girlz0r Posted April 11, 2011 Report Share Posted April 11, 2011 WOooooooooooooo been a while since i've had fish. I was on holiday for a month and a half and sold EVERYTHING. Finally got around to making some newer tanks and setting up my 4 ft display... These tanks I bought when I was in malaysia.. Pretty cheap. Got some hang on filters too and suspended the T5 light. Couple bettas in there.. WHen they were alive. One female beat the rest of mine up as well as the male too. I'm down to one male and a bunch of fry, and of course two really big bully females (giants) Empty.. David checking what made it leak ): There was a gap in the silicon. He helped me set up the entire sump too.. I had no clue how to do it. Built it and everything! We went crazy and bought quite a lot of fish at the VCS auction two saturdays ago for his 8 ft.. FINISHED!! 10 hours, one maccas dinner box with coke, 3 mcChicken patties later.. ( you can see the sump in this) Bit murky still but it's only been about an hour since my mate and I finished planting all the carpeting plant and topped the tank back up. what a day! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
girlz0r Posted April 11, 2011 Author Report Share Posted April 11, 2011 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shadoh Posted April 12, 2011 Report Share Posted April 12, 2011 Nice tanks you have there! :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fletch Posted April 12, 2011 Report Share Posted April 12, 2011 Well done, very nice. Photos once water clears and fish introduced please. Can't wait. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shadoh Posted April 12, 2011 Report Share Posted April 12, 2011 So what fish are you stocking it with? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
forever_and_a_day Posted April 12, 2011 Report Share Posted April 12, 2011 indeed. I can't to see what your tank looks stocked and I love the aquascapes in the small tanks. very pretty <3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
girlz0r Posted April 12, 2011 Author Report Share Posted April 12, 2011 (edited) This baby is finally clear!! Bonsai rocks mountain formation. You can kinda see the apistograma female here. She's a dwarf chichlid.. Hasn't done any damage to plants yet. Hope she doesn't. The male partner is very shy and barely comes out from beneath the tree roots ( below) There's some Albino rams too. A cichlid too I think. Would make sense as I bought them at the Vic Cichlid Society Auction. Close up of the tree. The 3 peices are slighty floating apart. (We were impatient and didn't soak the wood before, Got carbon so any tannins that leaks out should be absorbed) There's a few of my betta fry in there too. They used to live at my mates place in the endler tank while I was away, Grown pretty slowly ): There's a HM platinum sorta coloured one there too, but he also likes to hide. added a black piece of plastic behind the overflow to cover up the pvc pipe. There's a Tiger lotus in the back there.. I need to replant it a little more to the right I think, It's a bit too hidden. I want to get some crypts for the background plant... not sure where I can find any yet..Ideas? I've got pictures of how we put the tree together and the bonsai rocks and stuff too if anyone is interested. It was a LOT more work than we thought... (Result of being ambitious and super motivated and acting on irrational impusive ideas in the middle of the LFS) Not sure of what to stock it with. Might just go to the EDAS auction and buy a bunch of fish that seem suitable. Any ideas of schooling fish that will go well? and not neons because they'll fit through the overflow grate..already had 2 fry slip past ): poor guys. Thankfully the suction into the sump isn't very strong because the hole is only 25 mill, so they were happily swimming around.. Edited April 12, 2011 by girlz0r Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shadoh Posted April 12, 2011 Report Share Posted April 12, 2011 I've got pictures of how we put the tree together and the bonsai rocks and stuff too if anyone is interested Yes please, I am currently looking at scaping my 5ft growout tank and looking for inspiration... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
girlz0r Posted April 12, 2011 Author Report Share Posted April 12, 2011 aaahahaha BE PREPARED. it's a lot lotta work. and you need a lot of java moss or some sort of moss for leaves... I'll upload the pics now.. missing a few steps but it's relatively easy. Just time consuming really. We made it up as we went, so I'm sure you can figure it out too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
girlz0r Posted April 12, 2011 Author Report Share Posted April 12, 2011 (edited) Went to Garden world, We found these bonsai rocks by accident. We'd been trying to source them for AAAAAGES. Turns out they are actually pretty difficult to buy. The large display rocks cost something like 300-400 and was a perfect size for this 4 ft, but just too expensive. Used the smaller rocks and built this structure.. Took pics so we remembered what it looked like. Talked to the specialist there, and he said to create the structures with similar lines. You can also glue them together using quickdry cement. But we were impatient and just made formations that could sit together without having to be cemented together. the tree. Me: "underwater trees look pretty cool" J: "Let's make an AVATAR TREE OF LIFE!" Me: "shouldn't be too hard....." We thought the most difficult part would be finding wood that looked like a mini tree. WRONG. Was difficult but not as difficult as what we were about to get outselves into You can see it's 3 peices, one main trunk peice, another main root system and a smaller branchy bit to balance out the roots. We tried to get bits that fit together well. (pic taken at LFS) THE TRUNK We then zip tied it all together, tried our best to conceal the ties.. Covered a piece of flat rock in garden mesh, threaded more zip ties thru the mesh and connected it to the tree base. Missing some action shots.. but it was kinda getting wet and I didn't want my phone to get damaged. THE LEAVES Java moss sandwiches using garden mesh. Cut sound round looking/oval shapes and put them on the trunk to try and construct a leaf structure. Looked at some pics of real trees to do this. 4 main parts. Small at the base, Medium on one