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"Spooky woodland" - oatfish's tank

oatfish

Member
Joined
8 Aug 2007
Messages
86
Hi Everyone, I once posted this tank on TTF but I have found UKAPS to be friendlier and more useful
(fewer “I bought a tank filled it with tap water and chucked hundreds of fish in it immediately and they all died, why?” threads for a start!)


Here was my tank about 1.5 years ago:
Picture1.jpg


It’s a fluval roma 200 with 4 x 39 watt t5 ‘s pressurised CO2 and 1x tetratec ex700 and 1x internal
Not enough flow but everything seemed to do well! I don’t like the huge plant mix up though, I did a typical “I’ll have one of everything”!

I have since been given a fair few plants from a friend who left the hobby, which have grown huge and subsequently been sold on here, so my tank looks like a bomb has hit it. I have not had any algae problems so I reckon I can grow stuff (easy stuff anyhow...), so now I have upgraded my filter and am planning a total rescape. My ideas so far are something similar to this great Barr creation:

resized70galADAwith1_5wgal.jpg

But without the grass floor (I have cories and it could tickle them, but I expect they will actually dig the whole thing up!) so with large pebbles which I have collected from the beach design a substrate/decor interface similar to this:

houston2006_1.jpg


But since I like Fissidens fontanus so much I want to cover all the rocks in it, similar to this:

greenreef01jd1.jpg



I have red moor wood from my 1st layout to use, will also cover the branches in fissidens, hopefully to give the tank a slightly spooky feel, enhanced by putting these fish in the tank when it is done:

DSCF0489.jpg


Plant list:
Fissidens
H. lacustris
Rotala green and nanjenshan
Narrow java fern
HM cuba (want to get a “drapey" effect over the rocks, good luck me!)
And some C. Bal in the back ground

So that’s my weekend planned (in between writing up my PhD – I think I have a serious case of attention diversion!) Will post more as I go! Thanks for reading, any ideas, criticism greatly welcomed :D
 
oatfish said:
I don’t like the huge plant mix up though, I did a typical “I’ll have one of everything”!

I really like the huge plant mix up :) I look forward to seeing any other pics of your tank. Now get back to your work :twisted: ;) ...
 
I have to say that for a Noah`s Ark of a tank, you did a pretty good job.

Isn`t the second tank a Barr creation, or am I getting it wrong again?

Dave.
 
Ooo, I had it in my head as a Knott creation, I can't remember where I sourced it from now. I have tank pics as my screen saver at work and I took it from that but maybe I should be more aware of my sources... :oops:
 
Your tank looks great! Can't wait to see what you do with this. Have you considered a smaller Crypt for the foreground? Parva?

That tank is definately a Barr creation - I remember seeing it on TFF.
 
Hi Thomas, I have some C parva in another tank, I might try it out! Thanks! Will edit the tank label since I have got it so wrong... :oops:
 
Today I collected some more pebbles/rocks from the beach, made in inline CO2 reactor (my old one fits the tetratec ex700 12mm tubing and my new filter takes 16mm tube) have siliconed some slate to the red moor, and successfully siliconed the grass, my hands and the door handle :oops:
I won't be making a feature out of the two pieces of bogwood shown but they might be useful to attach the narrow java fern to and add some height to the scape. I also amazingly found some decent plants in P@H today, and picked up 3 pots of Hygrophila corymbosa compacta and another pot of Hygrophila lacustris, looking forward to planting this up, but this evening/tomorrow I have to empty the tank of fish so I can lay substrate and get planting :D my favorite bit. the sticks in the photo are untreated dried willow, they look spindly but I have to keep in mind that the stones and wood will look "fatter" when it is covered in Fissidens, hopefully it will work.

DSCF0526.jpg

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DSCF0541.jpg


Just waiting for it all to dry now...yum!

DSCF0542.jpg
 
Also thought I'd add some pics of the current inhabitats but no full tank shots as it is a MESS :rolleyes:
Bamboo shrimp
DSCF0509.jpg

Fissidens
DSCF0505.jpg

And a very intrigued snake who would love to eat the fish if she didn't dislike putting her head underwater!
DSCF0515.jpg


Plecy (such an original name.... :?
Bristlemale.jpg
 
altaaffe said:
Looking forward to seeing this one grow, the fissidens you sent me is looking good as well by the way.

Excellent, looking forward to seeing what you do with it! I have the HC you sent me in a net growing emersed so the cories can't dig it up. The cories will be going to a holiday home tank whilst it gets established in the new set up. I'll play some Barry White at them and hopefully I'll get some C121 fry in the process.
 
Moved all the fish today and found out that my shrimp have bred soooo much i have them coming out my ears! Unfortuatley they are hybrids as before I knew better I was sold some cherry shrimp but also some very red looking rainbow shrimp (as cherry shrimp) so now I have a mix. Pretty worthless BUT they are fantastic algae destroyers so not all bad.
Tank sitting empty at the moment, can't wait to get playing with wood/rocks etc but waiting for some more substrate and time when I don't feel so guilty about not working on my PhD, then I'll get some hardscape pics up for you guys to vet!
Thanks for all the comments so far, it's nice to feel I am not doing this by myself and great to hope that someone other than me might appreciate the final product (fingers crossed!) TTFN x :D
 
oatfish said:
Moved all the fish today and found out that my shrimp have bred soooo much i have them coming out my ears! Unfortuatley they are hybrids as before I knew better I was sold some cherry shrimp but also some very red looking rainbow shrimp (as cherry shrimp) so now I have a mix. Pretty worthless BUT they are fantastic algae destroyers so not all bad.
Tank sitting empty at the moment, can't wait to get playing with wood/rocks etc but waiting for some more substrate and time when I don't feel so guilty about not working on my PhD, then I'll get some hardscape pics up for you guys to vet!
Thanks for all the comments so far, it's nice to feel I am not doing this by myself and great to hope that someone other than me might appreciate the final product (fingers crossed!) TTFN x :D
what fish do you have in with them?
 
Hey Nick, in with the shrimp?
I have some black emperor tetras, green neons, harlequins, cories a gold nugget plec and a bristlenose
 
do they not gobble your baby shrimp? i thought of adding some shrimp to my tank but it has no substrate and only a few bits of wood for cover. the amano's have been ok but cherries are smaller.

i suppose the density of your planting prevents this.
 
No, the fish completly ignore the shrimp although the shrimp seem to annoy the fish, esp. the plecs, by riding around on their backs. The fish eat any baby shrimp if they foolishly swim in the open water but ignore them on the bottom. I think with bogwood in your tank it won't be a problem if there is enough for cover?
 
there are about 3 or 4 bits and a small lump of rock. in a metre long tank. i dont think there is enough for the shimps safety. i will get some nerite snails instead.
 
Struggling with wood placement, got the righthand piece ok (I think) but not happy with the left hand side - any ideas?! Thanks :)

DSCF0558.jpg
 
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