"Tank make over"

[Susi]

Hello all,

I am planning to give my tank a new look, as I'm not too happy with mine anymore. I think I did to much browsing on the net and saw to many cool things and what can be done to tanks...now I want to try it myself.

But I do have some questions before I start. I have a 180l community tank. I do think I have lots of plants, but prefer a much more denser planted tank with nice and healthy looking plants. My fish collection is so far complete, now I would like to concentrate on plants and aqua scaping.

I feel my plants could all look a little healthier and with less algae (green-blue-black spots) on them.

I wonder if I should invest in a CO2 system. I would not want to make one myself but go and buy one. Any recommendations?

What do I have to watch out for if when using CO2 and fish?

I currently have 3 3foot light tubes (2 daylight and 1 pink one, 30W each)

Is that enough?

What type of fertiliser would you recommend? I am happy to try anything except that stuff you put underneath the gravel. I do have a very bad experience with that.

I'm planning on transfer fish and tank water in plastic bins, together with the heater and pump. How long can they stay in the bins - 24hr?

I also want to paint the back wall (outside) of my tank black. What kind of paint shall I use and how long should I wait till i can transfer fish, water and plants safe back into the tank?

To prevent algae from return in the new set up I thought of boiling? the current driftwood and rocks - good idea or not necessary? (Algae in the tank at the moment is not too bad, but I find it a little annoying)

I also want to change my gravel. Is it okay to use new gravel and not cycle the tank? I'm planing on using 50% new water and 50% 'old' tank water? Would that be okay?

I very much appreciate all your help,

Susi

[beachy]

Hey susy, i found that using a co2(hagan) is great for plants, but you need to monitor ph. If you want to change all of your gravel at once you can but dont clean your filters, or boil any of your rocks or drift wood as they house lots of benificial bacteria as well, and you prob wont eliminate algae from your new setup, i recon having a bit of algae looks more natural anyway, but not to much though. Just keep your eye on ammonia and nitrite levels. hope this helps .

[HummingBird]

Use Flourish Excel, it's a plant fertiser and it gets rid of algae too. Just out of curiosity what sort of bad experiences have you had with substrate fertilizers (I use them :-?)?

I agree that there's no point in boiling your stuff, algae spores are always going to be in your water and they only grow if conditions are right for them, so instead of trying to get rid of the spores concentrate on changing the conditions (the aforementioned Flourish Excel should do the trick).

[Susi]

I used a whole pot of 'under gravel' fertilizer on wet gravel and I did not cover it well enough either... I took about 4 days till I could see my fish again and about 2 weeks and a lot of headaches to get the water clear again! Even now every time I vaccum the gravel that stuff still comes up.

Will a liquid fertilizer be enough?

[beachy]

I have used flourish on my old 6 foot tank wich was around 700ltrs and it seemed to work fine. A bottle seemed to last a long time as well:D

[Michelle]

If you want to see how to make some stunning planted aquariums check out the Takashi Armano books. They show you what he uses to make the effect and shows you picturesof the different stages of plant growth once set up.

For painting the back of your tank consider using a black tinted pond sealant such as pond flex as this is completely non toxic to your fish.

(both the books and the pond flex is available at Jansens.)

Most of the CO2 units available that use fermentaion are only suitable for tanks 50-100L unless you use multiple units. You could try getting hold of BOC Gas to get a propper CO2 cannister and to get refills but it can get quite pricey once you get a solanoid and-or regulator etc.

Dupla is the best brand for anything to do with the planted aquarium.

You can get Duplarit G & K which are undergravel fertalizers one in pettet form for the already established tank and one in powder form for starting from scratch.

As for transporting fish, make sure they have ample oxygen. Make sure your heater won't melt the container you put them in and add stresscoat and ammo lock. Fish excreet excess ammonia when stressed.

Save as much of the old water as you can.

[Bilbo]

I use a CO2 thingy in my community tank and it works great. They are easy to make out of a coke bottle and some airline tubing. There is also some plans for a diffuser in the DIY section which looks good.

I also use the flurish excel and highly recomend it.

I dont use that gravel fertilizer either for the same reason as you dont

CO2 plans are everwhere on the net but here is the one I read.

http://www.qsl.net/w2wdx/aquaria/diyco2.html#6

It cost me about $7 all up and that included a nice cold drink of coke.

Post some pictures when you are done

[DiverJohn]

Add 1 vote for Flourish Excel

CO2 - DIY system

Lights 5x30watts 12 hours per day.

