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Babysteps of Aquascaping

TYB

Member
Joined
19 Feb 2009
Messages
30
Location
Kalmar, Sweden
Hey Scapers

I would like to get some pointers on my first scape, I have been keeping and breeding SA cichlids since childhood and I have always liked and keept plants. They have always been kept on the backburner though. Geting the fish to breed has always been the goal before, not this time. My plan is to take what I have right now for the first scape. I have decided to start up one of my tanks that I used to have fry in for this try out.

Tank : The measurement is 120 x 45 x 45 / 243 liter. It’s a tank with a frame, I know I don’t like it my self, but at the time I needed a tank for some fry and the tank was almost gratis. The plan is, next time I will glue some tanks I will switch it out for an all glas open tank.

Light: Right now I have way to little of light in the water, a standard ramp 2 x Philips TL-D 36 W Aqua Relle T8’s. A total of 0.29 W/liter. The plan is to get some T5’s on a raised ramp on the Tank standing on the side glas. How many bulbs in the ramp and what W? I am open for sugestions.

Filtration:Right now I have only Internal filtration, two AquaEl Powerhead pumping 650 liter/h. The next step is to get my hands on an EHEIM 2028 Professionel 2 pumping 1050 liter/h.
I am open fore any other sugestions?

CO2 DIY, I will get back to that, and right now Tropicas Aquacare fertilizer before I get PMDD, I will get back to that to. Substrat is a Tropicas Plant Substrat, under a layer of Aquarium gravel and Plant Nutrition+ 12 Capsules

Flora: Anubias barteri var, barteri, Anubias var. Nana, Cabomba caroliniana, Microsorum pteropus, Egeria densa, Vallisneria spiralis “Tiger”, Echinodorus bleheriand I think some Echinodorus ”Aquartica” that are in a bad way.

Fauna: Right now 3 fry of Aequidens rivulatis (Peru) and 4 Siamese algae eater’s (Thailand).

Setup Date : 2009-03-03

This is some bad pictures from the day after the planting...

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Looks fine to me - focal point is the wood, vaillus on the right will spread hiding what ever that is and carbomba on the right will hide intake / outlet pipes.

grt

Paul
 
Flyfisherman said:
vaillus on the right will spread hiding what ever that is

I'm trying to figure what it is too!
 
I'm looking at the plants you have and coupled with the fact you are using DIY CO2 then you have about 1.2WPG which is enough IMO. Any more and the DIY MUST go and the plants you have don't require more light.

On your filtration you currently have 1300lph with minimal flow reduction (Internals have less flow reduction as there are no hoses, or inline equipment) I would think 1300lph would be equal to 1700-2000lph of external filtration in terms of flow so they are nearly there. This is not the whole issue of course. External filtration will be much better at doing the actual job of filtration than internals and also willnot need cleaning weekly like internals do.

So if you want to go for filter I would say you want a couple of externals of 1200lph or more to get to around the 2400lph region. You could of course go for 1 filter of 1200lph and add a Koralia pump or 2 in there, or keep an internals instead of a Koralia.

In summary I wouldn't bother upping the lighting. Looks fine from the pics and the plants look fine too. Circulation is the only issue I can see ;)

AC
 
I'd suggest dumping the DIY and upgrade to pressurized. That plus higher flow as SuperColey mentioned will allow you to grow a much wider variety of plants. That will get you much further for the moment than adding T5s.

Cheers,
 
Two external canaster filters are on order, one that will be used on "Babysteeps of Aquascaping" and one that I will use on my next aquascape, a 350 liter tank. The two filters are a JBL CristalProfi e1500 (max 1500 l/h) and a AM-Top canister filter (1200 l/h). Info and experience any one?
I have right now one internal AquaEl Unifilter 1000 UV, pumping like mad but the UV su...do not work like would like :D but gives a great flow in the tank, also I have an internal AquaEl Powerhead pumping 650 liter/h driving my CO2 reaktor. I will keep the internal and just ad an external, the AM-top I think. Yes? No?

AT3337_S.jpg


AM-top Canister filter (1200 l/h)

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JBL CristalProfi e1500 (max 1500 l/h)

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AquaEl Unifilter 1000 UV
 
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