Confirmation of my thoughts and research for my first tank.

[Sprizmo]

Okay so the results of the water in cup for 24 hours are in and they are:
pH is still 7.4
Nitrates is between 10ppm and 20ppm which is probably same as yesterday but maybe slightly higher as the colour looks deeper although I did shake the bottle much harder and longer than yesterday so maybe more accurate.

So pH looks stable at 7.4 which is good and surprising low for such hard water if I am correct? So I'm thinking of Kamaka and Crossing Rainbowfish and hoping that a Bristlenose Pleco from this area would be a good fit?!
Managed to get another 3 plants from Pets at Home who had a delivery so more plants coming in.

Going on from that I managed to get a water hardness test today and its saying that my GH is 12 Degrees and KH is 8 Degrees which is well below what's on the water suppliers site.
What do I trust more? As this opens up hundreds of specifies that I had previously ignored.
Got even more plants now so should have more than enough now to start with, just need rockery and some good driftwood. Anybody know a decent supplier? Been to Maidenhead Aquatics and Pets at Home and neither had anything I would consider using. Thinking about going to Enfield which has 2 aquatics stores and another Maidenhead Aquatics to look there.

 

[StandbySetting]

The best place for driftwood and other hardscape if you're struggling to find somewhere locally is Aqua Essentials online. Their plants are decent too if you're looking for any more, you can get pretty much 90% of species from them.

 

[Essjay]

What kind of test, strip or liquid?

 

[Sprizmo]

What kind of test, strip or liquid?

Liquid. Aqua Care from Maidenhead aquatics.

 

[Essjay]

The instructions say to add 2 drops from bottle A to 5 ml tank water and mix, then add drops from bottle B one at a time, shaking after each drop, until the colour changes from pink to blue, counting the number of drops of bottle B that takes.
I assume this is what you did? Sometimes the colour change can be hard to see, it's easier if you take the cap off the tube, put it on something white and look down into the tube.


I asked about the tester as strips often don't measure high enough for hard water.

 

[Sprizmo]

The instructions say to add 2 drops from bottle A to 5 ml tank water and mix, then add drops from bottle B one at a time, shaking after each drop, until the colour changes from pink to blue, counting the number of drops of bottle B that takes.
I assume this is what you did? Sometimes the colour change can be hard to see, it's easier if you take the cap off the tube, put it on something white and look down into the tube.


I asked about the tester as strips often don't measure high enough for hard water.

Yeah that’s what I did. The tubes didn’t have a mark for 5ml so I used a api tube and got the correct amount of water. Then did the tests. GH took 12 drops after the first 2 and the KH took 8 drops after the initial drops. I was shocked as well. Don’t know if I should take a sample to an aquatics shop and get them to test it. pretty sure it was correct but now unsure what to trust.

 

[Essjay]

I think Essex has hard to very hard water - members from Essex will correct me if I'm wrong

You could try taking some tap water to a couple of different shops and see what they make of it - though if they use strips be aware that some don't measure very high (there are some strips which measure no higher than 10 dH, anything higher still reads as 10). If all the shops agree, see how they compare to your reading and the water company figure.

 

[Sprizmo]

Well I have just got back from Wildwoods in Enfield and all I can say is wow, what a shop that is! Literally everything you could need and more!
Managed to get some nice English driftwood, few large rocks, a few more Tropica plants and got have a good look at all the fish I have considered.
Took a water sample and they tested it with an API liquid kit and got 15GH and 8KH so its not the GH what I got but its close. They said that the test will be more accurate than the water supplier as its localised as apposed to a wider area. So they recommend to get fish based on the GH of 15 rather than the 21 the water company says which makes it easier for me.

Now just waiting for substrate, gravel and the last few plants to arrive then the build can commence! Thank you for all of your help so far.

 

[Colin_T]

Confirmation of my thoughts and research for my first tank.​

I can neither confirm your thoughts, nor deny them. Your thoughts are your fore thoughts and after thoughts and nothing to do with my thoughts, which are fraught with disaster.

Sorry, sometimes my brain does funny things when it sees interesting titles

 

[Sprizmo]

Right. I spent most of yesterday setting the tank up, filling it and planting. The results are in the pictures. I'm quote pleased as a first attempt. Probably need some more foreground plants and maybe a few pebbles/smaller rocks but wanted to have a larger clear area at the front for congregation and feeding later down the line.
Tested the water this morning. Sitting at:
pH - 7.4
Ammonia - 1.0
Nitrite - 0.25
Nitrate - 20ppm

Water conditioned, recommended amount of quick start and some fertiliser only put in so far, only reason fertiliser went in was because some of the plants were borderline on the edge of dying so hopefully they bounce back. I'll give it a few days before doing anything else to see what happens but just thought I would give a little update.

 

[Wills]

Looking good Whats the substrate you have in there? Is it a soil?

Wills

 

[Slaphppy7]

Is that window in front or in back of the tank?

 

[Sprizmo]

Looking good Whats the substrate you have in there? Is it a soil?

Wills

There’s tropica substrate under black gravel, then black Limpopo sand in top. Originally was going to have gravel but the rainbowfish prefer sand so got some black sand to go over. All neutral so no effect on the pH

 

[Sprizmo]

Is that window in front or in back of the tank?

It’s a reflection of the window behind me taking the photo. The tank will be behind a door most of the day with the curtains closed so only about 10cm of the tank on the right has some sunlight through a curtain.

 

[Salt]

@Sprizmo
Your tank looks amazing! I'm just starting a planted tank myself. I love your piece of wood
Do you remember the name of the grass like stuff you have? It looks like something that I would like in my tank.