Taichop

I thought I'd start a thread following my first tanks, a cold water Jebo 338 (40L) and a 50L Tropical. Currently it's home to a bunch of plants, most of wich were grown emersed and intended for a tropical tank but I now have 3 large apple snails eating EVERYTHING in the tropical tank so just seeing how the plants go without a heater. I added 7ish shrimp the other day...I love them. They're so busy all the time I haven't worked out how to take clear photos of them yet, they're around 5-10mm. I also found one tiny snail with them. Far too small for a photo, but any ideas what he could be? I've no idea what snails hang around in coastal streams in nz. He looks a bit like a trumpet snail maybe, is that likely? Here's the evolution of my cold tank over the past month: Photos of the shrimp to come My plan is add a small school of WCMM at some stage. and here's the 50L tropical tank. Home to 3 apple snails. I'd love to hear some ideas for small fish that might enjoy it in here.

Thanks guys! I ended up giving the Hygrophila to the apple snails...everything else is doing really well. I've ditched the co2 set-up at the moment, will look into getting a cylinder soon.

So I got a whole lot of plant cuttings and I was wondering if anyone can help me work out what these two are? This one is quite fuzzy with jagged edges I had a hard time getting a good photo of this (I'm pretty sure I planted it wrong too ) it's the thin purple plant with small round leaves. Also, I have a DIY CO2 setup with the airline going straight from my culture to my filter pump but I end up having lots of bubbles sometimes and other times there will be almost no sign of any CO2, is this going to cause problems? What are some things I can do to help regulate the amount of CO2 entering my tank? Thanks in advance - Megs

Thanks guys! Colour_genes - Thank you for your advice! If I don't find something for a small mesh shelf then I will try out your hammock idea. I had a play with the filter today and managed to shove a wad of filter wool in the filter against the holes, covered that in my ceramic noodles and put as much filter wool as possible on top. The flow is a lot quieter now and my tank isn't full of air bubbles. Hopefully that'll be all I need to do. I'm expecting my plants to arrive in the next couple days! After looking at pictures of everyone's beautiful planted tanks with fish I decided to start cycling my tank so that if I can't wait much longer I'll be all set to go. I live with my brother and he's not too keen on the idea of fish so I thought the science might convert him.

Heya, I've been using this site as a research tool for awhile & I've decided to come say hi. I have a Jebo r338 (40L), I know a tank so small isn't ideal for a beginner but it suits me well because I'm a student with limited space and I'm planning on moving around a bit this year. Here's my tank & a rough idea of what I'd like to do with it. I have a few questions & any advice would be much appreciated! I had a much nicer piece of driftwood but of course the pretty one was the one the dog decided to decimate. :roll: I want a very heavily planted tank and I'd like to get the hang of that before I add any fish. Is it practical to have a planted tank without fish? I'm planning on using flourish comprehensive and JBL balls under some of the plants. I also assumed I'd need to add co2 so I made a DIY co2 thingee....I was very excited when I realized I could connect the airline straight onto the filter pump! But the yeast produces a lot of co2 for the first day or so then slows down to almost nothing. How do I regulate the amount of co2 entering the tank? I was hoping I could find a valve with a timer but I'd rather not spend too much money on something like that. When I do get some fish I'd like to start off with 8 or so danios and eventually maybe 3 oto's as well. Before I get fish I'd like to make sure the filter is okay. I've got ceramic noodles in there at the moment and some cheap filter wool, I can add some better bio filtration media & a coarse sponge when I get fish but I figured I don't need to worry about that with just plants in the tank. The filter is quite hectic though, I'd like to know how people have slowed down or re-directed the flow on their filter with similar tanks. I was thinking about covering a flat mesh grid in some kind of moss and using suction cups against the inner back wall of the tank to keep the mossy platform near the surface of the water so that the water flow hit the moss and slowly trickled through it to slow it down. Has anybody tried something like that before? I thought it might look quite cool and be a way to avoid doing any permanent modifications to the filter. Anyway, look forward to hearing from you guys and learning as much as possible! - Megs