Rob's 4ft (120 x 45 x 50) - Planted Aquascape

Hey Guys,

So thought I would post some pics of my system so far.

As you can see the cabinet is the DIY ADA style one a number of other forum members have made, just with a bit of my added flavour to it.

Hood is DIY job as well, made to mainly cover the glass braces at the top of the tank. Lights will sit in the hood. Appologies for the quality of the first photo. Will take one during the day on the weekend.

Should have the remaining components I need for my setup by the weekend (lights, co2, substrate and a couple of other items).

I am looking for some plants, if anybody can help me please pm me. I am in need of the following:
- star grass (Heteranthera zosterifolia)
- green rotala
- [edit: BL species]
- rotala wallichii
- rotala nanjean
- [edit: BL species]

 

Looking good dude!

 

@RobSA - Awesome stand dude.... What's the lighting going to be...looks like T8's by the endcaps hanging there....

 

looks great.

What color is your substrate going to be ?
I would try get that shiny black sand always looks great but pricey

 

Thanks guys,

@azurekoi - 4 x T5s, probably going to go with 2 x growlux, 1 x coral star (not sure about this one but when I gave thelamphouse guy the different lights shihr had mentioned he came back with that, took a look and it does have a high output in the blue spectrum) and a 6,500K. Thanks for points out the BL species, will dig around for the list of them.

@morfien - I prefer the white sand look so I am thinking will have that in the front of the tank with amazonia at the back for the plants. Will put a line of rock along the line seperating the two to stop them mixing and to perhaps make some caves for apistos or dwarfs I plan to put in the tank eventually.

 

With lights like that.... happy planties dude! - here's a link to the current list of BL plants in SA http://www.tropicalaquarium.co.za/showthread.php?3915-Freshwater-Plant-Blacklist

 

@RobSA

I think the guy at Lamphouse got it wrong, the best will be to use a Growlux and the AquaStar as its 10,000K, trust me bud, they work! and this will make your green plants POP!

 

@Vez I suspect your right. I think the AquaStar would be better. I will check with them today when I go through.

 

They work dude, im using them in my setup, with 4x54w T5's. my plan will be the following:

2xGrowlux
1XAquaStar 10,000K
1XLuxline 865 ( i think its this one, its in the 6500K range)

This whould be more than enough!

 

Tank is up and running.

Put the soil, filter sand and rocks in as well as the plants kindly donated to me by @f-fish (thanks again), they were in pretty bad shape when I got to finally got around to planting so hopefully they will recover in the next few days.

Looking very bare and still in need of some plants (rotala nanjean) on the right, want to get more drift wood and source some narrow leaf java fern as well as some congo fern. Also some of the aquasoil slipped into the filter sand in the front when filling so will have to do a clean up on the weekend. Apart from all that I am glad its up an running

 

@RobSA, nice setup and love the idea in splitting the aquasoil from the gravel. Also busy with a 4ft planted setup, still new to the planted aquarium setup, but will learn as we go along and of course the help from the relaible TASA members, a big thanks to you guys out there.arty:

 

@wsteene, thanks mate and good luck with yours.

 

Nice man!! cant wait to see this grow out.

 

looking good - aqual soil makes the plants grow like weeds .. you will be able to take cuttings in under 3 weeks and fill in the gaps ..

 

Very nice Rob!!

You must come past and get some Lymnophila aromatica and some other cuttings from me sometime!!

 

Thanks to @f-fish and @Sean J

@f-fish, thanks again for the plants they took a beating before I finally got around to setting up but are looking a lot better now... I am still waiting for the "Wallachi" to go red (I have my doubts)

@Sean J glad you bringing the ADA stuff in, it certainly helped with setting up my first tank and the plants are responding well to the aquasoil and the excellent value CO2 equipment you sold me! (Pity about the glass-ware but you did warn me I should be careful )

The tank was actually pretty dirty when I took the last pics, will do a clean up this weekend. Will post some more pics when once things start to grow in.

 

yeah after see a pic that ivan posted I must so so do I .. hey at least you got a fast growing aquatic green plant ... he he he sean should know the plant's name ..

 

Ha Ha, no worries mate. It is a great plant, moved it into the right corner and moved the rotala right to where it was. Prefer it that way in any case.

 

Not Rotala wallichii at all... It's Myaca fluviatis (sp). A nice fast growing stem. It will bush out very nicely when you trim it. And when you trim it, cut it more than half way down the stem and it will bush out even thicker!

Anyhoo... Please post some new pics!!

 

Ok, here ya go....



Top to bottom: Tank; Star grass and the echinodorus quadricostatus and tenellus; ?, more tenellus & Rotala; drift wood and Mcaca

I used the echinodorus's and the moss @Sean J, thanks. The others are nice but don't want to overcrowd the tank. Looking to put some more drift wood in to fill the gap between the stargrass & the ?. Will try keep the other cuttings alive for some other peeps.

Apologies for the quality of the pics, camera doesn't seem to be able to take a good one