New Tank!! Couldn't help myself.

[WaRn00b]

Yo guys,

So as most of you know, I redid my small tank, but I felt "funny" not having a quarantine tank, so my LFS had a special on some tanks and I decided to buy a new tank just now as well. It's 45cmx32.5cmx32.5cm (Will confirm when I get home), I also bought another bag of black substrate to cover the increase in size also bought a 50W heater for my Hospital tank, so basically I have a new tank as well as keeping my Quarantine Tank up and running.

So basically the setup is going to be:

Tank - 45cm x 32.5cm x 32.5cm
Substrate - Fine Black
Filter - Via Aqua VA-F100 500l/h
Heater - 100W
Lighting - 1 x 14W 6200k "Daylight" T8
Rocks - Red Jasper
Other Decor - Driftwood
Plants - Still to do research and decide
Livestock - Still to do research and decide


Will upload some pics of the progress when I get home.

Damn this hobby is addictive!! LOL!! :D

[SAMollyBreeder]

Haha, you officially have MTS!!! :O

[Pleco102]

Hehe just started a tank for my gf aswell today with some livebearers. 3 guppies and 2 mollies for now,

[WaRn00b]

LOL @ SAMollyBreeder.. yup.. now I've got 3 tanks, my 1.5m Malawi Cichlid setup, my Quarantine tank and this tank. :D

@ Pleco102.. NICE!! Be sure to post up some pics!! :)

Anyhow, as promised, some pics:

All the driftwood I got:

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c355/CrossFire64/IMG00516-20110315-1840.jpg

New tank and other goodies:

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c355/CrossFire64/IMG00518-20110315-1841.jpg

What the tank looks like at the moment:

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c355/CrossFire64/IMG00524-20110316-0714.jpg

Still not sure what I want to do, plant wise and scape wise, so any recommendations/ideas welcome. :)

My Malawi's are busy destroying my Vallisneria in my main tank, so what I maybe want to try is plant that at the back infront of the heater to make like a "Vallisneria background" then some smaller plants to the front, but what plants I don't know. :amazed:

Thanks

[ryanj252]

Hey WaRn00b

Your tank definitely has some room for an awesome nano-scape!
My recommendations would be to rescape your rock setup.
Consider your rule of thirds, point of interests, depth, maybe get one rock abit bigger than the rest to break consistency as that doesn't happen in nature.

Here's an example of similar scapes:
7545 7546 7547 7548
(Copyright: All pictures are taken from aquasaigon.org - The last has been edited by myself for informative purposes only)

Note how the rocks lay nearby the two vertical lines. Those red hot spots are the ideal placements for drawing attention.
Also note the sloping of the substrate.

Once you have this set up, begin planting with longer plants in the back and smaller plants in the front around your rocks.

Hope this helps ;)

[shihr]

yep, sloping substrates make huge differences!

there should defn be a oyaishi, fukuishi, Soeishi and Suteishi rocks! also rem the rule of odd number'd rocks!

dont know what im talking about??

take a look here on how to create iwagumi's !!

http://www.aquajournal.net/na/iwagumi/introduction.html

developed by mr amano himself from studying nature!:)

[ryanj252]

You cant get any better info than learning from Mr Amano himself....

[WaRn00b]

Thanks a million for the info guys!! Definitely want to do something nice with this tank, hence I said this is what it looks like at the moment, but I actually wanted to slope the substrate, but don't know how I wanted to do it, etc. This definitely gives me some ideas!!

I was just damn tired last night so I just scrubbed the rocks and placed them like they are to get an idea of the contrast the Red Jasper will give. :)

I'll be sure to do some research today and try some scaping when I get home tonight. :)

Thanks once again for the info!!

EDIT - Looks like I'll have to go buy some more Red Jasper today as the pieces I have are too small for a proper Iwagumi tank.

[mydummyname]

Hehe just started a tank for my gf aswell today with some livebearers. 3 guppies and 2 mollies for now


thats what you say, but really, we all know its for you :) even if its at her place and not yours :)

[WaRn00b]

Didn't really find "BIG" pieces of Red Jasper now, but at least I found a few "larger" pieces.. will start scaping tonight when I get home. :)

[ryanj252]

Nice. Enjoy man. Look forward to cing what you came up with, based on the rules and principles

[WaRn00b]

Pics don't really do justice, I think it looks better in real life, get some nice variance in shape and texture, I planted some Vallis at the back to check what it will look like (Malawi's where busy destroying it).

