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Sam's journal if the tanks at the Gold Fish Bowl

Themuleous

Member
Joined
6 Jul 2007
Messages
4,121
Location
Aston, Oxfordshire
Well All :)

The time finally came for me to scape my first tank at the gold fish bowl so thought I would start a journal to document its progress. So here goes!!!

I wont bore you all with the build up other than to say all I’ve had to do is chose the plants and Barry has done the rest. They cleaned out the tank and laid the substrate, put the filter on and set up the CO2 ready for my arrival on Thursday. So after work down I went to set too and plant the tank. Pretty much the ideal way of doing it, all the fun of having a planted tank but none if the water changes! :lol: I also had the pick of all the plants in the shop, which is several hundered to make up for the ones Dennerle didn't send, like a kid in a sweet shop I can tell you!

Quick tank specs

Tank – Rena aqualife 120x50x70 (LxWxH) approx 350lt / 75UKg (90 USg)
Lighting – 2x30w 2x38w all Arcadia freshwater (you know me a the freshwater tube!)
Filter – Rena xp3 1350lph
Co2 – pressurised via ladder, but I think I might change to a pair if ceramic diffusers as it’s a big tank for a ladder. We’ll see.
Ferts – not sure as yet, that’s really up to Barry, but I think it’ll need a decent trace fert, perhaps 2 or 3 times a week. Seachem flourish or similar. Water changes will be 50/50 Ro and tap probably once a week.
Substrate – mix of Dennerle DeponitMix and tetraplant, capped with lime free, black gravel. The gravel is perfect size.

Plants

Some of the plants were out of stock at Dennerle and they sent a few incorrect things, but that wasn’t the end of the world. Here’s what I used

Alternanthera reineckii ‘red’
Bolbitis heudelotii
Crytocoryne balansae
Crytocoryne parva
Echinadorus parv. ‘Tropica’
Hygrophila polysperma ‘sunset’
Cryptocoryne wendtii ’MiOya’
Cryptocoryne wendtii
Bacopa caroliniana
Hydrocotyle verticillata
Rotala wallichii

Also used but not from Dennerle were
Cabomba furcata
Vesicularia dubyana
Nymphaea lotus var. rubra

I have to say I was particularly impressed with the quality of the Bolbitis, balansae, parva, Echinadorus parv. ‘Tropica’ and the H.poly ‘sunset’ all of which were in superb health and with excellent root growth. On a par with tropica if not better in some cases. I will definitely be using the Bolbitis in my own tanks.

Right, well that’s pretty much it, apart from to say that it took the best past of 4 half hours to sort and separate the plants and to plant them all! Here are the pics, it’s a tricky tank to photograph due to the tanks next to it, but hopefully you can see it OK.

Empty tank

Empty.jpg


Full from the left

Leftfull.jpg


Full from the right

Rightfull.jpg


Left

Left.jpg


Centre left

Centreleft.jpg


Centre right

Centreright.jpg


Right

Right.jpg


Close of some of the plants

Close.jpg


Close2.jpg


Any comments good or bad are always welcome.

Sam

PS – I need ideas for the second rena tank, if anyone finds any photos of interesting scapes for lower light tanks please post them :)

I’m thinking of a centre piece of redmoor wood, with lots of Bolbitis and anubias, then a lawn of ET. Or maybe redmoor wood either end, same plants but a path of silver sand or similar down the middle.
 
Re: Sam's Gold Fish Bowl Tanks

Want to give me some of that Bolbitis?!
Looks really good sam, Dutch inspired?
 
Re: Sam's Gold Fish Bowl Tanks

Looks like you had so much fun!! Any chance of a full shot of the tank to get the full effect? Colours look amazing. Nice work!
 
Thanks :) its nice doing a big tank, as you get to have lots of different colours and textures, hopefully as it matures it'll show of the various things better.

Sorry, no full frontal due to the awkward position of the tanks in front of it. I'll see what I can do next time I pop in, probably today.

Sam

PS - yes it was fun! ;)
 
Looks good Sam, what fauna's going in here?

Saw a great lowish light scape that was just crypts on APC a while ago; will see if I can find it again to show you.
 
Nice tank sam! Where did you get the denerle plants from? Do they sell it online or something? That bolbitis do look very impressive. how much did you pay for them?
 
daniel19831123 said:
Nice tank sam! Where did you get the denerle plants from? Do they sell it online or something? That bolbitis do look very impressive. how much did you pay for them?

I think the goldfish bowl stock them.
 
didn't realise the goldfish bowl was actually the name of the place. I was wondering that sam is setting up a tank, why on earth he called it a goldfish bowl....
 
daniel19831123 said:
didn't realise the goldfish bowl was actually the name of the place. I was wondering that sam is setting up a tank, why on earth he called it a goldfish bowl....

Oh it's a fish shop in Oxford who have recently mega-upgraded their plant section.
 
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