Today's Aquascaping Job

[mbierzyc]

The water isn't perfectly clear yet, and I may have a bit more tweaking to do, but I'd say I'm pretty satisfied with the turnout.

Some of you have probably seen the thread about my DIY stand, this is the 75gallon tank that sits on top. I have 3 rocks in there, one enormous driftwood root/stump on the left, a driftwood branch on the right, 2 bags of pebbles from home depot, and the gravel that came with my used tank. Underneath it all is a homemade undergravel filter cosisting of egg crate sitting on pvc pipe with 2 vertical pvc pipes coming up, one in each corner. those are connected to aquaclear 30 powerheads. (the egg crate is covered in pond filter pads thanks to a suggestion by oddball.) Hopefully the filtration turns out well, I needed undergravel because the tank will be host to a species that is prone to jumping out of tanks.

As far as plants, they are all silk from Michaels crafts store. I bought 3 large bunches, cut them into smaller sizes and then buried the "roots" in my gravel.

If you have any suggestions, throw em my way, I have a few weeks until the fish come in.

The first pic is with flash, second is without flash, and the third pic is a closeup of my MFK decal that came in the mail today. I appreciate the decal, and it arrived in under a week. I'm very pleased with this site.

Matt

 

[Nate_N_Nicole]

It will look sweet once she's clear good job...

 

[Gr8KarmaSF]

nice setup, what fish ya gonna get?

i dont think that an undergravel filter will make a difference in getting a jumping prone fishy (depending on what kind i guess, ex. hachet fish vs. aro)???

 

[seighten]

looks good.... was wondering about the choice of the large pebbles on top of the small grained gravel with using an u.g. filter...

was thinking you mentioned using the u.g. filter with jumpy fish to avoid openings in back for typical hang-on box filters... right?

 

[mbierzyc]

right, i want to be able to close off the entire top of this tank and for that reason a hang-on power filter wouldn't work for me. i'm gonna have gachau in this tank and they don't need the most pristine water conditions, but i'm pretty sure my conditions will be quite good with the filter that i built. i have a few weeks to see though, and i can always add another type of filtration if mine fails to do the job.

do you think that adding the larger pebbles on top of the gravel was a bad idea for a ugf?

 

[guppy]

You will need to move them around when you do your water changes and be careful about over feeding, detritus can be overlooked between the rocks but as long as there isn't a lot of it the system will just digest it as well. If you don't mind fish from other regions being together you could throw in a few weather loaches to pick around in the rocks. You are talking dwarf pike cichlids aren't you, or am I confused? Some of the smaller crayfish species also help with large cobbles but you might want to clip off their thumbs first.

 

[redtailfool]

i was worried about the detritus getting stuck underneath the rocks too. Other than that, its awesome

 

[rayman45]

looks GREAT
thanks for shareing

 

[mbierzyc]

i appreciate all of the comments. and as far as talking about dwarf pike cichlids, not so much ... dwarf sh actually.

the tank has cleared up, so i'm pretty sure the filtration is working well at this point. i think i'm going to buy a few small, cheap fish just to make sure the introduction of ammonia doesn't fog up the tank too much.

the tank is in a perfect spot to be seen as soon as i walk down the stairs into my basement, and i'm quite impressed by it myself. however, i think i'm going to move around a few of the plants now that i can see the placement better.

 

[rumblesushi]

it's a really nice setup. Though the rocks look great, in all honesty I think they would be better removed. Not only a cleaner flow through the gravel but how are you gonna vac the gravel when you do water changes?

Keeping predatory fish with a UGF, there's a lot of crap around the surface of gravel that needs to be cleaned up.

PS - I didn't think we could get those aquaclear hang on back filters here in the UK?