My Planted Tank

after a lot of trial and error and endless amounts of help from the members of this great forum,i think its time for a little update on my planted tank.im using prsesurised co2,eco complete substrate and finally removed the internal filter with a aqua-pro 2sp external filter,there is still a way to go yet but the plants are spreading nicely,every few days or so i seem to have a plant with a new runner,which i replant in another part of my tank,anyway i will upload a couple of pics for your comments or any suggestions you might have on how the tank looks or could look better
mister-t

a couple more pics

Its a nice start Mister T, (love the name btw). Are you dosing E.I? One mistake I made when starting my tank was to not make a hardscape... I suggest you think about adding a hardscape eg wood and/or rocks- they will improve your tank 100%

A couple of nicely placed pieces of wood/rock can really make a tank.

thanks for the reply,the reason i have no wood in there is because in the original setup,there was driftwood,but for some reason it became a magnet for bba and no matter how many times i removed it and cleaned it,the bba kept coming back
mister-t

The

Can you give us some specs?

Tank size, fertilization, lighting, etc.

You have a lot of stem plants and not much of a foreground/midground and a lot of plain, empty space. It will help when your plants fill in more, especially your dwarf sag? One major thing you can do to add something to the tank is make it look deeper. The tank itself is vey deep but your scape isn't. A good place to start on the depth is to slope your substrate. Higher in the back lower in the front. Also, a black background would really bring out the color in your beautiful discus!

I think it looks quite nice but for some reason your camera (or my eyes) make the tank look like it is very wide and quite shallow?

Echoing the call above for some specs I also wonder about the following:

I notice a blue tint to the back wall!! Are you using a marine bulb in there? or is it a UV of somesort?

Why is the CO2 diffusor in the centre? It would be better at on end underneath the filter outflow so you can get the bubbles blow along the tank seeing as the diffusor looks like it is working quite well. Otherwise you may have good CO2 in one half and not the other.

Are you using a drop checker to monitor the Co2?

With bogwood I have the same trouble with BBA but its not a huge problem once you come to accept it. A blast of Excel every now and again kills it off and then the plecs and Ottos will eat it once it turns grey. I have a suspicion that they get a taste for it and then move on to eat it when it is still black but am not going to confirm this yet due to the risk of being ridiculed in the plec section. lol

(But I will confirm that mine have as I watch 2 of my pitbulls feeding on the small patches that are on my slate now when I haven't used any excel for a few weeks!!!)

Keep it up and let us know your specs

Andy

the substrate is 3inches deep,the wooden surround at the bottom of the tank makes it look shallow.
the blue tint at the back is the light reflecting off the the blue background,also the lid was open when i took the photo.the diffusor is underneath my spray bar,the spray bar runs nearly the entire length of my tank.i monitor my co2 with a dropchecker and it shows a nice green colour.the tank size is a follows
legnth 39inches width 16inches height 17inches.my lighting is as follows 1 warm- lite 30watt bulb and
1 day-lite 30 watt bulb.any more advice will as always be very much appreiciated
mister-t

Tanks coming along very nicely, although more plants needed, you can never have to many

Are you using the standard juwel lights that came with your tank?

Also are the T8 or T5 Tubes (T is the measure of 1/8th of an inch so T8 is 1 inch diameter)

Sorry if you knew that, i was just always wondering until someone pointed it out to me.

Chris

the lights are the ones that came with the tank,as for t8 or t5 i aing got a clue sorry
mister-t

Thats ok, the reason i was asking is that juwel are now goving high-lite versions (T5 Tubes with there tanks) rather than the T8 Version. They supposedly give much more light than the T8's and with reflectors will highly increase the amount of light reaching the plants.

Chris

Just to clarify

A new T8/T10/T12 gives out exactly the same light as a new T5 (1W = 1W).

The difference is the 'restrike' when you use reflectors!!

When the light comes back off the reflector some of the reflected light is blocked by the lamp so therefore the thinner the lamp the less is blocked, hence T5 will direct more light into the tank than T8 and so on.

If you're not using reflectors then a new T12 will gave the same output per watt as a new T5 if you are using same barnd and type.

Andy

mister-t said:

the substrate is 3inches deep,the wooden surround at the bottom of the tank makes it look shallow.

mister-t

Click to expand...

What I meant by "shallow" is the perception of depth- as in when you are looking at the tank, how far back it seems to go. The side pic shows a very deep tank, but you can't tell by looking at it. Sloping the substrate makes the area of the bottom larger and helps you see everything better. Also, having different sized plants, smaller in the front and work your way back, will help make the tank look more three dimensional. Very nice start, btw. The plants look very healthy!

well it looks like ill be starting over again,again.eco complete substrate has sent my kh and gh very high,so ill be getting play sand from argos in the morning and swapping the subtrate over.i know 100% for sure its the eco complete as i put the wrong type in,i used the cichlid one instead of the the other type,my mistake and £60 down the drain,but at the end of the day my discus fish will suffer if i leave it
mister-t

That's a PITA, normal EC will also increase GH and KH a bit as well, but it loses this affect over time.

You going to put anything under the sand?

Sam