Paulthewitt
Member
So this is going to be "the" tank moving forward. Hopefully it will be a positive journal!
Me
My background is that I had a couple of tanks a number of years ago ending in 2013 when planning moving to the North West. I had a Fluval edge 23L and a Fluval Vicenza 180L. The edge was a good intro, but a pain to do anything with due to the opening. I loved my Vicenza and had a go at planted with Yeast based CO2. I was not very good at it - although I think with the yeast based co2 there were a lot of fluctuations which did not help. I was however proud of the tank - Frankly as I look at it now especially compared to all the scapes on here - it was rubbish!!...but it was a start.
Cue the pandemic and me working from home for 9 months, I decided to get a little tank to go on the desk in the office - this was great, but also a mistake. It got my 'itch' back to do something aquascape based, but was too small to have any nice fish in it. It has been a shrimp tank for some Orange cherry shrimp every since. Its journal can be seen here: Fluval Spec 19l - I need to update that and kind of close the thread, as I stole some of the plants for this one!
I then picked up a 50cm tank that was local mostly because it was underpriced for what came with it. But mostly the breeding colony of blue cherry shrimp - my favourite, that I could not justify the price tag of when I bought the orange shrimp. It also had a good few plants in it that I liked! As well as 6 CPD's and an endler. I liek the CPDs but they sadly all got Dropsy and died, despite my best efforts to save them. The Endler - which I have no love for, lived....of course.
Budjet -
Not expensive. Whilst I have money to buy this stuff and more, I am renovating my house and generally have an aversion to spending money. Being a single income family on public sector pay, meaning no actual pay rise for over 7 years, money is tight. I have basically funded this by selling stuff I owned! Having said that, I prefer value to cheapness; and if I am doing something I want to do it as properly as I can within my means.
The Tank
Why the name "Narada". Well that is the name of the ship of 'Nero', the arch villain in a Star Trek film. When I played with the scape I ended up with a design that reminded me of how the ship looked when going in/out of the wormhole. A pic of the ship is below. Upon looking and finding the ship...it looks less like it than I thought... but you know, I wanted an interesting name for the scape...so its sticking!
The tanks is an optiwhite, second hand job that came with a cabinet. I recovered the door to be white rather than black to match the rest of my office stuff. But otherwise left it be.
The tank is at the end of my desk for me to look into, but viewable from 3 sides as you enter the room and go to my desk. As such this may make things more challenging as I want it to look nice from 3 sides.... well, Nice from my desk, pretty nice on the end and ok on the other side.
Being used as room divider so will be seeing it front back and side.
Size w60xd35xh40cm. Around 85 litres ....although more like 75 when filled I think.
The tank will be Low tech. Reasons include the cost of CO2 set up and then its an additional cost going forward. Also space in the cabinet,
Filter and in/output-
Tap water. Its pretty soft here - Ph 6.4/6.8 consistently.
Substrate
Plants
Mostly stolen from my previous nano scape, other tank or bought from UKAPS members.
Clean up crew plans
Fish stocking:
....................................................................
The build:
I picked up some stone (Grey Mountain Rock) from facebook market place. Riverwood aquatics was the source of the wood. I tried local first, but they just didn't have what I wanted. I started messing around and came up with this. I knew I needed to leave space for sand as I want apistos and I believe they like to mess around in it sometimes.
Next the sand was added as well as a few bits of rock:
Then...planting time:
I was aware that this may be the best it ever looks!! We shall see.
This is how it looks today on day 4, just after its water change. I am going to do 50% daily if I can, but I was away yesterday, so have done 2 in 3 days. The filter is seeded so that should help.
I know it may need some more plants - but I was struggling to visualise what I had and may need. I am thinking maybe another Trident java fern on the wood in the middle front area.
Also questioning if I should add moss to one or two of the wood 'arms'?
Feedback and suggestions appreciated!
Me
My background is that I had a couple of tanks a number of years ago ending in 2013 when planning moving to the North West. I had a Fluval edge 23L and a Fluval Vicenza 180L. The edge was a good intro, but a pain to do anything with due to the opening. I loved my Vicenza and had a go at planted with Yeast based CO2. I was not very good at it - although I think with the yeast based co2 there were a lot of fluctuations which did not help. I was however proud of the tank - Frankly as I look at it now especially compared to all the scapes on here - it was rubbish!!...but it was a start.
Cue the pandemic and me working from home for 9 months, I decided to get a little tank to go on the desk in the office - this was great, but also a mistake. It got my 'itch' back to do something aquascape based, but was too small to have any nice fish in it. It has been a shrimp tank for some Orange cherry shrimp every since. Its journal can be seen here: Fluval Spec 19l - I need to update that and kind of close the thread, as I stole some of the plants for this one!
