• You are viewing the forum as a Guest, please login (you can use your Facebook, Twitter, Google or Microsoft account to login) or register using this link: Log in or Sign Up

My Freshwater Reef

Scorpio1646

Scorpio1646

Member
Joined
7 Jan 2018
Messages
51
Location
Cambridge
Coming from a marine reef background I decided to set up my first attempt at a planted freshwater tank with a reef theme. No substrate and lots of natural light....I've got a long way to go to match the standard of some of your guy's tanks but so far I'm pretty pleased with my first go....this was taken at dusk, my tank sits on the desk next to my computer in my 'at home' office....wish I had a proper camera instead of my iPhone!
 

Attachments

  • AQUA9.jpg
    AQUA9.jpg
    356.7 KB · Views: 471
Last edited:
Thanks for the good advice Edvet. I set this tank up at the end of November. I spent 3 months trawling the forums for advice before I started to avoid just the problems you mentioned. So far not a smidgeon of algae in sight...it is against a North West facing window though, the tank is an ADA 60P and I use CO2 at 1bps with a Fluval G3 on maximum flow which I reckon gives me about 10times turnover per hour. I use Flourish Excel every other day with 20% water changes twice a week...and TNC Complete once a week. My biggest problem at the moment though is that the plants are growing too fast. I'm reluctant to cut them back too much because I think their proliferation helps algae competing. Still a long way to go on the learning curve but I'm enjoying it, which is the main thing.
aqua-11-01-18.jpg
 
How long between 1st and 2nd pic as it looks good. Being nosey would be good to see a list of plants you've got in there
 
Can anybody tell me how I list my equipment/plants/ fish etc on here without having to do it for each individual post?...thanks
 
Pics were taken a couple of days apart....I'm working on making a list of the plants but I've lost a lot of the labels
 
Nice tank Foxfish!
Can you or any other member tell me the name of the large palm tree looking plant in this pic? It was taken just a few minutes ago when my lights are in twilight mode. Its my favourite plant because it reacts to the light levels in my tank, fascinating to see the fronds open up as it gets lighter and then start to close when darkness descends.
aquarium at night1.jpg
 
Thanks guys.....I found the label ...it is Eichhornia diversifolia....has anybody any pics of these in flower?
 
This pic shows how much it opens up in the daytime (taken with crappy iPhone camera)......almost all the light is natural daylight.
daytime.jpg
 
This is nice,

i'm interested to see how this develops over summer with he natural light, i have a Tank directly opposite a west(ish) facing window and didn't experience problems last summer...

.. personally i have a feeling that if you can keep on top of the algae, Natural light is beneficial to both the plants and Fish.

Mike
 
Macman6 said:
This is nice,

i'm interested to see how this develops over summer with he natural light, i have a Tank directly opposite a west(ish) facing window and didn't experience problems last summer...

.. personally i have a feeling that if you can keep on top of the algae, Natural light is beneficial to both the plants and Fish.

Mike
Click to expand...
All my planted tanks are in a conservatory that gets direct sunlight and I never had a problem (just a bit more trimming to do). One thing to worry about is heat. the water in my tanks went up to 30ºC and higher last summer, so I had to find ways to cover them up a bit.
 
About 10 years ago when I was keeping Discus I had a large tank by the same NW facing window which was intended to be a hospital tank. I ended up just throwing all the unwanted plant cuttings in there and they grew like crazy with no substrate, no ferts and no electric lights....just a glass top with an Eheim thermo keeping the water at a constant 24C. I never had even the slightest trace of algae and besides the plants the only other inhabitants were a bunch of albino bristlenose places.
I have a line of mature trees opposite and even in high summer the sunlight was diffused through the leaves. I also had triple glazing so temperature rises were not a problem. I ended up using this as my main Discus show tank and everybody who visited said they had never seen such vibrant colours on the fish, especially the Heckels. Whether its the right balance of natural light, the bristlenoses or the natural transition in the morning and evening I don't know...maybe I'm just lucky.
I did purchase a Twinstar M5 from aquarium gardens today though because some of my fish are starting to breathe a little bit faster than normal. I want to use it to try and raise dissolved oxygen levels, I already have my G3 going flat out to give the water surface a good ripple and the surface skimmer on my lily pipe is doing a great job.
Will let you know if the M5 helps.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top