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College 5'x2'x2' 100g

Tom

Member
Joined
8 Sep 2007
Messages
2,631
Location
Kawanabe, Kagoshima, Japan 鹿児島県南九州市川辺町
Here is my Nature Aquarium at the Aquatic Centre at Sparsholt. It was done on a very low budget, and as such the equipment is a bit mix and match.

Foreground is silver sand, but the planted area is JBL and Aquasoil (on top), due to college budgets!! Thanks to George for the Aquasoil there!

CO2 is by JBL Profi2. Ferts are KNO3 and KH2PO4 in powders, and TPN for trace.

Here is the basic hardscape, changed slightly now:
tank1-1.jpg


And how it is now:
tank2-1.jpg


I think I need to have a play around with the left side, maybe getting some more aquasoil and putting it on the back left, turning it into a triangular composition as it's not getting enough light how it is now.

What do you think? I'm having a few algae issues at the moment, and I might make another thread for that. I currently have Hair algae, BBA, and BGA :oops:

Tom
 
Yeah nice college tank Tom, very nicely done with the buget you have been given.
It will look great once it fills out.
If i was to give critique. The plant ( ?? ) to the right behind the extened peice of wood is distracting. Maybe remove or replant near the centre, and then create a more gentle slope down to the right. So in that second picture, were there is the gap, make that the area to create a gentle slope down to wear the distracting plant currently sits.

Rayi, the plant you refure to looks like Hydroctle Var.

Apologies for spelling!
 
Why use JBL with AS? I didn't notice at first, but I agree with the comment regarding the plant to the right.

What are the fish?

As it's on a budget could you let us know what the equipment is you've used?

All in all, looks nice!
 
I used aquasoil with JBL because we couldn't afford all Aquasoil. George gave me all the Aquasoil I've got.

I've just got Bolivian Rams and Ottos at the moment (budget reasons!)

JBL gave us a load of equipment (substrates, CO2 units, ferts etc) so I have JBL Profi2 CO2, their substrates (under ADA as JBL has to be covered and gravel/sand wouldn't stay sloped), now using my PFK Tropica ferts as the JBL ran out and I didn't like it anyway. I'm using KNO3 and KH2PO4 powder ferts (I bought). Lighting is an AquaOne 2x 150w Halide (lecturer works for AquaOne :lol: )
Plants supplied by me. Filters are an old Eheim and an AquaOne.

So you can see a lot of it is scrounged off of the companies or aquired in some way and is a bit mix and match.

Graeme do you meen the Sword?? If so then I can see where you're coming from. I'll experiment with it... I've got an HC path down the "centre", dividing the two parts. Do you think it would be more effective removing the path and replacing with stems/that sword??

Tom
 
JBL seem to be giving away loads at the moment. If JBL are reading this, can I have some stuff? :)

edit: I thought there was a shoal of something in front of the wood, but I see now that it's the umbrella plant refered to! :oops:
 
Tom,i think the sword should be removed completely, or shifted to the left with the other swards. Then have some other plants you can step down from the left bundle of swords to the position of the the removed sword, if that makes sense? I don't think stems would work, because you would still have this protrusion of plants stepped away from the rest of the composition. Maybe some stems off the right of the sword bundle and then some Pogostemon helferi to grade the slope down to the right, P.H should go well with the H.C path way you described.

Graeme.
 
I really like it Tom.

Is that halide lighting?

The moss on the wood looks really natural.

You can do some scapes for the magazine when you come on work experience.
 
You can do some scapes for the magazine when you come on work experience.

That sounds great I'd love to :D

Is that halide lighting?

Yeah. It's an AquaOne 2x 150w. The penetration of the light is really bad IMO. Below about a foot it seems really low intensity and I've also noticed more algae in the lower half of the tank (BBA and BGA mostly) :? .

I'm having a lot of trouble with this tank at the moment. Due to me not being here over the Xmas hols, the CO2 ran out and algae has run riot and I've had to hack a lot of plants back after being smothered by BGA and BBA and have totally replanted the foreground (Riccia mostly died off). I had been struggling to find a balance with the KNO3 and KH2PO4 anyway. I think maybe that as I was following the EI standard doses, with less than 3wpg and quite a lot of open space that might have meant I was overdosing. It's going to be a big job to recover it now though after 3 weeks of nothing so we'll see how it goes.

So far I prefer ADA and Tropica's ferts to the powders for EI, but I don't know whether it's just me not getting the hang of EI.

Tom
 
Re: metal halide water penetration, Do you know what make the bulbs are? Cheaper bulbs will lack "punch". Also, If you look at similar sized tanks by the likes of ADA they are rarely if ever powered by just metal halides and are backed up by power compacts, maybe this could be part of the reason your getting algae, it's worth a try after all.
 
The bulbs are AquaOne I think. It came with blue marine T5's and my lecturer (craig baldwin) reckons they make no difference. It would definitely be worth a try though to see the difference.

I noticed this morning that the BBA and hair algae appear to be receeding, but the BGA is going strong. I haven't dosed anything for a good week now, have done 4 water changes in that time and I have roughly 12.5ppm NO3 and 2ppm PO4. I'm assuming this is from the Aquasoil/Fish waste totally as it shouldn't be the JBL or water (R/O).

Tom
 
run a black out, start dosing, and get your hands on some flow pumps something like those lovely hydors.
It's worth noting too that the filtration should be epic for 100gallons, something along the lines of 2 of the biggest eheim's you can lay your hands on.
 
That would make sence to me, I've had bga 3 times, each time I addressed a diffrent problem, the final remidy? A new filter giving much higher flow.
Look what other people are running for tanks half this size, then double or even tripple what they use.
I find low flow is a bigger BGA cause than anything else.
Especially as this tank is so deep and long extra movement can be nothing but an improvement.
 
It's doing better than it was thanks. I did a blackout for about 5 days :wideyed: and it seems to have worked as the vast majority is gone, although not really suprisingly the Riccia died.

I might be changing to T5 lighting soon, but I don't know when as for some reason college is having trouble getting 36w compact T5 bulbs in plant spectrums - they only have 10-11k :rolleyes: (we have 2x Aqua One units for 4x36w). Would T5s have a high enough intensity in a 2' deep tank?

George, I set up the filter outlets how you suggested last time you were down, but I'll probably have a play around with the Aqua One today and see if it makes a difference. I'd agree about the plant biomass bit though but there's not really a lot I can do about that one given the limitations here - College say they can't afford to buy any more plants (not that they bought any in the first place, theyre all mine ;) ) and also I'm out of Trace elements. They won't give me any more and I can't keep supplying them for a tank this size :wideyed: they give me a funny look when I say I'd like anything other than Tetra :lol:

We'll sort it. I'm sure it'll get there in the end.
 
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