ScaperJoe
Member
Hi Folks
I'll skip the introduction because I've managed to introduce myself in several places on UKAPS while stumbling around here in pure excitement. I was amazed to discover other humans also have planted tanks, because obviously I invented it when I became interested in the hobby 6 months ago . Long story short, I watched some Green Aqua YouTube videos during lockdown and was blown away by what these Hungarian aquatic wizards were doing with little glass boxes. Anyway, now I'm a tank-head or is it mulm-mate? (sorry guys, I'm new).
While working my notice period before starting a new job this year, I decided to take the plunge and bought a cabinet. Flat pack, a key made by some bloke called Alan, bish-bash-bosh --- now I'm a fish guy right?
"Whoa there big fella, settle down"
My audience couldn't wait to see what I'd do:
(this is our pet pigeon)
The only logical next step was to buy a little glass box. Easy right? No, not when you've convinced yourself that 'only ADA will do' because that's what the Hungarians were using in the videos, and you live on a rock in the English Channel where you'd be lucky to find a supplier for a cardboard box, let alone a glass one. Anyway, shout out to Scaped Nature and a shipping company that would sling it in the back of a lorry and park it on a ferry:
(Arrived in one piece and my palpitations ceased.)
These things look so good, you could almost stop here. Could've even housed Alan's key in all its glory
As you can see, I answered my lost calling as a plumber / electrician and became Mandy Han the handy man.
"Aren't you worried about the electric socket location, Mandy?" ... Yes I am, I lied about the palpitations.
Gas arrived together with all the relevant apparatus and my life support machine was almost ready.
(Small note for the fact lovers - I ditched the in-line heater before fill-up for a more direct tubage to the tank)
What do normal people do once they've bought a fish tank, a light and a filter? Do they all go to a shop and agonise over which sticks and rocks to buy? I don't think I'll ever feel right about purchasing hardscape until I can visit a proper aquascaping shop. My girlfriend certainly didn't understand when I needed to go back for "MORE!?!?" - even the shopkeeper that sold the sticks and rocks gave me a look that said "No one buys the sticks and rocks mate, the world is full of stick and rocks..."
Anywho, I got straight to pressure washing my rocks and boiling my sticks like a normie... All so I could start playing with them on the bedroom carpet:
"This shape pleases me."
My plants were in flight (from 4 different places - because Brexit) and I had some sacks of substrate I was itching to open, so I undertook the sweaty moment of placing my first rock in the little glass box. Seeing the Hungarians throw rocks around their tanks didn't make me feel any easier about this - every fibre of your being says "don't put the rocks on the glass you idiot." People who live in glass houses and all...
But that was old me, now I can dunk dragonstone like Kobe! Becuase I'm a bio-media buddy (... not that one either, huh?)
"Like a GLLLOVE!"
Now it was finally time! The moment you wait your whole life for... surgery!
I really hope someone else out there can relate, because this was a long-ass day!!! So many videos show the planting happen seamlessly; tweezer-pop-spray, smile at the camera, job done! <-- this was not my experience. My hands were shaking, I was sweating and grimacing, frantically grabbing the water spray to keep plants from drying out, getting substrate over everything, spotting a piece of rock wool I failed to remove, super-gluing my fingers together and treating the hardscape like it had betrayed my family. I reached for the beer well before socially acceptable timeframes.
But we got there in the end... Day 1 as a Diatom Dude (eurgh!)
(2nd March 2021)
What followed was weeks of relentless daily water changes (+ a lot of pushing plants back into the substrate) because I was damned if I wasn't going to make that planting day pay dividends!
Day 19
Until I had tested the water into submission and could place my livestock order. Phoenix Rasbora (even though I asked for Chili's), Amano Shrimp (they call them Yamato Shrimp apparently) and Nerite Snails (they knew what these were).
And here came my biggest mistake and a shocking halt to the whimsy. In my haste and tunnel-viewed research into achieving a beautiful planted aquarium, my complete lack of fish-keeping knowledge reared its ugly head. I lost far too many of my Rasbora due to stupid human error on my part.
1. I 'acclimated' them while the CO2 was at its most prevalent and caused a huge amount of fish stress;
2. The surface skimmer claimed half a dozen;
3. I added all the livestock at once (approx. 25 creatures in all);
4. The lily pipe pictured was creating a flow too powerful for them;
5. I rushed a water change and caused osmotic shock;
6. I overfed thinking I was being kind and generous;
7. I learned that my CO2 settings were too much for them, despite the drop checker telling me "its fine and lime" (I was poor at reading the fish signs at the outset).
Day 38
This all made me very stressed and second guess ever entering into the hobby. The Amano's and snails all survived to my surprise, but they must be a lot more rugged and ready than the little nano fish. I had to quickly engage with the steep learning curve and fix all my mistakes as quickly as possible. My girlfriend was asking me "how many killings" each day and I was determined to get to "zero darling, I'm a fish whisperer don't you know"
Day 52
I finally got the surviving 4 Rasbora to stop stressing by getting the CO2 just right, making the skimmer manual under my supervision, slowing the water changes, changing the lily pipe to a 'spin' outflow, adding an air stone and a supplementary HOB filter and also, probably, just time - time for the biological filter to adjust to the new bio load. I decided not to order any more fish until I was confident it wouldn't happen again.
I had some cloudy water issues and a pretty scary algae bloom at one stage to get to here, but it was the wellbeing of the fish that was the most troublesome and upsetting.
Thank you for reading if you made it all the way down here, the next post ends lot more cheery as I show you where this is at today (1st May 2021) and hopefully it showcases the fruits of my labour.
If not anything else, I hope you'll enjoy the cheesy royalty-free music!
