Novice first attempt

[Saffa]

I’ve been keeping mostly South American cichlids for a while now and all my tanks have been pretty basic with no plants as the fish I have been keeping are mostly pretty destructive, red terrors, Oscars, severums, jack dempseys etc etc. Anyways I managed to get hold of some stalsbergi which I’ve been after for years as they aren’t easy to get hold of here in the UK so I decided do a low tech planted tank for them. The tank is 450 litres and I just done a basic hardscape with some granite rock and planted some rhizome low demanding plants in it. My wife has been overly tolerant of my fish obsession over the years and we decided to setup a slightly higher tech tank for her also. The tank is a juwel 120 or 125 I think?? And we literally just set it up tonight. We set up a modified corner matten filter from Swiss tropicals in it to hide the most of the equipment ,heater and filter intake which is a eheim pro3 600. We’ve vinyl wrapped the background and sides with brown vinyl and put some jbl aqua base soil topped with a fine browny/red gravel. We have a jbl m502 co2 kit which will be set up tomorrow and will start dialling that in. We have a basic hard scape with some spider type root coming over from the left with some stones and have just planted some ludwigia, bolbitis mini and helanthium. The small tank is going to be based on a hill stream type with some loaches and other funky critters once it’s all running properly. Still got a few thing to change eg. Change the spray bar to a black one and there’s a few more plants to get. It’s going to be a huge learning curve and expect to make some mistakes along the way but we are looking forward to the journey, learned a heck of a lot from this forum and at least we have a small bump start from getting some of the basics rite to start with. Some pics attached small tank still super cloudy after planting and filling up.

 

[Angus]

i'm just imagining that mattenfilter covered in moss and rheophytes...

 

[Saffa]

I got the idea of the matten filter online you tube there’s a lady I follow on there “Rachael OLeary” who has used it with great results on a similar but much larger tank.the whole tank is loosely based on her 180 gallon hillstream tank. With regular maintenance regimes and basically vacuum siphoning the sponge during water changes it “should” be good. It uses Poret foam which is pretty good for longevity and holding a huge biological bed that along with the eheim 600 this tank has plenty filtration for its size. Hope it works well I’ll keep this thread updated as it progresses or fails either way. Another great thing with the filter is being able to hide all the equipment behind it so it is a pretty clean look

 

[Angus]

I love Rachel O'Leary's mattenfilter with the Bolbitis, that is what immediately came to mind when i seen your set up, nice to see another south londoner on here too!

 

[Saffa]

Yes that 180 of hers is absolutely amazing in my opinion and this was our inspiration for this mini version of it. Although she is lucky where she is having great wel water which is perfect for it but we are running CO2 as out water is pretty nasty in comparison.

 

[Edvet]

I would start tying moss to all that hanging wood in the upper tank.

 

[Saffa]

Got some types of moss and buces ordered but a couple were out of stock so might be a few days til they arrive, setting up the co2 today and will do another update in a few days.

 

[Saffa]

I would start tying moss to all that hanging wood in the upper tank.

That’s only a backdrop with hanging wood in top tank. Going to get more wood for it when I find the rite pieces

 

[Sakura83]

Can you post a pic of filter out flow?

 

[Saffa]

Can you post a pic of filter out flow?

Will do later when Home from work

 

[Saffa]

Can you post a pic of filter out flow?

Not sure which tank you were referring to but here’s both
Small tank still cloudy after planting yesterday

 

[Sakura83]

Thank you

 

[Saffa]

By the end of the first day very patiently fettling with the co2 I “think” I have it pretty close to dialed in at the moment. Have managed to also fit in pretty much all the equipment including the co2 ladder/diffuser all behind the corner matten filter. Just waiting for a few more plants that have been ordered and will in time replace the green spray bar for a black one so it’s a bit more tidy

 

[Saffa]

As promised I’m keeping this thread updated. We are three weeks into both these tanks now, with the 5ft low tech stalsbergi tank I haven’t been able to get my hands in the tank because the fish have been breeding so there is a bit of diatoms in there that need to be addressed soon as the eggs hatch, but all the plants are doing well even the bolbitis fern on the right hand side which I wasn’t sure how it would manage. Also added some fissedens moss into both tanks along with some becepheladras and some coral moss in the smaller co2 tank. The wood I put in there is having a fungus breakout which should start clearing up soon hopefully. I changed the spraybar and changed to an inline diffuser. Will continue thread in another couple weeks.

 

[Saffa]

The fungus on the wood in the 125 is starting to die off eventually and we have stocked some lovely little critters in there. A lot of the plants are starting to do well so all is good there. Some pics attached from the 125 .The 450 low tech is doing well and the bolbitis seems to be doing “ok” which was a concern that it might not.