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Welcome back, Ian. Looking forward to seeing this unfold.

This is such an awesome tank, it's nice to see it being given the attention it deserves. Would you mind listing out the fish you have in this @sanj ?

This is awesome! Is it the first time you've bread Cory's? What type are they?

Hi @SiobhanGledhill. If you are happy with the light you have and want to experiment with different intensities and you have no electronic means of adjusting the intensity, you could also using sparse strips of electrical tape to block out some of the light. If the light is too dim and you're...

Welcome to the forum.

Been a while since I updated this... thought I'd do just that today. The plants are doing well. Some of the S Repens that was dying off (I had multiple leaves floating around most mornings) have been pulled out but I still have a lot of healthy plants in there. The hygrophila pinnatifida...

This looks stunning. I love the different textures across the tank, it's like there is something of interest going on almost everywhere. Good job @Wookii I'm looking forward to seeing how this develops over time. I think if ever I rescape I'll be following suit regarding the hardscape.

Some excellent photo's of what appears to be a tank coming on beautifully. The fish look in great health. I had the same with ramshorns and pond snails. I find their population explodes when I overfeed the tank so I've been reigning it in.

The third brood got wiped out almost instantly. The mother was chasing off fish all the way to the other side of the tank and I'm guessing her being so far away from the brood for longer than needed didn't help. This isn't something I mind and half expected with the number of fish in there...

This is looking great. I also think the name is apt. Looking forward to seeing this grow in. Nice job!

Unfortunately I don't have another tank to put him in. Missus is already preparing to beat me with a rolling pin when I next mention a nano tank for a betta again. I'll see how he fairs. The pipe idea is a good one and should give him somewhere to hangout at least. Right, here goes my fish...

I have thought about it :D All tetra now take food from my hand. There's a male apostogramma (the father of the original two broods (he's so beat up now)) that'll take it from tweezers. He's growing in confidence so I may be able to start feeding him by hand. Only reason I have been feeding...

Aaaaand we have a third brood. She's sticking to the front corner of the tank, easy to defend with a corner behind her and dense plant cover. However, there are far more fish in the tank than when the other two broods turned up. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, there will naturally be a...

I'm excited for you. I've never visited either shop in person but know you'll have a great time picking out your hardscape.

Mine has been there for about a month. It doesn't look anywhere near as good as it did but it's still around.

I'll be giving mine away, I think I have about 5kgs or more. I'd ordered 6kg but hardly used mine for gluing epiphytes to. But yes if this isn't enough feel free to order some from the link!

Lava rock is probably the best material you could use to create raised banks as it'll end up housing a lot of bacteria within it too in the long run. I have some spare if you like. You may need to smash up the rocks so they're smaller and can be put into filter bags which can be more malleable...

Just a few notes and observations this week... The inlets were filthy and probably reducing flow overall due to the friction. During this weeks water change I detached the inlets and outlets to both filters and cleaned them thoroughly. This changed the colour of the pipework back to the...

That is looking stunning. I agree about the diatoms giving the rocks an aged feel. Regarding the staghorn, I think I have some in both areas of decent flow and low flow, with it appearing on the slowest growing leaves or on any damages leaves (like on the S Repens where some of it began to...

I added 30 Rosy Tetras. They sometimes school with the Rummy Nose Tetras but it's nice to have some movement almost everywhere now. They are pretty interesting to watch, with males dueling one another from time to time. It was the bright red fins and white tips that got me. Some of the...

I saw that the first mother had "lost" her brood, with only two or three fry in the general vicinity wondering around aimlessly and trying to keep hidden. Then I saw that the second mother had in fact somehow stolen the majority of the brood! I can't tell from counting as there are far too...

I wholeheartedly agree, these fish are intelligent and almost immediately have social structures and pecking orders like other intelligent animals. Ultimately, I think I might be overstocked on males. Realistically 1-3 should have been enough. 1 for the harem and the other for a bit of...

