74l Journal

[Ace Of Spades]

CHa hah rawr blah, THat is one of the most amazing things ive seen on thise forum!?! You are so good at DIY, wish i had the will power and cash to do this..

Btw where are you getting all those toys

 

[ulster exile]

I have thoroughly enjoyed reading this journal - long may it continue! It is looking lovely, really lovely.

 

[denis coghlan]

Looks like I'm going to have to join UKAPS!!

I registered two days ago as Denis.C but I'm been reading away and will post the tank shortly and hopefully receive plenty of tips, pointers and advice.

Just before I add in the next few pictures I would just like to say thank you for all your comments. I've really enjoyed putting this tank together and hopefully with a bit of luck and a lot of time it will turn out the way I see it in my head.

Now the the journal part. I was happy to find that everything turned on this morning for the first time as it was meant to. The co2 kicked in at 2 bubbles per second 20mins before the lights came on, I also added my co2 bell to give an indication of the level of co2 in the tank. Although I got the bottle of regent with the co2 bell, I'm not using it and I am going down the road of 4kh solution and the brom blue from the nutrafin low range pH test kit. At present it is showing a lovely green colour and is stable. I also dosed 2ml of the PPS-pro solution and 2ml of Tropica micro-nutrients. Thus, the ball is well and truly rolling now!

The water still hasn't cleared yet but I would think that is a result of the clay from the tropica plant substrate and the fact that some of it was moved to the surface during planting. I'm also unhappy about the amount of visible equipment in the tank but since I'm trying to do this on a shoe string I will have to wait a little while before I get the glass filter pipes and make the inline heater case. Other than that I'm pleased with how it looks and there have been no major problems (touch wood), the odd piece of HC floats to the surface but I'm not to concerned considering the amount I planted.

I do like how the hood is only supported by one upright (very minimalist).

And the last picture is for all the animal enthuasistic out there! I'm running out of animals so it will have to do for the moment. Plus, I'm sure I have a wooden baboon somewhere!!

Regards

Denis

 

[Luketendo]

One thing you may want to consider is camouflaging the light upright if you're not adding a tank background, the blue wallpaper looks good as it is imo.

 

[garuf]

I agree but I'd go for a white background blue always makes me think marine tank.
I'd move that crab too, he'll appreciate some dry land

 

[denis coghlan]

One thing you may want to consider is camouflaging the light upright.

I agree but I'd go for a white background blue always makes me think marine tank.

I agree with both of you. I'm more than likely going to go with a grey, silver or white background. I'm not going to get anything fancy and it will more than likely be A0 sheets of card. They only cost about 2 euro each so I can buy a few and see which colour I like the best. Incorporated with the background will be two white cold cathode fluorescent tubes. The tubes will be places at the bottom of the back of the tank and the card background will go down behind it. This will hopefully give the "all one colour" card background a certain amount of graduated shading and when the main lights go off I will still be able to see the interior of the tank. Plus when fish go in it should give a really good silhouette look. I wont have the background lights on all the time, just when I wanna take a couple of decent snaps.

As for the tank, its still sitting there not doing an awful lot but the HC has started to grow but only ever so slightly. After you guys mentioned the background, it prompted me to try a green piece of card just to see what it looks like when the lights are on and then again when using the cold cathode tubes. Think the green looks very slick when only light up from behind but I wouldn't be keeping it for normal hours.

What do ya think?

Regards

Denis

 

[Luketendo]

Green looks ok, but I'm not sure. I liked how the blue went with the rocks.

 

[Esfa]

i think it looks really cool

 

[denis coghlan]

Green looks ok, but I'm not sure. I liked how the blue went with the rocks.

Yeah, think the green doesn't look great when the lights are on and I was only really using it as an example. I agree with you about the blue and I suppose to find the best fit it will just be a matter of trail and error.

 

[aaronnorth]

I like them last shots, the green just merges with the plants so it is harder to see, blue is still the best & i usually hate blue backgrounds

 

[Themuleous]

Cant believe its taken me this long to read this. Fantastic looking tank, and you made the effort with the HC to divide it into individual plants, I know what a sod that job is!!!

This tank is gonna look proper quality once it fills out

Sam

 

[fozziebear]

i actually like the green background, and the fact it is shaded/blended, its not a solid colour block, could work very well, id also try the same effect with the blending but with a blue background that could look even better.

 

[denis coghlan]

Hey Folks,

Thanks for the comments. Well its had been roughly ten days now since I planted the tank and I have had little or no response from the plants. The HC seem to be going a little and does show good signs of photosynthetic activity as at the end of most days there is a good deal of pearling going on. However, the same cannot be said for the grass species. Neither the tenellus (wasn't the best quality of plants to begin with) or the brasiliensis have done much in the way of growth and I would go as far as to say that they have been static. I would have thought that after ten days they would have at least developed some new shoots but maybe the plants rooting systems that longer than this to become established in a new tank and I am just being impatient.

If anyone else has used these plants it would be great to hear how long it took for their plants to become established and show something that resembles growth. Apart from minimal plant growth, I have started to get a small amount of algae growth on the rocks so I have ordered a few Otocinclus to be collected on Friday. He is getting in both O. affinus and O. vittatus so hopefully I can get a combination of the two. I've always found Otocinclus difficult to acclimate without some level mortality so this time round I'm only going to pick really fat fish.

My other concern why the plant growth might not be the best is because the DIY light box might be to high above the tank. It would be a fairly straight forward job to drop it by another 2-3 inches, but do people think that this small distance would make a difference to the plant growth?

 

[fozziebear]

if the HC is pearling the lighting is fine, ive tried lilaeopsis brasiliensis, and i have never had any luck with it, it can be extremely difficult, L.Mauritiana is an easier option, but does grow slightly taller, also for the otocinclus they can be very hard to get to eat the first few days, so i would put in some veggies for them or algae wafer, thats all you can do and just hope for the best, test all your water conditions before getting them as they can be quite sensative.

the main thing with plants is patience, give it time, also i would get some fast growing stem plants in there before the algae takes hold, you can get a pack of 50 from greenline for like a fiver.

 

[denis coghlan]

if the HC is pearling the lighting is fine, ive tried lilaeopsis brasiliensis, and i have never had any luck with it, it can be extremely difficult, L.Mauritiana is an easier option, but does grow slightly taller, also for the otocinclus they can be very hard to get to eat the first few days, so i would put in some veggies for them or algae wafer, thats all you can do and just hope for the best, test all your water conditions before getting them as they can be quite sensative.

the main thing with plants is patience, give it time, also i would get some fast growing stem plants in there before the algae takes hold, you can get a pack of 50 from greenline for like a fiver.

Thank for the info,

I will keep trying with the brasiliensis but as it mentions on the tab it is a "very high light" demanding plant so maybe it is just not suitable for the tank. I might also try and pick up another pot of tenellus as the first pot I got was particularly bad quality as it had obviously been sitting in the shop under poor lighting for a long time. As for the stems plants, I don't really want to add anything more than the three low growing species that I have in there at the moment, plus such large rooting plants would cause a major problem when removed. As for trying to keep the algea in check, I do very large water changes every two days and redose with fertz immediately after and it seems to be keeping it in check so far. As for acclimatising the otto's I added two remaining ottos that I have from another tank yesterday and they are still doing fine today. The pH does have a bit of a small swing due to the pressurised Co2 but I don't think it something they cant handle. I will throw in a bit of cucumber when adding the new ones tomorrow.