Brianemone

Its still sand though, I want a soil look to the bottom of the tank, dark brown rich topsoil.

yeah prop sand will grow the plants without a problem but i would prefer something more earthy looking.

I have heard a lot of good things about the Jebo's, I think it might be worth the extra to get something that will be trouble free.

I wanted a nice dark substrate to contraSt the green plants but i am very put off by the price of most purpose made aquarium substrates and things like Aquasoil Amazonia are not even available here, so I will probably end up doing the daltons aquatic for the base then propagation sand over that unless i can find something more along the lines of what i want.

I have the choice of two cannister filters for my new tank, one is the Aqua One CF1200 and the other is the Jebo 819. Both seem to have a similair capacity but the cheapest that i have found the Jebo is 175$ (wetpets) while the Aqua one is only 139$ (petplanet) Opinions??

Not sure on the brand of the setup but I got it off Plantman who is selling off some of his stuff. It has a regulator, needle valve and solenoid, Im getting my CO2 bottle sometime in the next week or two (2kg) i still havent decided on a Co2 diffuser yet but i am considering getting one made by a guy I know that makes neon signs.

Still need to do a bit of investigating in regards to most of the plants, Im not going for a Biotope or anything to any plant choices will be purely for aesthetics. I love Riccia and mosses, and dont like cabomba and most stem plants. I think forground of either Riccia or Dwarf Sag, and on the drift wood some nice moss and maybe some nests of Anubis nana (spelling??)

Im going to have to call shenanagans on the teeny bopper lingo on this thread. But yeah i know you can reduce the amount of co2 lost from a sump but its still negating the desired effect. Also the possiblity of me making a perfectly quite overflow is next to none. I want a silent gracefull pic. As for equiptment see above post. Thanks for the kind words Mystic and David

In freshwater tanks i prefer cannister filters, heck i'd have cannisters on marine tanks if they acheived what is needed. Plus i will be using CO2 so the sump would be counter productive. Plus the overflow took up a fair chunk of realestate that I would prefer to use for plants/fish. So far for equiptment im planning on 4 4foot T5's and two cannister filter (jebo 819's) Pressurised co2 system and UV

My tank that I originally had built for my reef tank that was never fully established was sitting in my garage gathering dust and cobwebs. I've had the urge to startup a planted tank for some now and since we have made some progress with the renovations of our new house I thought that it would be a good time to start getting stuff together for when the lounge is finished. The tank measures 120cm long x 70cm wide x 60cm high. The front and sides are Diamante glass (starphire equivilant) Here is a Pic of the tank, all dirty and lonely sitting on its back I moved it inside last night and gave it a quick clean, took a bit of elbow grease to cut out the old overflow and get it prep'd for a test fill which will happen as soon as i plug the overflow hole in the base. I'll put some pics of the clean up tonight

Nice pics Blue, what camera is it? Oh and great stuff with the breeding as well

Yeah, definatly a step above the standard return hose and outlet in the looks department

Looking foward to seeing the progress, hopefully I can pick up some tips.

Has anyone seen these for sale in NZ?

you need to link to a web address (ie not directly off your computer)

what about Hemianthus callitrichoides

Yip, I remember you talking about that about a year ago. At the same time that was happening to you i was helping someone with a tank that had a strange algae problem and only after completly stripping the tank did i find the wood they put in was decaying. I thought I should get the wood into some water to start the sinking process so the peices are now in the paddling pool out the back with bricks on them.

Here is the first peice, its thinner and seems to be a harder wood. A close up of the same wood This is another peice, a bit chunkier, and seems to be a little less dense closer and closer again I havent decided on the final design of the tank so i still dont know which peice i prefer in terms of the look i want but if one is more suitible then i will err on the side ofcaution and use that peice, currently #1 looks to be the peice more suited to tank life

Ive taken a few pictures of some of the wood, there are clearly two different types, i'll post up the pics as soon as i find my usb cable that my son has hidden

While i cant say im all that keen on having the tannins leached into the water (as i want some nice crystal clear water) Im more concerned that the wood might be a softer type of wood that might break down in the tank and make a bit of a mess, obviously its easy enough to take it out but if its rotting on the inside it might not be the first thing i think of.

Yip, cheers for that Ira, I was a bit worried i might miss an important step. The wood has been sitting out sit for some time and so it is pretty silver, I need to get an old barrel to see what it does in water.

I've got a few peices of driftwoody stuff lying around that the previous owner left behind when they moved out (along with a multitude of other rubbish) I assume not all woods are created equally so I just wanted to see if there is any way of telling what type of wood it is and wether it will be suitible to put in my soon to be setup planted tank.

where is everyone getting their heating pads from??

No niether of those are mine, just posting some nice tanks that i've found while searching for some inspiration.

http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f81/Poe835/100Gallon/Nov112006/front.jpg Heres another nice one but the pic is largish