And the vision that was planted in my tank, remains to be seen...

Now that I had my hardscape in good order, it was time to add some green into the mixture. I had a general idea of what kind of plants I'd like to use, and came up with a rough sketch:

The game plan was pretty simple: Shorter, grass-like plants to the front, medium plants to the midground and around the driftwood, and taller stem plants to the back, with some red accents. I would try to source the plants from private sellers, as the quality/price ratio is usually a lot better than what you get from the store. As the stores get the plants from big nurseries, and grow some of the plants emersed, the change when planted in a domestic tank sometimes takes its toll on the plant. But when you get them from someone else's tank, they usually do better from the get-go, as the conditions are more similar. The biggest problem with buying from other aquarists is the winter! Shipping plants around when it's -20C isn't such a hot idea. Also, some plants are just not available, and have to be special ordered from the store.

I chose Lilaeopsis brasiliensis for the front, as I had some experience with it earlier. It wasn't a total success last time, so in a way I wanted to see if I could get it to grow better this time. One factor that led to some problems last time with this plant was that I probably planted it too densely. The trick is to take the pot and divide it into several small patches and plant them in a checkerboard pattern. I will keep this in mind, when it's planting time! Luck was with me, as the Local Pet Store had a few pots of this plant, which was a welcomed surprise, as I was prepared to order a bunch of it online.

I also had access to some Microsorum pteropus 'Narrow' (I'm not 100% it's the "Narrow" variant), which will be planted to the driftwood for some accent. Same goes for Cryptocoryne wendtii ''brown'', which will go to the right hand side, next to the filter casing.

The middle of tank was reserved for Blyxa japonica, which is a favorite of mine, and did well in my last tank. I still haven't been able to get my hands on it, so for now, the middle is waiting...

For the reds, I'm thinking Limnophila aromatica, also a nice taller plant I'm familiar with. Sadly this one has also eluded me for the time being. I'm pretty confident I'll be able to source some from a fellow aquarist.

I received a few stems of Heteranthera zosterifolia, which hopefully will propagate and fill the right side of the background. In the same shipment, along came a bunch of Ceratophyllum demersum, a fast growing plant, which will hopefully help to keep algae at bay with my fresh tank.

Visions, Delusions, Tragedy!

I'm a pretty lazy guy, I have no problem admitting it. I also get excited quite easily, when it comes to certain things. Working on my aquarium happens to be one of them, and combines the laziness in way that I'm in a hurry to get to the point where I can just do nothing! Sometimes it would be beneficial for me to slow down a bit, as I was reminded when I was working on getting stuff into the tank. But before I go into that, I'll start from the bottom, har har!

Now that I had the frame, could start the actual painting! In my previous posts I mentioned the choices I had made with my first tank, and the first choice I made brought upon a change. I'm talking about substrate, and the size of the grain of sand, to be precise.

Previously I had used sand with the grain size of 0,1-0,6mm. Even though I had plenty of malaysian trumpet snails in the tank to stir the bottom, I think it got a bit too clumped and cloggy, and this resulted in poor conditions for the roots of the plants. Using sand as the bottom substrate was pretty much given, as the Botia kubotai like to graze on the bottom, so I made the choice to try a bit larger grain, 0,5-1,2mm, and see if things would go a bit better.

Before the sand went in, I filled the bottom of the tank with a healthy layer of Tetra Complete Substrate, hopefully it will keep the roots of the plants happy and nourished. Last time I had used Tetra Initial Sticks, so a case of change was present here as well.

Next was the hardscape. I had a bunch of mangrove roots sitting about, and I decided to supplement them with a selection of stones. I didn't want to pay a lot of coin for some "designer" stones from the aquarium stores, and the heavy snow cover on the ground made it impossible to source them from the nearby woods. So what did I do? I headed to the sauna! Olivine Diabase stones are used in the stoves of saunas, so the answer was obvious. I didn't actually take the used stones, but bough a 20kg box for dirt cheap. I hand picked the most suitable ones and left the rest to wait their turn to be placed into the stove.

