Search results for query: *

Yes, I remember reading that thread. I shall still feed this failure back to NA though. The tank has only been in operation for 4 weeks so I am a bit disappointed.

Was that the NA ones too?

A minor disaster! I came home from work today to the news that three of the clips for the glass lid had sheered off when my daughter was putting the lid back on, plunging the sheet of glass into the tank! :o Fortunately, the bits of wood stopped it from hitting the rocks and she managed to grab...

So stick with it then? I had another thought after posting. I have lots of little shards of granite from the sledgehammer sessions. They're a bit razor sharp but we have an old kids rock tumbler in the garage that could be used to take the sharp edges off. If I sprinkle those round the bases...

This is getting tiresome. :grumpy: Five plants floating today. I'm considering removing the top inch or so of cat litter and capping it with something heavier. It will be a bit of a pain, especially with the disturbance to the glossostigma and the hemianthemum but probably easier now than...

Now 9 days post-flood. I screwed the wood to some pieces of slate to keep them in position but then had to completely rebuild the right hand end of the tank to get them in place. The cat litter has been a nightmare and I would not use it again out of choice. It is too light to hold anything...

Well, here it is, at its best before flooding. At its best before everything started to go wrong. :( So what went wrong I hear you ask. Surprisingly, forgetting to rinse the cat litter didn't cause a problem. I had thought that the wood was quite secure, but no. As soon as the cat litter...

I ordered the silicone rod from Polymax. The acrylic tube came from The Plastic Shop.

Welcome to the Aquanano Club! It's a great little tank. Before you add any shrimps make sure you put some sort of mesh just inside the filter inlet grill; I didn't. They love going in there, particularly the babies, if they breed. I had 50+ babies living in the black sponge the last time I...

I did have a practice by making some new pipework for my puffer tank first. The trick is patience. Heat slowly but always keep the heat moving. If you stay still and heat an area too quickly, it blisters. Keep heating until it becomes quite flexible because if you try to force it you end up with...

No problem! The longest piece is about 1m in length and I bought the 1.5m Eheim cleaning brush which goes through easily. I've already had to clean them all to get the olive oil out.

Over the past couple of days I've been making the acrylic inflow pipes and spray bar. My aim was to be as minimalist as possible. Which meant no suckers, a single full length spray bar to serve both filters and no flexible tubing outside of the cabinet. In the end I did use two small pieces of...

I think this is about as far as I want to progress outside of the tank now that I have the basic framework and know which bits of wood to de-bark.

You shouldn't see too much of those 4 rocks once they have plants and moss around them. There will be sand Infront of them. All the rocks along the front will be raised off the bottom slightly because I have 2 stiphodons and it won't matter how much I tell them not to, they WILL burrow under them!

Work in progress.

I am 20cm/8 inches shorter than you. I get the light in my eyes when I am sat in my chair in the evening, not standing. This is also why NA made me a smaller cabinet. The big curved bit of wood was originally my inspiration but now that I have made a cardboard practice tank and put the rocks...

They are all seasoned oak. It takes ages to strip the bark.

I've managed to reduce the glare from the light by modifying it slightly. I used the spare wire tail to hook up the back corners to tilt the light backwards. The main beam still goes into the tank but no longer into my eyes where I sit. The rocks have now been reduced in size in a very...

I finally got my solenoid attached to the regulator yesterday thanks to a very helpful man in Reading. It has been a long and boring saga to get to this point and I eventually ended up at the BOC retail place in Reading. They didn't have an easy method of attaching the solenoid but directed me...

These photos are with half the bulbs being used. I'm not sure I'll ever need to use all of them. I haven't tried removing bulbs but it wouldn't alter the spill of the light anyway. It's like someone shining a torch in your eyes. It doesn't matter whether it's three torches or one, it's still...

Ooh look! My staurogyne repens is fruiting! The stuffed doorstop is naturally faded. We don't seem to have many red things.

Ady, what size Maui sand is that? Coarse or fine?

We put a strip of 5mm thick board under one in the end that seems to have levelled it. We're now looking at how to modify the light to reduce the light spill onto my chair. I put the propagator in there with some of the emersed plants but within the first hour it had given me a light induced...

Getting closer to setting up. I now have my rocks! I didn't want to spend silly money on them so went down my local landscaper's and bought some big chunks of green granite for 30p/kg. So for just over a tenner I have: Sledgehammer time!

