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Creepy Hollow

Thank you both for the replies.

Originally, I had the following layout as a basis for my own planting:


I took the figures, multiplied by three and ended up with a list that ended up with me requiring a mortgage:

Cryptocoryne beckettii 'Petchii' 15 pcs
Echinodorus 'Reni' 6 pcs.
Ludwigia palustris 6 pcs.
Vallisneria spiralis 'Tiger' 6 pcs
Vallisneria americana gigantea 9 pcs
Bucephalandra pygmaea 'Wavy Green' 21 pcs
Microsorum pteropus 'Trident' 6 pcs
Microsorum pteropus 'Narrow' 6 pcs
Anubias barteri var. caladiifolia 6 pcs
Anubias barteria var. barteri 6pcs
Staurogyne repens 24 pcs
Sagittaria subulata 15 pcs
Microsorum pteropus 12 pcs
Echinodorus grisebachii 'Bleherae' 12 pcs
Echinodorus 'Ozelot' 6 pcs
java moss 30pcs

I've exchanged messages with @Courtneybst (thank you for your advice!) who helped me revise these figures to something akin to the following (multiples of 5 for discount from Birstall, waiting on a requote):

Cryptocoryne beckettii 'Petchii' 15 pcs
Ludwigia palustris 6 pcs.
Vallisneria spiralis 'Tiger' 4 pcs
Vallisneria americana gigantea 6 pcs
Bucephalandra pygmaea 'Wavy Green' 21 pcs
Microsorum pteropus 'Trident' 12 pcs
Microsorum pteropus 'Narrow' 12 pcs
Anubias barteri var. caladiifolia 4 pcs
Anubias barteria var. barteri 4 pcs
Staurogyne repens 15 pcs
Sagittaria subulata 15 pcs
Echinodorus grisebachii 'Bleherae' 9 pcs
Echinodorus 'Ozelot' 4 pcs
Echinodorus 'Reni' 4 pcs.
Java Moss 15 pcs

Hopefully this will be significantly cheaper, or at least a lot more affordable and will be enough to fill out the tank.

This was my idea for a stocklist:

1x Siamese Algea Eater
6x Ottocinclus
12x Amano Shrimp
6x Blue Cherry Shrimp ?
6x Crystal Red Chrimp ?
12x Blue Angelfish
2x L144 (1m 1f)
8x Apistogramma Cacatuoides (3m 5f - want males to be 1 yellow, 1 super red and another orange)
6x C. Julii
6x C. Panda
12x Red Congo Tetras
30x Rummy Nose Tetras
30x Cardinal Tetras

This may be too much. If need be I'll omit the Cardinals and bump up the Rummy Noses (to 40-ish)... leaning more towards the Rummy Nose as my background is black and hoping the contrast makes them pop. I'll happily buy everything piecemeal. That gives me a chance to catch up on that currently exhausted credit card.

I have TNC complete at the moment, 5 liters of it. It claims I need to add 1ml per 10liters of water a week. I bought this as I thought it would last me over a year. I take it this isn't as great as I thought it was?

Thanks for your replies once again, always appreciated.
 
Kogre said:
TNC complete at the moment, 5 liters of it. It claims I need to add 1ml per 10liters of water a week. I bought this as I thought it would last me over a year. I take it this isn't as great as I thought it was?
Click to expand...

1615386513181.png

TNC is a fine fert and best value AIO ( All In One) in UK ATM, but with 650l tank it will cost you £1.10 a week at STD dose, to dose at EI levels £6.60 per week

An APFUK mix cost about £0.40 per week for you tank

Full DIY EI dose would cost £1.38 a week if using RO water- but would addressing some/all of the Remineralising as well
 
Kogre said:
This was my idea for a stocklist:

1x Siamese Algea Eater
6x Ottocinclus
12x Amano Shrimp
6x Blue Cherry Shrimp ?
6x Crystal Red Chrimp ?
12x Blue Angelfish
2x L144 (1m 1f)
8x Apistogramma Cacatuoides (3m 5f - want males to be 1 yellow, 1 super red and another orange)
6x C. Julii
6x C. Panda
12x Red Congo Tetras
30x Rummy Nose Tetras
30x Cardinal Tetras
Click to expand...
As for your stocking list, I'm going to sound like a complete hypocrite because I keep an angelfish with amano shrimp. I only did this because I know the temperament of my angelfish but if I was buying a new set from the shop I wouldn't risk it personally. I've had some angelfish that are maniacs. The cherry and crystal red shrimp simply wouldn't survive, I honestly wouldn't bother.

I think the apistos might work but I've never kept a group that large before so I'll have to hand that over to someone else.
 
