Dickie's Journal - Picture Heavy

[ragawaga]

I suppose this post will act as an introduction as well.  I am returning to aquaria after a gap of 2 years.  Prior to that I had kept tanks for around 10 years.  Mostly reef setups, but I did start off with freshwater tanks.  I hadn't done anything too adventurous, mostly just bog standard community fish.  These tanks were also fairly low budget as I was a poor student when I started them.  Anywhoo, to get back in, I decided to go for a Fluval Roma 240.  This would be the biggest tank that I've kept.  I wanted to do something with this tank that I hadn't done before, so after a bit of thinking about what kind of setup I'd go for, I'd narrowed it down to either malawi cichlids or a very heavily planted tank with lots of shrimp and some African Dwarf Frogs.  I'm from Scotland and we have pretty soft water here, so I decided to go for the planted setup. 

Before I start, I have to admit that I've only recently discovered Tony's shop and this forum.  The majority of my gear and around half of the plants that'll be in the aquarium, will be from other sources.  I got the tank one week ago....and had been purchasing the bits and pieces for a wee bit before that.  So without further a do, I'll start with my pictures.

[ragawaga]

Here are some of the bits that I'd recieved excluding the glass parts for the pressurised CO2 unit.  There was an additional 9L bag of Amazonia powder still to arrive.


I'd ordered a twin starter and 2 T5 bulbs for it.  Unfortunately the bulbs didn't survive transit.

[ragawaga]

The class CO2 indicator that came supplied with the DIY CO2 kit.


The glass CO2 diffuser, non-return valve and bubble counter.  Also came supplied with the DIY CO2 kit.


I went to a hobby and craft shop last night and picked up these tweezers and the scissor set for planting and trimming of the plants.

[ragawaga]

I was supposed to receive the tank last Saturday, not Sunday.  I'd arranged for a delivery of plants (paying extra for delivery) to arrive on Saturday.  The list of plants were:

Glossostigma elatinoides
Hemianthus callitrichoides
Echinodorus tenellus
monosolenium tenerum
cryptocoryne sp 'parva'
rotula rotundifolia
Cabomba caroliniana
riccia fluitans

All apart from the Cabomba arrived.  All were in good condition.  Frustrated at the tank not arriving, I had to put the plants into water.  Fortunately I had a tub that I was soaking bogwood in, so they went there apart from the riccia and monosolenium tenerum (pellia) as these were in tubs.  I noticed some strands of moss through the pellia, so decided to try out the tweezers to get the strands out.  On doing this I discovered a shrimp in the first tub.  I've since discovered this to be a Ghost Shrimp (Paleomonetes sp).  Unfortunately it looked dead, but I decided to put it into water instead.  I made a jug of the bogwood water and placed it in.  It was still alive.  So I checked through the other tubs, finding another three of the shrimp.  As you can see below, they are pretty small, so probably were the result of breeding in the tank they came from.  They're now housed in a tiny wee tank I used for raising guppy fry in ages ago.

[ragawaga]

Sunday night, the tank finally arrived.  Took a wee bit of time to get the cabinet constructed.  I've been having problems with the middle shelf.  The plastic clips that hold it in don't seem nearly adequate enough.  It's a newer model of stand.  The doors are no longer the push/release ones, they're now standard with handles.  There was also no option to reverse the doors for a different colour.  This suited me fine.  The inside is no longer split into 2 separate sections, this is no doubt a contributing factor to the stability of the shelf.  By this point, I'd received replacement T5 tubes, however, it was also only after I built everything up, did I realise that they were just too big.  It's the 54W (115cm) I went for....but due to the size of the hood, they are just too big to get in.  So now I need to pay postage to return and exchange them.


Tank shot


Cabinet shot - notice the squint handles....nothing I could do about that, it was pre-drilled holes.


It was getting late, so I didn't have nearly enough time to aquascape.  I put in the aquasoil, put some water in and transferred most of the plants.


