GBRlehrich
CCA Members
So my parents had a structural engineer come check out my floor that all my tanks sit on, and in a very enjoyable Italian accent, he said "in a matter of time, your floor is going to collapse," the accent made up me distracted from the pure fear I was feeling. Anyway, he said I need to get my tanks on concrete on ground level. My mom was going to renovate the porch to be her office, she is actually even more happy that my room will be her office, which is conveniently right next to her room. So she and my dad are having the porch renovated to be my fish room. I want to have everything looking display worthy. I will have diy canister filters on my breeding tanks. They will be on a stand. And inside of the stand is where the canisters will be. The breeding tanks will be painted light blue on all sides but the front veiw. My 55 gallon will be against a brick wall, that conveniently is a just about the length of the tank with and stand. The 55 gallon will be a high tech planted tank. My 125 gallon will be a high tech planted tank as well. My 20 gallon will also be a high tech planted tank. I'll have a few 20 gals as qt tank, obviously bare. Everything will be sleek and high end. The lights for the tanks will be mounted to the ceilings. I may have an auto water change system. As for substratein planted tanks, I want to use something that provides micro and macro nutrients. We can afford ADA aquasoil, but even so, I think it comes at an absolutely absurd price. Aquasoil only consists of black soil for volcanic soil. Regular garden dirt provides everything that aquasoil does, however, dirt needs a cap. So I decided to test my skills and made pure clay from dirt, litterally. I put dirt in a bucket, filled it with water, swirled it around, and poured it through a strainer back and forth between 2 buckets until I had removed everything but clay water. I let the bucket sit overnight, in the morning I siphoned out the water sitting on top of the clay that had sink to the bottom. No I have a gallon of pure clay, made from only 3 shovelfuls of dirt. It is nutrient packed. I will fire it in the oven to turn it solid, so it will be able to go in a tank without a cap, and will look good too. I will also have a few paludarium drip walls with tropical plants, and lots and lots of Bucephalandra, yep, that's right, buce. I have a friend in Borneo Indonesia, who has private land with ALOT of Bucephalandra. He can send my up to 200 plants at a time without me having to get an import license, because he has an export liscense and a phytosanitary certificate.
