260L Aquarium Build: MINDBLOWING Jungle Community Tank (NO CO2 Aquascape Tutorial)

In a previous video, we moved chunks and the ocaras out of this tank. It looks pretty good, mind you. So after I moved the fish out, I pretty much just chucked all the wood back in. It actually looks pretty cool, very moody, very horizontal. So the tank is home to a really nice collection of fish. We got some rusty cories in there, a long, thin bristlenose pleco, two flash plecos, which look absolutely amazing, and then a collection of tetra as well. We've got diamond and lemon tetra. All of these fish, I want to put back in the tank when we're finished building. Yeah, it's great as this is looking. I think we just need to take it out, start again, because with the fish that we've got in here, plus we can add some more, we are not limited to plants. And it's been a while since I went crazy with plants. Apart from the video that you've just done? What video would we have just done? No, oh yeah, that was stick-on epiphyte plants. This is planty plants. Crazy planty plants. The show. Recently took a delivery of a ton of plants from denelaplants.co.uk and from Tropica. But what I usually do, what I have been doing in the past, is just putting them in a shallow bit of water in their pot still and making a little greenhouse. And you know, if you don't use them within a certain amount of time, they can get like mold and things like that if you haven't got the perfect conditions. I was like, why am I doing this? Get some aqua soil in and plant them. Unbelievable. Shock. How did you come up with that? But what I did do, in my defense, I took the tops off of all the immersed growth, so the stuff that's been growing in the greenhouse, I just nipped the tops off and now all the new underwater growth look, it's all grown back, it's really nice. They get converted. So you're planting basically pre-converted plants when you come to- When I come to use them, yeah. Use them, which is great. Even this one, for instance, see that? Just take that leaf off. Yeah, get rid of it. I don't even like it anyway. I mean, it will eventually just sort of not grow and get moldy, do you know what I mean? So you can sort of prune everything whilst it's in here. Then when you come to use it, fantastic. Wonderful. What a revelation. I did used to do this a long time ago, but then I found, oh, now I've got to maintain that tank. But back then I used way too heavy lighting for like incredibly low tech tank, if you like. So now all I do, aqua soil is in, medium lighting, and fertilize it. That helps as well. Oh yeah, that does help. As we found out. Not my new clean lens. Yeah, but it's got a cap for it, yeah. Little... Should probably let the audience know that... Sorry, I was just clearing my throat. We do mess about quite a bit, and you're not really angry with me, are you? No, I am. I will say, though, that I am far more of a wind-up merchant than Steph. Even after all these years, we've known each other now... 28 years? Nearly 30. That long? Yeah, only 29. And I know exactly how to wind him up. He starts to bite, and then I go... I've got you like five times today. Today's been a particularly ripe day for it. Oh my... You warming up? Flash play. We're going to need that. Duckweed. Don't do it. Too risky. We're currently clear of any duckweed. Do you know you've got a million subscribers now? I have indeed got a million subscribers now. Yeah, it's been a long old road. We've not really spoke about it that much, have we? We're too busy. Yeah. Million-shmillion. Exactly. We'll be talking about it when we're at 10 billion. Yes, it's very high hopes for a fish channel, but here it is. I'm ambitious. What are you getting? To stop that going in the water. Quite the operation. Eh? Done. Of course, I don't have to wait now, do I? I've got more, which is a nice problem to have. Oh, this tank feels weird with nothing on top. I noticed some cyanobacteria on a couple of these roots that were close to the light. So I now begin the really fun process of cleaning out a tank. Now, there's actually a lot of wood in here, but we can reuse quite a lot of it if we want to. I'm not going to need this much at all. I want to keep it quite simplistic because it is going to be a jungle tank after all. Substrate-wise, it's all really, really nice stuff. It's very decorative and will work well as a capping layout, but I do want to get some nutrients underneath it as well. Where's the long fin gone? Back wall here. There's the flash. There's two flash. Yeah. One there. Well, he must be in this wood that we've taken out. So it's not in there. Not in there. Imagine it's the big one. Not in there. Yeah, probably. Oh, it's this one. Steph's found him. That's why you've always got to check your wood. Just in case there's a blackout in there. I can't see with the camera. Where are you seeing him? He's in right at the back there. You can see his fins. Ah, yes. You got it? I might have to just break this open because he ain't going to come out unless we put it in the water, shake him for a bit. Not like, you know, horrendously shake him. Yeah, yeah. I think that's the best