Plants - Blue Hygro, Cambomba, Couple of Swords, and some thing else fast growing Hairgrass, mondo grass(i think?)

Pruning everything except the swords weekly! Yes even the hairgrass!!

I use laterite sparingy. (wash it first under running water) then sprinkle it around the base of the plants. And JBL 7 balls under each "group" of plants about 3 months ago.

As for Algae, although you say you have enough fish consider a couple of SAE's ( I got 3 about 2 weeks ago & wot a difference!!) And Maybe some otto's - i have some bristle noses that keep algae under control. And i found planting more plants helps with algae.

Hope that helps

[Matt]

Hi Susi,

I have just done the same thing with one of my tanks about two weeks ago. I completely cleaned out the tank, changed the gravel, fertiliser and design, painted the back black and replanted, I was lucky that I had given the fish away before Christmas so I could take my time.

If you are going to change the gravel I would definitely recommend using an undergravel fertiliser. I have used a mix of aquatic potting mix and peat moss in two of my tanks and am getting really good growth, plus you can pick up both from a garden centre for about $15 and have plenty left over. My method is: put a 1 cm layer of gravel down and then add 1 cm potting mix and a few handfuls of peat moss and mix in and then add about another 4 cm of gravel on top and you shouldn't have any problems with it leaching and clouding your water. You can make it deeper at the back so it slopes from back to front, this will give you a nice deep substrate for your plants and all the leftover food etc will accumulate at the front for easy siphoning.

To paint the back black I used Blackboard paint in a spray can from Mitre 10 about $10 (thanks Kim for this tip), I did one coat and then let it dry for an hour and then relocated the tank. I would also recommend getting black airline tubing as the white tubing sticks out like dog's whatsits after doing this :lol: . I use DIY Co2 on my systems and it works well.

I hope this helps.

Cheers,

Matt

[suphew]

I agree with Matt, and use a similar setup. My plants grow so fast I have given up on using C02 to try and slow them down.

There are two main advantages of putting the fertiliser under the gravel, it keeps it out of the water colume so only the plants have access to it, when you add fertiliser to the wtaer you are feeding it to the algae as well, secondly it saves a lot of money and hassle, you do it once and forget it, no need to buy/dose expensive fertilisers.

Plus plants absorb most of the fertiliser via their roots (thats why that have them after all!) some absorb okay via leaves others very poorly.

Aquatic potting mix is mostly clay and sand I put around 2cm's of gravel on top of it and have no problems with it coming through, when you vacuum the gravel just do the surface, I don't even pull any gravel into the vacuum just the floaties, all the fish waste is just more plant fertiliser and only needs to be removed to make the tank look clean.

Regarding your lights, I'm assuming because you have 3 foot lights (so a 3 foot tank?) and 180 liters that your tank is quite deep? (top to bottom), if so you might want to look at more light, water absorbs/blocks a lot of light, most of the calculations on the net regarding watts per liter etc are based of standard water depths because yours is deeper you will need more watts per liter. You cant really have to much light for a planted tank (assuming you keep the C02 and fertiliser in balance), but you can easily have too little.

Don't boil/clean anything you dont have to (with-in reason of course), if anything it will make your algae worse because you will end up doing a partial cycle with a full fish load, bacteria is your friend, you will only control the algae by having a matured balanced tank. There is very little bacteria in the water itself, its growing on the surfaces of the gravel, logs, tank, etc etc.

Plants like as deep a substrate as you can give them, why don't you leave you current gravel in the tank, mix potting mix and peat with it (I use about 50/50 aquatic potting mix/gravel and a few hand fulls of peat), then just add a new layer of gravel on top to keep the mucky stuff down? The water will go cloudy, but even with new clean gravel with nothing in it, it will go cloudy, its almost impossible to clean all the dirt out of it.

If you can afford to, buy a proper C02 regulator, IMHO DIY C02 is messy, a lot of hassle, gives little control over C02 levels, risky (do a search for postings of people with exploding coke bottles, tanks full of yeasty foam, and drained tanks), and basically gives pretty average results. Don't get me wrong a lot of people are using them successfully and it does work, but a proper system just does the job so much better with no hassles.

