jimbooo
James flexton
Firstly i'd like to thank everyone for all the kind comments i have received in the past from my picture threads etc.. it really is nice to have some constructive feedback from like minded people on here. Your kind comments always inspire me put the effort in especially at those times when you really cant be bothered to change half the water in 3 tanks and do the weekly pruning etc.. it is hard work keeping 3 planted tanks but I must say when all's going to plan it is a very rewarding hobby. Coming home from work looking at my babies always puts a smile on my face. I have you lot to thank for it. If it weren’t for TFF i'd still be looking at a goldfish bowl!!
Right then to explain the plan for this/these threads. As I have 3 tanks (rio180, rekord 60 and a 50G cube) I didn't want a journal jumping from one tank to another lacking continuity and comparison so I have decided to write 3 journals instead, one for each tank. This thread will cover my very first tank the Juwel Rekord 60 from day 1 to present and will be updated every couple of weeks (or basically when I have anything to report)
Okay so firstly I bought the tank in June 2004 (hence the TFF joining date). I literally walked in to a LFS having never kept fish before and knowing NOTHING. I was looking for a goldfish bowl to put in my lounge, at the time I didn't know any better.
The shop assistant did a wonderful sales pitch on me explaining that a tropical tank is much easier and cheaper to run than a goldfish bowl. I must have been hung over as I believed every word and happily trotted off home to cycle my new tank, the rekord 60.
After the usual newbie disasters, a few dead fish and fiddling around with the tank I settled on this layout.
I didn't fancy plastic plants so just stuck a couple of plants in the gravel, the tank was standard at this stage, original lighting, plain gravel, etc..
Then after a lot of reading I decided to attempt a planted tank. Firstly I just added liquid ferts (tetra florapride I think) and added a few root tabs under the bigger plants.
That produced this layout
After a month or so the plants were suffering with dying leaves, yellow leaves, holes in the sword plant and not any significant growth to talk about. So after a long list of pm's to
gf225 I learned what was important to plants, where the priorities lie regarding amount of light to CO2, and the importance of a nutrient rich substrate. As a direct result of gf225's help I went out and bought a nutrafin kit, arcadia ballast (for an extra tube) and 2 plant tubes arcadia "original tropical" and "freshwater" and a box of first layer laterite.
The lighting upgrade is very similar to bigC's rekord 70 upgrade but mine uses 2 x 15W tubes.
So with 30W over 14USG that gave me 2.1 WPG with co2 and laterite all added producing the following layout
From then on I fiddled and tweaked and played around with the plants. Worked out how to handle Riccia and work with it, toyed with cutting propagation etc...
After about 6 months of messing I ended up with this
However the Riccia was held down with cotton thread and very quickly (within 2 weeks) came detached and floated up. I then discovered the hairnet!! What a wonderful tool. I redid the Riccia to produce the next layout
I have pretty much stayed with the basic layout ever since tweaking little sections every now and then.
Most recently I have added glosso to the tank and started EI fertilisation. I must say the EI method has totally cured the spot algae I used to get on the glass but has caused a bit of hair algae growth on the Riccia. I am currently dosing 1/2 EI as I think the cause was down to an excess of nutrient in the water. This tank is only medium light and as EI is meant for high light tanks i'm thinking my plants cannot use the nutrients fast enough hence the 1/2 dosing. I've only been doing this for a week or so but so far things are looking good. The hair algae is dying fast thank god.
Here’s a pic taken a couple of days ago
Last night I removed the baby tears from the front left to allow the glosso to spread across the front of the tank. I am not planting anything in the gaps, as I want to keep track of the natural spread of the glosso. i'll take an identical pic in a week and show you how it's going.
That’s all for now, better get on and write the other threads.
thanks for reading
Right then to explain the plan for this/these threads. As I have 3 tanks (rio180, rekord 60 and a 50G cube) I didn't want a journal jumping from one tank to another lacking continuity and comparison so I have decided to write 3 journals instead, one for each tank. This thread will cover my very first tank the Juwel Rekord 60 from day 1 to present and will be updated every couple of weeks (or basically when I have anything to report)
Okay so firstly I bought the tank in June 2004 (hence the TFF joining date). I literally walked in to a LFS having never kept fish before and knowing NOTHING. I was looking for a goldfish bowl to put in my lounge, at the time I didn't know any better.
The shop assistant did a wonderful sales pitch on me explaining that a tropical tank is much easier and cheaper to run than a goldfish bowl. I must have been hung over as I believed every word and happily trotted off home to cycle my new tank, the rekord 60.
After the usual newbie disasters, a few dead fish and fiddling around with the tank I settled on this layout.
I didn't fancy plastic plants so just stuck a couple of plants in the gravel, the tank was standard at this stage, original lighting, plain gravel, etc..
Then after a lot of reading I decided to attempt a planted tank. Firstly I just added liquid ferts (tetra florapride I think) and added a few root tabs under the bigger plants.
That produced this layout
After a month or so the plants were suffering with dying leaves, yellow leaves, holes in the sword plant and not any significant growth to talk about. So after a long list of pm's to
gf225 I learned what was important to plants, where the priorities lie regarding amount of light to CO2, and the importance of a nutrient rich substrate. As a direct result of gf225's help I went out and bought a nutrafin kit, arcadia ballast (for an extra tube) and 2 plant tubes arcadia "original tropical" and "freshwater" and a box of first layer laterite.
The lighting upgrade is very similar to bigC's rekord 70 upgrade but mine uses 2 x 15W tubes.
So with 30W over 14USG that gave me 2.1 WPG with co2 and laterite all added producing the following layout
From then on I fiddled and tweaked and played around with the plants. Worked out how to handle Riccia and work with it, toyed with cutting propagation etc...
After about 6 months of messing I ended up with this
However the Riccia was held down with cotton thread and very quickly (within 2 weeks) came detached and floated up. I then discovered the hairnet!! What a wonderful tool. I redid the Riccia to produce the next layout
I have pretty much stayed with the basic layout ever since tweaking little sections every now and then.
Most recently I have added glosso to the tank and started EI fertilisation. I must say the EI method has totally cured the spot algae I used to get on the glass but has caused a bit of hair algae growth on the Riccia. I am currently dosing 1/2 EI as I think the cause was down to an excess of nutrient in the water. This tank is only medium light and as EI is meant for high light tanks i'm thinking my plants cannot use the nutrients fast enough hence the 1/2 dosing. I've only been doing this for a week or so but so far things are looking good. The hair algae is dying fast thank god.
Here’s a pic taken a couple of days ago
Last night I removed the baby tears from the front left to allow the glosso to spread across the front of the tank. I am not planting anything in the gaps, as I want to keep track of the natural spread of the glosso. i'll take an identical pic in a week and show you how it's going.
That’s all for now, better get on and write the other threads.
thanks for reading
and wonderful to see the transformation it's been through.
jk
I would never be able to put the time and money into such beautiful tanks. 
) a lot. put it this way the lighting on the 3 tanks alone cost about £250 and thats just ballasts, tubes and reflectors. then 3 nutrafin kits. and thats not including any plants, bogwood or fish.