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Thanks @Courtneybst. I've just ordered it. At least I have something to fall back on at a better value once I'm out of TNC Complete.

Once I've planted everything in, I'll dose the TNC Complete at triple the recommended amount.

As for the stocking, I was hoping the plant mass would provide plenty of hiding places for the shrimp to survive if they were being hunted. I guess a way around this is to purchase the angelfish young. The cherry and red shrimps had question marks next to them as I wasn't sure based on them being so small with the angelfish as well as apistogrammas, but I had hoped the Amano would be a better option.

I always knew the angelfish were aholes. I went from this being a discus tank to being an angelfish community tank, I couldn't be bothered with the discus looking pretty but not really doing a fat lot. I also thought the tank being 30" tall would complement the long bodies of the angelfish. Now I'm at a loss for a centerpiece fish in this community, either I lose them or lose the hardworking shrimp that would have created nice small points of interest.
 
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Are you running CO2 on this tank @Kogre, in the back of my mind I had assumed you were, but now I’ve reread your OP, I don’t see it mentioned?

The TNC isn’t a waste of money, you can still very much use it, but how much you need to use will depend on whether you are injecting CO2.

I’m glad that @Courtneybst is advising you on the plants, so I won’t butt in too much on that, other than to say you might be able to trim it down further - for example, whilst obviously depending on the size of the plants, are you likely to need 24 full size Microsorum plants?

On the stocking list, that looks very high to me, even for an 800 litre tank. There will be others more knowledgable than me that can advise you better on compatibility such as @dw1305 @alto @MirandaB , particularly on the Apistos, but I think you need to be thinking about half that stock - at least initially and see how it goes.

If you are using tap water, I’d assume it’s fairly hard like mine, if so you won’t be able to keep Crystal shrimp, or indeed any Caridina species. Cherries - Neocaridina - will be fine, but I’d look to be adding 30+ to a tank that size to kick off the colony. That said, given the size of the fish you plan to keep, I suspect the shrimp will end up as expensive fish food, except perhaps the very largest Amanos.
 
Have a go at plugging your stock list in this calculator and see what it comes out at:


EDIT: I’ve just roughly plugged them in. Assuming I’ve selected all the correct or similar species, that’d put you are around 140% capacity with that stock list, so I’d reduce by at least a 3rd.
 
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Thanks @Wookii. I think the rationale behind the microsorums were that as the regular version had been omitted which was the larger variety, the smaller versions needed to be reinforced in number to make up for the lost plant mass. Nothing is set in stone here, and I'm happy to adjust based on consensus. The one thing I am worried about though it pissing off the people I've been requesting multiple quotes from by requesting yet another. 😅

I don't see my filter listed (Oase Biomaster Thermo 850) so chose the option to use "User Defined". For gUS figure, presumably that is the max aquarium volume that the filter can support in US gallons? I entered 225 but I'm not sure this figure is correct.

I ditched the Cardinals, halved the Angelfish, halved the rummy nosed tetras and played around with the Oto and cory numbers and got the following:

1615395409561.png


Again, I'm not sure the filter figure entered is correct.

I may need assistance with choice of a centerpiece fish if the Angelfish are a no-go. Turn the temperature up and go with discus?

Oh, almost forgot, I don't plan to run any CO2 on this.

Thank you for the link, that is super helpful, I just hope I got my filter approximation right.
 
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Wookii said:
As Darrel says @Kogre you don’t need to add any ammonia to the tank, it’s not beneficial. You also have aquarium soil as a base layer which will be releasing small amounts of ammonia through your sand capping layer into the water column anyway, so get rid of the additonal ammonia and run the tank as is.
Click to expand...
This explains why I'm seeing the concentrations of ammonia creep up and I've not added any ammonia since the weekend. It's sat at around 1ppm, nitrite is at 0.25ppm and nitrate is 5ppm. Looks like seeding the filter has given it a boost (thank you), obviously I will wait until ammonia and nitrite read 0 before adding any livestock.

I read here (under Dosage heading) that large concentrations of ammonia can inhibit the growth of the nitrite to nitrate bacteria colonies. Does that mean if I continue to see it rise to higher concentrations I should do a water change to keep it diluted to ~1ppm ammonia or shall I just leave it and let it run it's course?

I've had another quote back from Birstall Garden and Leisure for the plants. Vera there was really helpful and the price was really good. I'm leaning towards purchasing from them depending on other quotes I'm waiting on but it's looking incredibly likely. They could do everything other than the vallisneria, but I've already found some on ebay at a good price.
 
