The Adventure Begins - UNS Rimless 20G Planted Tank

[mrsjoannh13]

That is such a weird contraption lol. How does it clean the sand out?

So you put the sand in buckets and run hose water through it. Then you stick the drill bit thing (it's actually a paint or concrete mixer attachment) into the bucket and it agitates the sand while the water continues to rinse the sand. I suppose it kicks up the super fine particles of dirt and separates out debris which rinses out leaving clean sand at the bottom.

We'll be trying it out this weekend so I'll post pics or video of the experiment! SCIENCE! Lol!

 

[Fish4dawin]

So you put the sand in buckets and run hose water through it. Then you stick the drill bit thing (it's actually a paint or concrete mixer attachment) into the bucket and it agitates the sand while the water continues to rinse the sand. I suppose it kicks up the super fine particles of dirt and separates out debris which rinses out leaving clean sand at the bottom.

We'll be trying it out this weekend so I'll post pics or video of the experiment! SCIENCE! Lol!

That is very complex. I got confused even reading it lol.

 

[Fish4dawin]

What kind of betta are you going to go for? A veiltail or a dragon one (forgotten full name but oh well).

 

[Essjay]

My son had one of those contraptions for mixing plaster when he took the wallpaper off and half the plaster came off with it

 

[mcordelia]

just caught up with this thread, and I have to say I'm super excited for you! I love the sand, it was on my list for the 125 but then the whole reality of $$ resulted in a "no" lol. I don't need to tell you to take your time since you just recently went through this tank setup thing, but oh my gosh am I ever excited about this project!

I also hear you on the pesky "job" thing - on one screen I have TFF open, on another screen I have an excel sheet waiting for some attention. I think we can all conclude which one is winning the attention battle at the moment

 

[mrsjoannh13]

Just realized... can't get plants until I have a light! So went to my friendly LFS and got the Twinstar 600S. It was probably more than I needed for my initial plan for this tank but I can totally see myself eventually wanting some of those awesome high light, red and orangey and pinkish tipped plants. I believe CO2 is also in my near future! So instead of going with a low-tech light that would only support low to medium light plants, I went with the mamma jamma S-series and got a dimmer and timer for it so I can ratchet it down as needed.

This weekend I'll get to the sand washing and my other hardscape stuff (thousand layer stone and more spiderwood) should be arriving today. So I'll have LOTS to play with this weekend! Yay!

The tank is so gorgeous, I hate leaving all the wrapping on it but figure it's best to have some protection on the outside while I get it all set up and eventually moved on to a stand (which is still 3 or more weeks out). But I think I have everything needed to get it filled up and start cycling.

 

[mrsjoannh13]

just caught up with this thread, and I have to say I'm super excited for you! I love the sand, it was on my list for the 125 but then the whole reality of $$ resulted in a "no" lol. I don't need to tell you to take your time since you just recently went through this tank setup thing, but oh my gosh am I ever excited about this project!

I also hear you on the pesky "job" thing - on one screen I have TFF open, on another screen I have an excel sheet waiting for some attention. I think we can all conclude which one is winning the attention battle at the moment

Yeah, the sand is expensive but since I'm getting corys I wanted to get something that I know for sure is meant for aquariums and won't somehow hurt the fish. And in the grand scheme of things after I look at what I paid for the tank, the stand, the light, and the hardscape stuff, I was like - meh - sure, I'll pay that for sand, LOL.

I'm glad I'm not alone on the pesky work thing. Seriously, how am I supposed to get this tank set up if I'm working all day? There is sand to be washed, people!!!!!!

 

[mrsjoannh13]

What kind of betta are you going to go for? A veiltail or a dragon one (forgotten full name but oh well).

My husband really likes the dumbos. I would like a full moon and definitely blue. Although I gravitate towards the full moons and half moons, I've seen some blue rim bettas that are phenomenal. So we'll see. But I don't think I can go without one of those amazing flowing tails. Maybe a blue rim will be my next tank

Not sure yet where I am going to get it from. LFS doesn't really get them and I'm leery of getting one from PetSmart or PetCo. I might order and have one delivered but still looking for a good online source.

 

[Fish4dawin]

My husband really likes the dumbos. I would like a full moon and definitely blue. Although I gravitate towards the full moons and half moons, I've seen some blue rim bettas that are phenomenal. So we'll see. But I don't think I can go without one of those amazing flowing tails. Maybe a blue rim will be my next tank

Not sure yet where I am going to get it from. LFS doesn't really get them and I'm leery of getting one from PetSmart or PetCo. I might order and have one delivered but still looking for a good online source.

I have a female dumbo betta in a 12 gallon community tank and she's doing really well.

Can't wait to see what one you are going with!

Also are you cycling the tank or using stuff to make it cycle faster? I've forgotten what it's called.

 

[mrsjoannh13]

Also are you cycling the tank or using stuff to make it cycle faster?