That's a really impressive deal you managed to get. I'm pretty excited to see what you come up with! How big are the babies you have? I watched about three babies get eaten when they ventured too far from their mother by other apisto's. -_- That tank looks nice and densely planted though so...

I'd like to ask the community about the value of TDS meters. I've been wondering whether it would be useful to baseline my tap and tank post water change, and monitor over the week to see whether I can see any trends to what is happening in the tank. If there is value in this, are there any...

My ludwigia is doing the same thing. Really difficult to capture on camera. I've read that this is due to light intensity, at least for the ludwigia. I imagine as it grows taller and receives more PAR it's likely to deepen in the uppermost leaves.

To be honest when I put the tank together I didn't expect or consider any breeding, so making caves wasn't something I planned or designed into putting the scape together. The hollow itself is more of a lurking junction with numerous entrances and exits so that is serving its function in that...

I'm not sure if this is normal behaviour, and perhaps anyone who is informed can tell me if it is, but one of the females has burrowed a cave under a rock. I think she's priming to lay or may have already done so as she has been fighting with the mother that lives on the left for most of the...

I've not seen any additional fry, and chunky is still seemingly chunky. The fry are bigger now, around 5-7mm. It's pretty nice to see how dedicated the mothers are to keeping threats away. The father comes along and tries to help but gets his face tail slapped away. I had 6 otocinclus...

There's another female full to the brim with eggs that's been flirting with the alpha...

Hi @Gill how is this looking? Wouldn't mind seeing how it's growing in.

Thanks Darrel. Also I have to apologise. The picture I showed of the mother wasn't the mother of the first brood. I have a second brood in there! One lives towards the rear of the left side and the other (the one I knew about) lives in the center rear. I thought it was the same one moving...

Does that mean even though they have hatched and are free swimming, they can still change to males?

It bugs the mother when I have my phone against the glass so she comes and gives me a sneaky display of aggression. Hey @shangman they're kept at 24 degrees. I'll keep you posted with updates. At the moment the fry will be going a couple of days as I get a couple of batches of BBS going. I'm...

Thanks @shangman. I have another male in there but he's younger/smaller and is a "double red" but looks more like a double orange to me. Perhaps he'll colour up as he matures. Yes, when they flare up they do look amazing. There is one bossy male (I'm guessing the dad), a second orange flash...

Thank you all for your responses. I'm also looking forward to just watching it grow in and only getting my hands wet when conducting maintenance. So, a little surprise while trying to capture pictures of the apisto's. They've bred! It explains why there was a female in there from hell, she...

The Hygrophila turned up yesterday, as did some Bucephalandra Theia Dark courtesy of @GHNelson so I cracked on with lowering the waterline down to about 40% and planting everything in. I'm quite happy with the Hygrophila, a lot of it was longer than I had expected. I used the longer stems on...

Excellent, thank you both for your valued responses.

Yes, I have APFUK dry salts. I just need it clarified, what did you mean choose what proportion of the standard dose to apply? You mean the standard dose would be overkill for my low tech system because the standard dose is aimed towards CO2 injected systems so I'd need to use a fraction of...

Dosing has been upped to 40ml/day. I think I'll need to know the equivelant in the dry salts I'd need to make up the same-ish when I eventually switch. Lighting has also been increased to 50% for about a week. I don't remember doing this so I must have been innebriated. I'll keep an eye on...

This looks to be growing in nicely. I especially love the growth of the red plant on the rock on the left (Alternanthera?). Nice work.

That's a pretty crazy thought. You did well to work it to its current aesthetic layout. Nice turnaround mate.

Absolutely beautiful! Good work mate. Looking forward to seeing this grown in. Good work though on plant choices and layout. I personally think it looks amazing already.

Perhaps premature but I have livestock in the tank now. I have 30 Rummy Nosed Tetras and 6 Apistogramma Cacatuoides ((2 males and 4 females) with 2 additional ones of a different colour strain on the way). Right about now I'm thinking stocking wise, this is almost already complete. I may get...

I like the layout of the rocks, already looks great. Having said that, I can't wait to see the transformation once it's planted. A great backbone to work on.

