Your current Fish tank Setups!

My Fluval Ebi arrived today! It's awesome, I love it already!

Here's some pics. The substrate has caused the water to be this murky as you can't clean it thoroughly like you can gravel.

The tank is 30cm x 30cm x 35cm and contains approx 30L of water. It's next to a 24" monitor.

Heater and some plants should be here tomorrow/Thursday.

Really don't want to wait a few weeks for it to cycle!!!

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A quick video here of my newest favourite fish, Indostomus paradoxus. These guys are awesome, halfway between a pipefish and a stickleback, and only 2.5cm long. I currently have half a dozen of them in a 30cm cube.

Had major problems with dim lighting and reflections trying to film these little dudes, one or two shots are in focus though :p

http://vimeo.com/36788254
 
King4aDay said:
In the little nano tanks I'm using ADA Amazonia. It's expensive, but not too bad for small tanks, I split one £35 bag across all three. Advantages are that it's easy to work with, aesthetically quite nice and is really good for getting plants established thanks to its grain size and the fact it comes pre-loaded with nutrients. It also has a high CEC (cation exchange capacity), which means it will take up excess nutrients from the water column and store them until needed.

In the big tank, I used garden soil mixed 50/50 with sand, then with a pure sand cap. Upsides are it's very cheap (cost about £10 to cover 9 square feet to 2 inches), and also has a decent CEC and plenty of nutrients. Downsides are you get a pretty hefty ammonia spike in the first few weeks, so need to do lots of water changes at the start, and it can make a bit of a mess if disturbed. If you go the soil route, then make sure you have a good read of the labels on the bags and avoid any with added fertiliser, manure, lime, peat or wood chips. Miracle Grow Aquatic compost is usually a good bet.

A quick google for 'el natural' and 'walstead' style aquaria will provide tons of info.
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Many thanks for the information, I think I'll go for that as it seems worth it in the long term. It's only a 10 gallon tank so I should only need the one bag hopefully!

One more question though. AquaEssentails notes that there is an Ammonia spike after placing the substrate, yet I have the livestock for the tank already and an established filter (been in place 6 months and fishless cycled beforehand). What is the magnitude of this spike? Would I be ok to change the substrate, add the plants and keep the cycled filter running with it and add the livestock straight away? The planned livestock is 6 Ember Tetras.

I must say the above video is once again stunning. They look like fantastic little creatures!
 
Yeah if the filter is already cycled then you can probably get away with adding everything at once, but try and find the time to do daily 50% water changes just in case, or at least get an ammonia test kit to keep an eye on whats happening.

You could also try and get some floating plants (Amazon frogbit would be a good choice), which won't be co2 limited and will help suck up much of the excess ammonia. They're cheap and you can always bin them or give them away afterwards if you don't want them long term.
 
Water is clearing up nicely now, though I disturbed it a fair bit when adding stuff earlier on.

Got a random plant attached to some bogwood in there. Not sure if it will stay, can't decide if I like it or not.

Got some bubbles going on behind the plant but they are not great, think the check valve is buggered as it badly limits the flow of air, got another one on its way.

Some gravel in there from an established tank to hopefully get things moving a bit faster!

Still waiting on the heater though :(

Day 2
pH = 6.5
Ammonia = 3ppm
NO2 = 0ppm

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That plant is an Acorus species and isn't aquatic. It'll rot away over the course of a couple of weeks and foul your water. Take it back or bin it.
 
King4aDay said:
That plant is an Acorus species and isn't aquatic. It'll rot away over the course of a couple of weeks and foul your water. Take it back or bin it.
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I got it from a friend and who said it was taller than it was, so it doesn't come out of the water as it should.

Pretty much decided I don't like it anyway, but as I stole it (and the bogwood!) it doesn't really matter much. Just thought I'd play until I get get to my local and buy some properly. Might end up having to buy online as work is crazy atm.

I'll leave it there for now as the wood is holding the air stone in place until my weights arrive as its a floater! could have sworn I had some in the cellar somewhere but can't find them! Won't do any harm in the short term.

fadetoblack said:
speed things up a bit more add more Ammonia to 5ppm
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Just put some more in actually. Was aiming for 4ppm. I'll do another test in a bit see what its at.
 
