New 470L SA set up

Hi all,i was keeping Tanganyikan Cichlids for a while there but over the past few months I lost a bit of interest in the tank due to work and doing up a pond.......I started breaking down the tank a little while back and as of today the tank is fishless and waterless..........The plan now is to change continents and go SA again...........I toyed with the idea of a group of Piranha for a while but I could only get my hands on very small ones which I did not want so my radar is now on some really nice Angels........JohnH is sorting me out with some young Geo's and the plan is to just add about 80/100 small fish (Cardinals,Rummynoses etc.) with some Bristlenoses I already have and that should be that fish wise (well until other fish catch my eye ha)
For the scape it will be very simple.......White sand (hopefully) and some nice root wood suspended down........I have a lot of some really nice pieces down in the shed so I can fiddle around with a few different pieces until I'm happy with it.......I also have a fair few small bits of bog wood so I might put a few bits on the substrate aswell,we will see..........I will pick up a few different types of Anubias over the next couple of weeks and i'll glue them to the wood and that should be that.
I don't normally like lights on in the tank but I got a unit I have that had the on/off switch broken fixed and I bought some 'very warm white' 35w tubes for it (I was using 80w in the past) so when its all scaped i'll see how they look and take it from there.

Anyway i'm off Monday and Tuesday so hopefully I will pick up some white sand then and then I could start tying some pieces of wood with cable ties and i'll then start posting pics of the progress ( with JohnH's help that is ).

Ger

advise - take your time picking your stock. seahorse always have something nice and Kinsealy have some nice rare SAs at the moment

Looking forward to following this project .

Damian_Ireland wrote:

advise - take your time picking your stock. seahorse always have something nice and Kinsealy have some nice rare SAs at the moment

Did you see any nice Angels over in Kinsealy Damian?.........and fill me in on these rare fish please?........I've being going through a love/hate relationship with kinsealy for a few years now for different reasons but I think its time to go back over for a look........if nothing else the banter with the lads can make it a good visit

Ger

there was some angels there, wait till the weekend until Simon is there. i think he is there friday, saturday, sunday

Well eventually i'm getting this project under way.............with the tank empty (and light!!) for the first time in over a year I decided as I could move it around i'd get the room painted but that kind of delayed things a bit but between yesterday and today I got the ball rolling with the tank...........I didn't manage to find white silica sand at any kind of decent price so I bought 50kg of the beige/yellow silica sand from a builder suppliers that was only E18.60 which I am well pleased with..............I put some small pieces of bog wood and red moor wood on the substrate and suspended larger pieces of red moor wood using cable ties that slip through holes at the top of the wood and tied around thin pieces of glass I have silicone across the top of the tank.......I then added about 20 Catappa leaves which have all pretty much sunk now and the water is now taking on a really nice tea like colour.......i'll wait another day or two before deciding if i'll add more leaves.

This is were i'm at now and the next step is to get some Anubias,but I might just stick them to the wood on the base and keep the suspended wood the way it is with maybe just a few leaves stuck in and around it.

Here's a short video of it now:


Ger

JohnH wrote:

Did the Builder's Silica Sand need much washing, Ger?

It is prewashed John...........the water when I added first got a bit dusty but cleared overnight to be crystal clear but I added 8 Bristlenoses a little while back and with all there fanning and burrowing the water is dusty again.........I've filter floss stuck to the base of a wavemaker so i'll let the Pleco's and the floss do there thing.

Ger

what type of Geos ?
also, never had an issue with cloudy water with geos. once the sand is clean, you should be grand
i miss the lads at Fins Furs Feather/ Artane Aquatics. They used to get orders from Glaser in Germany with all sorts of cool fish

JohnH wrote:

ger310 wrote:

JohnH wrote:

Did the Builder's Silica Sand need much washing, Ger?

It is prewashed John...........the water when I added first got a bit dusty but cleared overnight to be crystal clear but I added 8 Bristlenoses a little while back and with all there fanning and burrowing the water is dusty again.........I've filter floss stuck to the base of a wavemaker so i'll let the Pleco's and the floss do there thing.