I took quite some time with the scape.. I tried a whole bunch of things, but this is what I came up with.. tried using all the principles and rules for Iwagumi, anyhow.. have a look, water was a bit cloudy though, but cleared up nicely again this morning. :)

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c355/CrossFire64/IMG00526-20110316-2236.jpg

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c355/CrossFire64/IMG00527-20110316-2238.jpg

What you guys think? Recommendations?

[ryanj252]

This looks much better!! I would take a hammer and break that small stone on the right and spread out the pieces around the bigger rocks. Unless you have more rocks......
But anyway, it looks good. Now for the planting...

[WaRn00b]

This looks much better!! I would take a hammer and break that small stone on the right and spread out the pieces around the bigger rocks. Unless you have more rocks......
But anyway, it looks good. Now for the planting...

Funny you mention this, I actually bought a bag of iron stone (small pieces) scattered them around the big stones, but didn't know if it would conform to the rules of Iwagumi, or if it looked too "busy", so I took it out again.

I've got some spare Red Jasper, and I've got some work frustration to take out, so guess I'll give it a "bash". :D

Will update as I make progress. Thanks for the kind words. :)

[shihr]

i'd put the 3rd rock more to the left behind the second rock to give it some depth..rocks in a strait line dont look as natural..

but congrats man! defn better than the 1st scape..

[ryanj252]

ya definitely better

[Zoom]

Pics don't really do justice,

You know why???

When you look at a tank for real, your eyes (or rather your brain) filters out the heater, the filter, the thermometer, and often the silicon edging. Looking at it in real also gives you the value of depth (because you seeing 3D) and actually seeing the light makes a huge differenc. On photo's, it's captured in 2D, and your eyes don't filter out the clutter. Here's a trick... to make your tank look amazing in photo's (like the ones you see in competitions etc), take all the hardware out (heater, filter, thermometer), take the photo at night with all the lights off except for the tank light. (Fiddle with the camera settings to get the best exposure etc). Viola. (Oh, and take the picture from a slight angle (left or right) and ever so slightly downwards. The left or right will give the viewer a feeling of depth and 3d image, and from the top down will prevent the aquarium light glare)

I like the scape a lot. I would only break one of the big rocks... 2 in there seems a little overpowering.

[shihr]

u could also put the second rock behind the 3rd rock.. i dono.. the second rock looks abit outa place..

[WaRn00b]

Thanks for the comments guys!!

@ shihr Yeah, also feel it's kinda out of place, I'll see how I feel after work and play around some more, was just really tired last night as I spent the WHOLE evening with this and getting my quarantine tank up and running again.

Cheers. :)

[WaRn00b]

Update:

I rescaped the rocks and added the iron stone pebbles, think it looks very nice now, sadly I didn't take pics yet.. I'll be taking some nice pics soon though.

I bought a batch of fish from my LPS consisting of:

1x Panda Cory
5x Cardinal Tetra (1 died for no reason last night, another one died today, one has white spot and the other 2 are fine, think they sold me Neons, going to take this up with them tomorrow)
4x Glowlight Tetra (1 has white spot as well, he's in the hospital tank with the other 3 Cardinals [which I'm thinking are Neons])
4x Cherry Barbs
3x Zebra Danios (Asked for 2, got one extra for free :) )
4x Black Phantom Tetra (Thanks for ID'ing @ Firefly)

All in all everything seems fine, except for the 2 Cardinals/Neons dying for no reason, 1 Cardinal/Neon having white spot & 1 glowlight also having white spot.

Water parameters are good!!

Anyhow, will update again as I have time.

Thanks.

[Zoom]

1x Panda Cory Should be kept in groups of 5 or more
5x Cardinal Tetra (1 died for no reason last night, another one died today, one has white spot and the other 2 are fine, think they sold me Neons, going to take this up with them tomorrow)
4x Glowlight Tetra (1 has white spot as well, he's in the hospital tank with the other 3 Cardinals [which I'm thinking are Neons])
4x Cherry Barbs
3x Zebra Danios (Asked for 2, got one extra for free ) Also prefer to be in groups of 6 or more.
4x Black Phantom Tetra (Thanks for ID'ing @ Firefly)

Most Cardinal Tetra's are wild caught, and as such, they should always go through a very strict quarantine routine before mixing with any other fish. They possibly introduced the white spot to the tank.

How long has this tank matured? I think with that stocking level occuring at once, you need to watch out of ammonia and nitrite spikes! I'd reccommend 20% WC every 2nd day for at least 10 days.