I set the mangrove roots and stones on the sand, tweaked, stared at the tank, tweaked some more, and presto! Heres's how it turned out:

So where's the tragedy I mentioned in the beginning, you say? Well, the sand I chose came in a 25kg bag. I planned to lift the bag into the tank and stab a hole in the side to get the sand out. It went well to the point where I had the bag halfway in the tank. The only problem was that I hadn't moved the lights from the way properly! Of course the bag hit the front T5 tube and shattered it to pieces. Stupid me! Of course the tubes are special tubes, Juwel T5 45W 895mm ones, so a regular tube wont do. I didn't want to order a tube online and wait several days for delivery, so had to pony up the cash at the Local Pet Store, which is far from cheap, even for regular customers. Live and learn...

Visions, Delusions, or something in between?

When the time was right to start planning for a new freshwater setup, I had a short list with a few key points I tried to adhere to.

The previous tank was ~450 litres, this time I wanted something smaller. While a big tank has that certain wow-factor, it takes more of, well, everything! I wanted something that wouldn't require dosing gallons of fertilizers, but also, something that was big enough for my beloved Botia kubotai to live in. Also, the spot I had reserved for it in the living room stated that it had to be no longer than 120 cm, and even that was pushing it a bit.

I started looking for used tanks in the 200 liter range, give or take. Yeah, I went 2nd handed, because in this trade, there's always deals to be had due to people moving on to bigger tanks, giving up on the hobby for various reasons etc.

I also wanted a tank with a decent stand, something that I'd be comfortable placing in the living room. The stand also had to have cabinets where I could store aquarium related stuff, especially the CO2 setup.

I ended up with a Juwel Rio 180, in fashionable black, with the corresponding stand. It was barely used, and I even got it delivered to our house. Like the name indicates, it holds 180 liters of H20 and measures in at 100x50x41cm (LxHxW). The stand was the older model with wider doors, but it was also in immaculate condition. The set came equipped with a 2x45W T5 lighting hood, a built-in internal filter and a heater. I'll dig a bit deeper into the geary side of life on a later date!

Here's the set, awaiting further attention:


Next time I'll let you in on what kind of plans I had for the stuff that goes intside the tank!

My first Sony... err tank, I mean.

Before I dive deeper into my current aquatic affair, I'll briefly shed light to my previous endeavor.

The tank was ~450 litres, with quite a lot of vegetation and a reasonable amount of fish. I wont spend too much time with the details of the setup, let's just say it was a rather nice tank, and pleasing to the eye.

I sold the lot before we moved to our current place of habitation, but some of the gear and finned ones inhabit my current tank; the CO2 setup, internal filter and Botia kubotai to be exact.

As it was my first attempt at a planted tank, it was far from perfect. Some choices turned out to be not so satisfactory, but even though the results were not what I had hoped for, plenty of lessons were there for the taking. Some of these lessons were indeed used in designing my current setup. Choices of B's instead of A's, moderation instead of volume, and so forth. Time will tell whether the choices have a higher success rate this time, or is there a factor in the equation I have yet to realize. Perfection through iteration, I'm hoping.

Ready, aim, blog!

Yes, you're correct, this indeed is yet another freshwater aquarium related blog in a vast sea of aquarium related blogs. A modest one at that, I might add. More like a 5 gallon jar than a 300 gallon self sustained ecosphere. A mere drop in an ocean of blogs. But if you keep on reading, you might learn that even a small thing like, say, an ant, can teach you something. Well maybe an ant can't really teach you anything else than if you have an army of a million, the world can be an ok place, but that's neither here or there. So without any further ado, here's the deal:

Having been on a hiatus for a year or so, I just got back into the semi-serious freshwater aquarium game. This time I wanted to create a place where I can collect a journal of some sort, as well as throw around random thoughts of fishy sorts. Whether this will be a placeholder for a story of great success and fulfillment, or just a grim tale of a tank gone bad, either way I'm sure someone out there will be experience richer after reading this. And that someone might very well be You!

Yours,
-AGW