Jimbooo's Vision 450 Journal

[George Farmer]

Your light won't be so bright with water in the tank.

CO2 mist is great but you need effective circulation to distribute the bubbles. I'm not sure what the powerhead is like in your tank but I would guess that alone it may not fire the bubbles around too well. It might do though. I had success with a 600lph powerhead in my Rio 125. No tubes attached though.

Whether you choose a 30 or 40 ADA diffuser depends on what bubble rate you'll have.

Running lower CO2 through a 40 will lead to 'dead spots' on the ceramic disc. Running higher CO2 through a 30 will lead to bigger bubbles. Not sure on actual bubble rates though, as I've not used them myself.

BTW it's a bit of a gamble buying knock-off glass diffusers. Some work much better than others.

You can guarantee a nice mist with ADA though.

 

[jimbooo]

oh yeah i forgot about the water. lol of course.

i think i'll read up on the diffusers, i'm decided on ADA now, after 3 cheapies they have all been much of a muchness and i have been dissapointed. it looks ecactly like an airstone, 90% are big bubbles that break the surface film 10% is fine mist. i want mist and no airstone lol. powerhead was my vertical spraybar on the fluval 104, not big but the bubbles were not mist whatever way you look at it.

thanks for the input george.

 

[Themuleous]

All looking great Jim lots of space for you to play with

Sam

 

[jimbooo]

Thanks sam i could do with a wetsuit though!!

Right then time for an update. Sorry for the reflections in the pics daytime photography with curved glass is a nightmare!

Well, i've been very busy over the last week or so firstly last weekend i took a trip to Wildwoods for some wood. after looking in the wood pile i was rather disappointed to find loads of small pieces about the size of your hand. on questioning one of the guys he led me "out the back" to two HUGE crates bursting with bogwood!! great... i spent 45 mins emptying both crates all over the floor, selecting my pieces and then putting it all back. no idea on cost as nothing was priced but i had an "oh sod it" moment. one piece in particullar is quite spectacular. it's a spherical piece, totally hollow with lots of holes all over it. makes a perfect cave. it all came to £70 in the end, not bad at all

sorry for the lack of set up pics, my camera was playing up and i couldn't wait.

i then decided to soak the wood in the tank as even my bathtub was too small to submerge it all at once. i had no fish at this point and a bare bottom so the empty tank was ideal.

it's worth me mentioning my water change plan. there as no way i was going to change 50G every week using buckets so i bought 7 meters of Eheim hose and attached to my powerhead. fill the sink, leave water running and pump to the tank. the only problem is adding dechlorinator as you have to do this every minute or so as the sink fills.

George: I'd love to hear about your "inline" dechlorinator i could definitely use that if it would work on my system.

so for the next day or two i changed loads of water to get the initial tannins out then got bored and wanted fish. i cloaned the filter from my rio180 and squeezed the sponges into the tank leaving one sponge in the 450's filter box. went off to the LFS and bought 10 Cardinal Tetras.

On Thursday the Eco complete arrived. now my original plan was to totally drain the tank to add the substrate but in my usual inpatient way i now had fish in it. damn it. remembering you do not need to rinse EC i thought i could get away with lowering the level to 40% and pouring it in. i didn't want the wood to sit on top of the EC i wanted the part buried more natural look so i opened the first bag and started to gently lower fist fulls into the water. well my oh my i am now realising that you cannot treat a 100G the same as a standard tank lol. in order to touch the bottom i need to stand on a chair. this means holding a 20KG bag of EC in one hand and gently lowering fist fulls to the tank bottom with the other. whilst keeping balance and not dropping black sandy muck on my cream carpet!

so that didn't last long as i really hurt my back lol. next plan was genius, just put the entire unopened bag in the tank and open it once it's in there. then gently tip over and pull out the empty bag. it worked a treat with only one problem. i can see that this wouldn't happen in a dry tank but in a half full one the amazon black water which the EC is packed in really clouds the tank. after the first bag (of 6) i couldn't see a thing so had to arrange the EC totally blind. once i had done it the water cleared enough to make out the line of the substrate after about 3 hours so i then dived back in and remoulded it to my liking, obviously clouding the water again in the process. EC contains a huge amount of dusty particles. if adding to a dry tank these would settle as a base layer and be no problem at all(in fact beneficial) however in a half full tank they float about and cling to everything. one waft of my hand against the wood and a big dust cloud comes up, clouding the water...Grrrrr

so after about 10 50% water changes, a ton of filter floss and a very painful backache here we are...

