Finally My Journal Is Here! 36" 100l High Tech

[fozziebear]

ok so heres the story from the beginning, i basically joined this forum as a fish newbie, only just got a tank and a filter, learnt about cycling with and without fish, cycled with a zebra danio (sorry people ) anyway ive learnt loads on this forum, gone from using a ugf and having a ropelight behind the tank as lighting, to using an internal and getting some propper lights, then moving on to plants and getting an external etc etc, anyway the story of this tank starts when the PC t5's i had broke and i got a new light unit off freecycle, i had a 48" tank then but the lights were for a 40" tank, my dad luckily found a 36" tank chucked out about a week later and this tank started, ive since had to replace a leaky external and ive upgraded to pressurized co2 instead of yeast, the specs are as follows.


this is my old journal

my previous tank



36" x 12" x 15" tank
Eco-complete substrate
arcadia 2 x 25w i bar with 1 power glo and 1 original tropical
JBL cristal profi external filter with a hydor 300W inline heater
Fire extinguisher pressurized co2 with a diffuser going into a homemade needlewheel impellor
EI dosing - KNO3 KH2PO4 and AE trace mix
you can find the fish and plant info in my profile, anyway enough chat on with the pics!

shot of the middle of the tank

fish tank right side shot

a macro shot of one of my otocinclus sp.

a macro shot of my corydoras aenus that my girlfriend name rudigger

the obligatory full tank shot

and finally can anyone help me ID this plant! i got it from greenline and i have looked all over but cant find it anywhere cheers

Regards, Angus.


also got to send out a few thanks, thanks to garuf for sending me some monoselenium tenerum, sam (themuleous) for sending me loads of dwarf sags and some really nice hygrophilia corymbosa, and to lolalouie for giving me a nice little QT tank and filter.

 

[Themuleous]

Woo looks great!!! If you give the plants a good trim they should grow back really bushy.

Sam

 

[fozziebear]

thanks a lot sam i gave it a huge prune today before the water change, pulled up the huge sag/tennelus carpet, there was literally hundreds of plants and plantlets all connected by runners, i basically took out everything except the crypts, amazon sword, and vallis, the hygrophila salicifolia was growing madly and almost coming out of the water, the H. polysperma was also getting very leggy, so i cut all the salicifolia in half and replanted, and trimmed the H.polysperma taking off the best crowns and throwing away all the leggy stemmy bits, i then proceeded to plant every single sag/tennelus plant individually lol, took me atleast an hour. these pics are about a week old now, but i wont be able to get anymore on for a while because of computer problems.

regards, Angus.

 

[Themuleous]

Well whatever you did and do it seems to be working, keep up the good work matey

Sam

 

[fozziebear]

i wouldnt say that, i recently put a 55W triplus PC on the tank, and it made the plants pearl really nicely, but it also made the algae go mad so i took it off after a week, im having trouble with staghorn green spot and hair algae, but now my co2 is more stable because of the needlewheel those should clear up if i keep up with my dosing

also i have been getting these things on the glass, at first i thought it was just hair algae, then i looked closer and they are like small green polyps, one thick strand with lots of little green fingers coming off that thicker strand, they are only tiny though like the size of a pinhead.

 

[Themuleous]

Yeh Ive had those things, don't know where they came from in my tank and don't know where they went!!

Re the fish - a shoal of a single fish is key. Lots of different types distracts the viewer from the scape and the fish in reality should not really be 'seen' but just there adding to the scape.

Sam

 

[Rhykiru]

nice forground!

Is the tennellus , e tennellus "narrow"?

 

[fozziebear]

im not too sure as the plants arent true tropica plants, some of the foreground is dwarf saggitaria that themuleous (sam) sent me, and some is Dwarf chain sword (e tennelus) that i got from greenline plants, also the small pink thin leaved plants in the very middle are lilaeopsis mauritiana and brasiliensis. (which were from tropica)

 

[fozziebear]

so today in the post i got my new (used) arcadia 120cm 4 x 54w t5 luminaire that i got from ebay for £72! bargain, all arrived safe thank god, no bulbs broken but im gonna have to buy some daylight ones from lamp specs thats the next thing on the list lol (the neverending list of stuff i need for my fish ) anyway id just like to say its really really nice, so elegant and looks so good, real good quality, 1 year old and nothing wrong with it well happy

 

[Rhykiru]

ooh, any pics?

One more plant question :3

Is the plant in the back right a giant hygro of some sort? I really like the looks of it.

 

[fozziebear]

i think the one your talking about is the hygyophila corymbosa, i also have hygro polysperma, and hygro salicifolia.

 

[fozziebear]

ok well today i got my bulbs from lampspecs, got the phillips 865(6500k) because they last an extra 2000 hours, there was a whole saga with delivery, it took a week and a half for me to get my bulbs because after my order lampspecs didnt send them off, untill i emailed them asking why i had been waiting for a week for my bulbs to be delivered, bad form really after the good things id heard about them.



anyway because i had to wait so long ive been using aqua medic marine daylight tubes (14000k) which has resulted in a outbreak of hair and BBA, ive upped co2 a bit and hopefully the new lights should give the plants the edge, they have been going crazy pearling ever since i first put the lights in, so its a bigggg difference, im well chuffed i havent ever seen pearling like this in my tank.


Regards, Angus.

 

[Themuleous]

Cool keep us posted on progess.

Sam

 

[Million]

also i have been getting these things on the glass, at first i thought it was just hair algae, then i looked closer and they are like small green polyps, one thick strand with lots of little green fingers coming off that thicker strand, they are only tiny though like the size of a pinhead.

Sounds like hydra - They're harmless in aquaria generally AFAIK, but apparently can kill tiny fry
Have a Google

 

[fozziebear]

ahhh if it is hydra im not bothered, i do feed frozen foods (bloodworm brineshrimp mysis shrimp and mosquito larvae) so that explains it, i havent had anymore of these for a while tho actually.