Advice on a tank from scratch. (substrate & filtration stage)

[99RedSi]

Originally Posted by random_alias

capricorn77, 99RedSi, bhare, I'm no longer using the Zoo Med 501 canister filter. It has gotten noisy and despite my best efforts I can't quiet it down. I even went as far as to build a wooden box for it and lined the interior with padding. It's still too loud for my taste. I've replaced it with a mini HOB filter.

If I were you, I'd go with the smallest Eheim or the XP1 cannister .... I like my AC Mini but they get so grungy .. I'd much rather deal with the maintenance of a cannister filter than a HOB ... I'd only have to do major cleaning every 5-6 months!!

[random_alias]

No scape, no plants, no fish...just the tank sitting around waiting for me to put something in it.

I think I'm going to replace the black legs with the clear ones.

[plantbrain]

RA,

I've been using ADA soil with mulm and poeat for about 8-9 weeks now with EI, none of the other stuff ADA sells. I have an ADA full line I've been doing, but I'm done with it at this point, the EI dosing improved growth nearly 30% or so with many species vs ADA protocols.

Vendors enjoy my support of ADA soils, but they get a little cagy with the critque on the other products. Nothing new there, Dupla got the same treatment.

I use hagen HOB filters on my tank(I'm the one that found the tanks to begin with). I'd prefer a canister, but the samllest are still too strong of current generally, the ehiem might do it perhaps.

Quiet is supreme for myself.

Instead of adding legs, I strapped the lights above on a wire rack where I have all my smaller tanks. I use all white metal shelving racks, so I can adjust the height and they look nice. Large 18" plastic zip ties strap them on to the wire frames.

ADA sells a little cube for about 150$ that is smaller and does not have bent glass, these run about 40-50$ for the 10 gal but I am trying to get the full 5 tank sets, they have a 10 gal which is 24 L, a 6gal that is 18" L, then a 3,2 and 1 gal.

The 2 to 3 gals are very nice also.

All have bent curved glass fronts and no trim, beleved edges.

The entire set would run about 120-150$ for all 5 tanks, I have two full sets.

ADA soils vs Florabase, sorry, without any doubt, the soil trumped the FB in every way. Luis and I both hate FB after using it for extended peroids.

ADA soil is great and my choice after running a few comparisons(Onyx sand, flourite, SM, EC, FB).
There is a LFS here that I can compare their dosing routines to and the other products as well to what I'm doing so I have more feedback there which is why I'm running several ADA soil tanks now on EI rather than adding all the other mumbo.

I think in the USA, this is the best place to judge the ADA soils, but many folks in Singapore use the soil without the powersand. So it's quite common that can and is used w/o the PS.

RA- the long tank design is challenging for a scape.

I went back to wood after trying a few rock scapes out.
I ended up with rock scapes in the 6's, wood in the smaller tanks, white sand foreground for one, two tanks have wood coming up and out of the tank.

Every tank I own has an open top.

Regards,
Tom Barr

www.BarrReport.com

[tiagodovale]

In fact it looks much nicer like this: with no hardscaping, just the shape you gave to the gravel!

I like it. The black gravel gives a gret contrast with the plants. Are those little leafs Glossostigma elatanoides?

[random_alias]

The little plants were HC and the tank looks nothing like that now

I had an idea to use the hills but it turned out impossible or near enough to impossible that I wasn't ready to commit myself to trying it.

[random_alias]

Well, one of my nanos turned out to rely heavily on HC so I decided this tank would not, I wanted to try something different. After messing around with rocks in various ways, I have to agree with Tom, this tank is hard to scape with stone. So, I ordered some Manzanita. I've been soaking it and a few of the smaller branches finally started to sink so I immediately pulled them out of the tub and began breaking them into pieces for this almost empty tank. Some of them are still held down by rocks because they aren't quite water-logged yet but I just couldn't wait to use them

I've decided this is gonna be a stem tank, so quite a bit of the wood will be hidden by the stems with bits poking out here and there. I imagine most of the wood will be replaced or rearranged by the time things are finished. Just flipped the lights on for this quick shot of the first arrangement. The plants in the tank are just random plants for now. Any recommendations for good small stems would be appreciated.

65w PC, pressurized Co2 from a mini glass diffuser sucked up and misted the length of the tank by a 40 gph miniature powerhead.

For scale, that powerhead is about the size of a quarter.

[aquaman7]

Nice tank... keep it up. Oh, and random_alias... are you by any chance a trekker?

[random_alias]

Not really.

My interests in Star Trek are pretty specific.

I hate the original series. I really like TNG. I liked Voyager, which I plan to eventually get on DVD also. I never saw enough of DS9 but from what I did see it was a little too dark and "stationary" for my tastes.

I'm a big fan of the Roddenberry's optimistic view of the future and I really admire Picard's discipline, thoughtfulness and balance. I suppose he was a bit of a role model for me growing up as that was on the air right about that time in my life.


And I'm *still* trying to get that 10g tank like I want it. It's been a beast!