Another Newbie

[Vale!]

There is a useful guide to substrate heating cables here . This is a reliable and easily-digestible source for fishy matters, despite the website's name! They even make sure to include the date of the latest update to each article : I wish more websites would pay attention to that!  The only detail I'd quibble with is where they say you should lay the sand first and then clear away spaces to accommodate the suckers. It would be a monumental pain to do this so there's not a single grain of sand left in the space - otherwise the suckers won't work for long, if at all!  Much better to plan ahead where the cable's going to snake around and put the suckers in first!

Whilst you're there, check the links re substrates, their setups and plants given at the foot of the page.  There's one for external canister filters as well, for future reference.

When you've gauged how deep your substrate is likely to end up being, you'll be better informed about whether a substrate heating cable (and the suckers, which aren't cheap and they never seem bundle the number you actually need !) is worth the investment.

[derekmines]

Thanks for all the links, I've read and digested a lot of information from them and have started to form a plan.

I'm going to go with live plants from the off, it seems to me they add another dimension to the tank so:

3d Polyresin style background (I much prefer these to the normal one dimensional backdrops, plus I can cut channels to hide cables in the rear of them)
JBL Protemp B20 substrate heating cable kit
A 1cm layer of Tropica AquaCare Plant Substrate
A 4cm layer of the existing inert gravel that I have
My existing filtration, heater and oxymax devices

Once these are all installed in the tank I believe I'll be ready to start the water preparation process, the previously recommended test kits for this should arrive shortly.

Does this all sound OK so far?

[Vale!]

Yes, sounds fine. I do recommend that you surround the heating cable with sand, though. Cheap old playsand from Argos, or wherever, would do the job well enough.

That would bring the minimum depth of substrate to 6cm, which is perfect for rooted plants. It's usual to 'bank' the top layer of substrate so that it's a little deeper at the back. Aesthetically it adds a little to perspective ; and it encourages any grot to gravitate towards the front of the tank, from where it's usually easier to remove (if that's your thing). I'm pretty sure you'll have enough of your existing gravel to take care of the banking bit.

I'm on my tablet at the moment, which means that I'm not confident of keeping this text if I scoot back to the beginning of the thread! Did we determine that you have hard water? If not, and your water is soft, and if you were thinking of stocking Corydoras catfish and other critters that like to rummage in the substrate, then having that gravel as top layer would not be a good idea ; it would have to be sand. If you have hard water please ignore that - it becomes less likely that suitable fish would make that an issue.

Now then. What can we consider while you're waiting for stuff to arrive? How about the mechanics of water-changes.

You'll be removing around 20% of water from the tank each week and replacing with fresh. How might you do that? 

Can water that you're removing go straight outside, by gravity, to a garden or to a drain? If so, roughly how far would that be?

When refilling, would it be buckets and brute force ; or bucket-in-the-sink and a pump, perhaps? Also, as a related question, how does your domestic hot water work - is it stored, for instance, or does it heated fresh as soon ss you turn a tap? (There is method in the madness of the question, honest Guv).

[derekmines]

All understood and will follow the advice reference the sand, it makes sense to me.

Water changes.....

My thoughts were to get a piece of hosepipe and start the flow by sucking on the end, gravity can then take it straight out of my french doors (a distance of approx 3m)
Refilling will have to be by bucket I think.

Hot water in my house is via combi boiler, heated fresh as I turn on the tap.

[Vale!]

The hot water situation is fine. You could dechlorinate the tank, park a bucket (preferably used only for this purpose) in your sink, run the water to tank-temperature, set it to fill the bucket and then use a cheap pump to drive water from bucket to tank, such that the bucket never empties until you're done..

Yes - (re draining a tank) I do that. The distance from the tanks to the drain is around ten or eleven yards. Very useful if you're hoovering debris off the surface and break the syphon. As soon as the hose is re-immersed the flow starts again because of the water still in the pipe travelling drainwards!


Just to be personal for a moment ... I have a garden butt outside in which I prepare change-water. I fitted the butt with an immersion heater and a couple of airlines to stir.  I suppose I could have used buckets but merely the thought of carrying them back and forth was enough to exhaust me. The pump method is so much easier. I reckon you'll go for it sooner or later!

If you haven't already bought a dechlorinator, I can strongly recommend Seachem Prime.

Do you want to start thinking about what you might need to cycle the tank? Or are you working on plants and fish at the moment? Anyway, let us know when you're nearly ready to start cycling.

[derekmines]

I'm in the process of sorting out a sideboard unit for the tank to sit on, I also need to order the bits listed in my post #22

Once all that's sorted and the tank is in situ I shall be ready to learn about cycling - that said, I have already been reading about nitrates, nitrites etc so hopefully I won't look completely blank at the advice lol

Not sure if it'll mean anything to you or anyone here but my fascination with fish started as a kid when I lived opposite a chap called John Dawes, who I understand nowadays is quite a name in fish circles!

[Vale!]

I have no idea why, or how, a whole paragrah of my last was relocated. I couldn't do it on my tablet even if a Fry's Chocolate Cream were at stake. When I'm next on my PC I'll edit so that it makes some of the sense originally intended. Apologies - that must have been baffling to read!

I recognise the name 'John Dawes'. I'm sure I bought a book by him once (not for personal use). That means I rated it highly. Which makes it objectively an excellent book 



[Edit : Reply #25 now sorted!]

[Vale!]

Homework!

A couple of things that are going to be handy for you to know are : the volume offered to fish for swimming around your aquarium ; and how much volume 1cm of height occupies.

In your OP you specified that it's an Aquael 170L.  It looks like Aquael doesn't make 170L tanks at the moment, so maybe yours is an obsolete model. They do however make 70L aquariums. I just wanted to check that there wasn't a typo in your OP - though I very much doubt that you had a finger go feral as you were typing the volume! From your pic the size looks consistent with a tank of around 150L.

Anyway, here's a useful calculator for bow-front aquarium volumes.  Measure the external length and widths, subtract the thickness of glass from each measurement and enter the resulting numbers into the calculator, specifying 1cm as the height.

You'll then be able to work out roughly the volume that your substrate is likely to occupy overall, and the volume that each layer of it is likely to occupy. From there, amounts of each component that you might need to buy may become clearer (substrate materials are sometimes sold by the litre ; sometimes by the Kg).

You'll also be able to return to the calculator to find out the swimming volume of the tank (without décor). That's the volume delineated by the top surface of the substrate and the surface of the water. The 170L quoted is probably the tank volume when it's brim-full.  When it's running, the water won't reach the brim ; rather, it'll be a tad below the rails which, I assume, support the hood.

Let us know the results of your computations when you're done?

[derekmines]

As far as I can tell from online comparisons I have an AquaEL Classic 100 - bow fronted with a 170 ltr capacity.

Measuring from the base to the top of the water level then according to that volume calculator I have a theoretical total vol of 37.06 UK Gal and a realistic vol of 33.35 UK Gal

Assuming that we'll work with the realistic volumes for the other calcs, that gives me

substrate volume of 0.71gal per CM
If we assume 6cm of substrate in total then I have a swimming volume of 29.1 Gal or 131 ltr

[Vale!]

Excellent!