New Journey Begins

I have only been able to spot a bunch of BN pleco fry, haven’t been able to see any baddis fry unfortunately


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Sooo, flew to cape town and landed at 9:30pm, drove back the next moring at 6am and holy cow was the view amazing

You guys down there are lucky buggers










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That we sure are. I wont swop it for anything.

 

Diving into some new territory….

And….

Meet Tucker





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Aw he's so cute!

 

Sooo

Moved to NZ and finally after 6 months being here my first tank has been set up.

100L tank running a 800lph canister filter on it.

Just going to let it sit for a couple of weeks and cycle.



No substrate has been added yet.


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Great country for amazing views and things to do. I absolutely love it, especially the parks/reserves that we have.

There hasn’t been a weekend we had nothing to do/see, and some of the places we’ve been id deffos visit multiple times a year.

Definitely prefer the lifestyle over here.

Definitely miss SA with the amount of wildlife we have, but that’s honestly about what I miss from SA.

Living expenses are INSANE especially in Auckland, the rent is the main issue. Oh and alcohol is INSANELY expensive in restaurants hahaha.

But if we are talking about the pet trade, its lacking a lot haha.

But then again, each country has its good and bad, and I can write books about both SA and NZ.

In the end, it’s what you make of it.

It’s definitely a hard move to make, and the first 3 months I just felt like going back, but once everything settled in, I can definitely say it was the best choice I’ve ever made and I’d definitely do it again.


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Soo just bought some AF lava soil, Luohan rock, pagoda rock and seiryu rock to start off the scape in the new tank, still got a while to go before this tank will be ready for fish but slowly getting there.

Also got an inline heater to keep the interior of the tank clear from anything that would take away from the look.

I’m highly contemplating going the floating mountain look from Avatar.


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Take a look at this link for a Floating Mountain look. It seems a lot of work but if done correctly will look amazing.
I cant wait to see how your journey progresses.

 

Thats a really cool setup, I would just like to keep it a little more open along the top and focus more on the “floating mountains”

Another thing I want is I would like them to slightly move with the water movement, so won’t be able to use the steel rod like he did but I also don’t want to see any strings.

Still figuring out how to do that tho, I’m thinking of using rope and instead of real rocks “floating” I might make my own floating rocks.

But we’ll see what happens, still gonna be a couple of months before the tank will be ready.


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Soo I’ve been looking at just the lava soil and I honestly can’t decide.

I’m not sure if I should stick to the brown or mix it with black lava soil.

In the end it is going to be planted and most of it will be covered, but the parts that do stick out I would like them to contrast well with the grey rocks and plants.



It’s stupid stuff like this that makes my mind go crazy hahaha.

I haven’t added enough soil yet for the scape due to the fact that I’m still deciding on color.


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Sooo, I’m playing around with the start of the scape but I haven’t found anything I like yet, I basically only have slanted rocks, I’m thinking of getting some flat rocks as well to build up higher a little (which I didn’t think about when I was at the store)

I do want to keep the rocks low, but I think I want them slightly higher, I could do it with substrate but I want some more rocks on the base for Anubias and moss.

Buuut now I’m just rambling haha.

Feel free to pop some feedback.


And this is just a pic of the filter I’m currently running.





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Very nice start.
For me something is missing in the front right. Perhaps add more rocks to the left (slightly smaller) and slowly thin it out leading to the right?

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Yea no deffos,

There are a lot more rocks going in haha.

I’m just struggling to find a good start and it’s probably changed like 5 times since I uploaded the picture.

Also I have to leave space for the bonsai going in ( Like the tree the Navi live in in Avatar)

The rocks in there are only about 25% of what is going to be in there.

Edit: I’m just struggling with the start and how I want to continue building off of it


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Good luck with it. This is where the fun starts.
Will be interesting when the final scape has been decided.

 

Scape on a little bit of a standstill at the moment, ordered another 25kg of stone and another 10L ( 2 tubs) of AF lava soil.

Feel like I didn’t pick enough stones that would work together for the scape so now I’m just overdoing it to ensure I have enough variety hahaha.

Aquascaping stuff is crazy expensive over here.



And I haven’t even started with the wood I need or any of the plants, which are just as crazy expensive.

Also, the only way to go here with plants are tissue cultures as all the other plants I’ve seen in pots are ALWAYS covered in BBA, no way am I taking that to my tank lmao.


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