My Humble Low Tech Setup

My next little project is doing a small "night light" for my tank. Will start with it in the coming months.

 

Hi

Very nice setup, one of the best I've seen. I'm a beginner at this and would like to know a few things, for starters what is the reason for putting the plants into the filter and secondly where can I get that moss and plants from in Durban.

 

@Cipher: The plants absorbs all the waste the fish produce. The problem with the setup was that it works great for a tank with no plants in it, but a planted tank the plants out compete each other so I removed them.

 

After many hours of removing them from the pots and planting them that my bottom feeders cannot dislodge them this is the end product, hoping it grows even if it is slowly:

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Haha yeah when it's freshly planted it likes to go on field trips around the tank.

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@Beans: Yeah I hope this wont be the case, my first attempt at doing ground cover so I want it to be a pleasant experience.

 

Your night light. Are you going led?

 

@Rabbid dawg: Yeah but it is going to be very dim, nothing bright just to stop the fish from getting spooked.

 

Glad to report none of the plants decided to take a walk around the tank. Hopefully it stays that way till they take root.

 

If it hasn't by now I don't think it will! Looks great!

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Thanks, the idea is that it must carpet the entire front area of the tank so it might take some time...

 

Just a quick shout out too the folks who helped me with my tank this week:

@Slojo: For providing me with a few pots of microswords for my carpet.

@ozone: For the 6 free Kerri Tetras, thanks a million dude.

@ROEKSTE: For buying my livestock from me so I can clear some space for the Kerri Tetra.

@francoisve: For getting me some local Vallisneria, though I could not take it in the end.

 

Okay since the little "disaster" I had during the week I lost about half my tank's livestock, plenty of space has been freed and it seems my Kerry Tetra have taken advantage of this and started a new pecking order. For about 2 days all of them flared and fought and nipped it was pretty amusing to watch and the can get downright nasty but nothing that would kill them. After about 2 days they just suddenly stopped and now no more fighting:

For those of you who haven't seen what they look like they are amazing fish:

 

Nice video thanks for posting ...

 

@f-fish: Not my video though just an example of what they look like in a video.

 

Still a cool video showing them in action.

 

So here is some updated pictures:

Cant really add any-more plants to the current layout since I still want the fish to have some swimming space:

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The pride and joy of my livestock, they school even better than the rummy noses and are always chasing each other around the tank:

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Both my crypts are growing slowly but as you can see the colours are amazing a deep green even purple on some leaves:

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Usually when I try and take pictures of my Rummy Noses it ends up being a blur got in a lucky shot:

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My two German Rams:

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Almost all my schooling fish in one picture:

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My microswords on growing or dying or getting dislodged by the fish or the snails so I will call it a win:

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One of the 8 Corry Pandas I have:

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Just for interest sake cleaned my HOB today and who says it can't take a lot of media, x3 layers of thick batting, big bag of ceramic and matrix, x2 bags of Seachem Purigen and a bag of active carbon and there is still space left.

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looks very clean, did you not keep some of the older media the way it was ?

 

@Vis: All I did was remove the media, did not clean the HOB, replaced the dirty filter batting left the ceramic rings and Seachem Matrix in its bag (rinsed it with tank water) bleached the seachem purigen and that is that. All the good bacteria is still in the filter media, been doing it for years without any issues.