I'll skip the introduction because I've managed to introduce myself in several places on UKAPS while stumbling around here in pure excitement. I was amazed to discover other humans also have planted tanks, because obviously I invented it when I became interested in the hobby 6 months ago . Long story short, I watched some Green Aqua YouTube videos during lockdown and was blown away by what these Hungarian aquatic wizards were doing with little glass boxes. Anyway, now I'm a tank-head or is it mulm-mate? (sorry guys, I'm new).
While working my notice period before starting a new job this year, I decided to take the plunge and bought a cabinet. Flat pack, a key made by some bloke called Alan, bish-bash-bosh --- now I'm a fish guy right?
"Whoa there big fella, settle down"
My audience couldn't wait to see what I'd do:
(this is our pet pigeon)
The only logical next step was to buy a little glass box. Easy right? No, not when you've convinced yourself that 'only ADA will do' because that's what the Hungarians were using in the videos, and you live on a rock in the English Channel where you'd be lucky to find a supplier for a cardboard box, let alone a glass one. Anyway, shout out to Scaped Nature and a shipping company that would sling it in the back of a lorry and park it on a ferry:
(Arrived in one piece and my palpitations ceased.)
These things look so good, you could almost stop here. Could've even housed Alan's key in all its glory
As you can see, I answered my lost calling as a plumber / electrician and became Mandy Han the handy man.
"Aren't you worried about the electric socket location, Mandy?" ... Yes I am, I lied about the palpitations.
Gas arrived together with all the relevant apparatus and my life support machine was almost ready.
(Small note for the fact lovers - I ditched the in-line heater before fill-up for a more direct tubage to the tank)
What do normal people do once they've bought a fish tank, a light and a filter? Do they all go to a shop and agonise over which sticks and rocks to buy? I don't think I'll ever feel right about purchasing hardscape until I can visit a proper aquascaping shop. My girlfriend certainly didn't understand when I needed to go back for "MORE!?!?" - even the shopkeeper that sold the sticks and rocks gave me a look that said "No one buys the sticks and rocks mate, the world is full of stick and rocks..."
Anywho, I got straight to pressure washing my rocks and boiling my sticks like a normie... All so I could start playing with them on the bedroom carpet:
"This shape pleases me."
My plants were in flight (from 4 different places - because Brexit) and I had some sacks of substrate I was itching to open, so I undertook the sweaty moment of placing my first rock in the little glass box. Seeing the Hungarians throw rocks around their tanks didn't make me feel any easier about this - every fibre of your being says "don't put the rocks on the glass you idiot." People who live in glass houses and all...
But that was old me, now I can dunk dragonstone like Kobe! Becuase I'm a bio-media buddy (... not that one either, huh?)
"Like a GLLLOVE!"
Now it was finally time! The moment you wait your whole life for... surgery!
I really hope someone else out there can relate, because this was a long-ass day!!! So many videos show the planting happen seamlessly; tweezer-pop-spray, smile at the camera, job done! <-- this was not my experience. My hands were shaking, I was sweating and grimacing, frantically grabbing the water spray to keep plants from drying out, getting substrate over everything, spotting a piece of rock wool I failed to remove, super-gluing my fingers together and treating the hardscape like it had betrayed my family. I reached for the beer well before socially acceptable timeframes.
But we got there in the end... Day 1 as a Diatom Dude (eurgh!)
(2nd March 2021)
What followed was weeks of relentless daily water changes (+ a lot of pushing plants back into the substrate) because I was damned if I wasn't going to make that planting day pay dividends!
Day 19
Until I had tested the water into submission and could place my livestock order. Phoenix Rasbora (even though I asked for Chili's), Amano Shrimp (they call them Yamato Shrimp apparently) and Nerite Snails (they knew what these were).
And here came my biggest mistake and a shocking halt to the whimsy. In my haste and tunnel-viewed research into achieving a beautiful planted aquarium, my complete lack of fish-keeping knowledge reared its ugly head. I lost far too many of my Rasbora due to stupid human error on my part.
1. I 'acclimated' them while the CO2 was at its most prevalent and caused a huge amount of fish stress;
2. The surface skimmer claimed half a dozen;
3. I added all the livestock at once (approx. 25 creatures in all);
4. The lily pipe pictured was creating a flow too powerful for them;
5. I rushed a water change and caused osmotic shock;
6. I overfed thinking I was being kind and generous;
7. I learned that my CO2 settings were too much for them, despite the drop checker telling me "its fine and lime" (I was poor at reading the fish signs at the outset).
Day 38
This all made me very stressed and second guess ever entering into the hobby. The Amano's and snails all survived to my surprise, but they must be a lot more rugged and ready than the little nano fish. I had to quickly engage with the steep learning curve and fix all my mistakes as quickly as possible. My girlfriend was asking me "how many killings" each day and I was determined to get to "zero darling, I'm a fish whisperer don't you know"
Day 52
I finally got the surviving 4 Rasbora to stop stressing by getting the CO2 just right, making the skimmer manual under my supervision, slowing the water changes, changing the lily pipe to a 'spin' outflow, adding an air stone and a supplementary HOB filter and also, probably, just time - time for the biological filter to adjust to the new bio load. I decided not to order any more fish until I was confident it wouldn't happen again.
I had some cloudy water issues and a pretty scary algae bloom at one stage to get to here, but it was the wellbeing of the fish that was the most troublesome and upsetting.
Thank you for reading if you made it all the way down here, the next post ends lot more cheery as I show you where this is at today (1st May 2021) and hopefully it showcases the fruits of my labour.
If not anything else, I hope you'll enjoy the cheesy royalty-free music!