bet. There's more in there. All right, if I put this in, it's very unlikely he'll come out now because he's been out of water. He's right in a nook there. Obviously we can't keep this in here. So if we move this to another tank and come out in his own time, we've got one over there. We can just leave this whole piece of wood in this tank, which doesn't look great, but it's absolutely healthy. He's been running for a long time. He'll come out in his own time, probably standing outside of the wood. We can then take the wood out and he can go in something better. I need a net. Where is she? Oh, they're all at home. You picked a bad net. The good ones are at home, aren't they? There's one. Come straight to you. Oh, yeah. Whoa, they're fast. Flash. They're clever as well. Good luck. There's probably going to be a watered down part. Well, we've got to take the water out anyway, so. I'm going to switch the filter over again so we can keep it all running. And then there's no rush to the build. I'm going to need two nets. Everything in this tank is fast. It is, isn't it? Flash. Two flash. And some diamonds. Some crud. It's all organic. Want a fair bit of sand in that as well. That's right. Sound awful. Our fish are safe. That is everything, as far as I can tell, unless there's any hiding. Doesn't appear to be, so we're good. Get all this sand out. Right, I'm currently putting this light on. I don't know if I'm going to keep it yet, but I need some parts to write for something I've got planned. Move back a bit. You know, that might look great, or this might be better. I don't know yet, but we're going to start with this so we can actually see what we're doing. Now, first of all, I want a little gravel base layer at the bottom of the nutrient substrate. I've got this stuff here that I've used once before. It's called Power Base by Ganban. Anyway, I got it from DennerlePlants.co.uk. Ganban? Yeah. It's really slip upsaying that, can't you? Yeah, I got it from DennerlePlants.co.uk. It's basically gravel, as far as I can tell, with little bits of nutrient balls in, which I don't know what they are, but we don't need to know, do we? As long as it works. Yeah, pour that in. Whole bag. So, look, it's a tonne of different porous things. Lava rock there, I see, some pumice, some other things. Yeah, so it goes with the beneficial bacteria layer and the nutrient layer as well. Spread it out nicely. Probably supposed to have a couple of bags for this size tank, but I'm not going to, because I'm going to add other stuff as well. And then I bought these little clay balls. Apparently it's peat clay, so it's nutrients as well. Look like carp stuff. I don't know if I can crush them. I can probably crush them and sprinkle them. Otherwise you can put them near big Amazon sword roots and roots of any plants, really, but I haven't got that many, so I'm going to crush a few up and just sprinkle them all over. Here we go, not too small of the pieces. Just want to make sure that you can get it spread out a bit. So what's this going to add? Actual nutrients for the root systems, just everywhere. I guess the idea in a hard ball is that you can put it in the water and directly target areas that are suffering, maybe. But obviously this is a new setup, so we don't need to do that. Bit of Dennerle substrate as well. Can't go wrong with that. We're going for a lot of plants in here. That's why I'm like going loads. Again, you don't need huge amounts. And some aqua soil on top. This is the powder type, but I just want to mix it in, sort of lop all that down a little bit more just before we add the sand and everything to cap the top. So this kind of looks like a complicated system, but think about it. It's gravel, some nutrients, and then capped with sand, bit of aqua soil mixed in, and this is optional as well. Just, why not? Got it. I think this is known as the kitchen sink method. Just chucking everything at it. Yeah. Nailed it. Nailed it. Nailed it. In one. Imagine these just went everywhere. It's happened before. Yeah. Would you call this a power sand? Well, I guess, yeah. I mean, that is an ADA term, I guess. It's their trademark thing, but I just know we're going to have a lot of plants in here, and I just want to make sure that there's enough nutrients for the root systems. Now, I know that with any plants, you can just put them straight in gravel, and eventually they're going to take off and grow, just really slowly, because I've done experiments now with just gravel, with a bit of aquatic compost, and capped with gravelly sand. The difference between the two was very, very different when it's, one was very fast, the other one is doing fine, just not excelling. So, yeah. You don't even have to do this. Just put some sort of sandy gravel down, just wait, and fertilize the water column. That is key. Get that dust all off the back. Might as well give everything a rinse down as well. Now it's time for our capping layer. Hopefully it'll be enough, but I'm not too worried if a little bit of the other stuff pokes through. You know, everything sort of merges together eventually, doesn't it? This is just what you removed from there. That's