Jimbooo's Vision 450 Journal

[SJ2K]

Veeeeery nice, cant wait to see this in a few months! Jealous...

 

[jimbooo]

Nry: lol yeah it was certainly an experience. back's better now so no lasting damage. you gotta get yourself a biggun one day. i have been dreaming of it for 4 years and now i have the room (well not really but it fits!) i went for it. I cant wait to plant it the HC will be a back breaker though i'm sure.
Do you mean cable ties? if so i think they would cut into the riozome when it grows. you need something a bit more forgiving really. nice lateral thinking though, that would have been mighty easy, damn it.

Andy: Yeah that could work, thanks. i'll see if i can find some of the correct size.

SJ2K: thanks

 

[jimbooo]

hi people, well time for an update i suppose.

I've installed two more T5HO arcadia plant pro tubes to bring me up to 216 Watts so 2.16WPG. also added reflectors to get the most out of the light available. i really want to grow a compact carpet again and am a bit apprehensive about the depth of the tank. hopefully that is enough light to penetrate.. we'll soon see anyway lol

Here's the stuff i bought.

- Glo Twin T5HO ballast (2x54W)
- 4 reflectors (only needed 3!)
- 2 Arcadia Plant Pro T5 54W

Standard juwel lighting

with upgraded lighting (4x54w tubes with reflectors) Notice the brightness of the substrate in both pics!

typically because the tank is so damn huge the end cap cables from the Glo kit aren't long enough so the front tube is offset to the left and just about fits in front of the juwel one. there was absolute no way of adding a reflector as it would need to be about an inch further forward so i just put it under the juwel reflector along with the original one. before anyone suggests an alternative setup for it i have screwed the ballast to the roof of the right hand cupboard right in the top left corner. that's as close as it can get to provide just enough cable to reach in front of the juwel light bar. i can fit both behind the light bar with reflectors attached but i really want a nice forground carpet and i think direct light from above will provide a better intensity at substrate level.

I've also bought the additional filter. Rena XP2 brand new and sealed from Fwapp on TFF for £50.

I'm well chuffed with it, very good quality clear silicone hoses, far better than my fluval ones on the old tank. totally silent running (so far) and seems easy to get to the media. flow rate using my highly efficient holding hand in front of outlet method seems similar to the juwel filter which will remain running along side it.

so a tank shot with 2.16WPG (oops spray bar and inlet are not in the final position - ignore that.)

now all i need is for my FE's to turn up and I'll buy the plants. getting there...slowly

 

[mlawson]

Looks great, I cannot wait to see it with all the plants in, what carpet plant are you considering?

I think 2.16 WPG is OK, it's quite a lot for a tank that size.

That wood is fantastic!

 

[jimbooo]

Thanks, the long term plan is HC but glosso to start off with.

 

[Fwapp]

A pleasure sir!

You in turn have contributed to my new kitchen

Glad everything is OK with it.

 

[john starkey]

HI Jimboo, best of luck with this new setup i am sure it will be success, i especially like the wood arrangement on the right hand side, my hc is starting to spread quite well now so my advice is to split your clumps into small portions so it spreads quicker, regards john.

 

[jimbooo]

Thanks again Will, just took the baskets out for the first time since running it (full of water) and managed it without even a drip on the carpet. just added purigen into one of the spare baskets and chemzorb into the other. I'm going to bin the chemzorb as soon as i plant though as i think it will mess with ferts etc. for now it'll keep the fish happy.

thanks John, yeah i was planning to plant tiny bits with tweezers. will take me a couple of hours but should be worth it in the end. glosso first though. i need some serious growth and fast. I'm getting the first signs of algae on the wood, had no co2 for over 2 weeks and i dont want to be fighting back algae for the next few months. as soon as those damn FE's turn up I'll stuff it full of fast growers.

 

[Themuleous]

Good work Jim coming along nicely.

BTW how you going to do water changes? I take it jut tap water no Ro or anything? Sorry if I asked you about this a the festival got a feeling I did!

Sam

 

[jimbooo]

just tap mate. i cant be dealing with faffing about with RO and apart from that i'm on a water meter!!! 50G of RO a week would mean a small swimming pool of wasted water to produce it lol

 

[hunterm8]

looks like it's going to be another great tank, i have been an admirer of your tanks ever since i first came on this site! If my tank looked 1/4 as good as yours i would be a happy man. Have you thought any more about how you are going to diffuse your co2, i have the same problem with a rhinox you mentioned, mist for about 1min then back to airstone size bubbles

cheers mick

 

[jimbooo]

Hi Mick, your too kind

tha co2 plan as a one last attempt with the rinox. i have positioned the intake for the external finter high up on the left side for two reasons, to reduce surface film as once planted i wil have no surface agitation at all so i'm hoping the added circulation high in the water column may help (just a theory so far..i'll keep an eye on this and comment later). also the spray bar is pointing straight over the diffuser to hopefully blow the bubbles around the tank. any bubbles missing the flow will hopefully be sucked into the external. i didn't want to directly feed the external as the crunching noise when the co2 hits the impeller can be a little loud but if this plan works then only a small portion, already in small bubble form will enter the cannister. i'm hopeing it wont make as much noise...i'll let you know.

i have had shipment notification that the FE's left yesterday so i should have co2 again by monday night. i'll set it up, take pics and update you on how it works.

 

[Themuleous]

That's whats worrying me for when I get my 100g, I have to use RO or at least softer water cos of my clowns. But thinking of using rainwater, that or getting an upgrade kit so I have two or three RO membranes on the filter to recycle the waste water through the system again to increase the product water and reduce the waste.

Sam

 

[lljdma06]

That's whats worrying me for when I get my 100g, I have to use RO or at least softer water cos of my clowns. But thinking of using rainwater, that or getting an upgrade kit so I have two or three RO membranes on the filter to recycle the waste water through the system again to increase the product water and reduce the waste.

Sam

That would be a lot of Rainwater, Sam. Try filtering with peat to bring down both kH and gH and then just using straight tapwater. Might be a better alternative. If you inject CO2 and use wood, though, the water quality should be more than adaquate for clowns. Just trying to save you some quid.

Back to the topic! I can't believe I missed this Jimbooo, but I finally crawled out of my rock this morning. Looks like it's going to be another awesome scape. Looking forward to the pictures.

llj

 

[jimbooo]

thanks llj, it's coming along nicely thanks. just got my 2KG Fire Extinguishers yesterday so were back on track. awaiting drop checker so i'm just putting 1 Bps in at present to bring the PH down as it's currently at 8.

as to clowns, i have kept them in tap (KH 13) and they were fine for a month until whitespot wiprd out the whole tank (the old 50G cube). that was down to a total strip down and i expect a recycle triggered the whitespot. not that that helps...hardly a sucess story lol.

on the topic of hard water, has anyone any experience with madascar lace plants in hard water. i am about to order them and probably will still anyway regardless of feedback but i just wondered how others have got on with them.