Dude, just looking at your last picture is making my mouth water lol!

Bah! I just saw these posts and Gill has called dibs already. The substrate is pretty low on the corners and planting the bleherae took way too many tries even where there was depth. I'm leaning towards placing stem plants, not sure which yet, either another ludwigia but green or a hygrophila.

I had completely forgotten I had anubias caladiifolia, it was in the box tucked away under all the s repens. I have to say my favourite plant out of the lot has to be the anubias nana, just love the leaf shape. Cracked on with the planting today and finally finished. I'm not happy with the...

Most of the plants are in, just the foreground that needs to be planted. There's one Anubias that is perling like crazy. You can see it just off center in that picture. The ferns and Anubias were just jammed into gaps, some gaps were barely gaps at all. I used thread to stick one piece...

Most of the plants have turned up. Guess what I'll be doing this evening?

I've started looking up bucephalandras too... I mean there are so many beautiful varieties of them it's tough to stop wanting more than you have. I can't blame you for for getting more, it's definitely something I'll look more into once I've managed to establish mine.

Just had a nice chat with Vera from Birstall who gave me the awesome news of my plants being on the way to arrive with me tomorrow. I hope they arrive before I have to go out! I had my shrimp arrive this morning. I drip acclimated them for almost 2 hours and put them into the tank. They swam...

The tank living up to its name under moonlight.

Thank you for the feedback about it mate. I've just floated all of mine to make life easier for me not to get algae 🤣 If I end up with space once it's all planted I'll definitely plant the sprite. Your post gives me reassurance that the water sprite will survive, so I appreciate it. 🙂

I'm not sure about things when it comes to snails but some of these look like adults already and laying eggs everywhere. I had purchased some Nerites and before they turned up and after planting the vallesneria, I must have had a few ramshorns on them and possibly pond snails. The ramshorns are...

The vallisneria is looking better. I added a few crypts and moss. I ended up getting fed up with reaching into the tank and fiddling around with the thread so I just started using liberally large patches of it where I could easily reach. I changed the inlets and outlets back to the original...

I promise, the ammonia has been trashed. It was a tough choice but it had to be done. The repeated advice would have made me the fool (or had already) to dose my aquarium with ammonia any further. Regarding the red root floaters, I'll give 'em a good whipping and give it a go, providing they...

@Wookii was kind enough to send me some frogbit and red root floaters. Those came on Thursday, and a majority of them were a vivid green. Since putting them in my tank, some of the frogbit has yellowed, the majority has stayed qreen but a lot of the red root floaters have just parted ways with...

Thanks for the helpful response @Karmicnull and @dw1305 I'll take it on board and do further reading and I guess chill the eff out a bit. After having read some of the linked posts I now realise how grossly misinformed I (along with many others apparently) have been about a great number of...

Thank you for the reply, Darrel. My aquatic soil substrate has stopped leeching ammonia which is why I added it from a bottle. If this is not advisable I'll stop. I'm just worried that when the day finally comes for me to add livestock to this aquarium, it won't be adequately equipped to deal...

The temperature was to assist in the "cycling". I read that having higher temperatures could assist in the development of the bacteria colonies here. This same article suggests keeping the water oxygenated, which is why I had the airstone on. I'm happy to lower temperatures if it helps. In...

Temperature is at 26 degrees. Ammonia is at 1ppm (I upped this since the water change when I planted these as it was 0 ammonia, 0 readable nitrites and negligible nitrates), nitrites is at around 1ppm and nitrates is around 15ppm. Still a ways to go but it looks like the factory has started...

There seems to be some yellowing leaves and tips that look to be melting. Is this normal and just the plants adapting or am I doing something wrong? The lights are on for 8 hours a day at 25% intensity, and I'm using 20ml of the TNC Complete a day (to get to around the recommended 2* suggested...

I can see it already, in a couple of weeks when I'm crying about algae with my tail between my legs changing the in/outlets back to their original ugly forms. 🤣🤣 By the way that video you linked, that scape was fantastic!

