neilharris
Seedling
- Joined
- 11 Nov 2008
- Messages
- 7
Hi there I am quite new to fish keeping having only had a little 35ltr arc tank running well for 6 months but decided to jump in head first after seeing the 2008 AGA aquascaping contest entries, it just opened my eyes to a new world. I have had my fair share of problems and changes of heart but I now have a 180litre black Italian glass rimless tank and cabinet which I bought from Green Machine (what an amazing place and helpful people). My filter is a Eheim 2180 professional 3 thermo filter, lighting is provided by an Arcadia 4x39w OT2 luminiare and have a koralia nano for creating flow on the surface. I have a pressurised CO2 system with the 3kg canisters from green machine running through a aqua medic regulator and solenoid, attached to an aqua medic 1000 co2 diffuser and have a dazs beetle set A glass bubble counter with a chameleon drop checker. I have glass inflow and outflow pipes (ADA rip offs) although currently just connected up my eheim spray bar and inflows. My substrate consists of a large quantity of ada aqua soil amazonia II with power sand M, bacter 100, clear super and tourmalne bc underneath.
Here are a few basic pictures
I hope this gives a better impression of what I'm doing. I am currently dealing with the ammonia spike from the aqua soil and letting my filter mature and hope to plant in a couple of weeks time.
My final plant plan for my tank is based on this picture as I heard for a first aquascape it can be useful to use an existing scape and then make it your own.
Obviously my hardscape is set out very differently and rather than using Hemianthus callitrichoides 'Cuba' I want to use Utricularia graminifolia only to be different, is this a wise move? My mid ground plant will be Eleocharis Acicularis and my background plant will be Eleocharis Vivipara. All opinions welcome on my choices. I do think I should maybe take some of the substrate from the front and give my background more of a slope as well as making my path narrower at the front to make it look more of a path and sink it a little lower into the substrate, is this right?
The reason I've started this topic is because, as I said I'm very new to this and do need advice and help. The questions I have are: in a 180 litre tank (same dimensions as a rio 180) how much of each plant will I need and is there any golden rule for spacing between plantlets? Is there any easy way of protecting my one and only path from disappearing? Also I like the look of my glass pipes all together but for flow purposes should I have one of each inflow on each side of the tank? Although my koralia nano is the other side.
Now onto fish lol, my stocking ideas are to have a little army of cherry or amano shrimp, a couple of Siamese algae eaters and i really want a shoal of green neon's as my main species in number just not sure how many, I was thinking about 30 would that be ok? I was always planning to have probably a trio or 2 pairs of blue rams as target fish to help my neons shoal but I keep being drawn to a pair of Apistogramma cichlids especially Macmasteri, borelli and trifasciata not that I've looked into availability. Mainly because I don't think my hardscape is going to suitable due to no hiding spaces and no spawning sites. Could my tank house these fish? Would my plants provide enough cover or how drastic a change would I have to make to my planned tank to make it suitable? I'm still hoping as a back up plan my tank would be ok for blue rams but could be wrong again.
All advice, comments and help will be greatly appreciated as I really am still learning and find this forum such a brilliant source of information.
Here are a few basic pictures
I hope this gives a better impression of what I'm doing. I am currently dealing with the ammonia spike from the aqua soil and letting my filter mature and hope to plant in a couple of weeks time.
My final plant plan for my tank is based on this picture as I heard for a first aquascape it can be useful to use an existing scape and then make it your own.
Obviously my hardscape is set out very differently and rather than using Hemianthus callitrichoides 'Cuba' I want to use Utricularia graminifolia only to be different, is this a wise move? My mid ground plant will be Eleocharis Acicularis and my background plant will be Eleocharis Vivipara. All opinions welcome on my choices. I do think I should maybe take some of the substrate from the front and give my background more of a slope as well as making my path narrower at the front to make it look more of a path and sink it a little lower into the substrate, is this right?
The reason I've started this topic is because, as I said I'm very new to this and do need advice and help. The questions I have are: in a 180 litre tank (same dimensions as a rio 180) how much of each plant will I need and is there any golden rule for spacing between plantlets? Is there any easy way of protecting my one and only path from disappearing? Also I like the look of my glass pipes all together but for flow purposes should I have one of each inflow on each side of the tank? Although my koralia nano is the other side.
Now onto fish lol, my stocking ideas are to have a little army of cherry or amano shrimp, a couple of Siamese algae eaters and i really want a shoal of green neon's as my main species in number just not sure how many, I was thinking about 30 would that be ok? I was always planning to have probably a trio or 2 pairs of blue rams as target fish to help my neons shoal but I keep being drawn to a pair of Apistogramma cichlids especially Macmasteri, borelli and trifasciata not that I've looked into availability. Mainly because I don't think my hardscape is going to suitable due to no hiding spaces and no spawning sites. Could my tank house these fish? Would my plants provide enough cover or how drastic a change would I have to make to my planned tank to make it suitable? I'm still hoping as a back up plan my tank would be ok for blue rams but could be wrong again.
All advice, comments and help will be greatly appreciated as I really am still learning and find this forum such a brilliant source of information.