that. Yeah. There's no nutrients in it, so if there was, I would have just washed it, and then we could reuse it again anyway, but no need. I'm just doing it like this to start with, to make sure I've got an even coverage, and then I'll just chuck it all sort of in a bit deeper afterwards, if I've got any left. Oh, I love all the different little flecks and that coming through. It's so much better. So much more authentic, doesn't it? It's lovely. Now, having said that, I don't think we've got enough thickness there, not without putting plant weights and things, you know, onto all the plants, because you can see there up against my finger, that's not a lot of depth. I want a bit more than that. I'm going to add in even more nutrients and sand at the back. So right now I'm putting a little sprinkle of aquatic pond compost all over the surface of that initial sand, and then I'm just going to cap all this again. Now, if some of this gets into the water column, it's not a big deal. It's designed for ponds. You know, it pretty much sits in baskets, which are sat in the water column. So lilies and things. So I'm not too worried. You know, if you pull up some plants and things and it gets in there a little bit, obviously break up any clumps as well. Now, the temptation is to go to town with this stuff, but trust me, you don't need to. It's a little bit is fine. And then dose in the water column. We're all good. There we go. We've got a much better plant in depth there. Much, much deeper than before at the back as well. So I'm going to plant easily into that now. And more nutrients. So win-win. So as soon as we're going plant crazy with this one, I don't want to go over the top with the hardscape. I want something nice and kind of islandy that spreads out either side. It doesn't take up a huge amount of planting room. This one's all about plant variety, textures, shapes, colors, that kind of thing, and less about some intricate hardscape design, which isn't really my favorite thing to do anyway. For me personally, I like to make the tank more about the plants. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate a really nice hardscape, but sometimes it can make a tank look a bit too contrived if it's all this kind of intricate design. So I'm just going to go for something quite basic and simple that you might see laying at the bottom of a river somewhere, a load of wood caught up in a pile of rocks, that sort of thing. I often find that the best way to start your hardscape is get some rocks in first, and then lodge a load of wood between all of that to start getting your structure. You can always move things around as you go, but you've got to start somewhere, right? And I'm going to use some of the original pieces that we took out, because why not good bits of wood? Seems a shame not to use them. There we go, nothing too elaborate there. We've got four or five pieces of wood. I've basically gone for like an explosion off center, and it's tilted backwards because in this front area here, I want to have a big plume of Java fern. So you won't even see that sort of knotted part, but it'll be a really key focal point in the whole setup. And then I've made sure that there is plenty of room all the way down the back so I can get loads of plants in there as well, just so they're sitting behind the wood, which will look really nice. Now, as always, if I was to go and fill this up with water, now all of that wood is just going to float to the top. So we've got to stick it down with super glue gel, or maybe you can use a paper towel with a bit of liquid super glue. I'm going to use the super glue gel type because I've got a feeling that this stuff is not going to be too floaty because it's already been in water for a long time. Because even though it looks dry on the surface, internally in the wood, it will be quite saturated still. But if you've got brand new wood this size, you'll need something heavy duty. And for that, I usually use like, you know, paper towel, cram it in some of the corners where the wood touches the rocks, and then just drizzle liquid super glue all over it. Now, this isn't the most fun thing to do, but it is necessary. I've had so many incidences in the past where I just thought this would be okay. The wood's waterlogged enough, it'll be fine. Or I've just completely forgot to do it at all. Get all your plants all in perfectly, fill up with water, and it's just a massive mess. And you kind of have to restart completely because how else can you get it to work? So yeah, really take your time with it. Make sure you've got a ton of contact points, and then you should be good. Now, in the end, I did use some of the liquid super glue. And as you put it on the tissue, it kind of smokes everywhere, so you don't want to get that in your lungs. Because yeah, that can be really bad. I'm filming this and then running away. Right, right, right. Everything is now firmly stuck down. Now the fun can begin. The planting. Well, that was quite fun, but planting for me is like the most fun bit because it's going to come to life. We've got plants here. We've got tons of plants here. We've got loads of