and after planting the stems (in pots in previous pic) and adding sand. (i didn't bother with the divider as it floated lol. i'm sure the sand and EC will mix but i'm not too fussed. i wantd to create an island look with a kind of shoreline if that makes sence. the entire EC foreground will be an HC carpet if all goes to plan with lots of stems at the back and anubias on the wood. i'm sure attaching anubias with cotton thread will be a piece of cake while it's in the tank lol :shock:

next stage is to get plants, 3 more T5 tubes and set up co2. this will be around the end of October due to cost!

i have negotiated 130 Cardinals for £0.85 each. not bad hey. all will be from the same batch and will be kept together for me at the LFS so i can stock gradually.

thanks for reading.. James

 

[corey01]

that tank looks ace!!!!!!! that bogwood looks amazing aswel.....................**jealousy**

 

[Castellop123]

d...

 

[jimbooo]

thank you both. i just need the water to clear now. i must resist stuffing the right piece (the cave) full of plants. i am going to try and grow anubias on the bottom of the cave growing right from behind, through the "tunnel" and emerging through the front opening, meeting the HC carpet it's pretty dark in there so not sure how the anubias will perform. i want tight low growth but i fear anubias "nana" will grow larger than usual to compensate for the very low light in there. i am undecided on the plants for the outside of that piece. moss would be perfect but i have never had sucess with mosses in my rock hard water. suggestions would be greatly apprecated for attaching to the top and sides. consider that they will be against a backdrop of red stem plants.

 

[jimbooo]

i've just taken some better pictures in the dark those reflections were bugging me.

 

[Biulu]

Love the bogwood; especially that cave piece! For your shoreline on the left hand side you only used sand, or do you have some substrate below it?
It will definitively be a challenge to stick anubias or other plants onto the wood, having it in the tank already! A great patience exercise LOL!

 

[jimbooo]

Thanks Biulu. yeah the cave is perfect. i asked the guy in the LFS if he had any huge pieces and he came back holding up the cave "like this one" he said. in the trolley it went...

shoreline is just play sand, no plants going in there it's more of a playpit for the 10 corys i will have in there.

with the anubias i may use lead strip weights to bend around the riozome then remove once it's taken hold. cotton thread will be a major pain.

 

[DevUK]

with the anubias i may use lead strip weights to bend around the riozome then remove once it's taken hold. cotton thread will be a major pain.

Might sound daft, but would long staples do the trick? I'm not sure on the safety of them, but I imagine you could staple the rhizome down without damaging it so its held in place? Either that, or drill tiny holes and thread cotton or ada style wire through. Doubt they'd show up easily and would be covered in plant.

 

[jimbooo]

the problem is what ever i do i cannot remove the wood from the tank. the wood is all sitting straight on the glass with EC literally dumped on top for that natural buried look. if i pull the wood out i will never get it back there again without a total strip down. more haste less speed springs to mind lol..

i did think of staples but was concerned about rust but thanks for the thought. with the strip lead i was thinking of buying a big spool of it (lfs sells it in about 3 foot rolled up strips) i could just wrap it around the wood it's hard to see from the pics but it has plenty of holes in to allow this. then just easily unwrap it once the roots have taken hold. thats the idea anyway.

i cant drill or i will fry myself and the fish in the process!

 

[nry]

1) Nutter! The whole post about adding the EC cracked me up!
2) I love the wood arrangement, much better than when you just had it sitting in the first picture. Works very well!
3) Will you lot stop buying these huge tanks

 

[SuperColey1]

Jimboo

Couldn't you put the Anubias where you want them on the wood and then use elastic bands to hold them in place?

Thats what I do and then you don't have cotton thread becoming arazors edge across any gaps.

Mine has about 6 elastic bands around the many Anubias and although the ones that stretch from the cave lip to the substrate look a bit bad now, Once the Anubias is attached I will just snip the elastic band and pull. No need to move the wood.

Just a thought.

Andy

 

[nry]

Or tiny plastic zip-ties.