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I'm a great believer in keeping tanks clean and I think high flow/filtration at 10x helps to achieve this. It's definitely possible to have lower flow like Amano and others as long as you're meticulous in removing dirt/detritus. In the marine world high flow has been found to be necessary for...

As far as I'm aware, plants pearl when the oxygen they produce isn't becoming disolved in the surrounding water. This is basically because the water is already saturated. With a high-ish fish load the demand for oxygen doesn't allow this and the water flow around the plants enable it to...

That's interesting - I'm in Chippenham so shouldn't be that far. I've never heard of the place, but I'll check it out.

It's a problem with many mass produced fish, especially those that are considered staple community species. Cardinals were always more finicky than neons, but because of the mass production techniques neons tend to be quite problematic. If you can buy stock that's been quarantined and have been...

It all depends on the definition of jungle I suppose. Is a jungle carefully maintained to give the appearance of a natural, but beautiful underwater scene, or is it a haphazard collection of swords and vallis from the LFS, left to go unruly. I like lots of plants in a tank, enough to the give...

It depends on how many plants you want to keep. If it's only a few I'd go with getting fresh, but if that's going to be expensive than you can try sterilizing them with a weak bleach solution. Remember though that the whitespot parasite needs a fish host to survive, so if you move the plants and...

Blimey, you're not shy of controversy are you?! :lol: You're wrong anyway. Is an Iwagumi a proper scape? Supply a (more expensive) optiwhite tank, (more expensive) glassware, luminaire, Aquasoil Amazonia, stick 3 stones in at different angles, buy a few pots of HC for the front and a few pots...

I like to see the tank from empty, adding substrate, hardscape, plants etc. I also like to see the different ideas as the 'scape builds up, different wood/rock placements etc. You almost feel like you're doing it yourself! :lol:

I agree with gratts. They're nice to look at, like a good picture. But I'd need more interest in it to keep it long term. Maybe that's why people only have them for a few months? :)

I might have to go and take a look, the websites "How To Get There" link says I'm 30 minutes away. :D

What's the place near Bristol? I've yet to make it to Aquajardin, although I've been to Aquatic Habitat. I think there's a P@H near Cheltenham that "specialises" in plants as well. Might be interesting!

I reckon anything with a name should be called a 'scape! My first scape lasted 8 years, so I reckon I'm a long hauler :lol: They never really finish though do they? The damn plants keep on growing and mucking up your ideas, so you constantly have to fiddle with them to keep them in line. I...

Hope you've got your power on by now! Last year we had a delivery van reverse in the road and actually knocked down a pole carrying the power lines. People came out fairly quickly to get it fixed but they were working through the night and finished in the early hours. Power must have been off...

Re: BECAREFUL WHEN BUYING FROM THESE SHOPS I agree. To my eyes, threats of legal action in these instances is akin to a child having a tantrum because they can't get their own way. Mr Plant Brain has had run ins with that sort of thing from what I remember. And "official" responses should at...

While we're talking of outrageous prices, how about £5 for a piece of plastic tube? Eheim and the like have been charging riduculous prices for years.

I don't really understand this. I would have thought a nano would be more likely to need a heater to stabilise the temperature fluctuations encountered in a small body of water.

There is also the evaporation to take into account. You'll have to top up a tank without a lid and in hot weather etc this can be considerable. There's a sticky in the lighting section about tubes from a company called lampspecs which good photos and is a worthwhile read. The spectrum isn't as...

I've always maintained that glass inlets restrict the flow too much (Anyone got one of these?). They do look nicer, but I'd rather have a plastic strainer in my tanks, unless it's a nano and heavy filttration is less of an issue. As for lily pipes, they look better than plastic outlets as well...

You need some bacteria in your filter as you know and also a source of ammonia for them to feed on. You can use household ammonia from somewhere like Homebase and a squeeze of a sponge as you mentioned. If you can't get hold of any bacteria from a sponge there are places (though not many) that...

When I first started reading about it clarifying the water, I though it was just a floculant but it seems to do everything which does make me suspicious. To my mind, anything which claims to do everything probably does nothing. For instance, it says it clarifies water, removes heavy metals...

Hi Neil. Looks like a good start. I think your "path" on the right hand side might disappear though as it's quite narrow. Have you separated the substrates at all as it all might mix with time, depending on your chosen fauna. By the way, if you want to post the pictures, left click on the...

Why choose cherries? There are loads of different shrimps around now you could breed, like CRS, bumblebees, tigers, sulewesi etc. Probably best avoid amano though if you only have the one tank.

...or aquasoil of course. Personally, I've gone off tropica substrate because of the mess it leaves behind when you uproot anything.