It would help to cycle the tank! :grin:

Looking good. The water looks lovely and clear. The anubias need tying or gluing to the rocks rather than being planted in the substrate though, otherwise their roots can rot. Are you getting enough flow around the tank from the spraybar being that short? I can see you having problems with...

Hopefully just the lighting then. Escapees can be a bit of a worry. We once found a flying fox six foot from the tank that had managed to launch itself through the 5mm gap between the tank and lid.

It's nice to see something different. I'd level up the top 5 or 6 steps though. I wouldn't like to walk down those on a dark night, pub or not!

It will be a combination of light and co2 - too much light for the amount of co2 getting to the plants. Reducing the light will definitely help but look at getting the best distribution of flow also. You could move the filter intake to the same end as the lily pipe. That way the flow should go...

It depends what look you are after. If you don't like the look of the akadama then cover it. Otherwise, don't bother. I'd be concerned about the finer grain sand working its way down through the akadama. If you want an area of sand, like the front, then I would do that full depth sand. I agree...

It is now confirmed - you can have 3 led bulbs/strips or all 6. And yes, it does look like a supernova! This is with 3 bulbs: With 6 bulbs: None: But sometimes I hate my house. We moved the tank after this photo and thought we'd got it level but filling it up to test for leaks proved...

It's arrived! We're really impressed with the quality and we still can't tell if the veneer is real oak or not. I can't set it up until we have moved the other tank and its inhabitants out of the way. It will have to wait for the weekend as it involves moving 5 pieces of furniture, 3 tanks and a...

The tank is 182l. A single Eheim 2217 has a flow of 1000lph so to get 10x flow I would need to supplement with a powerhead at least. Then I spotted another 2217 on Gumtree for £25 and I thought "That will do!" But I can't decide on lily pipes or spray bar. I'm leaning towards a spray bar. It...

The 120l tank it is replacing has a Fluval 204 filter. The Fluval 204 and I have a love hate relationship without the love bit. :mad:

Up to now I've done everything on the cheap and diy but not been satisfied with the results. For me, diy co2 = algae! But rather than keep patching up a scratched tank with rusting hinges, inadequate filter, no co2 I decided to take the plunge. Going from 3 non-co2 tanks to 3 high tech tanks is...

I like the eriocaulons too. It's a pity they are not more widely available.

I've just had the phone call from Natural Aquario in Portugal to say that my tank is on its way! I can't promise that this will be a pretty tank or that it will be problem free. I'm sure that at some point someone will say 'the problem is your...

Did you accidentally squirt the moss with liquid carbon?

Have you decided how you are going to fertilise the plants? EI?

Is it definitely the seal? I don't know if Fluval have changed the design from the 204 but there is a design flaw with the handles that can make it look as if it leaking. The handles have hollow areas at the sides of them which are outside of the filter casing and seal. If you get water in these...

Frequent water changes at startup is something I learnt from this forum. When I tried it on my last tank I didn't get a spot of algae. Try large water changes daily for the first week, every 2 days for the next week, then every 3 days, every 4 days and then weekly.

If you do for one of the Eheim classics (2213, 2215) make sure you get one with the double taps and filter media. They make maintenance so much easier. Not everywhere sells them with the taps and they are expensive to buy separately.

Its looking good! If you are able to, you might want to think about upgrading your filter though. The Eckfilter XL only pumps at 150lph which might be ok for an unplanted tank but you need something around 600lph with the plants.

That is the flower. It won't open any more than that, although it will last some time. I like your new layout. Some moss tucked into a few places would look good and should work well in your low tech setup.

The time lapse photography sounds really good. I'm looking forward to seeing the results! So what red stems have you put in?

We read all these forums and then start to think that we're beginning to understand how to set up a planted tank. 2 months later we have a tank that looks a mess and spouse asking "So how much exactly did you pay for those plants?"

I'll be interested to see the answer to this because I had exactly the same problems with the same plants - tropica 1-2 grow staurogyne repens, HC and pogostemon helferi. However, I have always assumed that it was because I wasn't injecting co2, only easycarbo. I tried reducing the lighting and...

Sounds great although twisted vallis doesn't like liquid carbon. I finally gave up with that and removed all the vallis from the tanks I use liquid carbon in, including my dwarf puffer tank. Once I squirted it in without looking where it was going and a couple of days later all the vallis leaves...