Carls 4ft of glory

[Bartash]

Ok ive started planning the re-scape of my 4ft tank

Im going to be using some wood i pulled out of a river local to me about a year ago, its been sitting in my garden drying out and is totally dead.
Because the pieces are too large to boil up im going to run a bath of scolding hot water and give them a good scrub. This will hopefully be enough to kill anything that might have made the wood its home.

Ive tried to plan this tank so it will be suitable for Cory's as i would like to have a shoal of them

I decided to have a play around with a layout on the hood of my tank.

Ignore the long line of string going from one end of the tank to the other, the plan is to have 2 separate planted ares as marked out by the other two pieces of string. The area at the front of the is going to be filled with sand.

I have already bought the sand i am going to use at the front, im using JBL Sansibar "River" this is a nice small rounded sand which will be perfect for the Corys.

Currently in my tank i am using aquabasis and manado but after about 18 months of use its looking quite discoloured and dirty. I am going to reuse some of this in stocking bags to build up mounds but also to give the added benefit of live bacteria.

I have not decided what substrate to use as the cap for the planted areas yet but i think a nice dark colour to contrast against the light coloured sand will be good.



I also need to find some nice rock to place amongst the wood

My current filter is coming towards the end of its life so im planning to buy one of the 2000LPH external filters from:

http://www.allpondsolutions.co.uk/aquar ... 9w-uv.html

My tank is 4ft long and 18" high but only 12" in depth, if i had the money i would go out and get a tank that is 18" depth because i find hard working with a thin profile tank.

Ok thats it for the time being i will update soon

Feel free to comment of recommend things

Thx

Carl

 

[darren636]

pygmy cory's.

 

[Bartash]

Ok so i finally got round to doing the re-scape,

One last time messing with layout

Ok so after i caught the fish, stripped out the plants and rocks and drained all the water i piled up all the old aquabasis and manado into the 2 main planting areas.

I placed the wood and rocks roughly where i wanted them

I then added the JBL Sansibar "River" Sand to the front of the tank

I then capped the old manado mix with a fresh bag of manado and tied mosses onto the wood and planted the plants

Sorry but i forgot to take photos at this point

Then i started to fill the tank with some containers of of the old water i saved and fresh water

and the final picture

This is a good starting point for this project

Next update i will tell you what plants i used and tell you more about my setup

You can see a video here of my angel fish in this new setup:

http://youtu.be/8ytcdVynY_o


Thx Carl

 

[Ady34]

Hi Carl,
looks really nice mate, good job. Its going to look very mature from the get go
Only one thing, the sand bed looks quite deep and could cause problems with stagnation within the substrate and potentially lethal gas build up. You maybe carry out deep gravel vacs frequently though to ensure this doesnt happen and its difficult to tell exactly the grain size so you may get away with it. Personally i think you could easily syphon off a couple of inches of it to be safe and then the tank will effectively get deeper water for the angels....win win
Look forward to seeing it progress looks great now so i can only imagine what it will look like in a few months.
Cheerio,
Ady.

 

[Little-AL]

Agree with Ady on the point about the sand... Looks very deep!

Great job on the rescape though, tanks that are shallow front to back are not easy to work with but from the pics you look to have added a good sense of depth.
Look forward to seeing it grow out!

 

[johnski]

Lookin good, great transformation. Can't wait to see it in a few weeks time.

For me personally, I'd move the moss balls out of the foreground sand and keep it nice and open, but that's just me. Looks good either way

 

[awtong]

I personally have a fairly deep sand bed and find stagnation not to be a problem. I get no build up of gas to speak of. As long as you poke the sand to check for gas build up during maintenance then you will not get an issue. The plant roots will help move things around as do my plecs. I have run deep beds for years with no issues.

Andy

 

[Bartash]

Ive uploaded a video of the new scape on youtube if anyone would like to check it out

http://youtu.be/9IjM6JA8hEk

ignore the youtube antishake rubbish im removing that as i type

Carl

 

[Antipofish]

And here is is embedded to make life easier

 

[Antipofish]

Great vid Karl. Was that a zebra plec I saw at about 1min 30 ?

 

[awtong]

What a great video and a nice looking tank.

The plant you were not sure of the name down the front left looks a bit like and Echinodorus Ozelot green to me. They have a slightly mottled leaf. Have a look on the tropica site as they have good pics of the plants.

Your wendtii green at the front looks like they still have the emersed style leaves so as they grow they will take on the longer needle type leaf shape like you have in the centre of the tank.

Andy

 

[awtong]

What a great video and a nice looking tank.

The plant you were not sure of the name down the front left looks a bit like and Echinodorus Ozelot green to me. They have a slightly mottled leaf. Have a look on the tropica site as they have good pics of the plants.

Your wendtii green at the front looks like they still have the emersed style leaves so as they grow they will take on the longer needle type leaf shape like you have in the centre of the tank.

Andy