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First time tank!

IconicHornbill

New Member
Joined
17 May 2020
Messages
17
Location
Hampshire
First planted tank, let me know your thoughts!
I was told to plant heavily, so I did. Everything's settled in nicely and the shoal of 15 harlequin rasbora seem quite content in their new home, along with zebra nerite snails and amano shrimp. The tank's been up and running for just less than 3 months and I've had no algae thanks to my cleanup crew, large initial water changes, careful lighting, CO2 and ferts. The first fish (6 harlequins) went in after a month with the rest joining their tank mates last weekend.
I'm planning on adding 3 ottos to help with cleaning those hard-to-reach areas as well as some cherry shrimp.
I inject CO2 via an inline diffuser, dose ferts weekly and lighting is on for 8 hours (around 2 hours at 100%)
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Well done. Excellent plant growth.
Only thing I would change is the front most branch bring a little close to the front glass looks a little unnatural and will make maintenance a little tricky.
One thing I know for sure, this is a lovely planted tank, let alone a first planted tank :clap:
 
Well done. Excellent plant growth.
Only thing I would change is the front most branch bring a little close to the front glass looks a little unnatural and will make maintenance a little tricky.
One thing I know for sure, this is a lovely planted tank, let alone a first planted tank :clap:
Thanks! I'm delighted with it and its given me so much tinkering to do during lockdown too, so its kept me busy.
The front and rear bench are actually all one piece, it looks great from side on too. I was really conscious to try and make the tank viewable from either side, not just the front. It's actually side-on that's the view I get most of from the sofa.
I completely get your point about maintenance though; I wish I'd set it back even half a centimetre more as it's a struggle to clean- it's the only algae in the tank! I'm hoping ottos will be able to help get in there :)
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Hi @IconicHornbill

I can only echo what everyone else has said - your tank looks stunning! And I have to admit to more than a smidgen of envy. Would you be happy to give details of:


JPC :)
For sure! I started out with no livestock and ran the CO2 heavily for a week so that the dropchecker ran lime green/yellow just to give the plants the best start.
For the first 2 months the lighting was on for 6 hours total, 4 hours at 80%, and 2 hours at about 60%. I recently increased the photo period to 8 hours, with 2 hours at 100%, 4 hours at 75% and the rest ramping up/down. I'm not sure if this is too much so monitoring closely for now.
I did 50% water changes twice a week for the first 3 weeks but now only smaller weekly changes.
I introduced 5 amano shrimp and 3 nerite snails after a week and at this point I turned the CO2 down so the drop checker was green.
No ferts for the first month, then 2.5ml of TNC complete each week, which I increased at 2 months to 5ml. I'm considering adding a little more as it's pretty densely planted.
I also dosed with seachem stability daily in the first week to build the bio filter, and continue this at every water change. I also replaced the plastic media in my filter for seachem matrix and added a filter bag of seachem purigen too.
I've been super conscious about algae, which is why I invested early on in the algae munching livestock and have worked hard to build good bio filtration. Fingers crossed I can keep it this way!
I did get quite a bit of very unsightly white jelly like mould on the wood for the first few weeks. Just as I started to think it was never going to get better despite scrubbing it with a toothbrush every day and that I should rip the wood out... it vanished almost overnight!

I am a total newbie so I'm sure I got bits of this wrong ;)
 
Twinstar 600ea is a very dainty and effective lamp mate,I got Twinstar CC and im very I am satisfied:)
 
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