There are various plugins and "addons" for Firefox and I found this: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/181 I don't know if it's any good though it's got some good reviews.

I prefer the first one, but I like to see exposed sand. Carpets are impressive when done well, but I like the contrast of sand.

Yes, I can say "I live in chippenham" fluently, but that wasn't in the text, so I used http://babelfish.yahoo.com. Interesting to see the way others did it though, seems alot less hassle!

It's interesting that the article states that ideally the width of the tank should be equal or greater than it's height. IMO a good width is very underrated ( :o :lol: ) and makes for a much better layout.

Thanks Clive, I'll take a look.

Not after that "review"! :lol:

Regarding the cycling, it was more of a "are you cycling" question. As far as I can see, there's nothing for any bacteria to feed on. I must admit that the low biomass does confuse me. Everyone says that it's a problem, but why? If there's no fish, there's no ammonia and excess nutrients don't...

You'll find that as the sword get's more established it will get bigger, and may become more upright. Swords get quite big enough for most tanks! For the drop checker, something like this is what you want: http://www.bigalsonline.com/BigAlsUS/ctl3684/cp18478/si1380875/cl0/redseaco2indicator...

13A are more for heavy duty items like kettles and hoovers. You could use a 5A if you have any. It's more a safety issue than anything. You could run your filter with a 13A fuse, but if something shorts or burns out, it would be better to have a smaller bang than a bigger one! Best to go with...

Hi, I like the way you've framed it with the vallis in the corners. I think your rock on the right might get lost with the plant growth though. Can you raise it up at all? Regarding the ferts etc, I'd go full on with the light and CO2, but only start with half the fert dose due to the low...

I'd go along with that - cut out the additional two tubes and maybe add them again when it turns around. Even though your drop checked looks OK, it's only a "spot" measure. Move to the other side of the tank and see how it looks the next day. Then move it somewhere else. This way you'll get...

Yes, I think "variable" would be a good description! Tropica plants seem expensive in comparison but you do get more plant per pot, and it's healthy!

There may also be air trapped in the filter sponges/media that is coming free and being atomized by the impeller before being squirted into the tank. This happens all the time when I clean the filter and lasts a couple a hours, if the put the sponges in dry it will be worse.

Would you be visiting Peru by any chance?

Yep, good point, I didn't think of that. If the sump were large enough you could have the intake about half way up the main tank as long as the sump had capacity in case of a pump failure.

Yep, you can anything of mine too. I've got some pictures of Glowlight tetras, plants and my tank around here somewhere....

I get a message saying they're not running any competitions :( Have a missed the boat?

I can't really see why a sump would give off CO2, unless it was fed by a wier. If the tank were drilled and water was taken from near the bottom, fed into a sump, again near the bottom then an external filter put in there it probably won't lose that much more than a normal tank with good flow...

Hey, what are you people thinking?! ADA!! Get the whole caboodle, lights, CO2 etc. You can then charge people at the door to come in and view it. Neil (oldwhitewood) would be at the front!

Maybe it could be a UK speciality?! I agree with some of the comments on that third place tank, but the comment on the fern being too central for a focal point I think isn't quite true as, for me, it's the moss at the front that is the focal point and the eye is led upwards. That's the thing...

I was going to submit my tank this year, but time got the better of me. I kept holding on so it would look better, but in the end life got in the way, I couldn't do as much maintenance as I wanted and the tank started to deteriorate. It's on the way up again now, but of course it's too late...

Strange how some things stay with you forever. I had a very nasty flashback to a big shiny codpiece.....

Very true. Just some more than others. I find it very difficult to find information on doing biotopes, there's very little information on the kind of habitats fish and plants come from. Anubias come from Africa, everyone knows that, but Africa is quite a big place!

Yep, Sri Lanka for me. Chocolate gouramis grow to a decent size so sparkling / croaking gouramis could be done but as people have said it's been done before. I really like cherry barbs (real shame they're extinct in the wild) and chequer barbs are very underrated IMO, although I don't know if...

Are you inferring something? :lol: That tank wrapped up looks like it's going to be posted! I thought it was stop light getting in, not make it airtight!

IME using vinegar on rocks is a waste of time. In most cases the very slight reaction is difficult to see and a bit of dirt etc can mask it completely. Better to use some stronger acid like kettle descaler or the like. If you decide not to use the rock, give a rinse first though before putting...

With the very large carbonate content of the water you would need high levels of acid to bring the pH down and this would mean equally large amounts of CO2. This is irrelevant anyway, as the plants need the CO2 not the pH change and CO2 content doesn't change with pH, but pH changes with CO2...

