Your current Fish tank Setups!

SoSolid said:
I really am struggling to get plants growing in my tank. I have tried everything but to no avail. One of the major problems is that the tank is rather deep (45 cm or 1.5 ft) so it has been difficult getting light to the bottom. The standard light setup that came with the tank was a load of rubbish, so I replaced the tubes with Zoomed's max plant growrth (2 x 15 watt T8's) and this improved the situation a little. I then purchased an additional starter unit and added another 2 tubes meaning I know have 2 wpg. Whilst this has stopped the plants from turning brown and enhanced their colour to a nice dark green, they are just not growing very much. I have only had the extra 2 tubes in for about 4 weeks.

My tank is a 30 US gallon (115 l) setup with 2 x Java fern and 2 x Amazon sword plants. I must add that the Java fern seem to be sprouting babies which I take is a good sign but I really wanted to grow a nice jungle in there and it is just not happening. I really need some advice.
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java fern and amazon sword aren't very light demanding plants so your lighting is fine. perhaps look at using some decent fertiliser, when I had a planted tank I used Seachem Flourish/Excel.

to be honest I never had much success with plants either, I even tried EI dosing and Co2 but failed to get good results, I put it down to us living in a very hard water area. interested to hear how you get on.
 
I am using the Seachem plant pack containing; Flourish, Flourish Iron and Flourish Excel. I did try a DIY C02 system but I got over ambitious with the mixture on the second attempt and added too much yeast. This caused a violent reaction which resulted in the pressure dropping really quick in the reactor and subsequently the yeast liquid mix was sucked into the tank. I almost lost the entire setup.
 
Does anyone have any experience of a Fluval Edge?

I want something really small to sit on a sideboard in my lounge, and this has a real contemporary design that seems to fit the bill.

I'm concerned about the filtration however, and the subsequent algae accumulation on the glass and then cleaning. I prefer my tanks to be as maintenance free as possible.

Does anyone have an experience / alternative ideas?

Thanks.
 
Three of the guys from work have the Edge. Nice tank, filtration seems fine for the intended purpose and includes ceramic media which is good. Fluval do some special accessories for the tank such as algae scrapers, a net and a slimline heater which help but you pay more than typical accessories for them.

Problems?
1. Its a closed tank with a small opening in the top so it's unsuitable for certain fish eg Siamese Fighters. Also air bubbles get caught under the top glass.

2. It's also small so you're limited to a few (say 5-7 max) small fish.

3. Filter pump failed on one of the tanks. Replaced under warranty. No idea if it's a common problem, just mentioning it.
 
I keep an 8 litre tank at work. Runs a small hob filter from HK from Ebay, with a small fluval light.
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Mine was only supposed to have red-cherry shrimp, but I ended up with a single fry from an egg on some plants that were introduced.

8 litres is pretty small, you would be limited to perhaps a single corie (which prefer groups) maybe a small group of micro-rasbora/white clouds?

10+ litres would give you a bit more scope and make the tank a bit more stable. I was just doing this to show that small tanks can be done on the cheap, and with not too much maintenance :) Any maintenance required is also dealing with very small volumes of water, and this in itself make its quick and easy!

I can do 2 litre water-changes into a plastic bottle, via airline tubing in 2-3 minutes. I would normally only be doing that once a week in this tank, but seeing as there is a little fry in there, I am currently doing 1 litre daily (monday-thurs), and 2 litres on Fridays (seeing as I am not in the office on the weekends).
 
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my damn heater died the other weekend, was just over a year old and decided to give up the ghost while I was away for a few days. Ran out and got a new one as soon as I got home but lost 3 silver tips because of the temperature dip :(

Is there anyway to protect against this in the future apart from running two heaters?
 
My tank heater is set to 23 degrees celsius, however, my tank is always at 26 C owing to the lights in the tank and cavity wall insulation we had done last year. Does this mean my heater hardly ever comes on?
 
SoSolid said:
My tank heater is set to 23 degrees celsius, however, my tank is always at 26 C owing to the lights in the tank and cavity wall insulation we had done last year. Does this mean my heater hardly ever comes on?
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Forget what the heater is set to, as I find the numbers/dial on the top is usually rubbish!

Monitor the actual temp of the water and adjust the heater accordingly. Just don't go turning it right down, but in small increments lower it and see if it makes a difference.

You'd need some serious lighting to keep it that warm.
 
Assuming the calibration is correct the heater will maintain a minimum temperature of 23C. If it hits 23C then the heater will come on then power off at say 23.5C. Cheapo heaters can be very inaccurate - I inherited a tank with an eBay heater that ran at 32C when set to 25C... The posh Rena Smartheater in my big tank is bang on accurate.

My living room tends to be quite warm at around 23-24C so the heaters hardly ever come on during the day. In last summers heatwave the tank was hitting 31C and the poor fish were getting a bit warm. Heater didn't come on for weeks...
 
Yeh I mean my bedroom gets very warm because of the loft and cavity wall insulation we had done last year. I do have 4 tubes which must give off a fair bit of heat. I don't expect the heater to be bang on accurate, I am happy with the tank to sit at this temperature.
 
Can anyone recommend a good online shop. I need new bulbs and an air pump.

Also, I currently have 1 x Glo Aqua and 1 x Power Glo.. I was wondering if i could swap one of these with a UV lamp to help combat Algae.. ??
 
Here's my tank befor I had to brake it down befor I moved house, sadly I had to get rid of all my fish to :(
Cant wait to get it up and running again.





And one of my discus.

 
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