• You are viewing the forum as a Guest, please login (you can use your Facebook, Twitter, Google or Microsoft account to login) or register using this link: Log in or Sign Up

Leaving hobby or move to Low Tech (260 litre bow fronted tank)

Wow that is some conversion.

Love to see lush low tech goodness. Very nice and well done.
 
I've just read your journal from start to end and I must say its a very inspirational read. I'm definitely gonna think about going low-tech on my 300 litre tank. I tried it once by switching off the CO2 and it was bad. Now I just have to decide whether to use the 3-year-old aquasoil or go with dirt and gravel cap.
 
If you're after black sand there is a much cheapr but fairly similar alternative to Unipac Limpopo - average grain size is slightly smaller tho' http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Sealey-Sh...Home_Garden_PowerTools_SM&hash=item43a20d688c
View attachment 15408

I am so sorry to hijack this,...but i just bought 3 bags of an inert gravel that somewhat resembles the above sand,..not too sure if it's the same thing ,..but Troi could you be kind enough to tell me the size of that sandy like gravel please? Mine measures between 1.5 mm to 3 mm in diameter roughly...mostly around the 2-3 mm range each. Would this affect my microzone layer in terms of nutrient transference?
 
The above sand is very fine grained and would effectively seal off the soil from the water column - so not much of a microzone, if any, would exist.
Yours sounds fine, the grains are big enough to allow good exchange of gases and nutrients, so it should allow for a healthy microzone.
 
The end

I know I've not been around for a while and can only apologize for this, family life and work has been somewhat more important of late.

The tank has unfortunately been taken down due to a leak we spotted last Sunday morning, the base was sodden and we were lucky that it held I suppose as after inspecting it after I was amazed how weak it was, the weight of 260 litres of water, soil, substrate, dragon stone and wood including the tank itself is, well, just glad the fish and plants were saved and the carpet too

Great shame it's gone, thoroughly enjoyed this long term large non co2 fully planted tank. But I've learnt so much along the way I'll be back after a short break.

No 2nd hand tank next time, I'll treat myself to something nice, maybe a bit smaller more manageable with some redundancy money I'm due

Looking for work too

So thanks to everyone who helped me along the way, I hope this has helped others too, maybe, just maybe you'll see me with a new project here soon.
Cheers all
Clive and his small helper Bob aged 9

Sent from my LG-H850 using Tapatalk
 
Back
Top