This Does not look very good

[pandapops001]

 

[Wyld-Fyre]

What's wrong with it?!

 

[wrs]

sand?

 

[DOLORES]

hello there!, im assuming that you mean maybe cloudy water?, it looks good to me....but i guess thats what you mean, and now...what do you mean?

 

[pandapops001]

Sorry i didnt explain myself very well, if it looks cloudy then its my shaky hands with the cam lol,

This all started yesterday afternoon, my partner passed comment that the tank didnt look very good and he'd seen far better, my reply was simply

"steady on, its my FIRST tank" to which i dont think he was very happy, as i was kind of insinuating that there would be MORE tanks.

He continued to ask what other fish i could add and how i could improve the decoration, so thats why i'm asking your advice, as i dont know what else i can do as i'am already fully stocked

WRS - I heard that was really hard to set up,

 

[plecoperson]

You could go with sand for a more natural look but your gravel looks very shiny and new! I have the same gravel in my tank and it serves its purpose. If it were my tank, I would add some bogwood and LOTS of plants. Real or fake, whichever you prefer but I prefer real as the fish like to eat them. HTH

ask your partner what he suggests - then discard his idea JK

 

[VulcanNinja]

That looks fine to me but I have a question: isn't there too much stuff in there? ie- shouldn't we give the fish more room to swim around? I only have one plant in the tank and a rock or 2. I wish I had a digital to show people. It's very bare looking but it's my first tank.

Anyway, no offense Panda just asking as a newbie...

 

[RYO]

dont look bad to me either, the gravel isnt to my tast but thats just me ,the rest looks fine.

 

[clutterydrawer]

VulcanNinja i guess it's one of those things that's a matter of taste and opinion. I like to try and provide a balance between giving the fish enough room to swim and providing enough "furniture" to make them feel secure. It depends what fish you have though - some fish like tetras and harlequin rasboras come from shady areas with lots of plants so they feel nervous and exposed without enough plant cover. if you look at care instructions for these species it always says provide them with heavily planted tanks.

pandapops I really like your tank, I have seen way worse tanks than that from people who've kept fish for logner and (no offfence but) i think your partner is being a bit harsh. i like the arrangement of plants, and the use of different heights...the only thing I'm not keen on is the gravel cos i prefer natural colours, or even better sand. you could change to sand but that's gonna be annoying and time consuming!

 

[pandapops001]

Its okay i'm not offended, i really appreciate your advice, i would like to change to sand, but would not have a clue how to go about it and also if its safe as the tank hasnt been running for very long.

my partner picked that gravel out, it was his only input towards the tank.

I needed to add lots of plants in it to combat aggression as my swordtail was very bossy with the platys, and they seem happier having somewhere to hide and my mollies just love eating the plants.

They are a mixture of real and fake, the fake ones are mainly there so that when my pregnant molly drops her babys they will have somewhere to hide and wont be bothered much, if i just used live plants they would be bold in a week and serve no hiding purpose.

Finally i really want to add some bogwood but dont know where to get it in the UK, and how to make it safe to add to the tank

 

[clutterydrawer]

Its okay i'm not offended, i really appreciate your advice, i would like to change to sand, but would not have a clue how to go about it and also if its safe as the tank hasnt been running for very long.

my partner picked that gravel out, it was his only input towards the tank.

I needed to add lots of plants in it to combat aggression as my swordtail was very bossy with the platys, and they seem happier having somewhere to hide and my mollies just love eating the plants.

They are a mixture of real and fake, the fake ones are mainly there so that when my pregnant molly drops her babys they will have somewhere to hide and wont be bothered much, if i just used live plants they would be bold in a week and serve no hiding purpose.

