Hi,
I've plucked up the courage to post a journal about my new tank. There are two reasons behind this.
1. I have quite a bit of time on my hands and
2. When it starts to go wrong, you'll have history and have walked this path together and you'll be able to help me........ at least that is the plan
This is my journal of a ‘Walstad’ style tank…. or at least my version of it, which is to say in reality, my ability to follow instructions rather and any specific ‘take’ I may have on the process.
First a little background on how and why I am here…….
I love fish tanks……… and maybe more importantly, my little one loves fish tanks and in particular Krevetky (Russian for Shrimp), Mrs is Russian........
Sadly my ability to maintain a tank in all it’s splendor beyond the first few months, well…. really, it doesn’t exist. Thus a while back I started researching a way to have a beautiful tank but with little hassle and that is when I was pointed I the direction of Ms Walstad.
I emptied out my old tank a few months or so back after what can only be described as an Algae Bloomb (combination of bomb and bloom) took over the tank. I never really identified what the algae was, but it wasn’t pretty and formed what I termed ‘hammocks’ of algae that also managed to catch all the debris in the tank.
I’m somewhat embarrassed to say that the tank literally spiraled downhill at that point as I started losing fish and then plants and then well..... like I said.... it spiraled... until the only solution was to dismantle it all. At this point I came very close to dismissing a planted tank in favour of a non-planted Cichlid tank.
I had to work out what kept going wrong because my tanks all pretty much follow the same pattern.... first 2 months..... great.... lots of growth, lots of green and even some reds, then suddenly 'everything' goes green, as in, covered in it.
It turns out that my tank is actually designed to be a Marine tank (RIO 180), however the helpful people at the fish shop failed to mention this when I purchased it. The tank itself is not an issue, it's the lighting.... I have a whopping 2x45 T5's Highlite and I gather with a low-tech tank, I need probably under half of this. So, now that I have that worked out (kind of), I know how to proceed.
Anyhows….. that is a very short version of what brought me to this point.
A few weeks back I received £90 worth of vouchers from various family members for my birthday and headed down to my garden/lfs in Chessington, Surrey. This is not my closest, but others are pure LFS’s and with that comes the usual 300% price hike for similar non-aquatic designed products.
£45 worth of vouchers lighter I arrived home with the following:
3 bags of John Innes no.3 (three quarters of a bag for the tank and the rest for the garden. 3 for £10)
2 small bags of 4-6mm gravel
1 small bag of horticultural silver sand
1 medium bag of 3-5cm pebbles
4 large rocks
3 small lavender plants
I had to go back and purchase another small bag of sand today.
I ended up using the following:
Three quarters of a bag of John Innes no.3
One small bag of 4-6 gravel
One and a quarter bags of horticultural silver sand
A quarter bag of pebbles
Four large(ish) rocks
So, all in, I think I actually spent around £22 on the substrate and substrate decor……. which I think is outstanding value (assuming of course it works).
I have three pieces of driftwood/bogwood (is there a difference?) left over from my old tank, however I only plan on using two of them as I think the third will clutter the tank and it is also currently covered in said former algae in my nano tank.
I was going to try and describe what the plan was for the scaping (not sure I’m brave enough to use that word at this stage), but to be honest, after two days of moving stuff around, I think it probably speaks for it’s self….. (by saying that I am not, by any means, suggesting it is a work of art).
Ready for planting:
Full tank
Left side
Right side
Sorry about the picture quality. I am not a photographer, despite having a good camera (Nikon D90) and the tank is a bloody mess)
Other things I need to write about that will be coming up over the weekend are:
1. ‘Advice’ from the Garden/LFS.
2. Moss growing ala the method on these forums
3. Hybrid filer (Juwel sponges/Fluval ceramics)
4. A little more on Walstad methods
5. My ‘way way' to powerful lights and how I propose to fix that … cheaply
Please please do comment…. All feedback is welcome, just be prepared for me to ask lots of questions about what you say
Regards
Lee
I've plucked up the courage to post a journal about my new tank. There are two reasons behind this.
