Greetings Fish gurus and fellow newbies

I bought some vallis and elodea from pet a pond today while getting some koi food for my dad. . @R4 a plant i thought. Whathehell, two elodea and three vallis. . I'll grow them on one side of the tank where i have my one short growlux light for now. . .

 

Some plants... not much

i had to fill up petrol today, instead of the R90 i had, i used R70 and kept R20 i could use to buy a few plants...

got 5 pieces of plants at R4 each
i cut the elodea in pieces where it looked like it could grow anew
dunno if i did it right, i want the elodea planted, as opposed to floating...
lol, with my little weekend work pay, the tank needs to be filled up on wednesday, so thatll last for 'almost' two weeks petrol (driving a volla)... in other words i might contemplate a purchase of some sort buy NEXT week wednesday...

(lol, reading this i cant help but laugh, i'm such a broke bugger eh anyone got a weekend job for me in pretoria that'll pay more than R300? for saturday and sunday?

here's a piccy, i only have my old grolux tube at present so i'll only plant these few plants and only on this side of the tank where the light will cover it

 

We all started somewhere Ferryman - it looks good so far. The elodea (which I'm pretty sure is blacklisted by the way) grows very fast so it won't be long before it needs pruning again.

 

Nice, well done so far.

 

Oh. Didnt know about its status, where do i find that list?

 

The current list can be seen at http://www.tropicalaquarium.co.za/showthread.php?t=78

There is a draft list out but this has not yet been finalised so the list mentioned above is still applicable.

 

Lesson learned:

Found a halogen lamp in the tool shed and hooked it up. Placed it 6cm from my glasstop plates, looked okay. . . . . Heard a crack 5min later, the top glass cracked over the tank! Had a small LED flashlight, so i fished out the pieces, puzzled the glass to see if i missed anything, only one 1mm by 5mm slither unaccounted for. Damn. . I tilled the substrate to make sure it hopefully sank beneath the sand. . Sigh. . . Damn

 

It happens to the best of us..... I cracked at tank down the side once because I put a light to close to the glass

 

You live, you learn

Phew! luckily it was just the glass cover, not the tank! the glass cover was a remnant of my firts tank, which i disassembled when my fish all died from a sick batch i bought near plantland or something, a long time ago when i was just starting highschool..

the plates were used to cover seed trays and keep moisture in when i grew new stock in spring for my bonsai, now the one 61x30cm plate is reduced to 25x30cm, i cut off the broken jagged part...

LUCKILY i still have another 61x30cm plate, so the tank is covered up again... and so i learned not to put light... 500Watt halogen lights to be precise, so close to the glass

Today i decided to set up the old 60l of my dad's as a quarintine tank, for when i have some moolah again and want to buy fishies...
here's pics of the tank set up with halogen, and the new setup with quarintine tank below

the tank is now lit by a CFL light and a desk lamp with a solaris daylight lamp i had "for studying", dont use it as its freakin bright and hurts my eyes... you wont see the lights as they're hidden behind a tamato-kas and some perspex plates, only the planted section is really lighted

incase anyone is wondering, the white stuff on the lid is styrofoam... where the glass sliders connect with the filters, i cant shape-cut the glass the fit the filters, so i use styrofoam the seal the area off from evaporation, and on the right, i have styrofoam cut the shape the glass slider strips would be, so i can slide the little 30x30cm plate on that side over the other 61x30cm plate... its effective, while i save up to buy glass plates and strips to make real sliders...

and it seems i'll have a funding setback for the fish purchase, i sent my older and "more authoritive" and "intimidating" parents to vodaworld this weekend with my broken phone this weekend to have it repaired under warranty, gave them my points of arguement, a warranty copy and the statement that it should be fixed under warranty, they returned with a statement saying we'll accept repair charges for 800 rand, not covered in a warranty... sigh, if only i didn't have to work i could have gone and argued my case...

oh well, i'll have to make downpayments on repairs for a while... please contribute your unwanted cuttings to my project you samaritan lot? lol, i'm a desperate student with bad funding really!

 

good news, on old houses you used to get a type of box from where your curtains hung... and some houses have that wooden-plank type ceiling. so has our house got the ceiling and the box curtains, well, the last remaining box curtain is in the television room, the rest are now replaced with modern curtain rails etc, but thing is, these boxes were made to match the wood ceilings, and they also match my apartment shelves etc. so my dad said when they replace this last curtain, they will throw the box away, and i may then use it to build a canopy!!! its going to look awesome,! cant wait to get my hands on the wood

heres the pic of the box

 

Damb!!!! lucky you I never thought of that and my girlfriends mom has take all of there houses "boxes" down and thrown them away....... Stupid me, she did ask if we wanted them but we said no thanks :banghead:

 

lol, i never had a use for the others we threw away either, last night i asked my dad, "what're you gonna do with this one" and he said "throw it away, you could probably use it for your canopy"... so there i had a start on the canopy without taking out a cent for wood and it matches the cubbourds etc in the apartment

 

Wow - just goes to show - thinking outside of the box helps

 

The fun continues, follow the thread further at
http://www.tropicalaquarium.co.za/showthread.php?t=1296

 

a truer word had not been spoken soon enough

 

True True... from 1 tank 2 almost 4 tanks ...lol soon you will be in the same boat as me, you will have a lot of tanks and not know were to put them all...lol