Matt's 220 Litre Aquaoak

I managed to finish work early  and my trip to MA was very successful so Ive made up for lost time!!

They had a really good selection of plants at the Blackpool MA but alas no wood that was suitable for what i needed. This is the first ive been following their floods in November and the store is now much brighter and more modern and focusses on freshwater only. I got lots of bunches of java fern, some crypts, some stem plants, and some moss.

When i got home, first I moved the rock i was talking about, though it didn't look right where I thought it should go but Mrs Matt came along with a fresh pair of eyes at just the right moment and now it's in a much better position anyway.  Hardscaping completed 

I then set to tidying up the aquasoil on the sand and floating at the surface.  I have still got a bit more work to do here but I'm through the worst of it. 

Then the planting began.  All the new plants were prepped and planted. Then I transferred the anubias and moss balls (as they were so easy to transfer and push into cracks in the new layout) and the hygrophila.  I dont have much of this as the lower leaves dont get enough light currently I dont think so I keep having to strip them and lower the plant into the substrate a bit - it is one if the plants I expect to do better in the new set up as despite this its still grows well.  The remaining plants I want to move across from the 64 litre ate the Amazon swords and crypts though i will leave this for a few days depending on the water test results.  I havent put root tabs under anything yet - I can always go back and do this if required - I figured I may as well give it a go without them first... would people class crypts as a root feeder though?

As I had got additional plants earlier than planned, I realised this basically meant extra filtration capacity so I felt confident in moving the first batch of fish across. I moved the 3 harlequins, 3 cardinals, and 2 corys over, plus a few shrimp (it became clear that shrimp would be an on going thing as they can hide so well  ). Following a death of a harlequin and a cardinal (due to old age) over the last couple of months since i did the initial planning, this is exactly half of the stocking of the 64 litre.  I've just been to check on them and everyone seems to be doing ok.

A photo is below (sorry it's rubbish quality, I'll get a better one tomorrow when I can turn up the lights a bit more and the fish are settled in). The odd small branches wood and moss on the left will be incorporated at some later stage. Ideally the moss would already have been attached to the wood and that all seems a bit complicated now... only some of the wood can easily be removed again.

Tomorrow I will need to do some further water tests to check the fish are ok, continue to remove floating aquasoil and aquasoil that's worked it's way onto the sand, I can transfer any more shrimp I can catch, and possibly have a go at tieing some moss to the wood. I'll likely do some routine gravel vacuuming on the 64 litre as well. 

I need to put the lights on a timer in the morning as I realise now as i type this, that I'd forgotten all about this!

Great tank @Matt

Both my fish and I like crypts, so I have quite a few (about half my tank substrate is planted with a variety of different types of them). Having reduced and cleaned my substrate, I am experiencing a bit of melt. But it isn't complete plants, so it may just be that I've accelerated the natural die off and so I'm not particularly worried about it, yet.

I vaguely remember testing iron levels in my tank, but don't remember what the results were or what I consequently did. But over the longer term, I've moved towards only having plants that suit my water parameters, hence don't have plants that have a high nitrogen requirement for my low tap water nitrates. This has also worked for me, as those plants tend to be faster growers and I can't keep up with pruning them, when they are successful!

I've not actively tried propagating my crypts, but at the latest plant reshuffle I noticed that there were often more than one plant on the same root structure. I separated these, making sure I left enough young looking roots for each plant. I have read that they propagate by sub-surface runners (they looked like thick roots to me). And I know that my crypts self propagated in my tank, because I've not bought enough to cover 50% of my tank!

The one crypt I've completely failed with is parva and my crispulata is only just hanging on (I had thought that I had killed that one too!)

Thanks again both, I'll let them settle first before taking any drastic action but again thats all good to know for future.  I installed the light timer and have set it for a 5 hour lighting period at the moment in case of any algae growth, I'll increase it and add a siesta as the tank matures.

I managed to move a few more cherry shrimp over last night. I really want them to make a start at eating their way through the inevitable gloopy white wood fungus stuff which i seem to have in bucket loads on the new wood. I would think that the Amano shrimp would be able to make a dent in it if only i could catch them, they seem to be a lot smarter than the cherries and much better at hiding I did find a burried cherry along the way which I've left in the 64 litre as i dont have the pre filter sponge in place yet and i suspet a more mature tank will give them a greater chance of survival.

