Partial Replant of 'Guilt'

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Vale!
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My 450L tank (a Juwel Rio 400) was reset into its current configuration six years ago. I made two trays and perched them on supports halfway up the water-column. I'm about to replant the right-hand tray.

I had filled it with a plant-growing medium, laid a perforated plastic sheet above that and capped it with 2mm aquarium gravel before planting with Cryptocoryne ciliata. The whole lot could (in theory) be lifted out, but I'm going to make the changes with it in situ. This thread will document what happens ; I'll add to it every so often during the day.

I've got my table ready for operations ...

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... I'm prepping a batch of water to replace what I'm going to remove from the tank ...

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.. and I have told the tank that its day is imminently to start extremely early :

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I'm just waiting for the change-water to heat up so will now prepare myself with toast and marmalade.
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Stephen
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Good luck @Vale!
425L SeaBray Elite aquarium - Rio Mamoré (Bolivia) theme
4 x Cupid Cichlids, 14 x Cory caudimaculatus, 13 x Cory sterbai 52 x Reed Tetra, 4 x Honeycomb Bristlenose (L519)

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Thank you, S. Marmalade helps me keep calm!

I told the tank that it's now four o'clock in the afternoon and it switched its lights on.

The operation site was obscured by floating plants ...

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... so I removed those to a bucket (else they get everywhere) ...

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... then I started stripping off the gravel. To my surprise I found a layer of sand underneath it - I'd forgotten about that! :

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The perforated plate is about two centimetres under the sand. So I'm now going to suck out gravel and sand together and later separate them with a a sieve before putting them back.
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It's going OK.

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I'm just pausing to put some more water in the tank before resuming syphoning operations.
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The plants are out!

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They didn't put up much of a struggle actually, bless 'em! There was a lot of root mass above the perforated plastic plate and I was able to tear the few larger roots off that had grown through the holes.
The reason for that became obvious when I took a peek under the plate : I'd also forgotten that I'd laid a sheet of gauze just under it to minimise further the leaching of nutrients!

Anyway, nice and clear now...

Left side :

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Right side :

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It looks like the planting substrate is pretty much exhausted. If I jiggle the plate to produce a little cloud of dust from underneath it, the cloud's conductivity isn't any different from that of the tank itself at 138uS.

I found a bag of plant nutrient medium in my museum, so I can use that ; if the layer doesn't turn out to be deep enough, I can always supplement it with root tabs. I'm determined not to take the tray out (it's doing its best to float away at the moment!) and in order to remove the plastic plate I'd have to do that - because a certain amount of wiggling is necessary. So I'll just drop a layer of the planting medium on to it and then cap it by putting the sand, and then the gravel, back. I've got the same gravel in a slightly darker colour (museum, again!) in case I need it.

Coffee and fag break, then back to it!
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Stephen
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break over, back to it then ;)
425L SeaBray Elite aquarium - Rio Mamoré (Bolivia) theme
4 x Cupid Cichlids, 14 x Cory caudimaculatus, 13 x Cory sterbai 52 x Reed Tetra, 4 x Honeycomb Bristlenose (L519)

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That was a lot easier than you made it sound as though it was going to be........ :D
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S : You're a tough boss!

P : Dramatic licence, old chap!


Sand and gravel were separated and washed.

I suddenly realised that it was no wonder that I had that bag of planting medium in my museum - because it's exactly the same stuff as I made up six years ago, minus the rotting leaf-litter, all of which I used at the time!

Anyway, planting medium back ...

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... cleaned sand on top of that ....

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... and gravel :

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Time to get the stapler out!
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Ric
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I still can't quite get my head around your set-up: were the fish able to swim below the mesh or not? Or did the whole thing sit like a giant undergravel filter mesh, just with more space below it?
Certainly worked well for the plants, in any case :)
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No, R. Fish can swim under the whole tray. It's like an overhang on a river bank (or at least that was the original concept!)


The visible edges of the tray are lined with pieces of cork. Also an original concept was that I'd fix Bucephalandra to the cork to 'soften' its edges. But I didn't have enough Bucep at the time (in fact, hardly anyone did in the UK) so I just left it. Now I've got loads, so I've gathered bits from various tanks and have stapled them to the cork. We'll see if it works when they settle. Sometimes the stem dies right underneath the staple and the top bit floats off to find another home, though usually this strategy has been relatively successful.


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I'm now putting some more water in the tank in preparation to plant the tray itself.
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