Yeah same here. I can't wait for it to grow in a bit. Since planting I've had three plantlets uproot. I don't want to get my hands wet again so I'll let them float around for now until I do my next water change, which might even be when the next batch of plants arrive.

I've still got them, but I really didn't like the look of them. These return pipes are as low as they'll go. I think the Oase ones had around an additional 3 inches of depth over the new stainless steel ones. That said, I have been considering putting the spraybars back, one I'll need to cut...

I ordered Vallisneria off of ebay yesterday and the delivery date was towards the tail end of next week. They turned up this morning so I ended up just getting them into the tank. There were some really awkward places around the pieces of wood on the right but I managed to get it all in. I...

Looks like I'll be receiving my plants in three batches. I have to wait for the Microsorum pteropus 'Trident' and there may have been something else I had to wait on, but the Anubias barteria var. barteri have been replaced with nana as the (believe it or not) var. barteri are discontinued. So...

Woah that's so nice of you, thank you @Wookii :) I'm not sure when the plants will get here, I was told it could take weeks due to coronavirus and Brexit. I don't mind the wait. Thanks once again!

Thank you for the input as always mate. That makes more sense. I thought if a disaster happens in this tank I'd prefer for it to happen in slow motion rather than to accelerate it with gas. I'd prefer the slower growth so I don't need to have my hands in the tank so often. Ultimately...

I've taken a stab at identifying the epiphyte plants amongst what I have, but if anyone could confirm whether I've ballsed up or not, that would be great: Cryptocoryne beckettii 'Petchii' Ludwigia palustris Vallisneria spiralis 'Tiger' Vallisneria americana gigantea Bucephalandra pygmaea 'Wavy...

You are a star. Thank you. :) I actually started off with three of the lights but because of the jank left behind from the evaporation covers, had to change the layout due to where the glass crossbars were placed. I even had to use a janky solution to use the tank mounts for the lights...

Thanks for the response, @Wookii. I find it odd that all the mentionings of EI don't qualify themselves to lean towards CO2 injected systems, so I'm glad I asked. The dry ferts arrived this morning but I won't open them until I've exhausted the TNC Complete and will dose as you suggested once...

Thank you mate. I do want to have some kind of floating plant and Frogbit was my preferred aesthetic. If you happen to have any going, I'd humbly accept a handful. I ended up pulling the trigger on plants. Well... 80% of them. I was told there wasn't a guaranteed delivery date on them, the...

If I was to dose my tank with the necessary micros and macros with APFUK Ei start kit, that's completely independent of me not running CO2, right? As in I'd imagine (or guess) nutrient uptake to be significantly higher in CO2 systems. If this is the case, are doses different between CO2 and...

This stuff looks pretty nasty. Probably a good thing I don't plan on having my hands in the tank anytime soon. Should I scrape this off where I can when it eventually comes to planting? I swapped out the Oase inlets and outlets stainless steel ones. They look a lot better but the inlet...

Those shrimp have been removed and I've adjusted the stocklist to reduce the total number: @Kalum I totally agree, I think realistically I'd be happy with the Apistogramma, the Angelfish and the tetras. Everything else was there as a clean up crew or for movement at the substrate level...

This explains why I'm seeing the concentrations of ammonia creep up and I've not added any ammonia since the weekend. It's sat at around 1ppm, nitrite is at 0.25ppm and nitrate is 5ppm. Looks like seeding the filter has given it a boost (thank you), obviously I will wait until ammonia and...

Thanks @Wookii. I think the rationale behind the microsorums were that as the regular version had been omitted which was the larger variety, the smaller versions needed to be reinforced in number to make up for the lost plant mass. Nothing is set in stone here, and I'm happy to adjust based on...

Thanks @Courtneybst. I've just ordered it. At least I have something to fall back on at a better value once I'm out of TNC Complete. Once I've planted everything in, I'll dose the TNC Complete at triple the recommended amount. As for the stocking, I was hoping the plant mass would provide...

@Wookii is this what you were talking about?