The fish will be fine for days (or weeks) in a plastic bin, as lot as you have a heater (which proberly don't even need this time of year) and run your filter so the water doesn't get too dirty, it's just another fish tank really. your fish don't need light, but your plants will suffer if they go for more than a few days without light, the warehouse sell 40liter clear(ish) plastic storage bins with lids (and wheels so you can move it) for under $20 you could use something like this, it would let in enough light to keep you plants going for a few days.

Feel like I have written a book now, good luck with which ever method(s) you decide to use.

[Susi]

Thank you so much for all your advice, it has been very helpful.

I will go for a CO2 Hagan, maybe one to start of with and then if need I'll get a 2nd unit.

For the fertilizer I'm still not 100% convinced about the under gravel products. At the moment I think I might just use JBL 7 Balls. But I see, maybe I will give that powder stuff another go - but the memory of that last disaster is still very fresh!

DriverJohn, I have got 2 flying foxes, a Borneo sucker and a black-eyed bristelnose to control the algae. Also in the tank are 4 clowns, 3 albino corys, 4 glass cats and a blackghost knife.

I'm not 100% sure what plants I'll use at this stage.

As for the water conditions, all I have been testing so far is ph. But I’ll get a kit for ammonia and nitrite as well.

I will shoot to the Warehouse tomorrow and have a look at the plastic bins; and adding stress coat sounds logical to me.

I really like the idea of black airline tubing, but I have never seen that. Maybe because I've never looked though. Is it quite common?

Oh and I meant to ask, what is peat moss?

Thanks again for all your help!

[Matt]

I got my black air line hose from Hollywood Fish Farm in Albany, but I am sure that the other LFS's stock it.

What is Peat? Taken from http://www.ravensdown.co.nz/Products/Gr ... hatis.html

"Quality spaghnum peat (or peat moss) is a soil conditioner and is one of the best bases for growing media and potting soils.

Peat moss is a natural, organic soil conditioner that regulates moisture and air around plant roots for ideal growing conditions.

It is made up of dead plant matter that hasn't finished decomposing or rotting because of a lack of oxygen.

The lack of oxygen occurs because of waterlogging or horn a flow rate too slow to replace the oxygen used in the decomposing processes."

I also use it in my filters to lower the PH as the fish I keep come from the Amazon etc.

Here is a good article on a planted tank substrate, the top part explains the effect peat has on your plants and substrate:

http://home.infinet.net/teban/how-to.html

Cheers,

Matt

[DiverJohn]

maybe I will give that powder stuff another go

Oh, not quite sure if we are talking about the same stuff. Laterite comes in a yellow & green box and looks almost like gravel except orange.

I must admit that the LFS guy said "Wash it first" and i didnt. My tank went really cloudy orange for about 5 days - although i just let it settle out as I was concerned the grain might be sufficient to damage my filter.

But ever since then I throw a couple of spoonfulls into a sieve (yes i have a different one for spagetti!! :lol: ) and run it under the tap till the water runs clear then i literally throw it in the tank in the area i want it.

I am very keen on the aquadic clay idea and bought a 15l bag (approx 20kg's) for $9.95. put some in a container to see what happens and it goes cloudy instantly but teh next day its all settled.

Sephew, could you confirm... if you were to put this clay into a dry aquarium, then cover with your gravel , and slowly add water, how long would you expect for the cloudyness to last?? If you add the water really gently would you get any??

I am looking at getting rid of my 1.1m and go to a 5'x2'x2' and trying to sus out the best way to go..

Matt: your comment regarding a under gravel filter... have you done that to encougage some water circulation through the substrate? Do you run the air pump 24/7? Is the result you are aiming for similar to the effect of adding a cable heater to the substrate? I was thinking along the same lines And if i could just clarify are your layers actaully... UGF, gravel, clay+peat, then gravel?

Hope you dont mind me asking so many q's on your post Suzi but I think I'm on the same topic

[Susi]

I have used JBL florapol before, I should have read the instructions...it says your should mix it with unwashed gravel and then cover it with 4-6cm of gravel. Well I mixed it into wet gravel and did not cover it well enough - my poor fish! Luckily all survived but 1 molly.

Anyway, I'd much rather use something different. I'll go the the LFS tomorrow and see what's available. There seem to be soooo many options available and as an almost newbie I just don't know what to use. But that Laterite sounds good, so does the clay...I'll do some more reading I think.

cheers,

susi

[HummingBird]

Have you used JBL 7 Balls before Susi? I bought a pack the other day on the advice of my LFS owner.