The water was quite murky at this point

[ragawaga]

07/06/11 : Tonight I had a bit more time on my hands.  Also done an ammonia test - 2.4 mg/l.  I got some closer up pics and replanted the ones that got loose!  The CO2 is running at around 1 bubble per 2 seconds.  There are loads of air bubbles in the tank and on the plants....hoping these go soon.  Also, due to the lack of space in the cabinet and the filter in/outlet being pre-drilled on the bottom of the tank, I had to use the supplied heater for the time being.  I plan to add a second canister filter anyway (a tetratec EX600) which I'll use to plumb in the inline heater.



General corner shot.  I made some of my own mesh sheets for planting riccia.  The shiny one was done by simply folding the alluminium mesh, the others were by wrapping a larger nylon mesh around.  I think I might take the folded one out and use the nylon mesh.


Same shot as above but with the curtains closed.


Closer image of the Glossostigma elatinoides.


All of the moss on this rock was actually seperated out strand by strand from the Monosolenium Tenerum.  This was done on Saturday night when I was annoyed at not getting the tank earlier.  I also put some riccia onto the rock on the right.


Closer image of the moss rock.


Some riccia mesh on the left, Hemianthus callitrichoides (HC) on the right and Cryptocoryne sp 'parva' in the middle.


Better shot of the HC.


Echinodorus tenellus with Rotula rotundifolia in the background.


Monosolenium tenerum tied to the top of a bit of bogwood.  I'm hoping this makes it look tree-like when it grows out.


A further back view of the "tree".


Middle shot.


Left corner shot


Closeup of the riccia rock.  I initially wanted to try securing the mesh with superglue.  The stuff I had was crap...wouldn't cure...then eventually just turned into a white mess in the tank.  Also seem to have got a bit of HC stuck to the mesh.


Closer view of the back corner where the filter pipes are.  This is the Rotula rotundifolia stems.


Further back shot of above.


More Rotula rotundifolia.  The bogwood on the very left is the "tree".

[ragawaga]

On Thursday the 9th I ordered the rest of the plants from Tony:
Limnophila aromatica
Ludwigia inclinata
Eleocharis vivipara
Cabomba piauhyensis
fissidens fontanus
Fontinalis Sp / Willow Moss
Vesicularia Ferriei
Ceratopteris Siliquosa
Hydrocotyle Leucocephala

As well as two big pieces of redmoore wood and 2 kilos of dragon rock to try out. I'm thinking of making two oposing sides the aquarium....wood and rock. The challenge will be to try to make it look somewhat organic.

[ragawaga]

Below pictures are from 10/06/11.

Without the extra T5 lighting that I'd planned on, the HC isn't doing so well.  Or perhaps this is just acclimatising to the new tank?


On the other hand, the riccia seems to be doing OK with new growth springing out of the mesh.  Although, I'd hoped for better, but that should improve with the extra lighting.


A full tank shot.  Excuse the reflections.

[ragawaga]

Below pictures are from today 12/06/11.  I took a trip to my local Dobbies and picked up some rock.  I'm not entirely convinced with the rescaping I've done to accomodate them.  Perhaps it's a bit too much.  Particularly as I have ordered 2KG of dragon rock - should be arriving tomorrow.

Full tank shot.  Still a bit cloudy as I'd only done the change.  Also decided to do another ammonia test (the case on top of the tank).  I want the cycle to go faster! 


Closer view of the rock to the left with the flash on.  The glosso plants aren't doing as well either (bottom of picture)


Same view as above, flash off.


Another of the new rocks.  I've moved the riccia meshes to accomodate.


The last new rock.


Closer view of the glosso.  I should probably remove that bunch and separate the good parts.


Same bunch of glosso from the larger rock pic above.


Riccia rock growth.

[Alex]

Not sure you have enough pictures there mate  looking good 

[James]

Looks like you are off to a good start but next time could you resize the pics before posting as had to zoom right out before I could see what was going on!

[ragawaga]

Yeah, sorry about the size. I don't know how to resize and they were too large to attach.

[James]

haha no worries

If you're on a pc just use paintbrush to resize them by clicking image, stretch/skew and then shrinking them to around 40% of their original size, that should do the trick

[ragawaga]

OK, I've managed to rezise the images displayed on the forum.  If you click on the images, you are still taken to the original in full size....if you want that sort of thing 

[frosties]

Aha - at last - I can read this thread...