Zoom's 4ft system

Hi Zoom

It's looking great! Love the natural feel of the tank.
Sorry to hear about your loss I see Cape Town water has been quite cloudy lately aswell.

Regards

 

Hey guys... watch this thread.

I received some new plants from the Professor this week, as well as some some other additives.

My PFP brick is officially sitting outside in a bucket of Chemicult water, and will be ready tomorrow. Going to empty the tank, move the fish to a temp tank for the day, and redo the entire tank with PFP, as well as create an interesting terraced look with the tank.

Looking forward to a day "in my fish tank" tomorrow.

 

Sounds like a nice weekend project. Good luck on the rescape and remember the pictures - before, during and after.

Later Ferdie

 

Should be interesting.......

 

Sjoe... that was a long morning, mid day, and afternoon. Afternoon spent getting the house back into the condition it was before my wife went out...

Scape is different to the norm. Got 2 levels terraced... pictures will follow probably tomorrow after the water clears up.

 

And.........!!

 

Think he is holding out on us .. come on Zoom drop us a pic, it is almost weekend again.

 

I'm actually waiting for the plants to revive... Had them out the water a bit long and they wilted. Halfway thru the scape I had an issue to go resolve at office. Plants looking better, will get photos up at weekend.

 

Hey those are cooool looking angels.... are those Altums or Zebras? or am I talking cr@p

 

I think @Gert Combrink to answer that one... I don't know. They just nice ones! Hehe

---------- Post added at 15:11 ---------- Previous post was at 15:11 ----------

The one has actually paired up with her uncle and spawned 2 weeks ago. (I think it's her uncle.) I bought 3 angels. 2 of them paired up and produced the 2 younger ones you see, and she has now paired up with the 3rd older male.

The original parents are with @Slojo at the moment... I believe they may have produced some more babies for him?

 

Not altums but not sure exactly what.

 

I seem to recall gert saying they are scalare or something like that.

 

So the pictures follow a few weeks too late... shoot me...

Tank was pretty much completely stripped down to put the PFP into the tank. Was actually a horrible job, but it's done now. I found some nice "shoal / slate" type of rock lying at my office, and after passing the acid test, I spent an hour boiling it and scrubbing it.

I "terraced" the tank a bit, meaning the back is higher than the lower sections... the size of the plants in the front hide this, so I kinda loose the effect. But with time I'm hoping to change this as well. The Professor was kind enough to send me some Pigmy chain sword type plant. It took a bit of a knock being replanted, but I'm starting to see new shoots. Will update with better pics of this when it fills out.

I've also been testing a new chemical from the Professor. The magnesium in our JHB water is very low, so we are adding it to the tank to see what effect this will have. I have noticed that in three weeks my plants are looking much healthier, and are growing VERY well. I'm guessing they are starting to root into the PFP now, so they should shoot very heavily soon. I'm hoping to pick up some new plants from Dolphin this weekend as well.

Let me quickly call @Dirk Bellstedt to get his opinion on the matter below.
Since starting the Magnesium addition, I also changed ALL my globes to new 6,500k globes. I am dosing the magnesium, trace elements and K+ as per bottle instructions. Initially it appeared that the staghorn algae that I have been fighting was loosing it's battle with the addition of the magnesium, but this week it has gone MAD. I have also noticed that my GSA is not developing on day 12-14 anymore, but around day 6 or 7. Some times I can go for 4 to 5 weeks without GSA. I'm attributing the GSA to the addition of the PFP to the tank. (However maybe the new lights could be contributing?)

I've changed the photo-period of my lights to include an afternoon siesta (another thread to follow...)

Anyway, without wasting too much time... let's get to the pictures.

Heres a close up of the terrace I was talking about... and yes, I know you can't really see it here...





Here is the right side of the tank.





The left side





A close up of the one side (I love my ancistrus's--- or is that ancistrei?)





A full side shot (Here you can see the terracing better. What you don't see is that on top of that top level is actually another level further in... you can just make out the brown of the rocks through the plants





A full shot





And my favourite angle shot

 

Would look interesting when the plants have grown some. There is however something tall missing from the left hand side.
Kind of feels like everything is on the same height. MIght change with the plants going taller too.

 

Yeah, I know what you mean Vis. I'm getting a Java Fern this weekend for the left hand side. I also did a prune this evening before taking the photo's, as a lot of the higher leaves were covered in algae. I rather remove them than leave them to pollute the water further.

 

Do not think I am picking on your setup BUT I really liked the blue background with your other scape, not to sure if it is working with this one. Have you tried a black or dark blue?
Might again be the open space on top though.

 

I would actually prefer a black one. It works so nicely on the Nano that I'm pretty sure it will work nice on this one. We are going to be buying a house next year, so I'm not going to fiddle around too much with stuff now. I would need to drain the tank to slide it foreward in order for me to gain access at the back to change it. And it's stuck on with sun flower oil, so I'd need to clean it first... The stand is standing on wooden wedges, and to get these wedges in correctly in order to make the tank level took me the better part of an afternoon last time, (with the tank drained 3/4 down!!!) Not going through that again.

I also think the plants need to fill out a lot more. If you go back a few updates, there is a post where the plants are HECTICALLY overgrown and wild... I was using DIY CO2 at that stage, but I also had terrible Algae... so I'm considering going Pressurized CO2... but then I also need to upgrade the lights. So I've gone PFP for now, and seeing how that works. I just need to stop pruning and let the stuff grow... HEHE

 

im liking the rocks and gravel. Awesome stuff

I prefer black backgrounds but for some reason the blue suits this setup.

 

Makes sense

You are going to have this tank just where you want it and then find a house.

 

i like it.. nice man