Philip
Seedling
- Joined
- 12 Feb 2014
- Messages
- 11
Hi there,
I thought I'd best sign up to somewhere in order to help me keep a decent track of my tank progress, and more importantly get some advice!
I've been keeping fish for about a year now, starting off with a wee 19L Fluval Chi which was a new house present from my fianceé. This was a nice little tank, but the filtration system wasn't great (not to mention I was a total novice at that point) and I was also pretty quickly addicted so I was after something bigger!
I purchased a Juwel Rio 125 that came up for sale locally, which was a fair step up from the Chi. It took a while to clean up, but it was worth the time and has been running for a fair while now. This was decorated mostly with plastic stuff and I was running the internal filter / heater, but only had a small LED light and an internal light as it never came with the lighting unit or lid as standard. I've a fair selection of fish in it, all little and easy things like neons, guppies and platys. A few months ago I decided to plant it with some live plants, most of which have survived, but a handful have died. This was a learning curve as I wasn't fast enough at removing a couple of the dead plants which I recon spiked the water and killed a few of my shrimps. I'll get some photos of how it's sitting now soon!
Fast forward to now, and I'm in preperation for my next tank. Love the look of well planted tanks and it's definitely something I want to get into seriously. I've been scouting out a Trigon 190 for a couple of months now but nothing seemed to come up locally, and none of the ones at a reasonable distance were black! I'd have gone for beech if I had to, but for the sake of having it always fit in then I wanted black! So at the tail end of last week I thought I'd have a nosey on Gumtree, and to my luck there was a black Trigon 190 up locally for a pretty good price and in good condition! Advertised only 25 mins or so before I searched, needless to say I was straight in there and arranged to collect it as soon as possible, which was Monday! I enlisted my dad to come help me collect and I'm glad I did, it had to come down 4 sets of stairs from a flat and the tank went in his car and the cabinet in mine. I'd fairly underestimated the size of it - my door from the garage to the house had to come off to get it in! It was pretty messy as it had just been hastily emptied, but I've spend a few hours cleaning it so far and it's almost there. Glass and cabinet are both in really good condition so all in all it was a good purchase and worth the wait!
I'm currently stockpiling parts for it, in preperation for getting it set up. Bits are as follows:
With regards to scaping the tank, I've taken inspiration from a few tanks I've seen on here. I've got some aquatic soil as a base and will cap it with greenhouse shade netting followed by Pettex Roman Gravel in a slate effect. I've also purchased a selection of slate so I can create a 2-tiered scape, with the front scape being much less busy / flatter (mosses and stuff, quite like the look of the baby dwarves tears). Also already ordered are a couple of 'medium' bits of finger root wood to place on the upper tier and attach plants too. I may purchase some more granted that this stuff may look quite small in the tank! I've not thought as far forward as plants yet, but leaning towards the starter plant packs for simplicity. Also not sure on fish! I will probably transfer a few from the old tank, but I'm thinking about a couple of different sets of shoaling fish, and a selection of shrimps possibly too. Either that or I may set up the Chi tank as a mini shrimp scape for my desk.
Next step is to research EI fertilising and figure out how best to do this, I also need to sus out setting up my filter media! I'm thinking running it as instructed to get the tank going, but when I start planting I will replace the carbon with another coarse or floss pad!
Anyway, I've rambled on enough! I'll need to begin documenting what I'm up to with photos. Any advice on my points / plans would be much appreciated
I thought I'd best sign up to somewhere in order to help me keep a decent track of my tank progress, and more importantly get some advice!
I've been keeping fish for about a year now, starting off with a wee 19L Fluval Chi which was a new house present from my fianceé. This was a nice little tank, but the filtration system wasn't great (not to mention I was a total novice at that point) and I was also pretty quickly addicted so I was after something bigger!
I purchased a Juwel Rio 125 that came up for sale locally, which was a fair step up from the Chi. It took a while to clean up, but it was worth the time and has been running for a fair while now. This was decorated mostly with plastic stuff and I was running the internal filter / heater, but only had a small LED light and an internal light as it never came with the lighting unit or lid as standard. I've a fair selection of fish in it, all little and easy things like neons, guppies and platys. A few months ago I decided to plant it with some live plants, most of which have survived, but a handful have died. This was a learning curve as I wasn't fast enough at removing a couple of the dead plants which I recon spiked the water and killed a few of my shrimps. I'll get some photos of how it's sitting now soon!
Fast forward to now, and I'm in preperation for my next tank. Love the look of well planted tanks and it's definitely something I want to get into seriously. I've been scouting out a Trigon 190 for a couple of months now but nothing seemed to come up locally, and none of the ones at a reasonable distance were black! I'd have gone for beech if I had to, but for the sake of having it always fit in then I wanted black! So at the tail end of last week I thought I'd have a nosey on Gumtree, and to my luck there was a black Trigon 190 up locally for a pretty good price and in good condition! Advertised only 25 mins or so before I searched, needless to say I was straight in there and arranged to collect it as soon as possible, which was Monday! I enlisted my dad to come help me collect and I'm glad I did, it had to come down 4 sets of stairs from a flat and the tank went in his car and the cabinet in mine. I'd fairly underestimated the size of it - my door from the garage to the house had to come off to get it in! It was pretty messy as it had just been hastily emptied, but I've spend a few hours cleaning it so far and it's almost there. Glass and cabinet are both in really good condition so all in all it was a good purchase and worth the wait!
I'm currently stockpiling parts for it, in preperation for getting it set up. Bits are as follows:
- Juwel Trigon 190 in Black
- Tetra EX1200 External Filter
- Tetra HT300 Heater
- Hydor Koralia Nano 1600 Wave pump
- Aquaray Grobeam 600 Ultima Twin pack + MMS to mount it in the T5 holders. Controller to follow if I can find one on eBay or Gumtree!
- A longer fish net and siphon! The tank is a lot deeper than the Rio.
- YNR Pro Deluxe Aquarium Tools
With regards to scaping the tank, I've taken inspiration from a few tanks I've seen on here. I've got some aquatic soil as a base and will cap it with greenhouse shade netting followed by Pettex Roman Gravel in a slate effect. I've also purchased a selection of slate so I can create a 2-tiered scape, with the front scape being much less busy / flatter (mosses and stuff, quite like the look of the baby dwarves tears). Also already ordered are a couple of 'medium' bits of finger root wood to place on the upper tier and attach plants too. I may purchase some more granted that this stuff may look quite small in the tank! I've not thought as far forward as plants yet, but leaning towards the starter plant packs for simplicity. Also not sure on fish! I will probably transfer a few from the old tank, but I'm thinking about a couple of different sets of shoaling fish, and a selection of shrimps possibly too. Either that or I may set up the Chi tank as a mini shrimp scape for my desk.
Next step is to research EI fertilising and figure out how best to do this, I also need to sus out setting up my filter media! I'm thinking running it as instructed to get the tank going, but when I start planting I will replace the carbon with another coarse or floss pad!
Anyway, I've rambled on enough! I'll need to begin documenting what I'm up to with photos. Any advice on my points / plans would be much appreciated
