Your aquaria

[Steve Walker]

I'm aquarium free at the moment, but if I ever have another aquarium it will be a large (>100 gallons) tropical freshwater because they are dead easy to keep. If I had the time to invest is something more demanding then it would be tropical marine, not half a dozen scabby carp or glorified goldfish.

 

I've got three at the moment

 

We've had the big planted tank and the cichlid tank set up for a long time. I bought a cheap frameless 60l cube last year to use as a hospital tank, and have been thinking for ages that it was too nice a tank for that. So I bought a cheap 24W T5 luminaire, a mini pressurised CO2 system and some substrate and bogwood and set it up as a little planted tank with crypts and java ferns from the other planted tank. Currently running an internal filter, but ideally I'd like to replace that with an external cannister system and some nice glass fittings. It has some kuhli loaches and amano shrimp in it at the moment, it will soon have a few Asian glass catfish and then something else undecided to be active and mid-water and colourful.

 

 

[corydoras]

What is the CO2 for Steve? What substrates do you have in there?

Edited February 25, 2011 by corydoras

[Steve Walker]

The CO2 and bright lighting are purely for plant growth - to be honest, crypts and java fern would probably do reasonably well without it, but it does make the growth so much more luxuriant, and helps tip the balance towards higher plants and away from algae. The substrate is a purpose made planted tank substrate - from Tetra, if I remember rightly, covered with a layer of fine white silica sand. The tetra stuff appears to be some sort of sintered clay granules.

[corydoras]

The CO2 and bright lighting are purely for plant growth - to be honest, crypts and java fern would probably do reasonably well without it, but it does make the growth so much more luxuriant, and helps tip the balance towards higher plants and away from algae. The substrate is a purpose made planted tank substrate - from Tetra, if I remember rightly, covered with a layer of fine white silica sand. The tetra stuff appears to be some sort of sintered clay granules.

Ahh Ok. It all makes sense now. The CO2 makes sense now. I thought that black substrate was peat at first. Had me puzzled.

[Steve Walker]

From a very niche Japanese thing, the "high tech" style of planted aquarium seems to have really taken off in the last few years - intense lighting, pressurised CO2, specialised substrates, liquid fertilisers, etc, and the big mainstream brands like Tetra are selling kit now. When I set the big planted tank up, last year or the year before, I had to buy the CO2 kit online - now my local fish shop sells it. The mini CO2 kit on the new tank is ok, but it was too cheap to come with a solenoid valve like the one on the big tank, which lets me turn the CO2 supply on and off with the lights. Bit of a nuisance having to fiddle with the valve every morning to get the right rate of flow.

[corydoras]

From a very niche Japanese thing, the "high tech" style of planted aquarium seems to have really taken off in the last few years - intense lighting, pressurised CO2, specialised substrates, liquid fertilisers, etc, and the big mainstream brands like Tetra are selling kit now. When I set the big planted tank up, last year or the year before, I had to buy the CO2 kit online - now my local fish shop sells it. The mini CO2 kit on the new tank is ok, but it was too cheap to come with a solenoid valve like the one on the big tank, which lets me turn the CO2 supply on and off with the lights. Bit of a nuisance having to fiddle with the valve every morning to get the right rate of flow.

So do you bubble th CO2 through an airstone Steve? Edited February 26, 2011 by corydoras

[Steve Walker]

Kind of - the diffuser is a little plastic chamber, half full of water, with a sintered ceramic disk inset into the top of it. The gas inlet is at the bottom so you can count the bubbles into the chamber, and it then emerges through the disk as a very fine mist of bubbles. When they're working well, the bubbles are small enough to dissolve before they reach the surface. The alternative is a kind of reactor design.

[corydoras]

Kind of - the diffuser is a little plastic chamber, half full of water, with a sintered ceramic disk inset into the top of it. The gas inlet is at the bottom so you can count the bubbles into the chamber, and it then emerges through the disk as a very fine mist of bubbles. When they're working well, the bubbles are small enough to dissolve before they reach the surface. The alternative is a kind of reactor design.

Thanks Steve. I knew the bit about the bubbles dissolving before they reached the surface. CO2 is a lot more soluble in water than O₂

[Steve Walker]

Just added four of these beasties - they're a bit timid, but seem to be enjoying the fairly strong current I've got in this tank:

 

[corydoras]

What are they Steve?