I'll let it do its thing for a while. I can't get my fish until after we take a trip in February. So there's no rush to speed along the cycle. I may use the beneficial bacteria if the tank is still not cycled when we get back from our vacation. I think after I added the Tetra Safe Start to my last tank it completed the cycle in 4 days. For now I'm just going to take my time figuring out the hardscape and plants and just getting that laid out the way I want it.

 

[AnOldTank]

Cool. This looks like a fun journey you are on, can't wait to see when you are ready!

 

[mrsjoannh13]

So today was sand washing day. In a previous post I put a picture of this paint mixer that attaches to a drill. I used that to agitate the sand and it worked like a charm! I put the sand in some clean buckets, added water from the garden hose, agitated with the mixer thingy, dumped out the water, and repeated this process a bunch of times. My daughter got really interested in the process. She took over rinsing and bucket dumping duties. My husband busted up some rocks for me into smaller pieces. It was so much fun having the family involved in the process.

The bucket photos below show the progression of dirty to clean water. Seriously, if you are going to use sand in a new tank - WASH IT. There was a lot of gunk floating around the first time we filled the buckets with water. And I highly recommend the drill bit attachment thing. It made the process go so much faster and I didn't have to keep sticking my hands in the sand to agitate it.

I will probably get a betta and I realized that some of the spiderwood is too scratchy for a betta tail so I tried sanding it down but quickly came to the conclusion that I'll be having to cover a lot of it in moss and anubias nana petite.

For now, clean sand is in the tank and I have the wood glued down on a rock. I'm waiting for some additional rocks to come in to start fiddling around with the hard scape. Plants should start arriving on Tuesday so I might just have to keep them in a bucket of water until next weekend when I have time to devote to the planting process.

 

[Wills]

Wow a fellow Twinstar owner The S is a serious piece of kit and the same I have on my 100 litre tank, it is definitely a high tech light so get a dimmer, you can get two types for it one where it is just a percent checker and an other where you can set a schedule, I would go for the one with the schedule it is tricky to set up but it makes sense once you've got your head around it.

I run mine at 70% for 6 hours but I am contemplating upping it to 80% for 8 hours as I think my balance is going to allow it without algae issues. Its a 66 watt light so for a low energy tank you would want to run it at 20-30% to achieve between 12 and 19 watts and I would say try running for 8 hours initially and see where you get to.

If you are contemplating going to a high energy set up in the future I would recommend putting in a nutrient rich substrate now like Tropica Aquarium Soil or ADA Amazona its going to really benefit in the long run otherwise you are going to have to do serious water dosing and root tabs to keep up with the lights and Co2. You could still have big sections of sand but plant them mainly in the soil and divide it with hardscape.

Wills

 

[Fish4dawin]

So today was sand washing day. In a previous post I put a picture of this paint mixer that attaches to a drill. I used that to agitate the sand and it worked like a charm! I put the sand in some clean buckets, added water from the garden hose, agitated with the mixer thingy, dumped out the water, and repeated this process a bunch of times. My daughter got really interested in the process. She took over rinsing and bucket dumping duties. My husband busted up some rocks for me into smaller pieces. It was so much fun having the family involved in the process.

The bucket photos below show the progression of dirty to clean water. Seriously, if you are going to use sand in a new tank - WASH IT. There was a lot of gunk floating around the first time we filled the buckets with water. And I highly recommend the drill bit attachment thing. It made the process go so much faster and I didn't have to keep sticking my hands in the sand to agitate it.

I will probably get a betta and I realized that some of the spiderwood is too scratchy for a betta tail so I tried sanding it down but quickly came to the conclusion that I'll be having to cover a lot of it in moss and anubias nana petite.

For now, clean sand is in the tank and I have the wood glued down on a rock. I'm waiting for some additional rocks to come in to start fiddling around with the hard scape. Plants should start arriving on Tuesday so I might just have to keep them in a bucket of water until next weekend when I have time to devote to the planting process.

Did the spiderwood finally sink? I hope it did. You could also attach java fern to the spiderwood too.

 

[mrsjoannh13]

Did the spiderwood finally sink? I hope it did.

So, not sure yet. I don't have the tank filled up with water. Still playing around with the hardscape and waiting for plants to arrive. Right now I have the spider wood soaking in a bucket to get rid of some tannins and water log it (hopefully). But I am planning to glue and/or tie it down with a rock to be on the safe side. I watched a video yesterday where George Farmer was setting up a tank with a piece of wood and LOTS I mean LOTS of little carpeting plants across the entire tank floor. So he goes through I don't know how long of planting these tiny little plants all over the substrate and then as he's filling up the tank at the end the wood starts to float up. Totally tears up the substrate and all of the little plants he had put in. He said he was "rather cross" when it happened, LOL. He's so polite. So I definitely don't want that happening with my wood floating up after I've planted!