[WaRn00b]

Eish.. yet another bunch of rookie mistakes from my part. :(

I was under the impression that Corys are lone bottom feeders, hence I only bought one (LFS also didn't say anything). I'll either take him out or get some more, I'll have to ask the LFS what they can do seeing that I lost all the Cardinals (the other 3 also died in the Quarantine tank last night). I'll get another 4 Danios as well.

Black phantoms actually turned out to be Serpae tetra.

Tank was running for over a week using a filter with matured sponge and charcoal (used my old filter).

I'll also do WC every 2nd day as you said.

Think this was the final straw livestock wise from this specific LFS.. NO MORE!! They ^%&$ me over with the Malawi setup, now this.. their equipment is very nicely priced, but unfortunately they don't seem to know what's what when it comes to livestock. :( :( :(

Thanks for the help Zoom, and sorry for not doing things properly the first time, I asked the right questions at the LFS, but they seem to be more keen on taking my money than setting up tanks the right way.

I have to go out for work today, then I'll go to the LFS once I'm done and tell them about all this.

[FishRMan]

Some advice: Never trust the LFS to tell you what fish they are. Never trust them to tell you what you can and cant keep them with and water parameters etc. Rather research what fish you want and then look out for them in shops. Just think of the issues had you bought 6 baby bala sharks they look cute now but wait a few months and see what its like. You also cant really blame them for diseased fish. Every store has the occasional outbreak and its hard to spot with the amount of stock around however, if you are consistently getting diseased fish or find issues with their tanks then skip them

[WaRn00b]

Some advice: Never trust the LFS to tell you what fish they are. Never trust them to tell you what you can and cant keep them with and water parameters etc. Rather research what fish you want and then look out for them in shops. Just think of the issues had you bought 6 baby bala sharks they look cute now but wait a few months and see what its like. You also cant really blame them for diseased fish. Every store has the occasional outbreak and its hard to spot with the amount of stock around however, if you are consistently getting diseased fish or find issues with their tanks then skip them

Hi FishRMan>I understand what you mean.. I'll definitely be more careful in the future as to what I can keep and can't keep as I've learnt my lesson for the last time now.

I'll rather look for fish, do research and then decide what I want to get.

I went back to the LFS, and they had NO Cardinals left.. so it seems they bought a real dodgy batch, hence m friend at the LFS said I can come choose 5 new fish. What I'm going to do is take 3 more Zebra Danios, 5 more Corys (Can one mix Corys? I.e. Bronzey, Peppered & Panda, or must they all be the exact species?).

Cheers,

M

[Firefly]

Can one mix Corys? I.e. Bronzey, Peppered & Panda, or must they all be the exact species?).
Ideally you would want schools of the same species, but sometimes they will school together. Just have to wait and see.

[WaRn00b]

Ideally you would want schools of the same species, but sometimes they will school together. Just have to wait and see.

Thanks, not a problem getting the same ones. :)

Did a 20% water change this evening, all the remaining inhabitants seem quite happy. :) The one glow light tetra in my quarantine tank also seems okay, happily swimming around, pity he's got a white spot on his one fin, I'll have to see what I can do about that.

Thanks once again for all the info and help guys, I'll be sure to do my research from now onwards.

[WaRn00b]

Well, this is quite a bummer.. seems another glowlight in my main tank is also showing a few small white dots, so looks like taking the only ones with signs of Ich out didn't do much good, I didn't have time to go to anywhere today to buy white spot medication, and I'm super busy at work at the moment, so the only chance I'll get will be on the weekend.

I did add a hand full of aquarium salt this morning to both tanks though, I'll keep doing 20% water changes and slowly raise the temperature of my main tank (QT is all ready sitting on 28 degrees).

Feeling really crap about this though.. any advice on what I can do in the meantime before I get the White spot medicine, also, which brand/type of medicine should I look for??

Thanks,

M

[mydummyname]

(QT is all ready sitting on 28 degrees).


hey dude.. to be effective in combatting ich you gonna have to take the temp all the way up to about 30 or 32 degrees for a few days (like a week or so). 28 degrees is not gonna do it..

and go easy with the salt..

[WaRn00b]

Thanks mydummyname.. I made a new thread under "Diseases" wanted to edit out this section from this thread as I don't think it's suited for the type of thread, but yeah got some advice there as well, will up the temp to 30-32 tonight.

Cheers,