My new, low tech, aquascaped planted 310L discus tank

Ok, Yes, I suffer from MTS...

It’s been 15 min. Since I last looked at my aquarium(s)!


This build, started in June. I paid a visit to Pet Stop in Pretoria, (“I’m quickly going to the pet shop to get some fish food sweetie! I won’t be long!â€) Well, I came home without fish food but with this tank...



And then the research started. (Most info came from this forum, APSA, Aquascaping World, and a few other sites (there’s a lot of rubbish as well as good info on Google!) The guys at Pet Stop, Moolis, Drikus, Azurekoi and Didi.

[FONT=&amp]Current stock: 9 Discus
30 Cardinal Tetras
6 Zebra Nerite Snails

Still waiting for 8 Apistogramma cacatuoides (6 females and 2 males) (may cut this down to 3 females and 1 male?)
2 Farlowella vittata or 2 Sturisoma panamense (If I cut down on the Apisto's, I'll go for 4 of these.)

Hardscape: 1 massive rock from my garden with a few smaller pieces scattered around.
A dead, dry fruit tree, turned upside down, cleaned, trimmed
and mounted onto a piece of Mopani wood.
3 smaller pieces of fruit tree root.
3 home made coconut caves.

Substrate: Tetra plant Complete Substrate, (4cm deep.) Capped with 4 to 6cm of Pea gravel and some
washed sand from the river down the road.
The non planted area is plain washed pool filter sand. (coarse grade)

Plants: Brazilian Pennywort, (Hydrocotyle Leucocephala)
African water fern, (Bolbitis heudelotii)
Anubias nana [/FONT]
[FONT=&amp]Java fern
Hair grass, (Eleocharis parvula) (I think, though not sure!)
and a lot of stuff that I got from Azurekoi and my outdoor tank

Equipement: Tetratec EX2400 canister filter
2 x 300w heaters Set at 29deg C.
Lights, STD supplied with tank, 4 x 14w t8


[/FONT] Sprayed the back (satin black)

and modified it to accept this beast!

Found an old dry, dead fruit tree, turned it upside down, cleaned, trimmed and stripped all the bark off. Then mounted it onto a piece of Mopani wood I had laying around.

Boiled the whole thing for about 4 hours to leach the tannins and sterilise it.
Then, placed it into the tank:

Also had a HUGE rock:
So... I made a base for it along with a mesh substrate border...

 

very very cool! I like the placement of ur rocks too!

 

Placed it, with the rock into the tank... I put a small power head into the base of the rock, with the outlet, going to the far opposite corner . I didn’t want a dead spot under the rock!


That took care of the main hard scape. After this, I poured my plant substrate into the mesh borders. (About 3cm thick in front and between 6 to 8 cm at the back. Then washed some pea gravel mixed with river sand, capped the substrate with a good 3cm and filled the rest of the tank floor with Washed pool filter sand.



After this, I filled the tank about a quarter full and planted the main plants I had on hand. Then completed filling, bled the canister, Re-bled the canister, discovered it was faulty... Pet Stop were very quick to exchange the complete unit! (Thanks guys.) Switched everything on (YIPPIE... No leaks!) and let it cycle...

Day one into the cycle...


Four weeks later...

 

I have never been a fan of Half round tanks....Untill I saw this beauty up close and personal last weekend.... I was litterally speechless! Every foot or so you travel in the semi circle of it,the view changes and EVERY one of those views is breathtakingly well thought out...

The amount of planning and detail that has gone in to executing this build,is just plain phenomenal! Hats off @Barry.M...Cant wait for another visit in a month or so when the plants have grown in more!

 

Thanx guys. Will post the rest of this just now... (my turn to do supper...)

 

Right, here's the rest!
Still four weeks later...

After the four week cycle, The Discus arrived and were acclimatised
by dripping my tank water into their bucked over about an hour, bringing
the temp to the same level as the tank and also matching the water
parameters from the supplier to mine...


Once that was complete, I released them into their new home...
I will NEVER introduce fish by any other method again!


After another week, the Cardinal Tetras arrived. (same drip method was used to acclimatise them...)

 

Very nice looking tank! Like the mopani mod too. Fish look awesome.

 

@Barry.M - do us a favour.... When you have the time,inclination and "feel like it".... Take 4 pics of the tank,sort of every 30 degrees traveling round the 180 degrees of the viewing area....want everyone to see how utterly amazing the view change of the tank is and how every viewing angle just plain "works"...

BTW - the stems I brought you last weekend is Dwarf Hygro - Hygrophila polysperma... Has it taken yet?

 

Added a few more plants last night and removed a few that were unsuitable.
This is the tank today...

 

Well duh.... you pre-empt my thoughts...lol...

 

Well done Barry!

 

And a few pix of the Discus...


