talldutchies 33 gallon semi-biotope

**talldutchie** · 12-05-2012, 07:49 PM

I picked up this tank used for about a 3rd of the new prices. Found it on the local equivelant of craigs list. The previous owner got bitten by the bug pretty badly and was already upgrading to something twice as big.

This particular brand comes with internal filters in the right corner. Good filters but they do take up space and since I expect to look into the tank from the right a lot it had to go.

Also in that picture is a piece of wood I found i na local shop.

Now that the tank was there it was time to start thinking of what it wanted to be. I must have looked at several 100 tanks for inspiration. A few scapes like this:

appealed to me but I kept coming back to Heiko Bleher's biotope series. This Rio Morte biotope he did for a show in 2006 struck a chord:

The weirdly asymetric riverbank inspired me. I considered going for a strict south american biotope but then I looked at all the lovely plants in my current tank and I just couldn't.

So. Together with my wife who has a very good eye for interior decorating I did quite a few sketches and came up with a design.

I was already over budget for this project and I was short some sand so I got play sand and used that for the countours. I cut up a few yoghurt pots to use as dams to keep the sand a bit in place.

**talldutchie** · 12-05-2012, 07:55 PM

After that was in place I covered with pool filter sand. I've really fallen for that. IT's a relatively big grain but well rounded and it's so clean when it comes out of the bag!

The pebbles I bought at a local garden center for about a buck for the lot.

2 days later I was finally happy with the placement of the hardscape. Especially getting the wood just right in position was a challenge.

A second piece of wood from a project quite a few years ago was fetched from the garden and used to create some balance and hide the filter intake.

**seb's fish** · 12-05-2012, 07:58 PM

So far looks pretty good! =) Keep up the good work!

**talldutchie** · 12-05-2012, 08:09 PM

oh, it's up already, just sharing this bit to show anyone interested that this style of aquarium doesn't need to be very expensive or difficult.
Catching up on the back log so to say.

**seb's fish** · 12-05-2012, 08:13 PM

Oh! What's it stocked with? =0

**talldutchie** · 12-05-2012, 08:17 PM

In due time, in due time..

**j250nyahweh** · 12-05-2012, 08:44 PM

Super excited to see where this is going... off to a great start and you must be happy with the end result to go through the trouble of posting the play by play.

Lovin' it so far!

**Goes to 11!** · 12-05-2012, 09:44 PM

LOVE a beauty of a budget tank!

Watching with interest.

**jeffs99dime** · 12-05-2012, 10:08 PM

I saw this tank on plantedtank.net like last month.

**talldutchie** · 12-06-2012, 04:14 AM

OK..

At this point I've got about 50 euros worth of decorations in the tank with the wood eating up a large chunk o fthat.

If you have access to wood locally you can collect your own. Make sure it's really dead, not from a resinous tree and boil it a bit first.

Anyway, time to start planting and here's the reason why I call it a semi-biotope. There's planst from all over the world here.

Plants involved:
rotala rotundifolia
Lysimachia nummularia 'Aurea'
Pogostemon helferi

All of these are plants I bought months ago as a single plant and which since then replicated well. Because I was using sand which is very poor in nutrients I also added a few of these.

http://www.zspetshop.hu/image/cache/...en-500x500.jpg

In this stage I also added two ceramic caves to allow my bristlenose to breed should they want to. I picked one up for a buck in the "slight fault, greatly reduced" bin and the other was a more expensive one from a local pottery artist who also likes fish and makes small batches of caves. Still, at 7 euros I'm not complaining.

I found a way to mount the filter intake by taking a clamp with suction cup and removing the suction part. The clamp could then be pushed into the styrofoam background.
Added more water and some Echinodorus tenellus from my daughters where it was doing a bit poorly.

Got some Vallisneria from a friend and took some anubias cuttings from my old tank to camouflage the heater.

Here's how I got the anubias to stick where I wanted. Cable ties!

At this point my "free" supply of plants ended. If I'd bought this lot at an online plants store I probably would have paid 20-25 euros.