Finally i really want to add some bogwood but dont know where to get it in the UK, and how to make it safe to add to the tank

What I've been doing recently, with a view to designing a new tank (if my mum lets me get one...) is looking at the Monthly competition winners - archive section of this site, to get ideas. There are some beautiful tanks there! Rgith, now prepare for a really long post:

Changing to sand: the key thing here is NOT to change it all at once. Lots of the benefcial bacteria, which help deal with ammonia and nitrite, live in the substrate. Therefore if yo uare changing substrate you need to do it bit by bit. A method I have heard of people from this board using is to make "dividers" out of plastic or acetate or something, not to divide the whole tank, but to split the substrateinto new and old so it doesn't get mixed up.so you'd divide off say 1/6 of the bottom area, take out the gravel, put the sand in. Then leave the gravel you have removed, inside the tank, contained in the foot of a stocking/pair of tights. This preserves the bacteria colony whilst the new substrate gathers bacteria. then after a while - i don't know how long hopefully someone will tell us - repeat this with the next section of the gravel. if your tank is genreally unstable, ie great flucutations of ammonia and nitrite, i don't think it would be a good plan. but if your tank is stable even though it hasn't been up for long, I don't think it would harm.

You can buy sand from your lfs but you could also use "play sand" from Argos which is much cheaper at only £2.49 for 15kg!!! this might need a lot of washing, and some people say it clouds their water, but i think cheese_specialst used it in her tanks and it looks great. there's a link to them in her signature. other people have recommended pool filter sand but i have no idea what this is or where it's to be found.

It would be a lot of work though and you'd have to be really careful not to disturb the fish. also your live plants might object to being pulled up and replanted, i dunno, you can never tell with plants. other things to know about sand are that if it is deep you can end up with anaerobic bacteria living in it, i can't remeber why they're bad but they definitely are, and to avoid it you need to swirl through the sand with a stick every now and then. this only applies if your sand is deep though, maybe 1.5" plus. if the intake of your filter is too near the sand it can suck in grain and totally screw up the impeller bit. to clean sand you can't stick a gravel vac straight in it cos it will suck up the sand; you need to draw the gravel vac along the sand a bit above the surface,so it slurps the stuff off the top of the sand without picking up the actual sand.

Bogwood: i get mine from my lfs. there's never any at pets at home though so you might need to look further afield. to prepare it for your tank, soak it in water or ideally boil it (if you have a spare saucepan!) until the water stops turning so brown. the brown stuff that bogwood releases is called tannin, it doesn't actually hurt your fish other than slightly lowering the pH which most fish don't mind, it's just that is makes your tank look like tea which a lot of people don't like.

aaaah I just realised how much I wrote, k, you don't have to read all of it, but it's there if you need to.

 

[pandapops001]

thank you, gosh that is alot of work, i didnt realise there was so much to it, perhaps i'll leave it a little longer in that case, bogwood sounds like a good shout though, i always think that looks so gorgeous in tanks,

I did read all your post with interest and with undivided attention, so it wasnt wasted and others will probably find it very useful too.

I might buy another tank you know, i'm so tempted. I cant believe how addictive this habit is, that way i could start with sand and avoid messing with my current tank.

You were a great help as always thankyou

 

[amazingbioloboydp]

i dont like that gravel it should be more natural looking...like the rest of ur tank.

 

[Wyld-Fyre]

Speaking on behalf of all small fishes everywhere........give us some more cover/shade in which to hide our little selves in.

I don't want to feel too exposed to anyone: the aquarist, big fishes, and predators. Give me a little 'home, sweet home' of my own. Then, perhaps I can settle down, find myself a missus, and raise a little brood of our own.

PS I'm not a soppy fish!

 

[clutterydrawer]

I might buy another tank you know, i'm so tempted. I cant believe how addictive this habit is, that way i could start with sand and avoid messing with my current tank.

lol that's my justification for a new tank..."but mother, dearest, the corydoras would so love a sand substrate, and it's just not practical to swap it in the current tank...."

bogwood is ace, I put a piece in a few months ago and it totally transformed the look of the tank. it suddenly looked 100x more natural. weird.