Well, I've finally gotten around to doing the hardscaping for my tank. I must admit, I played it by ear, the hardscaping was done on the fly. I'm ok with the rocks which I got from aquaristic, but disappointed because I had requested for 1 kg of my order of landscape rocks to be smaller since I wanted to use it for the ADA 13 litre. When i opened my package all the rocks were big, in fact, 2 of the rocks were too big to use for my tank...so I've essentially wasted just a few euros on rocks. Maybe i can use the rocks as door stops (or maybe not) :P

If anyone is reading this blog, hope to get some comments about my hardscaping...pics can be found in my gallery.

Also, I took some photos of the temporary amano shrimp tank. Unluckily I'm not sure how they're going to do, 2 days ago the HOB filter (Azoo Mignon 60) failed on me :(

Well I suppose you can call this my first blog entry! :)

For the past 3 years, I have wanted to start an aquarium. At first, I was interested in starting a nano saltwater reef tank, but after viewing some works by Takashi Amano, I decided to take the plunge with a freshwater planted tank.

All the equipment that I purchased come from various sources, mainly from aquaristic.net (since their prices beat those of LFS here in Finland), adgshop.com, aquaforestaquarium.com and aquaessentials.co.uk. My 54 litre aquarium was bought locally from Helsingin Akvaariokeskus, since it's quite a heavy item to order internationally....though...the same could be said about the aquarium light :)

Here is a list of the equipment that I have:

MP aquarien 54 litre tank
Jäger 50w heater
Eheim 2213 external filter
ADA Lily pipe inflow V0
ADA Lily pipe outflow P-2
Arcadia Overtank luminaire T5 2x24w
Aluminium/oak aquarium stand from Helsingin Akvaariokeskus
aquaristic.tec co2 tank + pressure resistant tubing
Papillon co2 pressure control
Dazs co2 bubble counter
Rhinox beetle co2 diffuser
Aquili co2 drop checker

ADA 13.5 litre nano tank
Azoo Mignon 60 HOB filter
Arcadia Arc-pod 11w light

My plan is to have the 54 litre tank with just glossostigma elatinoides growing on the ground amongst jagged rocks. With my 13.5 litre ADA tank, I currently have 5 Amano shrimps occupying it. Though, it will change soon and I plan to landscape it with Hemianthus callitrichoides in the foreground and Eleocharis parvula towards the back amongst jagged rocks.

Here is a list of the planting equipment that I have:

ADA Aqua soil Amazonia
ADA Power Sand Special-S
Normal bright aquarium sand (to put towards the front of the 54 L)
ADA Green Brighty Step 1
ADA Brighty K
ADA ECA
ADA Green bacter
ADA Green Brighty Special Lights

For the 13.5 L:

Tropica Substrate
ADA Aqua soil Amazonia
Seachem Flourish
Seachem Flourish Excel
Seachem Flourish Iron

I'm awaiting a package from Aquaristic which contain 4 kgs of rocks and should be due tomorrow (4th of Jan 07). Once it arrives, I'll be working on the hardscape of my 54L and post up some photos. Let's see, usually I suck at keeping up blogs, maybe this time I'll be motivated :)