Possible Changes To The Tank - Thoughts Welcome

Quote from: fcmf on July 24, 2016, 08:58:12 AM

Shame there's no such invention (yet) as an expanding tank to accommodate one's desires, much like dining tables which can be expanded to accommodate extra guests.

Funnily enough I've discovered you can. The owner of one of the aquarium shops at Crews Hill showed me a piccy of his old set up. A 15ft wall was covered by three 5ft tanks which were also stacked 2 deep, one in front of the other. What he did was butt the tanks up against each other, cut large circular holes through them and then joined them up with silicone. This effectively gave him one very large tank 15ft long and 3ft wide! I was extremely impressed. Might be a trick for you to use @Littlefish, you can use different sized tanks as long as you make sure the level of the water in the tanks is the sme 

Good grief - - that probably requires a structural engineer to check that floorboards can cope with the capacity. Looking forward to hearing if anyone tries out such a construction.

I find an old curtain with a rubber-like thermal backing invaluable for water changes. It is currently hanging on the line drying, along with the towel I wedge between the bucket and tank to catch the drips while refilling 

Now got water sprite in the tank http://www.aquariumgardens.co.uk/ceratopteris-thalicroides-aka-water-sprite-1408-p.asp and another mini moss ball.

While I was waiting for the fish to arrive at the shop I also got a floating plant which seems to be doing well at the moment - remember I can kill duckweed 
It is the related plant Ceratopteris cornuta which I read on another forum was a good alternative to C thalcatroides so I thought I'd give it a try since thalcatroides didn't last long in my tank.

... if it's any consolation I managed to kill off a java fern 

Respect is due!

Thanks @ColinB I thought it was quite a spectacular achievement. 

Hmmm - plants not doing well at all. The anubias and nano moss balls seem to be thriving (famous last words) but the dying vallis is completely dead, the moss is 95% dead, the java fern's demise has accelerated, the Brazilian pennywort has been gradually dying and the water sprite isn't looking too healthy. The lights were off for 6.5 days which may account for the new water sprite's demise but I think this is proof that I'm not green-fingered. I plan to have another go with some of them, plus some new ones, this time keeping the lights on for a shorter period of time than the usual 12 hours, and perhaps removing the two large silk plants which may have been providing too much cover for some of the live plants and preventing sufficient lighting from reaching them, and see how I get on.

Have you seen galaxy rasboras (sometimes sold as celestial pearl danio)?  I have a group of 6 and they are doing great though they can be a little shy...

Definitely sparkling gourami in that case they have Gourami behaviour without beating each other up and the health problems of their bigger cousins.  I would always recommend having a mixture of fish with different behaviours over anything else, especially if you weren't bought on the colour of the galaxy resbora (they would probably darken once you got then home)

I havent.  They are quite a slow moving fish I'm struggling to imagine them jumping at all.  Fyi they'll want you to give them some floating plants.