New Tank Feedback

Hi guys. I'm in the process of cycling and setting up a new tank - Colin has outgrown his other one, and I'm keen to move him into a proper size setup as soon as possible!

Here's some photo's of what it looks like so far. Got the tank 2nd hand for £30 (2ft x 1ft) and made the stand myself out of spare IKEA shelves (with a lot of help from my Dad - he pretty much did it all, lol).
On the bottom are two pieces of slate, sold as table mats for £3, which just happen to fit perfectly across the front Then at the back are some river rocks and another bit of natural slate. The plants are sitting in plastic containers that used to contain yummy humous, with some very small gravel in the bottom, and more rocks in the top. Then finally a plastic hide with 3 holes in.

I've included a photo of the air-stone - I've tried to reduce the flow of air by buffering it with rocks, but it still seems pretty strong Hm. It's only a small pump (smallest they had) but I'm concerned that for my size tank it might cause Colin to stress? He isn't used to very much flow at all. The filter that he currently has, which I'm going to transfer into this setup, doesn't create much flow at all - so it won't add to the water current much. I'm going to add floating Elodea to the top of the tank, maybe this will help to calm the water down some?

Anyway, I've blabbed on too much now - any feedback is greatly appreciated!! Thanks :happy:

The tank is looking good.

A nice little trick I use to reduce the airflow is to bend the hose in half and warp a rubberband around it just tight enough to hold it at the angle I need. You can adjust the flow by how tight or loose you wrap the rubberband. They also sell plastic adaptors that splice into the hose and you can adjust it by turning a knob.

Hi there....
its a really good looking tank, very creative with the tankstand idea....

just curious when you say small gravel....how small? its a bit hard to tell from the picture....

its just i've read that its safer to have larger flat stones/pebbles, sand or a bare bottom for the tank floor, so the axie doesnt swallow or get anything stuck in its mouth when it sucks food in.....

other than that, very impressive set up, im sure colin will looooove it:wink:

Thanks everyone for the comments - i'm moving the lil fella in very soon, so will post some photo's of that shortly!
(I'm worried about the transfer to be honest, catching him is going to be fun... he's a very zippy wriggly customer!)

Oh, the gravel is just slightly larger than sand, but I'm only using it at the bottom of the plastic tubs to anchor my plants, then there are large pebbles covering it. The tank floor is slate and large pebbles, much too big for him to get in his mouth :happy:

There are currently 2 Shrimp in the tank - Bets as to how long they will last? Hehe. Hope they don't freak him out.