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

Welcome aboard

Welcome to the fish room

Welcome and enjoy your time here.

Welcome.

Your tank looks like a good start. Yes, you can have a tank with plants and no fish, you just have to supply the nutrients that the plants would normally get from the fish wastes, which it sounds like you are doing anyway.

I slowed down the inflow in a similar type of tank by firstly putting as much media as I could make fit into the filter box ( a combination of ceramic noodles, and flat sheets of filter foam and compressed filter wool) so the water takes longer to trickle through, and then I suspended a strip of compressed filter wool horizontally across the tank just below the filter outlet (I sewed some thick cotton into each end of the strip and taped the cotton to the tank on the outside at each side, so it looks a bit like a hammock) That breaks up the water flow really well. The filter wool does look a bit too bright and white for a start, but soon grows some algae, and probably filter bacteria as well, on it and goes greenish-brown so you hardly notice it. Also my fish use it as a breakfast bar, they are always nibbling bits of the algae off it. :lol: Hope that helps a bit.

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.