Hi
I've decided to have 1 last go at my tank (3rd times the charm), about this time last year I replaced the lights in my Juwel 260 Vision with an Arcadia I-Bar lighting system with 2 full spectrum tubes, ordered a rake of plants off greenline and replanted my tank, put some new fish in and everything looked fine for about the first month, that was untill the alge started, within about 3 months id had to remove about 80% of the plants due to the alge just swamping everything. After that I didnt turn on the lights in the tank again.
So for about the last 9 months ive had a dark tank in my front room with alge all over the front of the glass with about 6 fish in it. A couple of weeks ago I decided "right its going". I'd not even done a water change in about 6 months, but things had stopped dying so I just left it. Just out of curiosity I tested the water with my testing kit and everything was reading spot on.
After having a chat with a guy at work who used to be a fish breeder he recons i was cleaning my filter sponges far too throughly and often before which is probably where i was going wrong.
Anyway not one to be beaten I've decided to have one last crack at it cos they do look superb.
My current setup is as follows
Tank - Juwel 260 Vision
Lighting - Arcadia I-Bar with 2x full spectrum plant bulbs
Filtration - Built in Juwel internal filter & a Fluval 204 external canister filter
Air Pump - None, the buzzing was driving me mad.
Co2 - Pressurised cylinder with solonoid (sp?, see pic below
)
Substrate - I think its called river gravel, just fine-ish gravel really, i fancy sand now but im not changing it now
Plants - Got one of them 48" Premium collections off Greenline
Fish -
1 x Silver Shark
2 x Black Widows (going to get a couple more)
3 x Clown Loach
3 x Golden Mollies ??
2 x Plecs ??
2 x Little silvery loach things
2 x kribensis (male and female)
1 x female guppy
1 x some sort of catfish, about 5inch long now, no idea of the species, looks the business though.
Basically the purpose of this post is to try to get some feedback on things i may or may not be doing wrong.
Today ive just rigged up my pressurised Co2 system, got a 6.5Kg (i think) from BOC, bit pricey but easy to get hold of and easy to get refills. Once my electric timers charges up im going to have my Co2/lighting on timer between 2pm and 10pm. The Co2 output is being fed into the intake of my fluval filter as i never got round to buying a diffuser, i do have an old nutrafin ladder diffuser knocking around somewhere if you think that may be better?
Got the Co2 bubbling at around 1 bubble a second atm and its been running for around 4 hours now and the water readings are -
KH - 60mg /L
pH - 6.8
Prior to the Co2 being added the water was at 7.2, after reading the documentation with the KH kit it says that my reading should be somewhere around 105-125 mg/L - hmmm i feel more money being spent here.
Anyway thats my current setup, Ive added some pics ive taken with my phone, please give me some feedback to let me know if Im heading in the right direction : all advice welcome - good or bad !!
Thanks for you time
Steve.
I've decided to have 1 last go at my tank (3rd times the charm), about this time last year I replaced the lights in my Juwel 260 Vision with an Arcadia I-Bar lighting system with 2 full spectrum tubes, ordered a rake of plants off greenline and replanted my tank, put some new fish in and everything looked fine for about the first month, that was untill the alge started, within about 3 months id had to remove about 80% of the plants due to the alge just swamping everything. After that I didnt turn on the lights in the tank again.
So for about the last 9 months ive had a dark tank in my front room with alge all over the front of the glass with about 6 fish in it. A couple of weeks ago I decided "right its going". I'd not even done a water change in about 6 months, but things had stopped dying so I just left it. Just out of curiosity I tested the water with my testing kit and everything was reading spot on.
After having a chat with a guy at work who used to be a fish breeder he recons i was cleaning my filter sponges far too throughly and often before which is probably where i was going wrong.
Anyway not one to be beaten I've decided to have one last crack at it cos they do look superb.
My current setup is as follows
Tank - Juwel 260 Vision
Lighting - Arcadia I-Bar with 2x full spectrum plant bulbs
Filtration - Built in Juwel internal filter & a Fluval 204 external canister filter
Air Pump - None, the buzzing was driving me mad.
Co2 - Pressurised cylinder with solonoid (sp?, see pic below
)Substrate - I think its called river gravel, just fine-ish gravel really, i fancy sand now but im not changing it now
Plants - Got one of them 48" Premium collections off Greenline
Fish -
1 x Silver Shark
2 x Black Widows (going to get a couple more)
3 x Clown Loach
3 x Golden Mollies ??
2 x Plecs ??
2 x Little silvery loach things
2 x kribensis (male and female)
1 x female guppy
1 x some sort of catfish, about 5inch long now, no idea of the species, looks the business though.
Basically the purpose of this post is to try to get some feedback on things i may or may not be doing wrong.
Today ive just rigged up my pressurised Co2 system, got a 6.5Kg (i think) from BOC, bit pricey but easy to get hold of and easy to get refills. Once my electric timers charges up im going to have my Co2/lighting on timer between 2pm and 10pm. The Co2 output is being fed into the intake of my fluval filter as i never got round to buying a diffuser, i do have an old nutrafin ladder diffuser knocking around somewhere if you think that may be better?
Got the Co2 bubbling at around 1 bubble a second atm and its been running for around 4 hours now and the water readings are -
KH - 60mg /L
pH - 6.8
Prior to the Co2 being added the water was at 7.2, after reading the documentation with the KH kit it says that my reading should be somewhere around 105-125 mg/L - hmmm i feel more money being spent here.
Anyway thats my current setup, Ive added some pics ive taken with my phone, please give me some feedback to let me know if Im heading in the right direction : all advice welcome - good or bad !!
Thanks for you time
Steve.