I seem to remember reading that they live as larvae for anytime between 1 and 5 years. I suppose if they're enjoying your embers, you might have them for a while!

Wow, looks fantastic Tom. Any chance of a full tank picture?

Aquatic Habitat in Gloucestershire stock quite alot of planted tank stuff, including pressurised CO2 kits, substrates and tropica plants. I'm sure they've heard of ADA (but I've never asked them!). They don't stock any of it though. The problem with the average LFS though is that most of the...

I've always found that BGA is a nod towards a dodgy filter. The cause of BGA might be the low nitrate level, but IME a non-functioning filter causes the low nitrate in a normal setup. BGA is a pain to get rid of ones it starts and a 3 day blackout is usually a good idea. How's it going now...

Arghhh! Don't let ceg hear you say that. He'll come round and burn all your test kits! I have to admit to having the book, but I haven't read it yet. I've only had it a year or two though.... It's all about how to setup a tank completely naturally (or so I've been told :oops: ) Put your...

I'm a bit fussy about spraying things and don't use them if possible. If you can smell them then it's going into your lungs which can't be good for you. My inlaws insist on using Raid when a fly enters the room, I usually find an excuse to go out!Spraying chemicals into the air because it smells...

IMO, girls are happy with what they like, but blokes are more competitive and are therefore always pushing themselves to be better. I don't necessarily mean competitive with other people, but with themselves aswell. That's why the top people in gardening (Titchmarsh, Donn, Beardshaw, Swift...

That's very true Egmel. Many questions we can think of, such as referring to high tech, low tech, CO2 etc might not even occur to people who want plants in their tank as they may not even know that plants need CO2 or have come across the terms high tech and low tech. That age old question about...

Looks so much better with plants in. It always amazes me how plants can soften the hardscape and "hold" everything together. BTW, here's my tank when I had "dwarf" sag in it: I ended up pulling it out as it grew too big. The tank is 18" tall so the sag was about 6 inches tall at the time. I...

I wasn't thinking of going into business! Not just yet anyway :) No, it was just looking at the plants available from aquaticmagic and the like. Varieties that just aren't available over here, and the quality from Java and Plants Alive etc are questionable (mind you, Greenline weren't that...

I was just wondering about buying plants from Malaysia, Singapore etc because of the variety sold by Java and Plants Alive (and now the demise of Green Line) and then I got to thinking "where do the French and Germans get their plants from?". What plant sellers are there in European countries...

Regarding CO2, there are basically two forms: The "DIY" approach and pressurised. DIY This involves putting sugar and yeast in a bottle to ferment and produce carbon dioxide. You can go fully DIY and use 2l lemonade/coke bottles with a tube attached to the cap which goes into the tank releasing...

I never used to use any, but I mostly use rainwater anyway so the amount of chlorine is minimal. I now use a tiny dash of Tetra aquasafe, but only 'cos I got it free with something!

There are many plants which just grow too big for most tanks. I'm thinking of common vallis which always trails over the surface and Aponogeton ulvaceous(sp?), not to mention the larger crypts and common swords (E. bleheri etc). A deep tank would look great showing these off. If you have a shop...

Well, as your using T8/T6 then it's generally classed as a low light tank. I'd go for some crypts (wendtii's a good one), java fern (Microsorium pteropus - various varieties) and anubias. You could also put some moss in there, although I'm not sure where it could go. It would be a shame to...

Yeah, there is black in there, but also grey and white! It took me 7 years to change my last tank substrate so I don't think there'll be a change anytime soon!

Using two different types/colours of stone doesn't usually work although you might get away with it if the redder ones are towards the back. What plans do you have? Plants / fish? Any wood? I have the same gravel in my tank and I was a little disappointed that it wasn't finer, having been...

You should have one for Wiltshire by now.

Were those comments on George's 'scape via some forum? It's probably just my paranoia, but I'm wondering how much anonymity people get on their 'scapes before they're judged. Do you think the use of ADA products get any extra placings?

Just wondering Zig, did you intend for the layout to be entered into ADA hence no journal? If so, that's quite a foresight! I get the impression people do a scape, and then decide whether it's good enough to enter. That would certainly be my plan! I want to see journals for all of them! Well...

I know this is a planted tank forum but...... ....I don't know a huge amount about marines, but from what I've read over the years a big cause of algae is lack of water movement/flow around the corals and substrate. You get a layer of relatively still water over the "hard scape" where detritus...

I believe the AGA refer to gallons when defining their sizes for competition. The whole American billion thing was officially adopted some months ago. It always seems this country that changes to be the same as others, never the other way round....

Have you seen George's video on the PFK website? This shows him setting up a planted tank in some detail any may help you. I'll try to find the link if you can't see it.