I then picked up a 50cm tank that was local mostly because it was underpriced for what came with it. But mostly the breeding colony of blue cherry shrimp - my favourite, that I could not justify the price tag of when I bought the orange shrimp. It also had a good few plants in it that I liked! As well as 6 CPD's and an endler. I liek the CPDs but they sadly all got Dropsy and died, despite my best efforts to save them. The Endler - which I have no love for, lived....of course.
Budjet -
Not expensive. Whilst I have money to buy this stuff and more, I am renovating my house and generally have an aversion to spending money. Being a single income family on public sector pay, meaning no actual pay rise for over 7 years, money is tight. I have basically funded this by selling stuff I owned! Having said that, I prefer value to cheapness; and if I am doing something I want to do it as properly as I can within my means.
The Tank
Why the name "Narada". Well that is the name of the ship of 'Nero', the arch villain in a Star Trek film. When I played with the scape I ended up with a design that reminded me of how the ship looked when going in/out of the wormhole. A pic of the ship is below. Upon looking and finding the ship...it looks less like it than I thought... but you know, I wanted an interesting name for the scape...so its sticking!
The tanks is an optiwhite, second hand job that came with a cabinet. I recovered the door to be white rather than black to match the rest of my office stuff. But otherwise left it be.
The tank is at the end of my desk for me to look into, but viewable from 3 sides as you enter the room and go to my desk. As such this may make things more challenging as I want it to look nice from 3 sides.... well, Nice from my desk, pretty nice on the end and ok on the other side.
Being used as room divider so will be seeing it front back and side.
Size w60xd35xh40cm. Around 85 litres ....although more like 75 when filled I think.
The tank will be Low tech. Reasons include the cost of CO2 set up and then its an additional cost going forward. Also space in the cabinet,
Filter and in/output-
- Oase Bio thermo 600 (some sponges and floss, but mostly bio ceramics) Seeded with some media from previous tank. Integral Heater
- CHinese Stainless steel job with skimmer
- Twinstar 600EA
Tap water. Its pretty soft here - Ph 6.4/6.8 consistently.
Substrate
- Tropica aquasoil
- JBL Sansibar River sand
- Tropica Specialised nutrition to start. Will likely switch to TNC when done as its cheaper. Delivered by autodoser (once set up...its not yet)
Plants
Mostly stolen from my previous nano scape, other tank or bought from UKAPS members.
- Flame Moss
- Mini Christmas Tree moss
- Anubias nana petite
- Anubias Bonsai (no idea came with the tank I bought!)
- Bucephalandra - possibly green (no idea came with the tank I bought!)
- Bucephalandra Kedagang
- Mini Java fern
- Trident java fern
- Needle leaf java fern
- Vallisneria Nana
- Alternanthera reineckii 'mini'
- Rotala Hra
- Hemianthus micranthemoides pearl weed (thank you @Jayefc1 ... all of your portions were HUGE!)
- Staurogyne Repens (thank you @Konrad Michalski also)
- On standby - red root floaters
Clean up crew plans
- the blue cherry shrimp to go to this set up once cycled
- I will buy some Amano shrimp...any suggestions on how many?
- Ottos - again - suggestions on quantity?
- Maybe a feature snail ...lots of pest snails will have come over with my plants!
Fish stocking:
- The endler (my daughter has named it "sparkles" or something ridiculous!)
- Apistogramma pair (agizzizi probably) ... or maybe black rams... thoughts?
- Forktail rainbowfish - loved this critters.... full of life - maybe 12-15? I need to find these locally and at a decent price first.
....................................................................
The build:
I picked up some stone (Grey Mountain Rock) from facebook market place. Riverwood aquatics was the source of the wood. I tried local first, but they just didn't have what I wanted. I started messing around and came up with this. I knew I needed to leave space for sand as I want apistos and I believe they like to mess around in it sometimes.
Next the sand was added as well as a few bits of rock:
Then...planting time:
I was aware that this may be the best it ever looks!! We shall see.
This is how it looks today on day 4, just after its water change. I am going to do 50% daily if I can, but I was away yesterday, so have done 2 in 3 days. The filter is seeded so that should help.
I know it may need some more plants - but I was struggling to visualise what I had and may need. I am thinking maybe another Trident java fern on the wood in the middle front area.
Also questioning if I should add moss to one or two of the wood 'arms'?
Feedback and suggestions appreciated!
