Dave`s Pre Journal Journal

[wei0204]

I think the arrangement is nice, I am more naturalistic in positioning stones, drift wood or twigs as plants will help me in beautify the whole thing later...

Good job.

 

[Themuleous]

This will be the basis for an excellent scape, Dave, and I agree with Moody about that rock.

Am impressed with your questions to Jeff on the AE forum BTW.

Sam

 

[afroturf]

Looking great, I agree with Moody that the three rock on the left still don't quite work you could either give them a little fiddle or remove one of the two similar looking rock and move the squarer rock closer to the possition of the second rock from the left.

Also the largest rock could be rotated about its length around 45 degrees to show the angle of the rock rather than showing the face, could just make it look a little more different.

Looking forward to the plants being added.

 

[Dave Spencer]

Time to get back to the hardware today.

This morning my CO2 system from Aquamas arrived. Here it is, complete with the broken handle on the CO2 bottle and 16mm fittings on the reactor, despite them acknowledging my request for 12mm:

The next series of photos is a quick guide on how to fit the solenoid to the regulator. Here are the two said items plus the supplied adaptor and two seals:

In the next picture the needle valve has been removed from the regulator body:

Next step is to fit the adaptor where the needle valve has been removed. Note how the two red seals have been fitted:

Remove the two CO2 connectors on the solenoid:

The solenoid can now be fitted to the adaptor on the regulator, paying attention to the arrow on the solenoid that is indicating the direction of the gas flow:

Place the black rubber seal in to the open connection on the solenoid valve and screw in the needle valve:

And Voila! here is the regulator and solenoid fitted to the bottle, ready to rock and roll. Note that the orientation of the solenoid needed a little adjusting so that it did not interfere with the isolating valve on the CO2 bottle:

I hope this was clear enough.

Cheers, Dave.

 

[Themuleous]

That's crap about the broken bit and also the fitting, which seller did you get it from?

Sam

PS - Excellent work on the fitting photos, very easy to follow.

EDIT - scrub that, have seen the seller. I'm very surprised, he has been excellent when I've used him in the past. For future reference this bloke also does CO2 kits.

 

[Dave Spencer]

I almost went for AquarianVersand Sam, but I wasn`t keen on the construction of the reactors.

Here is the new to me Cal Aqua glass I shall be using to shift water around my tank:

I shall be using it with clear hose, rather than the Eheim green. What do you people think of it?


Cheers, Dave.

 

[cleekdaFish]

wow they have in glass......i like the green cuz its formal with the plants

 

[Fillet 'O' Fish]

Bummer about the wrong fittings on the reactor Dave.
Are they going to change it Ok for you?
One solution if you have trouble getting it exchanged may be to get a hose adaptor. I know AE sell them. Te only thing is it may affect your flow I suppose
I hope they sort it for you anyway m8

Looking forward to seeing the tank startup

 

[zig]

Very nice setup Dave, coming along nicely.

 

[Themuleous]

Nice glass ware, I just don't think I could trust myself with delicate glassware!

Sam

 

[Dave Spencer]

Nice glass ware, I just don't think I could trust myself with delicate glassware!

Sam

It was with great resrvations that I bought it Sam! I really am not very good with glassware. I have two ceramic CO2 diffusers with their own CO2 hose permanently attached because taking it off to clean the algae is a nightmare.

I am sure this stuff is going to show the slightest bit of algae and need cleaning regularly. What I plan to do is fit the filter hoses with Eheim double taps so that I don`t have to keep detaching them from the hose.

Dave.

 

[Themuleous]

I must admit the fact that it's likely to show the algae up is my main reason for not getting glassware. GSA would stick out loads on this stuff, but guess in 'proper' planted tanks GSA should be fairly non-existent anyway, not my tanks though!

Sounds like a plan with the hose taps, that are bloody expensive though.

Sam

 

[Dave Spencer]

Due to one hold up after another with this tank (I have some Geisemann tubes but no luminaire, still waiting for 12mm connections on reactor....), I have had far too much time to think about the hardscape.

What started as a nature aquarium became an Iwagumi, but the thing annoying me about the Iwagumi was the fact that the tank lacked width, so now I am thinking about a mountain I saw whilst driving along the A55 near Colwyn Bay. I have a small 24l aqua One tank, so I thought I would have a go at replicating the mountain to give me an idea of what it would look like in place of the Iwagumi (I didn`t want to strip down the Iwagumi, only to find the mountain idea didn`t work).

The twigs are speculative, but might work with some moss on them. Within the rock structure are gaps that will be filled with ADA Aqua Soil to grow HC which will tumble down the sides of some rocks and maybe small bushes of HM. I may also put some stems (Micranthemum umbrosum perhaps) behind the main rock structure. As for the area to the right, I don`t know whether to go for plain sand or a carpet of something on ADA AS. Here are some pics, sorry about the shadows but I couldn`t block out the Sun:

If I decide to transfer this scheme to the 60l I will need to go and get some larger rocks. So, what are peoples thoughts on this new scheme?

I hoped this 60l journal would show my changing ideas throughout its construction, I just didn`t realise they would change so much.

Cheers, Dave.

 

[Themuleous]

Think this is an excellent idea, however the rocks are to dominating for the size of tank. For that rock formation to work the tank needs to be bigger. IF you could reduce it a bit but still keep the idea it would give more of an illusion of a large tank. That rock work at present only makes it look cramped and ruins the scale illusion. Dont think you'd need to lose very much though. Not sure about the twig either.

Just my 0.02p worth

Sam

PS - which lighting did you get? I'm beginning to think the budget tubes I got aren't up to the task, doh that's 15quid down the bottomless 'planted tank' hole!

 

[Dave Spencer]

Cheers Sam,

The rocks shown are in a 24l tank, so do you think they would be the right size if I transferred them to my 60l (the tank in this journal)? It`s hard to picture it I know. Perhaps you are thinking that having bushes of HM around the rocks will make the structure even more over dominating.

Do you think this set up will look better than the Iwagumi? I really like Iwagumis but I think I need a much wider tank.

I haven`t decided whether to carpet the foreground and area to the right or just leave it as sand. What do you all think would look best?

Sam, the tubes I have are 1 x Geisemann 24W Aquaflora 5 band phosphor T5 and 2 x Geisemann 24W Midday T5.

Dave.