Tank Pictures

A few pictures of the tank

 General look and feel, including the new Penguin Tetras

Penguin Tetra swimming next to the new Cryptocoryne wendti shoot

Major Clean

Today we did a major clean of the tank. Took over two hours to do. It involved an hour's work just pruning the plants and removing the algae. The rest of the time was spent siphoning the water and cleaning the filter, which was way overdue a clean. Tank is looking much better, though the water is a bit murky. Of course the fish had to have their fun by getting into the filter while I was cleaning it, so ended up spending time fishing (excuse the pun) them out.

Sparse Tank

Just a quick update on the tank, which is looking sparse due to the lack of fish and low growing plants, both of which I will have to get when I have more time.

Flora Planted

Just a quick update. During the course of this week I have acquired some plants, which have now been planted. I will post more about each one later on.

Still looking a bit sparse so will be popping into the local fish shop to acquire a few more. Of course once they start growing the tank will fill up a bit more. 

The tank is still a bit cloudy, but each day it has been improving, so it appears the filtering is working.  

Gravelled And Watered

It has taken L and I 3 nights worth of gravel washing to get the 35 kg of Dorset pea gravel clean so that it can go into the tank. Unfortunately the gravel is covered with a fine dust that takes on average about 4 washes before the clear water runs off it. But it was worth it as the gravel looks great with the backing and the bogwood on top of it. 

Once the gravel was in, it took 23.5 bucket loads of normal tap water to fill the tank. After which I switched on the filter pump and heater. By tomorrow the tank should be warm enough to start planting plants, but we will have to do a bit of shopping for them first.

Back(ing) Breaking Installation

I have finished installing the Juwel Rock 600 structured background, which had to be cut and shaped to fit the aquarium. Once the correct shapes were achieved, I glued both pieces onto the back glass of the aquarium using silicon glue. This turned out to be more difficult than expected as the backing was slightly curved. But after lots of glue, what felt like hours of pressing and with a bit of luck, I think they are either glued into place or just wedged together, waiting to pull away at an inappropriate time. We will see what happens when the water goes in.

As you can see from the picture, there is a distinct line where the one backing joins onto the other. I will try to hide this with some tall plants like the Amazon Sword (Echinodorus amazonicus) or by using bogwood or both.

With the help of L, we moved the tank onto the cabinet, which led to a few hair raising moments and lots of back pain for the both of us. Big is not aways better, but is aways heavier! The combination of size and weight made picking and moving of the tank very difficult. From getting your fingers and hands under the tank to moving the tank into position can be very tiring and finger/back breaking. But we managed none the less. Thanks L for all your help!

Tank Arrival

The tank arrived on time as promised. I was at work, so L took the delivery photos.

This was the truck's third fish tank delivery this morning. It appear tropical fish keeping it popular in our neck of the woods.

One heavy pallet. When I arrived home at lunchtime it took myself and our handyman, who luckily happened to be doing some work around the house for us, to move it into the conservatory.

The 35 kg of Dorset pea gravel did not help with the weight. The filter, heater, auto feeder and net added a few grams as well. 

Unpacking the cabinet.

Half completed cabinet. More photos to follow ...

Tank Ordered

After much window-shopping at different pet shops I decided to order the Juwel Rio 300 Aquarium with a dark wood cabinet on Friday. The dimensions of the tank are 121cm x 51cm x 62cm and the height of the cabinet is 73 cm. All being well it should arrive sometime this week.