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New "shallow" high tech planted setup

pepedopolous said:
I see. Interesting that he is advising against ADA methods in this case.
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Ha ha. Really? I haven't looked into what Ada actually advise although as a rule of thumb over my 10 years of keeping planted tanks ammonia = bad = algae so I'm happy to get rid of it before planting and lighting it up. I'll have the filter running and heater going and hard scape in but that's it for 3 weeks.

I'll use that time to test the flow as well. I just need to think of something light but non buoyant and inert I can chuck in the tank to see the flow. Small bits of filter floss maybe might do the job
 
seems a strange way to start up but there is more than one way to skin a cat.... not that ive tried recently :p
i did considered finding something to test flow in this way, best i found were neutrally bouyant balls used for fishing... ill see if i can find the link.
 
right then, i think im getting there on the hardwear. settled on the eheim 350T filter mainly because it has a heater and will fit in cabinet whereas the hydor in line wont with a jbl filter (and if it did it would be in a weird folded type pattern but i want straight tubes, no kinks etc.

so next is substrate..

i like the fine grain ada amazonia and am tempted to use normal amazonia 2x9L bags and then hardscape finally putting one bag of the fine powder version over the top. to create scale and a nice fine substrate.
however i imagine if its much finer grain than the bottom layer then after time it will sink below and end up on the bottom after time. is this true? if so theres no point.
and i am thinking i need 2x9L normal and 1x9L powder. - how much depth will that give me in a 100x40 tank? as its only 30 deep i dont want it mega deep or ill have no room to play with.

price wise the three bags as above work out to £119 so not as bad as i thought if i skip the powersand that i originally thought i had to use.
 
James Flexton said:
I spoke for ages with james Findlay, green machine about the set up and he said if he's setting up a tank in the shop without the constraints of being filmed he always runs for 3 weeks before planting. The ammonia released from Ada substrate does the fish less cycle but he said to run in for three weeks. 70% water change a week and plant on week 3. Also gives you time to fine tune hard scape etc and avoid any algae blooms. I'll end up spending over £100 easily on plants and he said if I do it this way I should have no losses whereas plant immediately using Ada substrate and I'll lose a fair proportion due to the ammonia / potential algae etc.

I'm in no rush so will follow this method. The tank layout will be similar to crimson Skye seen in his journals so I'm not one to argue if that's how his turned out!
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James method is what I used few years ago on my shallow. Did it for two weeks.

Sent from my D6503 using Tapatalk 2
 
Ahh I see now (slaps forehead!) that's great very useful thanks
 
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