Some shops will lend containers used to hold RO water to people. You'll probably need to be well known/a regular for them to do it, but it sounds like you've got it sorted anyway.

Re: New 210 litre set up equipment list....anything missing ? Good luck with whatever you decide to do. If you any specific questions when setting up, people here will gladly help out as best they can. As with most things in life everyone has different experiences and opinions. This is what...

Re: New 210 litre set up equipment list....anything missing ? The problem with mixes is that they seem to think people one 1 or 2 samples of lots of different species. It's a good way of seeing plants you're not familar with, but otherwise I'd go for bigger groups of less species. It depends...

Thought I'd do a poll as I was wondering which of the new plants people bought. I put Nasaea down but I wasn't sure if this was a new one or not!

Well, if you want to see before you buy and you want a good range of planted tank stuff there's only one choice really.... http://www.thegreenmachineonline.co.uk

You have gravel, heater and filter. You also need some light! What are you planning/budgeting/using?

When you replant/uproot/move plants around, the tropica might mix with the AS and spoil the look.

I think the growth rate of vallis would be quite scary with CO2!

How much other stuff have you got to move? If you've got a house full, I'd say try and give away the fish and move the hardware. You'll need to know where you're going to keep it all before you set it up again. How much time will you have when you move? If you haven't got a huge amount and are...

Glad we got that sorted then. I'm off for a lie down....

I'm assuming comparing the same type of bulb? A common household 100w bulb gives the same amount of light as an energy saving bulb of 30w. The number of photons emitted are the same but the wattage is different.

From what I know about physics (which isn't alot!!) watts in electrical items is the power consumed. So watts when used in terms of lighting is the amount of power is takes to light the tube, not the amount of light that is emitted. This is why it's so confusing with watts per gallon because it...

Regarding the aesthetic aspect of understocking, I think it's more interesting when there are fewer fish as you get the element of surprise when a fish you haven't seen for a while suddenly comes into view. That's why I like the jungle type of scape. Although I recognise that the Nature Aquarium...

There aren't many planted tank books around with regard to setup, maintenance etc. One book which is worth a read though is Diana Walstad's "Ecology Of The Planted Aquarium". This is aimed more at low tech setups i.e. soil substrates, no/low CO2 etc. It does have some theories such as...

I've been pronouncing it the same way for so long now, that force of habit would prevent me from changing! Many of the species names don't really have a 'right' pronounciation anyway as many are named after certain people. Therefore trying to pronounce them as latin when they originated from...

Rules are there to be broken...

It's good that they're giving you some responsibility so early on and not just treating you as a gofer. My work experience was in a bread factory cleaning grease from all the machines and washing floors :?

Yeah, great vid; saw it last night. I noticed George pronounced Cryptocoryne somthing like "crypto - korn". I've always pronounced it as "crypto - cor - reen". There's probably not a universal "right" way of pronouncing these names, but what's the general opinion? Of course, there's always...

It's cheaper than going to the gym though! :lol:

Using old pipes is probably better than new ones, similarly for hot water tanks. A nice build up of gunge and limescale coats the insides and prevents the worst of the leaching. I've always used rain water and a bit of tap for my water changes and heated up the water with a kettle. When I moved...

Useful, although it would be nice if there was one definitive list rather than lots of lists with mostly the same stuff. BTW, I didn't see CEC in there....

I agree Clive, a fully mature tank has huge numbers of bacteria coating every surface which all aid to it's stability in my mind. I suppose it all comes down to what the definition of "cycled" is. For me the danger is setting up a new tank with old media but leaving it empty and waiting for it...

Yes, if the media is old and fresh (does that make sense?!) then it's instantly cycled. If your substrate is like aquasoil though and releases ammonia then I'd leave it for a couple of days for the spike to go. Why did you add the elodea? If it's to soak up ammonia then your filter's doing...

I quite like the blue as it's a bit different, but prefer the beige one. Any stronger colours and then you start to lose the fish. I'm going down to B&Q after work to get myself a piece of free wallpaper!

Is it possible to do something in photoshop or some kind of paint program? If you remove all the equipment, then take a photo you could 'fill in' the background with a colour of your choice. Might be difficult to get good coverage with the plant leaves etc but maybe worth a try, even if it's to...

Just had a thought - How about lining paper from a DIY shop? Should be pretty cheap and is a cream colour. Or, even cheaper i.e free (what? me, tight?), how about some wallpaper, but using the reverse side?

It's difficult isn't it?! When I was doing my tank I didn't have a background at first but then I got some black card. My wife said she preferred it without, saying it looked more "stylish" and made the wood stand out more. I then showed her George's scapes in PFK and she said "see, I know what...