plants here. Lots of plants in this tank as well. Mostly epiphytes. And we've got loads of plants in this tank as well. And I'm going for an absolute mix. I just want textures everywhere. If you've got a decent sized piece of hardscape like we've got in this one, you can really get away with just a complete mishmash. Sometimes it can look a bit weird if you've got minimal hardscape, but this is going to give a maximum sort of jungly look to it. Plus I've got a ton of crypts back there, and crypts instantly look jungly. Now the first plant I'm going to be adding is Echinodorus blaheri, something like that. This is a type of Amazon sword, and what's great about those is that they cost pretty much the same as any normal plant you'd buy in a shop, but you get a massive big bulk of green straight away. So you can make your tank look really full and feel relatively cheap. Also, they grow pretty fast, they grow pretty tall, and they just look amazing, especially in jungle style aquariums. Yeah, really happy with that. So I've gone for one just off center, one over the other corner, and then just to balance it out, I put one here that's slightly more in the foreground and can have other plants behind it as well. And then obviously lots more in front of it. But that middle point right there now is screaming out for a nice big Java fern. Now I say one big Java fern, what I mean is about five, six, maybe seven, all bunched together, pushed into gaps. So it looks like one big mother plant, but really it's just a load of small ones put together. It's a really good way of hiding any points of the wood that you don't want to see, you know, glue points, things like that. And by doing it with multiple plants, it means we can put them all in different gaps and get more of an even coverage. Next up is the crypts, and I'm going to go to town with them in the mid ground. I've got quite a lot of them. And the way I see it, it's better to have them growing in this tank than using the grow out tank, because then I can just replace the grow out tank with more. Plus it always looks awesome if you just overload them. A shocking choice for me, I know, I know, a lot of plants. Just get them in there. As I always say, buy as many plants as you can afford, even if it means less hardscape. Say you've only got enough for two big bits of wood because they are quite expensive. I'd go so far as to say it's just getting one bit of wood, some rocks, and then more plants. I think plants make the tank even more than the hardscape, but that's just my personal choice. Not everyone's the same, of course, and that's what makes the hobby beautiful. Now that does, of course, look great at the moment, but it doesn't look what I would call overly jungly. I mean, it could do once the water fills it up, but I just feel like I want more plants. I'm being impatient, of course, but that's because I want this thing to look like it's grown in as soon as I finish planting, whereas you guys can obviously let it grow in over a few months and what have you, but I want to give you that sort of final look result straight away. So I've opted to add some more fully grown, not fully grown, but much more mature crips from some other setups that I've got. Dwarf Sag, because it just adds another texture. It'll grow everywhere, just look awesome. And then for a tiny bit of detail in the foreground, a load of Gloss of Stigma. Again, it's been grown out in another tank and we can fill out this foreground as well with it because that's going to look great as the months go by. It's the only one I'm not really filling right out because it always looks a bit weird if you try and do that. It's kind of a plant that has to grow in in its own time. Oh, check that out. We are getting packed full. I'm going to fill the whole thing up now because stuff is drying out pretty quickly. And then I'm going to plant a Dwarf Sag when there's water in it so I can see exactly where it's sitting. Now, when you're filling up a tank like this, it's got lots of different gravel, nutrients, sand, soil underneath. You don't want to stir up that substrate system. Now, way around that, you just stick in some filter floss, ram it into one corner and it should negate a lot of the risk. But just to be sure, fill it up really slowly to begin with and you can speed it up as the water level rises. There we go, all filled up. We're looking kind of misty. That's because, I don't know if you saw the time lapse, but some of the plants lifted up out of the gravel and then I just pushed them all back down again. And obviously that disturbs it all. It was actually so much easier to plant the crypts and the Gloss of Stigma with my fingers rather than tweezers. Once the water was in, just sort of locked it down really nicely. But now of course, we can transfer the filter back over to this tank, already cycled. This water that's just gone in here is dechlorinated. So it's not going to kill off any bacteria in the filter media. And that does mean by tomorrow morning, this tank is going to be clear and then we can add some new additions and dust it up again. It is now the next day. Look at that. We are crystal