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some really nice varieties in your stocking list and a great tank to house them in as well, but sometimes you can have too much variety (lets be serious we've all been there wanting to just have it all in one tank and i've done it in the past and still need to reign myself in now)

While there's certainly no reason why you can't as long as you're not overstocked, sometimes less (variety) is more as it can make a tank very busy with them all trying to do their own thing. Less variety but upping the numbers of the ones you do have can sometimes be more jaw dropping when you see their 'natural' (as much as it can be in a glass box) behavior come out and they school or show breeding traits etc....

having that many apistos with corys will either be hit or miss, your amanos may be big enough to be left alone or also be targeted by the apistos when they get extremely aggressive during breeding

if you moved from angels to discus then you'd need to change the corys to something that likes the warmer water like sterbai

it's always a good thing to decide your 1 must have fish, your centerpiece species, then build all of the other stocking around that so they compliment them
 
Kogre said:
6x Blue Cherry Shrimp ?
6x Crystal Red Chrimp ?
Click to expand...
Cherry shrimp (Neocaridina) of all colour varieties want different water parameters to Crystal Red Shrimp (Caridina). Unless you're set on the Crystals or have perfect parameters for them straight out of your tap, I'd stick to cherries for a mixed community setup. They're hardier and as there are a lot of shrimp predators (most fish will eat shrimp) in your list, you're more likely to get a self sustaining colony. If you want an easier crystal imitation, have a look at red rili's. They're not as striking as the crystals but do have red and white bands and are another Neocaridina, so are relatively hardy. Mixing colour strains of Neocaridina can result in less colourful shrimp being produced and long term you'll probably end up with mostly brown/wild type shrimp but you may end up with some nice anomaly's along the way.
 
Those shrimp have been removed and I've adjusted the stocklist to reduce the total number:

1615464577866.png


@Kalum I totally agree, I think realistically I'd be happy with the Apistogramma, the Angelfish and the tetras. Everything else was there as a clean up crew or for movement at the substrate level. I've always wanted corydoras and can change them to a different type which might stand a better chance with the apistos.
 
Kogre said:
Those shrimp have been removed and I've adjusted the stocklist to reduce the total number
Click to expand...
Oh I see, sorry I wasn't sure if the shrimp had been left off because of their negligible bioload but I see you have Amano shrimp on there.
 
IMG_20210312_092930.jpg
IMG_20210312_092944.jpg

This stuff looks pretty nasty. Probably a good thing I don't plan on having my hands in the tank anytime soon.

Should I scrape this off where I can when it eventually comes to planting?

I swapped out the Oase inlets and outlets stainless steel ones. They look a lot better but the inlet doesn't run as deep. Not a big deal. I'll probably need to pick up a Nero for movement lower down at some point in the distant future. I have the outlet on the left aimed towards the right, and the outlet on the right aimed towards the front at an angle.

I had a quote back from AG and it seems to have gone up. It was also suggested that I buy MORE plants to bump up the price so I could get a 10% discount, essentially giving me £100 of free plants that I don't have the space or finances to cover. Still leaning towards Birstall Leisure and Gardens/ebay.
 
If I was to dose my tank with the necessary micros and macros with APFUK Ei start kit, that's completely independent of me not running CO2, right? As in I'd imagine (or guess) nutrient uptake to be significantly higher in CO2 systems. If this is the case, are doses different between CO2 and non-CO2 systems?
 
Kogre said:
If I was to dose my tank with the necessary micros and macros with APFUK Ei start kit, that's completely independent of me not running CO2, right? As in I'd imagine (or guess) nutrient uptake to be significantly higher in CO2 systems. If this is the case, are doses different between CO2 and non-CO2 systems?
Click to expand...

No, you don’t need nearly the dosing levels for low tech as you do high tech. I dose around a fifth to a quarter of EI on my low tech including regular water changes.

You can start off and use your TNC Complete up, and dose maybe around 2-3ml a day and see how you get on? If you use some floating plants like Amazon Frogbit, it will help you identify any deficiencies.

The white slimy stuff on your wood is a fungus, and is quite common on spider wood in particular, it is harmless and should disappear on its own, but manual removal should speed that up.
 
Thank you mate. I do want to have some kind of floating plant and Frogbit was my preferred aesthetic. If you happen to have any going, I'd humbly accept a handful.

I ended up pulling the trigger on plants. Well... 80% of them. I was told there wasn't a guaranteed delivery date on them, the longer it is the better as far as I am concerned, so the tank cycles in and I don't end up feeling like a chump throwing all that money away on creating aquatic mush.

@Wookii so if I wasn't to run any CO2, would you suggest doing triple recommended dose of TNC Complete or sticking to the baseline suggested? I'll kick the same question about the APFUK down the road until I get there.
 
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