TheRedDarren
Fish Crazy
Hey all,
thought I'd try my hand at a decent sized planted project, I have been keeping fish for a number of years on and off since I was a kid so although still very much a novice, I'm not quite green anymore!
So, after scouring gumtree for a month or so I found a Fluval 240l with external filter, plants, fish and all the usual accessories for a mere £100!
Sounds perfect so there we go, had a bit of a mare getting it home after discovering it wouldn't fit in my car, so went back a few days later with plan b, then the man with a van let me down and never turned up the second time, the third time my brother and I stuffed everything into our two tiny hatchbacks and drove the 10 mile journey at about 3mph wincing at every creak and groan coming from the glass!
Finally home, quickly take the enormous plec and the RTBS to the LFS for credit, then back to start setting up... starting with a clean up...
I was going to get a 3D background for it until I saw the prices of them!
so I settled for this, I know it's not great but it's dark, and seems to fit in with what I had envisaged. I stuck it on with some shower gel and squigied it into place with a credit card, worked well with no air bubbles.
I deliberated for a while as to what substrate to use and finally settled on Carribsea eco-complete, I was put off using some of the other 'planted' substrates because people said they didn't aquascape well and clouded the water when disturbed. But given that I wanted to stack it quite deep at the back I used some cheap gravel in there to help with costs.
Then capped with the good stuff...
I'd been touring my local fish stores for a few weeks picking up bits of bogwood to soak ready, I ended up with about 7 pieces in the end, along with a few decent looking rocks which I'd also soaked to make sure they didn't alter the chemistry, I salvaged a lot of plants from the tank before the move, but also bought 3 lovely Java Ferns and 3 huge bunches of Crypt. Wendtii which all went in next.
It took literally hours replanting what must have been about 50~70 individual plantlets, carlsberg helped though
Now for the big fill, which was surprisingly quick seeing as there were three of us with 4~5 buckets running back and forth!
This was about 6~7 weeks ago, stock list is, in order of being added...
6 neons,
6 neons a few days later,
4 bolivians a week later,
2 apistogramma pandurini and 10 neons,
10 Sterbai corydoras,
2 apistogramma cacatoudies,
8 ottocinclus.
All fish were added fairly quickly as I managed to keep the filter alive and supplemented it with additional bacteria in the form of various filter start additives. It worked well as the water stayed good with no ammo or nitrite readings.
Started having a few algae issues (as some of you know) but managed to find a balance one way and another and everything seems to be ticking along nicely...
thought I'd try my hand at a decent sized planted project, I have been keeping fish for a number of years on and off since I was a kid so although still very much a novice, I'm not quite green anymore!
So, after scouring gumtree for a month or so I found a Fluval 240l with external filter, plants, fish and all the usual accessories for a mere £100!
Sounds perfect so there we go, had a bit of a mare getting it home after discovering it wouldn't fit in my car, so went back a few days later with plan b, then the man with a van let me down and never turned up the second time, the third time my brother and I stuffed everything into our two tiny hatchbacks and drove the 10 mile journey at about 3mph wincing at every creak and groan coming from the glass!
Finally home, quickly take the enormous plec and the RTBS to the LFS for credit, then back to start setting up... starting with a clean up...
I was going to get a 3D background for it until I saw the prices of them!
so I settled for this, I know it's not great but it's dark, and seems to fit in with what I had envisaged. I stuck it on with some shower gel and squigied it into place with a credit card, worked well with no air bubbles.
I deliberated for a while as to what substrate to use and finally settled on Carribsea eco-complete, I was put off using some of the other 'planted' substrates because people said they didn't aquascape well and clouded the water when disturbed. But given that I wanted to stack it quite deep at the back I used some cheap gravel in there to help with costs.
Then capped with the good stuff...
I'd been touring my local fish stores for a few weeks picking up bits of bogwood to soak ready, I ended up with about 7 pieces in the end, along with a few decent looking rocks which I'd also soaked to make sure they didn't alter the chemistry, I salvaged a lot of plants from the tank before the move, but also bought 3 lovely Java Ferns and 3 huge bunches of Crypt. Wendtii which all went in next.
It took literally hours replanting what must have been about 50~70 individual plantlets, carlsberg helped though
Now for the big fill, which was surprisingly quick seeing as there were three of us with 4~5 buckets running back and forth!
This was about 6~7 weeks ago, stock list is, in order of being added...
6 neons,
6 neons a few days later,
4 bolivians a week later,
2 apistogramma pandurini and 10 neons,
10 Sterbai corydoras,
2 apistogramma cacatoudies,
8 ottocinclus.
All fish were added fairly quickly as I managed to keep the filter alive and supplemented it with additional bacteria in the form of various filter start additives. It worked well as the water stayed good with no ammo or nitrite readings.
Started having a few algae issues (as some of you know) but managed to find a balance one way and another and everything seems to be ticking along nicely...
really good start, love the Tony crypts on the right and the lush ferns.
