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YAR180 (Yet Another Rio 180).

Re: From scratch. YAR180 (Yet Another Rio 180)

Well, I've just managed to sell the 4ft tank to a nice chap on TFF. I now have £60 burning a hole in my pocket :D

I'm thinking one or two of the following:

External hydor heater (300w) - £35 ish
Lilly pipes - £30 ish
twin 39w T5 light unit - £27 ish + tubes at about £10 all in (lamp sepcs).
Fish stocking - £??

Can't think of anything else off the top of my head... I guess I need to prioratise. I'm sort of assuming fish will be bought whatever, so I'm not counting them I don't think ;)

Already got substrate, hard scape, plants (on the way), filter, CO2, ferts and the Rio 180 (T8 30w tubes x3).

Anything I'm missing?
 
Re: From scratch. YAR180 (Yet Another Rio 180)

Joecoral said:
I would def go with the external heater, it's another bit of kit out of the tank then

Going to my LFS tonight to have a look. They had them in last time I was there but can't remember how much. Cheapest I've found the 300w online is £33 inc postage. I seem to remember my LFS had them for £37 or something. Hopefully they're cheaper than I remember!

Also, good news:

We thought you would like to know that the items listed at the bottom of this email have been sent to the delivery address listed below. This completes your order.

Thank you for shopping at Plants Alive.

Plants were delayed as Plants Alive had run out of some things. Hopefully this means nice fresh plants but we'll see. The last lot of plants I had from them weren't in amazing condition. Fingers crossed!

Also, some P Helferi arrived thanks to JamesM today, along with some bacopa Australis. Should make a nice addition to the tank. I'll be filling it up with water tonight :)
 
Re: From scratch. YAR180 (Yet Another Rio 180)

All sounds very promising. Is 2x39w lighting going to be enough? or are you aiming for mid-ish light? You might want to considered getting a 3x39w. The EQJ-trading ones on eBay are switchable so you can have 1, 2 or 3 tubes on at anyone time, just think you might get it and someday way to upgrade, might as well have the option from the start :)

Also

SteveUK said:
Plants were delayed as Plants Alive had run out of some things. Hopefully this means nice fresh plants but we'll see. The last lot of plants I had from them weren't in amazing condition. Fingers crossed!

Unfortunately knowing plants alive, you'll be lucky if this happens. Such a shame greenline have got bust but people like plants alive remain.

Sam
 
Re: From scratch. YAR180 (Yet Another Rio 180)

Themuleous said:
All sounds very promising. Is 2x39w lighting going to be enough? or are you aiming for mid-ish light? You might want to considered getting a 3x39w. The EQJ-trading ones on eBay are switchable so you can have 1, 2 or 3 tubes on at anyone time, just think you might get it and someday way to upgrade, might as well have the option from the start :)

I'm sticking with my Rio light unit for now, with an additional twin light unit, so should have 4x 30w T8. Just need new tubes and reflectors.

These are the tubes I'm contemplating but I'd love some advice if anyone has any:

http://www.lampspecs.co.uk/3-Foot-30-Watt-Daylight-54

http://www.lampspecs.co.uk/3-Foot-30-Watt-Cool-White-33

(figured I'd get 2 of each to incase I didn't like the colour rendition).

Themuleous said:
Unfortunately knowing plants alive, you'll be lucky if this happens. Such a shame greenline have got bust but people like plants alive remain.

Sam

Package arrived today and after a quick inspection they don't look too bad at all. Just want to get them home now and get the tank filled and planted :)
 
I shopped around and found that Warehouse Aquaticswas cheapest at £29.99 plus £3 delivery.

Not used this company before and the checkout wasn't as smooth as I'd of liked, using paypal. It got confused with my billing and delivery addresses. It seemed to go through OK though :) Seeing as it's through paypal I should have some protection if they mess up, but I've had an order notification email from them so all looks good so far!
 
SteveUK said:
I shopped around and found that Warehouse Aquaticswas cheapest at £29.99 plus £3 delivery.

Not used this company before and the checkout wasn't as smooth as I'd of liked, using paypal. It got confused with my billing and delivery addresses. It seemed to go through OK though :) Seeing as it's through paypal I should have some protection if they mess up, but I've had an order notification email from them so all looks good so far!

Hi mate, I'm one of the owners of Warehouse Aquatics. (found this link as I always check to see where our traffic comes from!)

I'm just posting out of interest regarding the smoothness of the checkout process. We really want to make the site as easy as possible for customers which is why we dropped the need to register (a lot of people only want to use a shop once so why force them to register...?) What was it about the checkout process that was unusual or that we could improve on?

By the way good choice of heater, I believe thats our most popular product! We are also about to scrap the delivery charges, at the moment we are running free delivery on £65 + orders which we will hopefully be able to reduce gradually to zero.

David
 
PS I just checked, your heater was sent yesterday (maybe even arrived already??) - Combined with the last post I'm gonna risk saying we're currently giving the best customer service ever seen online :)
 
Oops! Not meaning to step on anyones toes!

Not here to promote what we do, just think its good to check up on customer experiences (as I'm sure Aquaessentials would do at any given opportunity).

Just nice to see someone posting about an order and be able to get straight back to them on their regular forum, ask them how it went and let them know its on its way!

I'm going to keep quiet from now on or my posts will get scrubbed and I'll never find out the problem with our payment process...

8)
 
Thanks for the post Deuce. I'll PM you about the order process. It wasn't anything major at all :) Hopefully it'll arrive today (haven't checked with the office it'll end up in yet, plus it'll have to go through my work's internal mail system...)

Got various confirmation emails as I'd expect so more than happy so far!
 
Ok, so a bit of an update. I planted the order from Plants alive last night, but didn't get a chance to plant the P helferi as yet. I spent some time adding more depth to the substrate as I realised it wasn't as deep as I'd thought. I banked up the back a little too (not much though). This made the 4 inches of water I'd put in very cloudy as you'd expect so I did a quick water change.

I've also re-positioned the hardscape a smidge, moving it left some more. I've decided to basically plant out the left corner with the Ludwigia. Unfortunately 25 stems sounds more than it actually is!

I also devided up and planted the Staurogyne (spelling?) that's been sitting in my other tank. It's gotten a bit branchy so I had to be mean and break it up a lot. On the plus side it fills in the front left corner very nicely :)

Sadly, the Blyxa I had has mostly died off due to unfavourable conditions that I stored it in. I managed to rescue 5 stems so hopefully I can coax them back from the brink! I might have to buy more if I can't source any from other members (tough one to get hold of!).

I also set up the filter last night. I've set it up with just filter wool inside for now as I have media from other filters to use but don't want to do that till I'm ready to stock. Also the water is still a bit cloudy.

So that left me with a late night, going to bed at 1.30am :lol: I woke up this morning at 9.05am thinking "WORK!?" I still managed to get a temporary heater and my CO2 running before I left for work ;)

I'll post pics tonight or tomorrow, but I really need to order more plants! Specially as my Eleocharis Acicularis which has been growing outside for a few months has died (washing up liquid bottle blew out of my mate's upstairs flat kitchen window and managed to land in the bowl!) More expense...
 
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