Ger

That's interesting - the thing which turns me off using sand any more is the aggravation involved in the washing of it.
Maybe I'll get a bag when I bring the Geos over.

Speaking of which...their feeding style will outdo any cloudiness the Ancistrus could create, they're constantly grubbing around the substrate, taking in mouthfuls and sifting it through their gills - it's how they tend to feed and cloudy water becomes a by-product of this process - so be warned!!!

Euro 9.30 a 25kg bag John.

Ah no John,cloudiness or even bits of leaves,courgette or whatever floating around the water doesn't bother me in the slightest........and i'd be pretty sure (even though they haven't told me this personally ha) that the fish aren't bothered either!!

Ger

Damian_Ireland wrote:

what type of Geos ?
also, never had an issue with cloudy water with geos. once the sand is clean, you should be grand
i miss the lads at Fins Furs Feather/ Artane Aquatics. They used to get orders from Glaser in Germany with all sorts of cool fish

Cheers...................yeh I miss them aswell........was talking to Gav recently but he's very limited now in what he can get in were he is now.......real pity really!!

Ger

Just an update..........I got onto a guy who was selling 2 1/2 month old F1 Peruvian red spot Angels last week and earlier today I added 11 of these guys to the tank.......they haven't the real high fins of the last couple of Angel groups I have kept but there shape is still real nice I must say

Heres a quick video of them :

Exactly how Angels should be kept...Excellent stuff!

Well a month on and the Angels are thriving.......most Cichlids fascinate me but I cant think of a more inquisitive Cichlid than Angelfish ....great to be keeping these again I must say .......I've also added 3 Keyhole Cichlids,a pair of Apistogramma Panduro,23 Penguin Tetras and I've pinned some Anubias around the tank.....................i'm hoping to add another 3-4 Keyholes next week and i'm debating whether to add a large group of Cardinal tetras aswell........Adrian up in Petstop is looking to see can he get be a nice group (20 or so) of Corydoras Melini which I would love to keep so fingers crossed for them and if I get to eventually meet JohnH after my blunders in meeting him last week I will be adding a nice group of Geophagus aswell and that should be that!!

Here's a quick video taken earlier and apologies for the bad look (phone fell into sink of water some time back and doesn't take a great pic or vid,and also only works on selfie mode!!) :


Ger

Looks great , i love angel fish as well ,have 8 small ones inmy community tank .

Ger the tank is amazing, really love it

In my opinion I wouldn't put cardinals in there as they have very strong colors and would break the equilibrium the tank has now, maybe a shoal of ember tetras would add a bit of color but won't get all the protagonism at the same time.

robert wrote:

Looks great , i love angel fish as well ,have 8 small ones inmy community tank .

Cheers...........mine are only around 4 months old so I have 6-8 months of peace still before the chaos begins!!

Ger

Aroshni wrote:

Ger the tank is amazing, really love it

In my opinion I wouldn't put cardinals in there as they have very strong colors and would break the equilibrium the tank has now, maybe a shoal of ember tetras would add a bit of color but won't get all the protagonism at the same time.

Thanks Lydia...........I hear what your saying about about there strong colour and I reckon your probably right so I think i'll give them a miss.....what I was debating about them wasn't anything to do with there colour but was the amount of strong flow I have in the tank and would they be able to handle it as well as the Penguins I have but thinking about there colour I wont be going for them anyway soooooooooo......................I just looked at a couple of videos of Ember Tetras and I can see why you suggested them.......but like the Cardinals i wonder could they handle strong flow?.......and have you seen any around the shops? cheers

Ger

Hey Ger

Dunno if they can stand a strong flow, used to have a big shoal of them in my 180 and they were pretty active swimmers.

I got mine from Homer and some more from SH but sold all of them to Trent when I sold the tank, as you can see fish stays within the forum lol