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The Mangrove

Claire

Claire

Member
Joined
18 Apr 2013
Messages
333
Location
Cumbernauld
Hi all.

It's been a while! I'm still in a love-hate relationship with "A Bit of Vision", although I've gone through many scapes since I last posted. There I'm currently waging a never-ending war with BBA, but I enjoy the tank nonetheless.

This is a very different project in that I am attempting a biotope.

The tank itself is being designed for a pair of GBRs which I own already and have been breeding in a bare tank, but I reckoned they deserved something a little nicer.

The tank itself is heavens knows what. It's an aquaone and I got it 2nd hand but in decent nick. It is tall for its size, which I hear is the opposite to these days fashion, but its shape suits the space I have well.

The light contains 3x t5s, but I'll only be running one.

Filtration is by a rated 1200lph, but I don't believe what it says on the tin. I'm happy at half that :)

Substrate is just plain, inert sand; Similar in appearance to but cheaper than unipac fiji. It's from zooplus.co.uk and was about £12 for a 15kg bag.

The wood is burnt heather I collected myself.

Plant wise, I'm not sure of yet... I believe the tank lends itself to something but I'm not quite sure what yet.

I would also like to add some leaf litter at some point. Just something I've never tried before and think would go nicely in this scape.

Anyways, pictures!
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As always, comments and critique welcome!

Claire
 
I love this and I want to do this style for chocolate gourami with the bottom bare(apart from leaf litter) and then java fern, hygrophilia pinnatifida and moss starting on the branches higher up. Watching with interest!
 
Thanks everyone for the kind words.
I got actual measurements for the tank which are 60(w)x32(d)x51(h)cm which I think works out to just under 100l.
Thanks Tom, it was only when I read your journal ages ago that I realised heather is safe to use - there's miles and miles of the stuff at my grandparents house outside of Dumfries (right in Duke of Buccleuch estate ground - grouse farms aplenty) so I thought I'd died and gone to heaven getting hardscape for free haha :p
I am still unsure as to how heavily to plant this. If I was going for a true biotope then I would go just one or two species and sparsely planted with leaf litter, but I just made the mistake of looking at Tom's Bucket of Mud scape again (reminded because of the heather) and I love the low tech dense planting with that wild feel.
Blahh. Decisions! :D
 
That heather looks great, I'm looking forward to see how this turns out.

Excuse my ignorance but what are GBRs?
 
Ah, thanks.... I just googled them, beautiful fish, they'll look awesome in there!
 
So I decided to be a bit weird and collect some leaves. There are loads of huge deciduous trees at my uni campus so I collected a few different kinds.
Any ideas as to what they are or if they're aquarium safe?
Common Oak - Safe?
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Red Oak - Safe?
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Beech - Safe?
20131023_133717_zps335c9a8e.jpg
 
I've used common oak and beech in my shrimp tank. I boiled them for a few mins to remove anything that might harm my shrimp.
 
I think leaves are one of the safest things to 'collect' while at Uni! And if you think thats weird I dread to think what you'd say about the stuff I've picked up...
 
ldcgroomer said:
I think leaves are one of the safest things to 'collect' while at Uni! And if you think thats weird I dread to think what you'd say about the stuff I've picked up...
Click to expand...

Hahahaa :lol: I think my worst idea was to collect about 25kg of rock from a roman quarry and carry it the 3 mile hike home... Looks nice in the tank at least :p
 
I found a water logged Shag(diving bird) on the beach while walking my dog and had to carry it through town to get home. I got a few looks. Me, a poodle and a really cheesed off looking bird under my arm.
 
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