Another newbie looking for tips I After having owned a 30ltr Biorb for a month I decided to upgrade for two reasons, firstly I though my fish would appreciate the space, and secondly I wanted real plants. I did my research – or think I did, drew up some plans, made a backscene, and brought a tank-kit. After having thrown away all the stuff that came with the tank (filters/lighting/air pumps) and buying some decent replacements I jumped in both feet first. Everything’s growing, fish are happy, water is tested, changed fertilised, co2 administered in liquid form, in fact the only problem is my crappy design. I had envisaged a beautifully aqua-scaped tank, and have accomplished an arrangement comprised of a childishly placed medley of plants, rocks and wood instead. So whilst my fish and plants seem to be having a good time, I’m not. The problem is it’s all up and running, and I now have the following fish – which won’t fit into previous tank whilst I re-design the layout.
6 male guppies
6 female guppies
3 pepper corys
2 dwarf toads
1 siamese fighting fish
What I’d like to happen is for the fake rocks to be covered in short growth greenery in their entirety. I was hoping the java moss would do this – but I have just managed to create mounds of it. Does anyone have any suggestions for a plant type that would fulfil these requirements?
In addition, I would greatly appreciate some re-planting/new planting suggestions that anyone feels might enhance what I feel is a pretty poorly designed layout. All criticism/suggestions welcomed, I have no pretentions of being anything other than a beginner.
I would like to acquire a snowball pleco too, but I have heard they can uproot plants, can anyone advise on this matter too, and is the tank even large enough to house one?
Last but not least, will my tank be approaching the over-stocked level if I did put a snowball pleco in there? I have heard many rules of thumb to do with surface area, one inch per gallon minus cubic volume of scenery etc, but I think I'd just like someone more experienced than me to give me some advice. I did buy a larger filter to accomodate more fish, but don't want to stress them by overstocking.
Tank Details: Epoxy resin-coated Polystyrene backscene, 230 ltrs capacity, over-sized external filter, over-driven twin t5 lighting, large air pump. Co2 in liqid form at the moment, but will upgrade to injection if recommended. Substrate is sand over laterite, over gravel. All plants that are growing on backscene are platted in cylindrical depressions in the backscene itself, with a laterite base.
Unfortunately in the pictures the water looks cloudy white, in reality it's perfectly clear, it's just that the lighting is so bright. |