My Planted Tank Journal

[cuprajake]

thanks, should look good when the boarder is on, will finish it off.

here are my t5 tubes

and here is the tank,

new gravel and silica sand laid down, then i attached some java moss to the bog wood and postioined it.

then i filled it up slowly to the height of the wood, and tried my co2 ladder and put my heater in to get the tank up to temp

im surprised how clear the water was, no cloudy-ness at all

jake

 

[cuprajake]

planting last night

 

[Ant]

Looking cool mate , also loving the jaguar advertisement

 

[cuprajake]

fingers crossed by tonight, all the plants will be in, and i will have the lights working,

im still waiting on a couple of tubes though to come in,


jake

 

[iain.betson]

Sweet idea, i think my missus would kill me if i suggested cutting a hole in the wall for a tank!
I have a small suggestion, I think it may be an idea to have a black curtain or cover on the rear side of the tank in the cupboard to stop reflected light interfeering with the view from the front of the tank
You've got me thinking now

 

[cuprajake]

Do you mean a back ground??? if so im putting that on last, it just helps to see where im putting stuff without one on at the mo, the cupboard has a boor on it as its under the stairs so it can close to darkness.

jake

 

[iain.betson]

Do you mean a back ground??? if so im putting that on last, it just helps to see where im putting stuff without one on at the mo, the cupboard has a boor on it as its under the stairs so it can close to darkness.

jake

Basicly yeah, I should have realised that you must have put a lot of thought into it what with cutting a hole in your wall. But some people do preffer not to have a background and even in the case of the darkened cupboard if no background were fitted the light from the tank would illuminate the cupboard.
Myself and friend of mine who happens to be a builder were dicussing building a tank into a dividing wall between a dining room and a living room, floor to ceiling. And so we have put some thought into various sittuations regarding viewing from both sides and also visually dividing the room. We came up with the idea of a huge bubble curtain on each side of the tank, so if you were in the dining room and wanted to seperate it from the living room all you need do is turn on the bubble curtain on the living room side, coloured lights could also help matters. All this is just wishfull thinking, but you never know when your numbers will come up on the lottery
Looking good keep the pics coming

 

[cuprajake]

got most of the tank planted tonight, also got my lighting in now, its a shame, as i couldn't get a t5 starter unit so i had to alter my palns. i now have two 30wt plant tubes ans two 25wt white marine tubes, there still bright but i have gone down from 140wt to 110wtt this gives me a 2.3wpg instead of 2.9 so im airing on the cautious side,

i now have the back ground on

i also did my tests:

ph is 6.8
kh is 45
gh is 60

so now im just finding the chart for co2 and i can see how many ppm i have

pics will be up on monday

jake

 

[cuprajake]

just checked on chucks page, if i've done it right then i have approx 24-27 co2 which will do i hope,

now i need more plants and then i need to see if i can add fish

jake

 

[King's_Blend]

May I suggest moving your journal to the planted tank section. you will get more feedback on the planted aspect of your tank.

 

[cuprajake]

well its monday morning, just got into work after digging out of the snow lol

here are the pics of the tank now:

end of saturday night, and when i did my first tests

then on sunday morning about 11am

then last night, i also upped the co2 a little

 

[Siamese Fighter05]

Looks stunning mate!

Really like that aquascaping

 

[linda1503]

Looking absolutely fantastic!! Love the idea of the tank in the wall. Your plants and decs are looking really nice, its a real talking point when people come to visit!!

 

[cuprajake]

construstion wise its nearly done, just been and bought some arc to frame it, that'll go on when it stops snowing and i can get the truck up the hill to the house,

just been to the lfs aswell and saw a twin t8 starter unit £20 so got one of then lol i will now beable to have another bulb, so i'll now have 140wtt of light which will be about 2.9 again

 

[jonh]

nice aquascaping mate