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Got my new (and first tropical) tank set up got some lovely bog wood today, and a few more plants.





you can see the little fancy goldfish that are pooing their way to a fully cycled tank. they are only temporary occupants, and will leave when we start getting tropicals.

its all so pretty!

I think your catfish`s will like it if you put little plants for there home so they can better hide
Also I think you can get water-problems becouse the plant`s you have in do not grow fast enough to take the nitrit and nitrat out

Looks nice. Congratulations.

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Mats

Cheers mats

Durlänger wrote: I think you can get water-problems becouse the plant`s you have in do not grow fast enough to take the nitrit and nitrat out

we've got an eheim filter rated for a 600lt tank, so even taking into account that most people half that figure, I think is should cope with nitrates/nitrites quite well. thanks for the concern though.

think of it as work in progress. I'm liking the left hand side (bogwood etc) but the middle looks a bit bland and empty at the moment, although I need to make sure i leave enough room for some caves. Any advice/opinions welcome

cheers

Nik

Nik_Boyd wrote:Cheers mats

Durlänger wrote: I think you can get water-problems becouse the plant`s you have in do not grow fast enough to take the nitrit and nitrat out

we've got an eheim filter rated for a 600lt tank, so even taking into account that most people half that figure, I think is should cope with nitrates/nitrites quite well. thanks for the concern though.

Bear in mind that filters do pretty poorly at removing NITRATE, whilst nitrite is what they DO remove. Only plants and water changes actually get rid of nitrate. [Unless you build a filter with anaerobe (oxygen free) sections, which is pretty rare in regular filters. It can be done, but it's not the general principle that most filters use].

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Mats

Congrats, Nik! It's absolutely lovely!!!

thanks bronzefly

mats, didn't know that filters aren't good at removing nitrite, and I'll bear that in mind. If anyone can suggest any quick growing nitrate removers would be great. I can get anything from the http://www.tropica.com catalogue from my LFS.

Nice setup!

The best nitrate remover I use is my Python No Spill Clean and Fill. Seriously, unless you're going to get into having a fairly planted tank, water changes are your best bet for nitrate removal. I'm a water-change fanatic.

Cheers,
Jen

Nik_Boyd wrote: mats, didn't know that filters aren't good at removing nitrite, and I'll bear that in mind. If anyone can suggest any quick growing nitrate removers would be great. I can get anything from the http://www.tropica.com catalogue from my LFS.

Pedantic as I am: filters are GOOD at removing NITRITE, but not NITRAATE. Nitrate is removed by getting the water out or by plants. Any plants that grow really quickly will be good candidates.

Of course, doing regular water changes and checking the nitrate level now and again is the best way to go. You'll need something that grows fairly wild to get rid of any significant amount of nitrate, and to do that, you need a decent level of nitrate in the first place, or the plants will not grow very well, so it's a bit of a double-edged sword...

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Mats

Take a look here
http://www.dennerle.de/
but wait it`s under construction
click there on plants
and choice fast growing´s

Tank Update - its fully cycled now, the cardinals have been swimming around for a week and we've just got 2 brislenose catfish. they are so ugly they're almost pretty love em.





Just thought you might like to see them

Nik

Congrats, Nik! Of course your Bristlenoses are beauties. I think that's why we post here. I've never had the pleasure of being in their presence, but I think it may be time to put an addition on the house soon to fit all the tanks....

ah, the joy of a blank canvas.

what else are you putting in it?

get more cardinals, about 40 looks great!

Very nice

Very nice tank... so far! Can't wait to see what else happens as and when it does.

You could try a Nita-zorb 'filter.' It is basically a large tea-bag filled with filter media of some sort that reduce ammonia, nitrite and nitrate in various amounts. It is rechargeable so after a week, when it is 'full', simply soak it in warm (medical) salted water and then use it again. This seriously was my best ever purchase! However, it could get the levels down to where the plants aren't happy. (but you'll have excellent water conditions!)

It just about fitted in my Fluval 3+ and cost £15. Well worth the money, and also cleared up the faint yellow water caused by my silica sand!

Nice guy`s

The idear with the Nita-zorb 'filter.' is not the best, becouse this way you get tomuch NaCl in your tank tropical freswater fish`s don`t like that

And it`s no filter, it`s a Ionenaustauscher as we call in Germany (anyone knowing the English word for it )

What is with the plant on the left side of the first catfish photo

My Mac translator coupled with my couple years in Germany and context clues tells me that Ionenaustauscher = Ion exchanger...

Jen

Aha

no idea about the plant, its about the only one in the tank we don't have an identity for.

Unfortunately the male died (no idea why) but the shop have replaced him free of charge, tested our water etc and couldn't find anything we'd done wrong, which was re-assuring at least. The new male BN is settling in fine.

In addition to this, I'm quite surprised that we've had no problems at all with the crowntail betta. We do have a contingency for if it needs to be moved, but so far its eating fine, has ignored the cardinals and seems to have established a territory at the back of the tank.

I'm not sure what I'm going to add next, or even how many more fish we can have in the tank, as there seems to be much debate on capacity. I'd like to have some corries, and possibly another kind of tetra, or just an increased shoal of cardinals.

also, from the first two photos can anyone identify what type of bogwood I'm using? I meant to ask my LFS but just forgot to. I've got an additional piece which the male BN hides under, but its the same stuff.

Nik.

Plant - maybe a Cryptocoryne better pictures would be fine

It's hard to say from the pictures what kind of wood it is. It could well be "Mopani" wood, it usually comes with a little label with something about the Red Cross on it, I think there's some "Create work in the third world" co-operation or something.

What kind of wood you have in the tank doesn't really make a whole lot of difference[1] until you're keeping fish that eat wood. Panaque's for instance.


[1] Assuming of course that it's wood that is suitable to keep in an aquarium in the first place, rather than just walk into the nearest park/forest and pick up a few branches...

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Mats

would have been a lot cheaper to walk into the local forest, maybe not so good for the BNs though

Haven't seen any red cross labels, but I too think it is mopani wood, just wanted a second opinion, not that it really makes a difference in the tank, just like to know what I've got

cheers mats