Hi all, I'm going to start a journal about my switch from South American biotype.
Background:
I've had a tropical set up for a few years, it was only a low tech tank, but it was flourishing, my plants and fish were thriving but a house move has been a disaster, the water to my new house is a LOT harder, and I believe is the sole reason for my plants dying off uncontrollably, and the cause to losing half my stock fish over the last 2 months.
I've been in close contact with my LFS and they too believe the change in water is having a disastrous effect so I have chosen to move to a Cichlid set up as I feel it's easier to care for fish that will suit my water rather than struggle along trying to balance and keep my old set up alive by buffering the water.
So I have managed to re home all my old stock and today I broke the tank down and gave EVERYTHING a thorough clean, my filter got an overhaul whilst I was at it too, unfortunately it means I am going to have to re cycle my tank but I have friends with tanks so getting my hands on some mature media is going to be easy
So today I added 24kg of black Pettex sand via the bottle method, I have to say I was sceptical to say the least about it but it worked brilliantly, it took 2 hours to put all 24kg in with a 1.5 litre bottle, and this is the result about 15 minutes later, no dirt or cloudiness at all!!!! The sand must have been clean anyway, that's alll I can assume anyway.....
Here it is so far, filter back up and running, heater on, the sand looks white due to lots of tiny bubbles since turning the filter on!!!
I have some rocks that need cleaning and figuring out my scape so I shall spend the next few days sitting on the floor arranging rocks to see what I like best
Background:
I've had a tropical set up for a few years, it was only a low tech tank, but it was flourishing, my plants and fish were thriving but a house move has been a disaster, the water to my new house is a LOT harder, and I believe is the sole reason for my plants dying off uncontrollably, and the cause to losing half my stock fish over the last 2 months.
I've been in close contact with my LFS and they too believe the change in water is having a disastrous effect so I have chosen to move to a Cichlid set up as I feel it's easier to care for fish that will suit my water rather than struggle along trying to balance and keep my old set up alive by buffering the water.
So I have managed to re home all my old stock and today I broke the tank down and gave EVERYTHING a thorough clean, my filter got an overhaul whilst I was at it too, unfortunately it means I am going to have to re cycle my tank but I have friends with tanks so getting my hands on some mature media is going to be easy
So today I added 24kg of black Pettex sand via the bottle method, I have to say I was sceptical to say the least about it but it worked brilliantly, it took 2 hours to put all 24kg in with a 1.5 litre bottle, and this is the result about 15 minutes later, no dirt or cloudiness at all!!!! The sand must have been clean anyway, that's alll I can assume anyway.....
Here it is so far, filter back up and running, heater on, the sand looks white due to lots of tiny bubbles since turning the filter on!!!
I have some rocks that need cleaning and figuring out my scape so I shall spend the next few days sitting on the floor arranging rocks to see what I like best