of the smaller branches, Large moss sandwich on the main trunk, and a medium one the connected the main trunk and the one that kinda came off it. used some extra wood to keep the large one from flopping down. Then we added the java moss, put it in the tank. Arranged the rocks to as best as we could, planted a HUUUGE load of carpeting plant. Annnd there you have it here's a pretty crappy photo, but you can kinda see how the leaves were built. Edited November 16, 2011 by girlz0r Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GoldenGirl13 Posted April 12, 2011 Report Share Posted April 12, 2011 WOW that tree is going to look incredible when the moss takes off and I love the bonsai rock range BRILLIANT NannaJo B) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt_95 Posted April 13, 2011 Report Share Posted April 13, 2011 Wow, it looks great A better moss for the tree would have been xmas or peacock. Java doesn't grow anywhere near as dense as them and will look sgraggly later on. You can get a good variety of crypts here, Dave also sells some cheap ferts you can use. Do you have co2? The glosso (carpetting plant) wont grow very well without it. Looks absoloutly amazing though :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neffy Posted April 13, 2011 Report Share Posted April 13, 2011 wow loving this !! cant wait to see how it grows in will be amazing! Where abouts is garden world ? is it 810 Springvale Rd, Braeside 3195 ?? Id love some rocks like that it is hard to find good rocks!!! (dont need as many tho) how many kilos did your formation end up being ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
girlz0r Posted April 13, 2011 Author Report Share Posted April 13, 2011 Yep that's the one neffy!! There's like 3 or 4 different shops withing garden world, like Hydropinic, pond and another two. The section I went to was on the left, just next to the cafe. It has a cockatoo out the front in a large aviary. (I don't think it's a cockatoo) Rocks all ended up costing $105, The guy gave me a discount. I also pirchased some formations which were $25 each, otherwise it was pretty difficult to create anything with height and vertical lines. Springvale road has heaps of aquarium and fishtank stores.. none really have any nice plants though. Saw a blue and yellow macaw! (amazing amazon) The stuff that looks like Glosso is actually a stem plant, (Can't remember the name, kinda looks similar). The carpeting /foreground plant is Brazillian Microsword, so far the BEST carpeting plant to plant. glosso/hc is the worst, followed closely by hairgrass. I'm a bit too poor to afford a good c02 system, I've got a DIY one but i'm not sure it that'd be effective in a 4 ft? Opinions? Will try look out for peacock or Christmas moss, there's some gaps between the leaves which I can add a couple more sandwiches in to create more bulk.. I hope.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt_95 Posted April 13, 2011 Report Share Posted April 13, 2011 You should be fine without co2 for the microsword, you can try this though as well as diy and you should be fine. It is so tedious, I am currently planting a carpet of it and it is taking ages, I am doing a 4 foot to haha. I would stick to Java or one of the others, reason is that the Java will get tangled through it and aslo grow over the others as they don't grow as fast. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
girlz0r Posted April 13, 2011 Author Report Share Posted April 13, 2011 How does that work? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
les Posted April 13, 2011 Report Share Posted April 13, 2011 DIY Co2 works well in my 2ft so id say if you used two it would be fine in a 4ft amazing the diference it makes especialy to my crypts. the tank looks amazingcant wait to see it in three months. you will be buying that Macaw and playing appocolipsa LOL Cheers Les Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt_95 Posted April 13, 2011 Report Share Posted April 13, 2011 The glut woks by converting into glucose which makes cellulose that is the building block that allows plants to grow. I got that from the packet. It is an alternative to CO2. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shadoh Posted April 13, 2011 Report Share Posted April 13, 2011 Hey Matt, I thought you were into NPT's - how come you are going hi-tech? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sarah Posted April 13, 2011 Report Share Posted April 13, 2011 Haha, he knows everything there is to know about planted tanks.. :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt_95 Posted April 13, 2011 Report Share Posted April 13, 2011 I am, I wanted to grow a carpet in this tank so initially I am going high tech and I am going to try find a balance, maybe 2.5wpg no ferts and 3 bps of CO@. I am going to set up my spawning tank as a NPT though, they get full of infusoria :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
girlz0r Posted May 2, 2011 Author Report Share Posted May 2, 2011 (edited) Alrighty, time for an update after spending a crapload of money at the EDAS auctions and doing a water change. Haven't gotten round to buying ferts or Purigen yet, Planning on getting an underwater light to shine upwards at the tree, there's a lot of shadowing because of the leaves. The tetras are loving it, they are schooling really well, and the rainbow boseman have really coloured up nicely. http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10150277278663082 (Vid.. not sure how to embed it ) And if anyone is interesting in buying some Purebred toy poodles <3 http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10150277288828082&comments Edited May 2, 2011 by girlz0r Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fletch Posted May 2, 2011 Report Share Posted May 2, 2011 That is awesome. Well done. Will just keep looking better and better as it grows b Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shadoh Posted May 2, 2011 Report Share Posted May 2, 2011 Wow, the tank is looking really good now. The light will make a nice feature of the tree! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neffy Posted May 2, 2011 Report Share Posted May 2, 2011 Amazing !! Looks really good now there are more fish and more plants :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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