Back again

Hi Everyone,

It's been a while and since I was here last we've moved house; the axie family by necessity had to be pulled out and their home completely demolished to be rebuilt at our new place.

Sadly, we lost three of our old friends due to our new house lacking airconditioning and it getting to temperatures of 40C plus inside this last summer. Despite desperate attempts to keep the temps down we had to bid sad farewell to Fanta, Monster and Turbo as they couldn't handle the heat. :sad:
Since then we've added a chiller to the setup and the tank is now kept at a constant 18 degrees regardless of what's happening elsewhere in the house. Expensive, but decidedly worth it for the sake of our amphibian friends' comfort.

So, here's the new setup, hope you like it!

That's a really gorgeous setup you have there! I hope mine looks that good someday

e: such a shame that you had to lose a few of your little mates in the heat I have been struggling keeping my tank under 20 degrees even in the beginning of winter so we've just added a chiller. And yes. very worth it!

I agree; that set-up is fantastic. I had just about given up on aquascaping my axolotl tank because of some of the... "complications..." that these charming, clumsy, poo-machines can create (especially for lighting, temp, and substrate). You are inspiring me to give it all another go. Is that FloraBase for the substrate? How many hours a day are the lights on? How many WPG do you think the tank gets?

Wow, man. I bow before you.

Panoramic shot, nice! (Sorry I'm a bit of a nerd )

Looking good, I'm gonna start setting up my 3ft tank soon, hopefully with some live plants.

Oh and I thought I would ask seeing as I would like some live pants in my aquarium. I would like to know what substrate you use to keep the plants healthy and growing? and general maintenance do you have to do with your tank?

Gorgeous!!
Mel

Thanks, everyone for the wonderful comments :happy:

@daniellog & jclee: The substrate in there is a layer of laterite around 2-4cm deep covered in 1mm black gravel.
Laterite is horrible muddy clay that gets everywhere and stains the water brown so the layer of the fine gravel keeps it down and undisturbed by axie freak-out moments.
The laterite is rich in iron and the plants love it; the 1mm gravel is fine enough to hold down the laterite and not pose an impaction risk to the axies.

@jclee: the light is on a timer, it comes on at 4pm and turns off at 11pm. It's a single 40w tube called 'Aquaglow' by Hagen, specially designed to promote plant growth (some nerdy stuff about the colour spectrum or something) but it's not too bright so as to upset the critters.

Thanks for the details. One of these days, I'll have space and funds for the "axolotl dream tank" that I'm designing in my head. I hope it looks half as good as that when I get around to putting it all together.

hi....i love your tank...it looks great
lea