Thank you both for the replies. Originally, I had the following layout as a basis for my own planting: https://tropica.com/ProductMedia/Layouts/L108/1029_UK.pdf I took the figures, multiplied by three and ended up with a list that ended up with me requiring a mortgage: Cryptocoryne beckettii...

This'll be my view from my desk. There's a lot of that fuzzy algae coming through on the wood now. Refraining from doing anything by sheer force of will.

Many thanks for the response guys. I'm not sure where I read it but it was my understanding that planting out a non-cycled aquarium was risky to the plants. I don't plan to co2 but will do some generic water column dosing of ferts. I'm sure I bought Tropica concentrate but will confirm tomorrow...

It's 68" long not 84, but I get your point. And you're absolutely right, I don't want to slowly populate it with plants, I want it as heavily planted as I can afford as soon as possible. As it's the room I happen to work from, that's another reason. I couldn't bare to look at it as an...

Just wow... The difference between the then and now shots is pretty dramatic. How many months between the two again? Stunning tank, I love the use of moss (is it moss?) on the wood and how dense and vibrant everything looks.

I really want this densely packed in with plants. I have a style in mind and wrote to Aquarium Gardens requesting a quote for a plant list. My jaw almost dropped when I saw the figure, costing more than the stock of fish I want to keep. Dave was nice enough to put a 10% discount on which put...

This has been a great journal to follow. I was really glad the blackout helped and it's nice to see everything appear to bounce back.

May I ask where you got your plants from? I've made a list for my own aquarium but am struggling to find what I want between Plants Alive and Aquarium Gardens.

I think based on the fact that they'll probably never be seen again once the tank has grown in, I might just skip them entirely. A nice touch though. Just had a great conversation about the stock for this tank with Sami from Sims Tropical Fish. Very helpful and friendly.

Apparently my remaining stone was heavy enough to counter the buoyancy. It's now back down. Cheers for the helpful suggestion, @Wookii. In this post for Kinabalu, you used twigs or vines or something that gave amazing detail and scale to the setup. May I ask what this was and where you...

I love that last full shot of your tank. It looks really well grown in and the arch on that wood is amazing. It's perfectly homed in that tank.

Luckily I have both amano's and otto's on the stock list. Thank you! I reckon when it's planted in it'll lose some of the ominous feel. I'll try to keep it going somehow. Thanks @Wookii! I think I have a single rock left which is pretty small. If it isn't heavy enough to weigh the large...

That's very kind of you to say so. Thank you. :) I think your way of describing it as mouldy fuzz is certainly better than my own descriptive use of "snot". 🤣 I'm glad this is something that will leave eventually presumably with little to no intervention?

Hi all. So in 2013 I purchased a tank from ND Aquatics. The size of it was 68"x24"x30". It was made to fit in the space I had at the time, now I'm wishing I'd bought a 7ft tank... anyway, nothing happened with it for some time as the threat of moving house was always close by with the missus...

This has been a great read, thanks for pointing it out earlier. I love the hardscape placement and how well the plants had established, even taking over the tank! How is it looking at the moment? I've been thinking of going co2 but I'm not 100% sure yet, I understand that it leads to a load...

Hi @Kingyfish1. I'm by no means an expert, but I'd say 8 hours is about typical. If you have the option to adjust the lighting intensity it may help to start slightly weak and increase the intensity over time. If you see a bloom, reduce it back. Other factors to take into consideration when...

A jungle type aquascape is what I'm leaning towards for that chaotic look. Thanks for posting more video's of this, @alto it's a beautiful tank and setup.

Thanks for that, @alto. It's nice to have a frame of reference, and this has informed me that the growth from these lights is amazing. These (or at least the HD variants) will definitely be replacing the 3* Kessil A360X I was going to be ordering. I couldn't tell, was that diffused CO2 on the...

At the moment, I don't reach the substrate, the tank is currently empty! I always had the threat of moving house since I bought the tank so was afraid of setting it up. Now we've moved (as of August 2019) I'm ready to set this tank up. I'm hoping I'll rarely need to reach that low once the...