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Well it's time to get fish tomorrow so today it was planting, adding bogwood and 98% water change time.

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It needs to clear up a bit as obviously it was a large change and there are in places a few bits of plant still floating about. I took out about 25l with the gravel cleaner which got most of the loose stuff off the sand.

The heater on the left will not be in the tank full term. It's only because I did such a large change and the water is cold. I've tried using the kettle but the tank just got filled with limescale chunks!
 
Looking great there, that's an awesome bit(s) of bogwood!

Got some plants and a bit of bogwood today myself so spent the last 3 hours trying to get it to look good, I'm not great at this kind of thing really! Planting stuff on wood = pain in the ass!

Heater now installed, it's really neat. Not sure if the bogwood is right though, will keep searching for a better shape I think, it's so hard to find one that's just right! Just ordered like 4 bits from the bay for like £3-4 each, never know! Also will keep searching local shops!

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EDIT: ARGHHH one of my plants just floated to the top! Is it ok to use lead weights to hold them down? What's the best way?
 
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Hold the base of the plant in one hand, use your other hand to push open a little hole in the substrate (two fingers moving away from each other).

put the plant in the little hole, and push the substrate back over the base of the plant.
 
I also found that holding the roots between two fingers and thumb and then digging a hold with those fingers and thumb worked quite well. With sand it all wants to flow back quite quickly mind!
 
I need a bigger tank.

Went for a walk in the hills today, and towards the end spotted an awesome old stump that had been torn out of the ground by a bigger tree going over in the Christmas gales.

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After about ten minutes of poking, yanking and pocket knifing I finally got the bugger loose and sent the girlfriend into the swamp to retrieve it. All we had to do then was carry it two and half miles back to the van.

It looks much better in the flesh than it does in the photos, but the damn thing covers a 5' x 5' footprint, and my tank is only 3' x 3'. I anticipate spending much of next week figuring out how to overcome this!

Big wood hunter (ahem):

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Well I went out on Saturday to buy a Pleco and 6 Pearl Gourami. Nowhere had more thna 2 Gourami left so that was out, I ended up picking up a beautiful Snowball (L142) and Tiger (L002) Plecos.

I woke up Sunday morning and the Snowball was dead :(. I did a water test and everything was fine and Maidenhead Aquatics @ Croydon did the same and gave me a voucher to use in store for the same amount.

Tiger is still happy, spent most of yesterday sat on the big bit of bogwood at the back where you could only see him if you took the lid off and looked straight down.

Picked up 6 Pearl Gourami yesterday from Maidenhead Aquatics @ Morden. Massive shop with lots of tanks. Also it's on the same grounds as a garden centre (like many are) and so wit was rammed with people who just went in to look at the fish.
 
Yikes!

The Bucket of Mud living up to it's name -

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Total chaos (it got worse) -

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Bucket Mk II - same everything, more stump :p

Only going to give a sneak preview now, as have to plant and run. Will give everything six weeks to adapt to the new substrate/water parameters then tidy it up when I'm back.

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Anyone here have any experience with tetratec's ex range of filters? I currently have an ex1200 on my juwel lido120 and the noise it's making is doing my nut in. I've contacted tetra and they're sending me a new impeller, has anyone here who's used this filter (or other ex's) had any success by changing this part.
 
gitbags said:
Anyone here have any experience with tetratec's ex range of filters? I currently have an ex1200 on my juwel lido120 and the noise it's making is doing my nut in. I've contacted tetra and they're sending me a new impeller, has anyone here who's used this filter (or other ex's) had any success by changing this part.
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I've been using 2 of these filters on my tank for last 3-4 years with no problems or noises. Sounds like something isn't right on yours.
I had problems with a Tetratec ex 700 a few years ago and Tetra basicly sent me out a whole new head unit to fix the problem instead of trying little parts which I thought was really good customer service!
 
1uke said:
I've been using 2 of these filters on my tank for last 3-4 years with no problems or noises. Sounds like something isn't right on yours.
I had problems with a Tetratec ex 700 a few years ago and Tetra basicly sent me out a whole new head unit to fix the problem instead of trying little parts which I thought was really good customer service!
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I must admit the incredibly stern sounding Germanic help desk were pretty good in replying to my online warranty claim, same cannot be said about the company I bought it from :rolleyes:.
 
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