Wookii
Member
Right guys, I’ve been using this forum quite a bit over the past couple of months, and I’ve started a number of ‘question’ threads over that time, so I thought I’d give a little back and start a journal thread.
My introduction thread gives a little background (HERE), but the long and short of it is I am essentially coming back to owning (well co-owning with my son) a planted aquarium after a 16 year hiatus. This has been sparked by my son asking for an aquarium for Christmas, and I seized on it as an opportunity to let him experience a fully planted high tech tank rather than the usual bubble pirate chest and some guppies.
Ironically I’d kept hold of all my aquarium gear, including a small tank (not a nice flash rimless opti-white one, but good enough to start with), external filter, Aquamedic CO2 kit, and numerous other paraphernalia, including a few (though limited) choices of bogwood and rocks. I was therefore in a position to set the tank up straight away, but an inline heater, glassware, LED light and plants would all have to be Christmas presents on my sons Santa list.
So we pressed on, and selected the best suited wood and rocks from my limited stash, and came up with some hardscape designs. In retrospect the wood is a little too large, but we had to shave costs off somewhere, and the design works fairly well I think for a first stab.
The tank was set-up and started cycling 5 weeks before Christmas, and cycling was essentially complete a week before Christmas Day. As the plants were to be a gift, and I needed to be able to add livestock as soon as possible (think of a 7 year olds patience levels) I couldn’t ‘cycle’ in the normal way with plants in situ from the start.
This is the initial set-up as it currently stands:
Tech:
Tank: 60 x 30 x 35 – 60 litre
Filter: Eheim 2028 (1050 litre/hour rated) with Substrate Pro + Purigen
Heater: Hydor 300 watt inline/external
Light: Fluval Plant 3.0 32W with blue tooth control
CO2 Tank: 3.15Kg
CO2 Regulator: Aquamedic dual stage
CO2 Diffuser: JBL ProFlora Inline
CO2 Reactor: DIY Inline
Pipework: Dual outlet (glass lily pipe + old Fluval inlet), single glass inlet with skimmer (+ shrimp guard)
Substrate: Tropica Soil Powder (approx. 16 litres) + Seachem Flourish Tabs (for Crypts)
Other: Twinstar Nano Plus
My introduction thread gives a little background (HERE), but the long and short of it is I am essentially coming back to owning (well co-owning with my son) a planted aquarium after a 16 year hiatus. This has been sparked by my son asking for an aquarium for Christmas, and I seized on it as an opportunity to let him experience a fully planted high tech tank rather than the usual bubble pirate chest and some guppies.
Ironically I’d kept hold of all my aquarium gear, including a small tank (not a nice flash rimless opti-white one, but good enough to start with), external filter, Aquamedic CO2 kit, and numerous other paraphernalia, including a few (though limited) choices of bogwood and rocks. I was therefore in a position to set the tank up straight away, but an inline heater, glassware, LED light and plants would all have to be Christmas presents on my sons Santa list.
So we pressed on, and selected the best suited wood and rocks from my limited stash, and came up with some hardscape designs. In retrospect the wood is a little too large, but we had to shave costs off somewhere, and the design works fairly well I think for a first stab.
The tank was set-up and started cycling 5 weeks before Christmas, and cycling was essentially complete a week before Christmas Day. As the plants were to be a gift, and I needed to be able to add livestock as soon as possible (think of a 7 year olds patience levels) I couldn’t ‘cycle’ in the normal way with plants in situ from the start.
This is the initial set-up as it currently stands:
Tech:
Tank: 60 x 30 x 35 – 60 litre
Filter: Eheim 2028 (1050 litre/hour rated) with Substrate Pro + Purigen
Heater: Hydor 300 watt inline/external
Light: Fluval Plant 3.0 32W with blue tooth control
CO2 Tank: 3.15Kg
CO2 Regulator: Aquamedic dual stage
CO2 Diffuser: JBL ProFlora Inline
CO2 Reactor: DIY Inline
Pipework: Dual outlet (glass lily pipe + old Fluval inlet), single glass inlet with skimmer (+ shrimp guard)
Substrate: Tropica Soil Powder (approx. 16 litres) + Seachem Flourish Tabs (for Crypts)
Other: Twinstar Nano Plus