[HummingBird]

Have you used JBL 7 Balls before Susi? Are they any good? I bought a pack the other day on the advice of my LFS owner, but of course it's too early to tell if they're having any affect.

[Susi]

Have you used JBL 7 Balls before.

No I haven't, but it sounds like a good idea to place the fertilizer only where you want it - to me anyway :roll:

[suphew]

laterite is good if you can afford it, when I was looking at it I think it was round $30 a boxand I was going to need 10+ boxes to do my tank. Clay is the cheap DIY version, the point is to get the fertilizer in, most of which is iron (which is why laterite has its red color). If you are lucky enough to live some where with red clay it basically the same stuff (so I have been told).

I have some of those JBL ball things, they seem to work, but are just made of baked clay and turn to very soft clay (almost like silt) a few days after they get into your tank so would give you the same problem! IMHO they are a way for people who didn't add the right stuff to their substrate in the first place to then add it later with out making a mess.

My latest tank was cloudy for a couple of days, but I'm not at all careful when adding the first lot of water (I often just use the hose). The tank has to age for a few days anyway plus isn't going to look good for a few months when the plants getting some size to them.

I don't think matt was talking about adding a UGF?? maybe have a re-read, its generally accepted that water flowing through the plants roots doesnt help.

They has been a huge amount of debate over substrate heating, the conclusions I have come to (and this is just my opinion) 1) they are very fiddly (and risky if you use powered ones) to setup 2) I haven't seen any proof that it makes any difference, and how hard would it be, just setup two tanks the same side by side, yet I have never heard of anyone doing this 3) water transfers heat wouldn't any heat generated in the substrate tend to heat the whole tank to the same temp anyway, which defeats the purpose?

[DiverJohn]

Oh der... under gravel FERTILISER :oops:

Thanks for the other tips.

[Susi]

Just got back from shopping! I got a CO2 system (Nutrafin), 40kg dark gravel, aquatic potting mix and peat moss ( they only seel that in huge bags. I'll never use all that, si if anyone needs some I'm happy to give it away!) I also found a pot of hair grass at the garden center, $12.95 for the whole pot!

Then I went to the warehouse and got two 60l plastic bins with wheels and lit for $10 each - so I should be able to keep as much water as possible. I got some stress coat as well. Oh and a tin of blackboard paint. So think I'm pretty much sortet. I'll do some more reading tonight and will start tomorrow or monday. I have yet to tell my other half what I'm going to do...

Matt - so you are saying 1 cm gravel then mix potting mix and peat moss, and then cover it with 4cm gravel? So do I still need fertilizer? I looked at laterite, but that is sooo expensive....

2 more questions I almost forgot to aks! Jansens have some cool driftwood in some of there tanks for sale. What do I have to do with it (some of the tanks down there have some pretty disgusting algae in them) Boil it? For how long?

Also for rocks, shops charge about $2 per piece - can I just go out and find my own and boil them?

cheers,

susi

[Matt]

Hi Susi,

The aquatic potting mix and peat moss are your fertiliser so you won't need laterite, you will need to add a liquid fertiliser once the tank is planted, I use Flourish. Basically you put a 1cm layer of gravel down and then mix the potting mix and peat moss into this, so you will end up with a 2-3cm layer of potting mix, gravel and peat and then add another 4cm of just gravel so that the fertiliser doesn't leach into the water. You will have to be very careful when filling i.e. pour water onto a saucer and not directly onto the gravel otherwise you will get very cloudy water, this is true even if you don't use undergravel fertiliser.

I would definitely boil the driftwood from the LFS for 10 minutes just to be sure you don't introduce any nasties. I got my rocks from a river and they are fine, just make sure they aren't limestone or anything that will alter your PH. You can put them in a bucket with some vinegar and if they don't bubble they should be fine, I would boil them as well just to be safe.

Good luck.

Cheers,

Matt

[DiverJohn]

Thanks Matt

Oh just one other point about "layers" A couple of months ago I purchased 20kg's of 2-4mm (thats the size) dark gravel, but it wasnt enough to do my whole tank. So i thought to myself "OK I will put my new gravel ontop of 1/2 my old gravel" The old gravel was made up of white + tan + light brown which i didnt like

Bad move!! The old gravel also had a high % of larger stones in it (4mm+) over the last 2 months the fine gravel i like has simply worked its way down into the lower layers and I have lost the nice dark gravel effect i liked.

Might seem obvious now, but not so obvious when i was doing it! But if you do it Matts way you'll have no problems