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Situated in the livingroom
Most recent image of the tank
The tank arrives and are first placed on its stand, which in turn are placed on a 26 mm thick plate of massive wood, app. 3 feet from the wall, so the back glass can be painted on the outside in a dark antracite-grey. Then it is pushed to the wall.
The tank is levelled out and I make sure that each of the 8 legs receives the same amount of pressure. The tank is then filled with water, and I check the levelling again and make sure that no water is seaping from it. Everything is fine!
As evident from this image, the standard mount of 4 x 39W, arranged in two rows, is not sufficien to light the whole tank evenly. Consequently it will be reinforced with 4 tubes more, bringing the total to 8 x 39W.
The tank is emptied and wiped dry. The plan is to mount a module (Back-to-Nature module B), but it will have to wait until Monday, since the tube of silicone glue left over from last time, has dried through. The planned upgrade to the lamp is done. One of the smart details of the Effectlight lamps, are the ability to add, move or remove armatures, as long as there is enough room. The 8 x 39W does however leave the lamp full. It should be said, that dismantling and reassembling the lamp in order to do this, is pretty troublesome!
The single BTN decoration module, primarily used to give a convenient place to mount an extra pump, and at the same time cover the ugly glueing in the right hand corner, has been glued in place with black silicone glue. Once the glue is dry, a second layer will be added and smoothed over. This will prevent small fish to hide in the crack between module and glass.
Glueing of the module is finished. This tank will be filtered by a HMF. To bypass a hopeless attempt at hiding the massive filter mat, I have opted to place it in plain sight, effectively acting as the whole left side wall (se images below).
I am washing sand! The substrate from the disbanded 486L that is being replaced by this tank, id recycled, so off course it must be rinsed, and various pebbles, pieces of root and plant material must be removed. There is app. 60kgs. which is mixed with 80 kgs of new sand in two grain sizes, so that the substrate consists of three various grain sizes of riverbed-sand.
As the water is pouring into the tank, a couple of roots and various rocks are placed. Again everything is recycled from the previous tank, along with pieces from older tanks. Surprisingly, the Redmoor roots are now again buoyant after only a little more than a week above water! A dose of Easy-Life is added, in order to clear the water and kick-start the filter, and an Echinodorus "Red Special" (one of the many "artificial" hybrids from Tropica). that I have gotten when I traded some surplus bags of sand back, is going in right away.
Now, first the plants and then the fish have been added. Everything have been held in care of a couple of good friends, and have been collected in two turns; first the plants, which have been trimmed and placed in their new positions, and then the fish. Especially the large angelfish have caused some worrying, but they seems to be unharmed from the transport.
Dead fish in the tank. An Ancistrus female, which I have had for more than 10 years, have been found dead. This was a fully matured fish when I got it, so age, combined with stress from moving twice in less than a month, is the most likely cause of death.
The decoration of the tank was, as mentioned above, hurried a little, and looking at it for a couple of days made me realize that it was simply not to my satisfaction after all. A more dramatic centerpiece was needed (as was more shelters for the fish). As a solution, I have moved the roots already in the tank, and added a large (app. 20 kgs) root, to make the tank appear as shown below (the odd-looking rock is still needed to hold down a buoyant root):
New fish. The stock has several species, which for several reasons have diminished so much in numbers, that they are in dire need of reinforcements. That goes for the 2 Corydoras arcuatus, which have been supplanted to a total of 8 and Hemigrammus bleheri, which is now up from 2 to 22. Left out this time, was a small group of Corydoras adolfoi, which is down to 3, but should be at least 6-8. It was however, impossible to find any today.
The declining temperature in the living room, caused by the onset of autumn, has unfortunately influenced the tank more than usual. This is probably due to the fact, that the mounted pumps does not emit the same amount of heat that I am used to with the "old fashioned" powerheads. Having measured the temperature to 22ºC, I have opted for the inclusion of a Hydor Theo 300W thermostat-heater, which has been mounted in the module in the right side of the tank, adjusted to 25ºC. It took just 5 hours for the tank to reach the desired temperature.
A problem with a thick film on the surface has evolved. Despite the placement of a Tunze 6025, pointing vertically up towards the surface, a thick greenish film is forming. It can be reduced significantly by skimming the surface with a daphnia-net, but returns in a few days. It does not seem to bother the fish, but it looks pretty bad. Since the future of the tank is supposed to be uncertain, nothing is done about it for now.
The problem with the surface film still exist, and may be related to the substrate giving off something to the water? Whatever the reason, the problem is "fixed" by temporarily disbanding the tank, so that it (along with everything else in the household) can be moved to Our new residence.
Safely arrived to Our new home, the tank is now in its new place, with the old filter mat and the rest of the technical installations mounted. Most of the substrate is recycled (a good deal of it has been used in Aquarium 10, and some new, coarse gravel has been added.
The basic decoration is in place. It consists exclusively of recycled roots from before, although not all the roots from the old setup are used. The fewer roots are supposed to make room for more plants.
Image of the basic decoration.
Plants have been added to the tank. The plants are recycled from the earlier setup (not all have been included), which have been stored in Aquarium 10 and are not exactly in prime condition. A pair of Ancistrus. sp. are also introduced, both as test fish and to combat the initial onset of algae growth, which is greatly promoted by the once dried algae growth on the roots (also recycled) that is now quickly dissolving and forming the base for new growth.
The problem with the surface film is unfortunately still an issue, but since there is no problem in the other tank where the substrate has been used, I now suspect that the largest root, which is the only one that at no point has been placed in a well functioning tank. Having tried to manually removing the film, just to see it forming again in a few days, I have decided that a permanent solution must be attempted (skipping the obvious option of removing the expensive root!). I will improvise an overflow surface skimmer. This is done by cutting a section of the top of the already present BTN module, mounted in the right corner of the tank and blocking the previous intake at the bottom (see picture below). It has solved the problem completely, but also introduced a couple of difficulties; flake food must be drenched to avoid being sucked directly into the overflow, and the pump inside the module must be turned off during water changes. Since the water quality seems to be under control, today is also the day for introduction of "real" fish! Also these are previous inhabitants, namely the 8 angelfish that was also the backbone of the former setup, along with the 8 remaining rummynoses (many were unfortunately lost when they were moved).
30 more Rummynoses have been purchased, in order to get a good school.
The first picture of the new tank , including fish. For now, the stock consists of 2 Ancistrus, 8 Scalare and 38 rummynoses (30 of them acquired today).
The tank has been undisturbed apart from feeding and water changes.
Alge has been a problem, both filamentous and blue/green. Both seems to be retreating, but introduction of some fast growing plants would probably be a good idea...
At some point, some kind of plants for the foreground will also be installed.
Still not much maintenance done in the tank. I do a bit of pruning now and again, to remove worn-out leaves, and the filamentous algae on the roots are picked off once in a while.
2 Corydoras adolfoi and 4 C. arcuatus have been transferred from Akv. 10, which is temporarily emptied. Both species will be supplanted, so that there will be at least 6 of each.
I`ve come upon a, to Me, unknown Cryptocoryne, which promises to have the missing quality that My usual selection of plants lack; They are very low growing. Unfortunately only 6 pots were available, but hopefully that will be an adequate start. The plant is Cryptocoryne wendtii "Green gecko". They can be spotted as two light green areas in the picture below.
More plants. An Anubias bartherii, that was originally acquired for Akv. 10, ended up here.
New fish. 6 Dianema urostriatum, WC from Brazil, has been introduced. Also 2 Crossocheilus reticulatus is temporarily placed in the tank, hopefully to eliminate the very hardlived hair algae still present.
