:
400mmx200mmx200mm Clearseal cheapie tank
APS 400L/H HOB filter (99.9% sure it doesn't achieve this figure)
Redmoor root
Mini Landscape Rock
Baltic Rock
Tesco playsand
Cyptocoryne wentii 'Green'
Hygrophila corymbosa '53B'
Taxiphyllum barbieri
Hydrocotyl tripartita 'Japan'

Some kind of snails
(Soon to be) Some kind of shrimp
Manchester's finest tap water

Anyway, here's the story so far, told through the medium of crappy phone pics.

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Looks Great, but maybe planting a bit denser to start with will make the wait easier. And dont forget to dose some ferts.
 
Looks great! :thumbup:
I really like these kind of low tech scapes. I suggest echinodorus tenellus for the rear left corner to form a nice trangle look.
 
Well, it's been a month, and absolutely nothing has happened! I know low-techs go slowly, but bloody hell!

Actually, there have been a few additions to the tank. First of all, I added some cherries, courtesy of chris_cotton23. The arrival of which necessitated a makeshift intake strainer, fashioned from a piece of sieve and some filter hose. Also, I dropped the light 6 inches and inreased the photoperiod from 5 to 8 hours (to absolutely no discernible effect).

Here's one loitering next to the many lumps of excrement that the new occupants produce, which annoyingly collects on top of the sand.
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And here's some butchered kitchen equipment. I don't rinse my rice anymore...
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And here's another badly taken photo, mainly for my own records.
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Starting to wish I'd put some soil under the sand to speed growth up a bit. Then again, the water is crystal clear, and I've had absolutely no algae whatsoever :)
 
You can fertilize your substrate with some tabs or sticks, e.g put under roots of crypts. I found they produced positive effect in my low tech.
 
Well, it's been a month, and absolutely nothing has happened!

......

Then again, the water is crystal clear, and I've had absolutely no algae whatsoever :)

But that's the point, tomorrow is my weekly water change day. :hungover:
 
Hey Henry. The scape is really nice.
Is this the max amount of light the tank gets or is it only for the pictures?
A soil substrate makes all the difference in a low tech tank. Otherwise you've got to wait about 2 years for the sand to get enriched and work like soil and it's never as good.
Plus a low stock like shrimp only tank doesn't speed up the process though I'd always advise against high stocking to counteract the issue.
Also as already suggested, there are very few plants in there and for a fast success and stable tank you need lots, full tank loaded with plants..., providing the do good in sand only.
 
Thanks all :)

Darrell, I dose whenever I remember/can be bothered, which is very infrequently with this tank. The plants might as well be plastic they grow so slowly, but that's just fine with me :D

Anyhoo, time for a little "update". I use parentheses, as very little has changed. I've knocked the wood over accidentally, and quite liked the result. I also added some C. nevellii in the back left corner, and shifted some of the C. wendtii 'Green' around. Also, I decided to change the light to an Ikea clip-on 3w Led, which gives really nice shadows, and a sort of "late evening sun" sort of feel. It also looks a hell of a lot more elegant than the last shambles of a clothes rail and bits of string!

Enough rambling. Here, have some crap photography.

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Now that I have a full time job, I'm very much considering turning this into a proper high tech, external with glassware and all. Possibly a job for after Christmas. Watch this space!
 
I think you have a lovely layout to the tank, i think some floaters would be a great addition to the tank.
Jim

Hi Jim,

I have tried floaters, Salvinia natans to be exact, but they didn't live the flow across the surface from my modified HOB filter. I've stuck a curved piece of plastic bottle to point the flow toward the surface, preventing it from kicking up sand, and helping for more even flow around the tank. Aside from that, the surface is crystal clear, and the shadows I get from the light look great. Floaters would likely change all of that. Although, if my hygrophila got going, some emersed growth would be nice.
 
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