Your current Fish tank Setups!

Can anyone recommend any good aquatic shops in the Oxfordshire/ Berkshire area? Getting back into things and looking to pickup a nice Betta from somewhere local.
 
Wondered where this thread had got to.

Looking into picking up a new tank myself. Been a while since my planted tank diaster.
Decided my water's far too hard to try that again, so I'm going down the African Cichlid route, thinking of keeping a Mbunu community.

Just need a tank now, was looking into getting one made by ND Aquatics, but not so sure now.
Looking for a tank 240+ litres, hopefully pre-drilled with a sump. Would love to have a go at making a sump filter rather then going for a canister.
 
DEL 707 said:
Wondered where this thread had got to.

Looking into picking up a new tank myself. Been a while since my planted tank diaster.
Decided my water's far too hard to try that again, so I'm going down the African Cichlid route, thinking of keeping a Mbunu community.

Just need a tank now, was looking into getting one made by ND Aquatics, but not so sure now.
Looking for a tank 240+ litres, hopefully pre-drilled with a sump. Would love to have a go at making a sump filter rather then going for a canister.
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Red seas reefer tanks sound like they will fit your bill

PiKe said:
Aqua one seem to do a nice kit with a canister pump , are they any good?
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Yes any of the big names are much of a muchness really unless you need specifics such as pre drilled or you like an overflow in a certain location. For a freshwater sumpless tank your spoilt for choice.
 
If you fancy something rimless then the evolution aqua tanks are very nice (but also expensive!). A 60x50x36 is £400 with the stand. You would need to source your own lights and filter though.

As for a tank with a sump then ND is decent. Red Sea are pretty expensive but are are rimless. The evolution aqua reefs tanks are also very nice. Do Africans jump? You might want to think about that if you go rimless.
 
DEL 707 said:
Just need a tank now, was looking into getting one made by ND Aquatics, but not so sure now.
Looking for a tank 240+ litres, hopefully pre-drilled with a sump. Would love to have a go at making a sump filter rather then going for a canister.
Click to expand...

Redsea reefer or Evolution Aqua both do a ton of tanks which will fit your bill here for good prices.

b0rn2sk8 said:
Do Africans jump? You might want to think about that if you go rimless.
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Both of the above have diy lid kits available. I use one on my reefer as my snails escape if not and i find them on the floor
 
So my cyno battle rages on, I seem to be getting somewere at times and it dies off for 2 days and turns black and shrivels away. Then it comes back with force once more. Iv noticed some changes i can make which do seem to help though are to use a 220 micron sock at all times with a piece of floss across its neck replacing it daily. Leaving my socks alone for 2-3 days until they clog/overflow doesnt seem to work at all and is probably contributing to my nitrates.

Current perameters
Ammonia: 0ppm
Nitrite: 0ppm
Nitrate: between 20 and 40ppm damn api kits.
Phos: 0.03ppm
pH: 8.2
Temp: 25.8

On the last note temperature and algae growth in marine seem very linked unlike tropical. Going from 26.8 to 25.8 actually destroyed all of the hair algae i was fighting within 2 days it vanished and it did set the cyno back a little too.
 
We decided on a Juwel Rio 125, got the package for £359, just amassing things we need now like ornaments, temperature gauges and all the ancillary stuff you need!

We have an ornament which can have an airline connected to it, would it be worth getting an airpump or are they a bit of a novelty?
 
PiKe said:
We decided on a Juwel Rio 125, got the package for £359, just amassing things we need now like ornaments, temperature gauges and all the ancillary stuff you need!

We have an ornament which can have an airline connected to it, would it be worth getting an airpump or are they a bit of a novelty?
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It'll help keep the water oxygenated, but to be honest if you have some surface agitation from your filter return then it's not really needed, we turned ours off in our tropical tank because it made the whole cabinet vibrate!!
 
There are few real benefits of the airstone in a correctly set up tank. I used them in transport tanks, or other temporary tanks without proper filtration for a period of time.

As above, get some surface agitation from the normal filter, and save your power and ears :) However, the cabinet should not vibrate. You can use various methods to isolate the pump from the stand to stop vibration. You can sit in on rubber, or even a folded towel. Some people even suspend them on elastic cord.

However, unless you really want that 70's nightclub look, I would just leave it out and try for something more natural.
 
I have ordered an airpump with an adjustable flow, so I will have it dialled right down.

As we are starting the tank with live plants, do we need to add amonia to kick start the cycle whilst there are no fish in there?
 
If you don't want to be doing regular large water changes (needed with a "fish in" cycle) then you could just drop a raw shrimp in as an ammonia source.

Also, you should really be testing the water with a decent test kit to get Nitrate, Nitrite, ammonia and PH as a minimum. During a cycle its a very good idea to track these as you can work out what us going on more easily and also know more quickly when you are actually cycled.

Not sure what difference the live plants will make to the initial cycle, it might speed things up a bit if the plants came from a cycled tank though.
 
The plants may make it harder to identify when the cycle is complete as they can use up the nitrates in the water (at least that's what we found, ammonia dropped, nitrites increased then dropped, but nitrates stayed pretty much 0 the whole time)

Edit: this isn't a bad thing, just means you have to be aware you may not see the readings you expect on your test kit!
 
So I think we are going to spend some time getting the cycle started without plants, I've just seen a video which shows adding bacteria culture, then amonoia to 4ppm and testing it daily until the levels drop to 0ppm.

Then repeating until the ammonia level drops to 0ppm in a 24 hour period, does this sound like a good idea if we are patient enough?
 
PiKe said:
So I think we are going to spend some time getting the cycle started without plants, I've just seen a video which shows adding bacteria culture, then amonoia to 4ppm and testing it daily until the levels drop to 0ppm.

Then repeating until the ammonia level drops to 0ppm in a 24 hour period, does this sound like a good idea if we are patient enough?
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Ive personally started both fresh and saltwater tanks using the method you mentioned and others using fish in cycles with some kind of quick start (seachems seed is my favorite) and have had no losses either way.
 
You should avoid using plants if you are trying to build bacteria tank as they take but both ammonia and nitrite as a nitrogen source before nitrate.

If you have a fully planted tank that has had a few weeks to root and establish then you can in reality just slowly add fish with no issues.

Following the method above should be fine if starting fresh, if you have any seed material from another thank like old filter media then just using a bacteria product and adding small quantities of fish right away will also be fine.
 
PiKe said:
What foam order do people use in the Juwel Bioflow M filter?
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You swap it out for a decent canister filter :) j/k generally its course first to catch the big bits then bio media/other then fine/floss at the top.

re the fish in / fishless cycle, I've always over seeded the tank with bottle bacteria then use Prime to detoxify any ammonia/nitrite (in reality its more of an insurance) with decent water changes. not had an issue yet with that even though i'm quite wary of Primes marketing but the reviews do seem to validate it.

As others have said air pumps are negated by decent surface agitation but there pretty good for sticking an airline filter on if you have somewhere to hide it to boost your filtering and shrimp love them.
 
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