Edit: What am I doing wrong with image insertion? I click on the photo icon, and I can see it, but once I post it I can't see it.
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Been planning this tank for about 4 months now. I've never researched an aquarium setup to the extent I've done with this one. I have the luxury of being retired and being able to devote the kind of time that takes. ChatGPT has actually been very helpful in many aspects of the planning (with the caveat that you verify everything it says).
The tank is 80 x 35 x 40 cm, 112 liters/30 US gallons. Hardscape is a beautiful ochre-yellow fine sand, a few small river rocks (literally river rocks from the Rio Nabão near my house), and mostly local hardwood branches. I did buy a couple of small pieces of mopani and spider wood for the base. Botanicals include some catapa leaves that I found in the pet aisle at a garden supply store, and local oak and magnolia leaves. Lots of local acorn caps and alder cones.
To try to keep flow to the minimum possible, filtration is one medium sized HOB with Seachem matrix and a piece of coarse foam. I'm planning for the biofilm on the hardscape and the sand to do most of the heavy lifting of chemical filtration.
Lighting is a Chihiros WRGB II Slim. I'm doing a dark start, so I just got it set up today and adjusted the look of it and then turned it off. The Chihiros app is fantastic, giving you full control over ramp up and down time, intensity, color balance, etc. The lights and the hanging kit and support arms are all of very high quality - I'm very impressed with them. Not cheap, but very much worth the money.
My stocking plan is one male Apistogramma agasizii, 15 rummynose tetras, 10-12 pencilfish, and 6-8 Corydoras adolfoi if I can find them. Won't have any fully aquatic plants, in keeping with the environment I'm trying to replicate. I do plan on having some emersed plants anchored in some pieces of wood hanging on the rim. In the photos I've only got one in place, but I have another bigger piece for the center. I'm cutting channels in it so it will sit positively on the rim, then I'll drill some appropriate holes for the plants to sit in while they develop their submerged roots.
The dark start has only been going for a few days. It had been many years since I'd had a tank this big. I put some fish food granules in, but today my ammonia is still zero, so clearly I need to get some supermarket ammonia and calculate the PPM dosing to get things kicked off. I have a nano tank with Neocaraidina shrimp, so I squeezed out the internal sponge filter from that tank into the new one to supply some bacteria.
Living as I do in Portugal, it's been a challenge to assemble all the bits and pieces I needed - not least of all the tank itself. I live in a fairly rural part of the country, and there are only a few very small LFS's, none of which had the tank I wanted. I ended up doing a round robin tour of four of the better stores in the Porto area, and finally found the tank at the very last one (always the case, right?). I'll definitely be going back up there when it comes time for fish.
Happy for feedback and suggestions!
View attachment IMG_0570.jpeg
View attachment IMG_0571.jpeg
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Been planning this tank for about 4 months now. I've never researched an aquarium setup to the extent I've done with this one. I have the luxury of being retired and being able to devote the kind of time that takes. ChatGPT has actually been very helpful in many aspects of the planning (with the caveat that you verify everything it says).
The tank is 80 x 35 x 40 cm, 112 liters/30 US gallons. Hardscape is a beautiful ochre-yellow fine sand, a few small river rocks (literally river rocks from the Rio Nabão near my house), and mostly local hardwood branches. I did buy a couple of small pieces of mopani and spider wood for the base. Botanicals include some catapa leaves that I found in the pet aisle at a garden supply store, and local oak and magnolia leaves. Lots of local acorn caps and alder cones.
To try to keep flow to the minimum possible, filtration is one medium sized HOB with Seachem matrix and a piece of coarse foam. I'm planning for the biofilm on the hardscape and the sand to do most of the heavy lifting of chemical filtration.
Lighting is a Chihiros WRGB II Slim. I'm doing a dark start, so I just got it set up today and adjusted the look of it and then turned it off. The Chihiros app is fantastic, giving you full control over ramp up and down time, intensity, color balance, etc. The lights and the hanging kit and support arms are all of very high quality - I'm very impressed with them. Not cheap, but very much worth the money.
My stocking plan is one male Apistogramma agasizii, 15 rummynose tetras, 10-12 pencilfish, and 6-8 Corydoras adolfoi if I can find them. Won't have any fully aquatic plants, in keeping with the environment I'm trying to replicate. I do plan on having some emersed plants anchored in some pieces of wood hanging on the rim. In the photos I've only got one in place, but I have another bigger piece for the center. I'm cutting channels in it so it will sit positively on the rim, then I'll drill some appropriate holes for the plants to sit in while they develop their submerged roots.
The dark start has only been going for a few days. It had been many years since I'd had a tank this big. I put some fish food granules in, but today my ammonia is still zero, so clearly I need to get some supermarket ammonia and calculate the PPM dosing to get things kicked off. I have a nano tank with Neocaraidina shrimp, so I squeezed out the internal sponge filter from that tank into the new one to supply some bacteria.
Living as I do in Portugal, it's been a challenge to assemble all the bits and pieces I needed - not least of all the tank itself. I live in a fairly rural part of the country, and there are only a few very small LFS's, none of which had the tank I wanted. I ended up doing a round robin tour of four of the better stores in the Porto area, and finally found the tank at the very last one (always the case, right?). I'll definitely be going back up there when it comes time for fish.
Happy for feedback and suggestions!
View attachment IMG_0570.jpeg
View attachment IMG_0571.jpeg
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