@azurekoi I moved those Crypts as you suggested. Seems to add to the depth there.
The Dwarf Hygro - Hygrophila polysperma seems to have taken. I planted it quite randomly, throughout
the tank, as I did with most of the other plants. I don't think you find plants neatly arranged in any
particular order in nature and I like the randomness found there. I noticed this while spending time
looking at the small river down the road from my place. I still expect to tweak the plants in this tank, as
Some may not adapt to the higher temperature. But have decided to try anything once and if it doesn't
work, move on...
Will try take some panoramic shots of the entire tank during the course of the weekend and post them.

 

@Barry.M...he,he - welcome to the "frustration" that we who go there call the "planted aquarium"....he,he
The Crypts you speak about is actualy Aponogeton undulata - related to our indigenous Waterblommetjie - go Google them a bit - one of my FAVE plants... Ask @Anine how hers are doing or @Newby... The thing with getting into newly planted tanks is that if you have not done it for years and years,you have no idea of what a one year down the line plant,whether stem or root plant,looks like in its mature form....

This is what I find so amazing about your build - not only have you researched your build/plants to a "T",but you have planted "New" plants that you have never(I think) worked with/kept,but planted them in spaces/places that in 6 month down the line,will make an already great Discus tank into an AWESOME planted system that just happens to have some Discus in as the main focal fish...lol

Your plants are all just beginning to find their "roots" and establishing themselves - the next 2 months or so will give you a MUCH clearer pic of whats going to work well and what aint.... Dont be discouraged if things dont grow the way you thought(Little secret - they almost never do - thats the fun of planted aquaria...lol) - Your Hardscape ROCKS,and once those Pleco decimated Anubias Rhizomes start pushing leaves,you and Trish wont be able to tear yourselves away from it(15 mins between "googling" it...make that 2 minutes...lol) - Everything is in place - just give it some time,ferts and a lot of patience...

Will phone you in the morning,cos I think I may have a cheap,effective sollution to your lighting....

 

@azurekoi
Great, the lighting has been bugging me for a while now, will look forward to the call.
BTW, those "cripts," were sold by "that" other place super cheep, as "old Crypt stock..." HEHE... (Enough said!)

You're right, some of these plants, are totally new to me. I think the most challenging thing was finding plants that would adapt to the temperature, as well as giving me a foreground, mid and background, instead of just a foreground and a wall of tall plants at the back.
I expect that I will continue experimenting and learning as things grow in. I've already removed some that just don't work and will wait and see. Am really hoping that the "grassy stuff," (have no clue what it is,) will take and spread. It seems to be doing so as I think there are some new shoots there, even though there's still some melting going on. I'd also like to find some Marsilea quadrifolia and still cant find any Bolbitis Heudelotii anywhere!

The Anubias Rhizomes are beginning to show new leaves already, so am quite happy with that. I still have about ten or so that I'm contemplating super glueing to the base of the main rock to soften those edges and corners. I really couldn't find a way to build the substrate into such a radical slope without it just levelling itself out, but think once the rhizomes take hold and the roots begin to trail down, it'll look more natural.

 

I'm stunned man!

This is one epic tank!
Really nice!

 

Awesome tank man! just remember to keep up the water changes and the feeding. Looks awesome!

 

Another update.
Have had a small algae outbreak:


I noticed it about 3 weeks ago and did a bit of research. But after reading,
decided that as I'm loath to introduce chemicals into the tank, I would tackle
things a little differently. With every water change, I used a thin pipe and
vacuumed as much of the algae off wherever it was growing. Then with Friday's
water change, I also removed the carbon from the EX2400 canister and replaced
it with 3 Odyssea cut-to-sise filter pads: 1 phosphate remover, 1 nitrate remover
and 1 amonia remover. The pads fit perfectly into the media tray and must be changed
after 3 weeks. Today, I've noticed a marked reduction in the length of the algae threads.
So, hopefully, this method will help. In the interim, I've also ordered 4 Otocinclus catfish.
I think they will also help and compliment the 2 Sturisoma panamense catfish that are on
back-order.

 

Stunning tank man! Really nice hardscape you have in there! It's beautiful!

In a tank that size, I recon you should get about 5 - 10 Ottos. Just remember that when the algae disappears, you will need to feed them!

 

Thanx @Sean J ,I may increase the Otto's to 6
I'm still waiting for the 2 Sturisoma panamense and 6 Apistogramma cacatuoides.
So don't want to go too crazy with stock levels. I may be wrong, but my understanding is that I
won't entirely rid the tank of every trace of algae, so there should always be enough for them to
munch on.
[h=2][/h]

 

The ottos will not rid you of all types of algae. They eat the softer types, the harder types of thread algae will be left alone. But they do a great job. They also add character to the tank. They are always busy munching on things! Just make very sure that you add food for them though.

In my opinion though, I do find that ottos do better in groups. I know of people who have even bred them in groups bigger than 4... So I would add as many as I could. I love them.