Couple Of Questions About Tank Decor

[Lace]

Ok so I've been looking through some of your tank pictures and they look lush, however mine dosn't it looks very much like everythings just been lobbed in so I want to try and get it looking nice.

First of all I have the two Sevs and am aware that they like to eat the plants, do you have sevs and plants? If so what plants do you recommend (that arn't plastic) that get left alone to a certain degree?

Where do you get all the nice spindly wood from? I search high and low round here and can never find anything I like.

I need more cover/hiding places for the fish, what do you use and how do you achieve this - I am finding it difficult as I don't like the tacky ornaments I like the more natural scene.

Any ideas on how I can be a bit more artistic lol

Thanks

Lace

 

[minxfishy]

Anubias and Java fern are your best with Sevs, mine play with the anubias, ie, they nip it and spit it out and chase the pieces but they dont actually eat it, so its just a case of fishing out the floating pieces every now and again, its not something they do on a regular basis, just sometimes they enjoy it more than other times.

The spindly wood, is redmoor rootwood and aqua essentials (online) is a good place for it, of course the other is ebay. I dont use caves with my lot, just bogwood to create areas and alleyways as such for them to swim around etc.

 

[Lace]

Thank you Minxfishy, will have a look. Do you actually feed your plants anything?

I have looked into going planted before and ended up very confused. So this will only be a few plants attached to decor.

 

[minxfishy]

I used to feed easycarbo and TPN+ when it had lots of plants (which were quickly butchered), but as I only have anubias (lots of it) attached to bogwood, I dont bother now, aside from the nipping Sevs, it does pretty well.

 

[Wills]

A tip of for the red moore wood the spindly stuff at the discount garden center between ings lane and maidenhead the pet shop in there sells it at about £15 for an 18 inch piece. Also Maidenhead sells it now and again but thats the sumatran twig stuff which ranges between £6 to £40 depending on size and its sometimes pretty expensive for size though.

I got some from a guy on aquarist classifieds thats from this area and he got it from the green machine website but it was expensive for what it was really. But before that I used to buy the medium chunks of drift wood from northfield garden center that are £1.99 each and do really well to bulk up tanks.

Also for big mother plants Maidenhead has some really good tropica xxxl java fern and anubias on wood in one of the big sumps I think they are £35 each but they have had them in there well over a year and I reckon they would do you a deal on them

My sev seems to be nibbling on a few of my plants but they seem to be surviving quite well so far and over the 2 weeks Ive lost 2 leaves she seems to like swimming through them though which sometimes uproots them.

Wills

 

[Lace]

Thanks for the replys. I have a couple of bits of wood, got a nice piece the other day from the discount garden centre you mentioned Wills it is soaking atm.
I'm not sure where the northfield garden centre is I will go have a google....

I feel another trip to Maidenhead coming on LOL.... will go grab some plants I think, although I find Maidenhead never do me a deal on anything

Its the artitic flair I think I'm missing, fancy coming to aquascape my tank Wills lol

 

[Wills]

If you come from MA towards kingswood then take the right turn opposite china red then go past the houses and along the windy road then take the first left after you have gone under the bridge and its on the left down that road.

Fish are sometimes interesting and they get a lot of nice cheap L number plecs saw a full adult 168 the other day for £15 it was hard to resist it lol. But I dont know why but I just dont trust their fish.... I dont know why because the staff are pretty good (apart from the kids) but Ive never bought livestock there but their drygoods are cheap and they pride them selves on beating Maidenhead on prices.

 

[Lace]

Brill thanks will take a look next time i'm that way - which won't be too long I don't think

 

[Glenbo1981]

I think your tank looks good.

From experience i have found that i always change mine because i think it does not look good, then i look back, and i regret changing

 

[Lace]

Ty Glenbo but it don't look like that now lol, different wood and no plants....

Another question I have is when you are doing the water changes in these tanks with carefully placed decor do you move all the decor to get to all the poo or just syphon round it?

 

[snowflake311]

I don't move my decor around much when cleaning I use a hose with a small end to get in tight spots. I will move things around every 6 months or so and when I do that I clean under everything. Even if I'm not moving stuff around I try and clean under decor every 3 to 6 months.

I have a huge Green Melon sword plant in my 100 gal with thick leaves my severum likes to swim around it but never eats it. Java fern, crytp, Anubias but might eat the new shoots. My normal sword plant is doing fine too.

You have have to try it out. I also feed my severums a veggie flake and I think if you feed them a good amount of veggies they will be good to your plants. I have 2 baby severum in a tank with java moss. They like to pick at it and pull it but don't eat it.

 

[minxfishy]

I move my wood/decor a couple of times a week at every water change, but Im anal about poo!

 

[Lace]

I move my wood/decor a couple of times a week at every water change, but Im anal about poo!

i like that



Thanks, I usually move all mine but if I spend ages trying to make it look right I won't want to move it lol

 

[markandhisfish]

having had multiple sevs and trying to have real plants with them ive found it to be a case of keep trying different plants. until you find 1 that gets left alone . for example my green and rotkeil didnt eat the plants they just used to drag them all over the tank , but vinny has been pure hell! ive had everything frome elodea densa cambomba crypts and java fern hes eaten the lot i even tried an onion plant cos i was told they were tough ,and sure enough he couldnt eat it............ so he just uprooted it out of spite!

so i gave up but recently i saw some valis in my lfs for 50p a bunch so i got some and chucked it in . that was about 3 weeks ago and so far hes left it alone and its thriving. so it can be done it just aint easy

 

[Lace]

Lol keep trying then.... thanks Mark