1. I have quite a bit of time on my hands and
2. When it starts to go wrong, you'll have history and have walked this path together and you'll be able to help me........ at least that is the plan
This is my journal of a ‘Walstad’ style tank…. or at least my version of it, which is to say in reality, my ability to follow instructions rather and any specific ‘take’ I may have on the process.
First a little background on how and why I am here…….
I love fish tanks……… and maybe more importantly, my little one loves fish tanks and in particular Krevetky (Russian for Shrimp), Mrs is Russian........
Sadly my ability to maintain a tank in all it’s splendor beyond the first few months, well…. really, it doesn’t exist. Thus a while back I started researching a way to have a beautiful tank but with little hassle and that is when I was pointed I the direction of Ms Walstad.
I emptied out my old tank a few months or so back after what can only be described as an Algae Bloomb (combination of bomb and bloom) took over the tank. I never really identified what the algae was, but it wasn’t pretty and formed what I termed ‘hammocks’ of algae that also managed to catch all the debris in the tank.
I’m somewhat embarrassed to say that the tank literally spiraled downhill at that point as I started losing fish and then plants and then well..... like I said.... it spiraled... until the only solution was to dismantle it all. At this point I came very close to dismissing a planted tank in favour of a non-planted Cichlid tank.
I had to work out what kept going wrong because my tanks all pretty much follow the same pattern.... first 2 months..... great.... lots of growth, lots of green and even some reds, then suddenly 'everything' goes green, as in, covered in it.
It turns out that my tank is actually designed to be a Marine tank (RIO 180), however the helpful people at the fish shop failed to mention this when I purchased it. The tank itself is not an issue, it's the lighting.... I have a whopping 2x45 T5's Highlite and I gather with a low-tech tank, I need probably under half of this. So, now that I have that worked out (kind of), I know how to proceed.
Anyhows….. that is a very short version of what brought me to this point.
A few weeks back I received £90 worth of vouchers from various family members for my birthday and headed down to my garden/lfs in Chessington, Surrey. This is not my closest, but others are pure LFS’s and with that comes the usual 300% price hike for similar non-aquatic designed products.
£45 worth of vouchers lighter I arrived home with the following:
3 bags of John Innes no.3 (three quarters of a bag for the tank and the rest for the garden. 3 for £10)
2 small bags of 4-6mm gravel
1 small bag of horticultural silver sand
1 medium bag of 3-5cm pebbles
4 large rocks
3 small lavender plants
I had to go back and purchase another small bag of sand today.
I ended up using the following:
Three quarters of a bag of John Innes no.3
One small bag of 4-6 gravel
One and a quarter bags of horticultural silver sand
A quarter bag of pebbles
Four large(ish) rocks
So, all in, I think I actually spent around £22 on the substrate and substrate decor……. which I think is outstanding value (assuming of course it works).
I have three pieces of driftwood/bogwood (is there a difference?) left over from my old tank, however I only plan on using two of them as I think the third will clutter the tank and it is also currently covered in said former algae in my nano tank.
I was going to try and describe what the plan was for the scaping (not sure I’m brave enough to use that word at this stage), but to be honest, after two days of moving stuff around, I think it probably speaks for it’s self….. (by saying that I am not, by any means, suggesting it is a work of art).
Ready for planting:
Full tank
Left side
Right side
Sorry about the picture quality. I am not a photographer, despite having a good camera (Nikon D90) and the tank is a bloody mess)
Other things I need to write about that will be coming up over the weekend are:
1. ‘Advice’ from the Garden/LFS.
2. Moss growing ala the method on these forums
3. Hybrid filer (Juwel sponges/Fluval ceramics)
4. A little more on Walstad methods
5. My ‘way way' to powerful lights and how I propose to fix that … cheaply
Please please do comment…. All feedback is welcome, just be prepared for me to ask lots of questions about what you say
Regards
Lee