I have managed to get pretty much all of the floating aquasoil out which is great and I've got up a lot of the aquasoil from the sand too, though i look to have spread what's left around a bit too so i need a new plan for getting that stuff picked up. I will probably go through it with the fish net to catch the aquasoil but let the sand pass again tomorrow as this did work well, but now its spread out a hit across the sand area its not really a job I'm looking forward too.     Dont suppose anyone has any bright ideas for this?

Water tests on both tanks are still good with zero ammonia across the board (apart from one old test strip i was using up which gave a false reading and scared me into doing a load more wet chemistry tests!! 5 mins is a long time to wait for a sample when your panicing!).  I'm going to try and get to MA Preston this afternoon after work, time permitting. I will of course look at what fish they have in stock in prep for some possible additions this weekend though I'm conscious that I still have to galaxy rasbora to move over though which with the stocking level of the tank currently, would account for a third increase in stocking which is the maximum im looking to do anyway per week. That said i do have the amazon swords to move across and the crypts if i do get carried away with myself and get 2 rams    I'm also interested to see what plants  have in stock though as I need something for the background behind the wood. The tank is quite deep (front to back) and so there is quite a bit of space back there at the moment. I'm ideally after sometng tall and very thin I think like Vallisneria nana or Eleocharis montevidensis but this may have to be an online order as I've not seen what im after in the shops before now.

I have decided for now at least not to put the moss on the wood as i actually quite like the crisp difference between the java fern etc and the wood, plus i feel that having the odd branch covered in moss will look unnatural somehow and i definately dont want everything covered... I'm a bit unsure anyways so for now I've a spare clump of java moss in the 64 litre and am not sure what im going to do with it quite yet.

I tidied up the spare scraps of wood in the last photo too so have tried to take a more  professional looking photo this time round. You can see I have a slight bit of water clouding which doesn't seem to be going away yet... im still hoping that sorts itself out in time...?

Your tank is looking great 


Your old test strip - that's one of the problems with strips, if they get damp they give false readings.


The cloudiness could be one of two things. Either dust from the substrate or a bacterial bloom. The latter are very common in new tanks because there is a lot of organic carbon in a new tank; from plasticiser in all the new plastic to organic things in the plant substrate. It will go away once the bacteria have eaten all their food, but it is impossible to say how long that will be.

Tank does indeed look great. How are the fish finding their new-found space?

I'm also interested to see what plants  have in stock though as I need something for the background behind the wood.
I'm ideally after sometng tall and very thin I think like Vallisneria nana or Eleocharis montevidensis but this may have to be an online order as I've not seen what im after in the shops before now.

It might be worth finding out what day of the week your LFSs get their plant deliveries and then try to ensure that you're there the following day to get the best of the crop.
Your two suggestions of tall and thin plants sound good, the Vallis in particular. I've found it easier to keep second time round - in fact, it seems to have re-generated lately - while I found the Eleocharis had a very swift demise although I've only tried keeping it once.

Looks amazing Matt i love the way the 2 woods blend together.

My problems usually revolve around getting my amano shrimp into the net in the first place. 

You need to make sure that the net is big enough so the fish doesn't get squashed in the 'pouch'. Once out of the water, just hold the net almost vertical, just tilted slightly over to keep the net closed.

I did the water change on the 64 litre. Looking at the 220 litre now, I think there may have been a clouding issue which has now passed, and a tannin build-up which is now occurring. I'm going to do a big water change tomorrow and I also have some activted carbon I can add to the filter if needed.

This weekends current plans are to add 2 corys 1 cardinal and 1 harlequin. I realise this probably seems a bit odd, but this will mean 4 of each species and they all like to be in groups of 4 minimum.  I can then increase their numbers in following weeks.

That said, I think the rams in the 64 litre may be more hidey /stressy now there are less dither fish in the tank. So they will be getting moved the weekend after this when the filter can take the addition of them plus 2 more all at once to allow territories and hierarchies to be set up properly and not disrupted later on.  That will also give me the chance to increase the schoal of galaxy rasbora in the 64 litre the existing 2 have been removed from which can then all be move to the 220 litre the weekend after that and replaced with more fish for addition the following weekend. And so the cycle can continue, using the 64 as a quarantine tank (albeit a short quaranteen period). I may slow things down from the weekly cycle as time goes on, depends how excited I am!! I all also need to add the goby and the otocinclus and some new ones of these at some point.

Interesting theory about the bad spots fcmf... it could well be lighting or flow related. I know floating plants dont like too much flow and  so was the spot they didn't do so well in high light and high flow?