clear, but I forgot to do something that, well, it was very amateur of me actually. How? How could I be so stupid? Can you guys spot it? I mean, look at it. I should have put Anubias on that bit there. And then there's that bit at the back there because without it, that's disgusting. Now, luckily it's a simple fix. I don't need to drain the water down or anything like that. I can just take some Anubias, put my glue on it and just press it into there and just hold it. Cause the water reacts with the super glue gel, makes it go hard. Alternatively, if you don't want to do that, you can just drain it down and do it again. But it seems like a waste of water, doesn't it? Especially when everything's so clear. And the reason it's so clear is because this wood has been in tanks for a long time. So it's not leaching any tannins anymore. Like even when you come to the side, look, look all the way down. It's perfect. Yeah, I think these two here were the best choice, quite bulky. Get off. And that one as well. These are both Anubias coin leaf. And obviously when you're doing this, make sure you only use the gel type. Because if you use the liquid type, yeah, well, obviously it's just going to go in the water. Now, as soon as I go in the water, it starts to react. So if you get down there quick, press it right in, just hold it for a good amount of time because it's nothing worse than now letting go too early and it floats back up to the surface and all the glue's gone hard. So you just want to make sure you've got firm pressure. It's inevitable that sometimes you will stick your finger to it as well. Right, it's been about 10 seconds. See what that's like. There we go. Holding nicely. And that now all just looks miles better, right? And I'm thinking that glue spot right there is quite small. So I might put a nice little bit of boost on that one. Yeah, here we go. Look, nice little bit of boost green. And voila, perfect again. Oh no, there's another bit. What is wrong with me? Right, now we're perfect. Although saying that, and it's just personal choice, but for me, this light doesn't really work with this style of tank. It's too flood lit, if you know what I mean. I prefer more of a spotlight effect, especially with a jungle aquarium. You get more shimmer, get more shadowy areas as well. Because at the moment it's just, which doesn't really add any character. No, not character. Mood, mood lighting. That's what we need. So I've ordered something that's not off the shelf. It's not really for aquariums. So don't copy me, okay? It's like a lamp that's for your house. Now I've used lamps designed for house many times on tanks before. And I don't particularly see an issue with it. As long as you haven't got splashy fish and an open top tank, of course. Because if you do, then it's probably not a good idea. But otherwise it's just basically the same as having a lamp on in your house. And you wouldn't go, oh no, I better not do that. That said, it wouldn't be very responsible of me to say that these are aquarium safe, because they're not. But what I am gonna do is mount them very high above the aquarium with these little brackets that I've found online. I got all of this stuff from Amazon, obviously, as you can see by the packaging. And I've got this thing to basically hold the lamp in place. And it's got an on button. And it's got a timer as well, actually, which I don't need because everything's on Wi-Fi plugs anyway. And then this is the bowl slash lamp housing. Can't get that out. How do I get that out? There we go. You've basically got a big LED array there. I think this is like 50 watt, 25 watt. But two of them will make 50 watt. Obviously that screws in. And let's check out the intensity. Power on. That is very bright. But like I said, it's gonna be suspended high up away from the water. So it needs to get right down as well. I've got a power meter so I can measure that. That's looking pretty good. Now to make sure that this stays in the right area, which is there, I've got white cable ties to cable tie the cable. But also this end here needs to be rounded off with a Dremel tool just so that the cable just sits nicely in a groove. And I've also ordered some Perspex so I can cut a perfect circle out of it. Mist it up a bit. And then I'll just glue it to the inside of this just to make sure no water can get in. I'll run it for a bit to make sure it doesn't affect the heating. But I covered it up yesterday completely flat on the surface and left it running for hours. It wasn't hot at all. So I think we're absolutely fine in that aspect. But I will make sure. And then that way we're completely covered for any splashes that might happen. You know, when you're doing a water change or a bit of maintenance, it makes it a bit safer. But yeah, everything's fused. The main place is trip board and everything. So yeah, all good. Right, Dremel, Dremel, where are you? There it is. This is very well maintained. But it does have the bit that I need. Where is the tungsten cut? There it is. There's some plastic stuck to it. That is what I'm after for the rounded edge. Now, how well is this going to go? I don't know. We'll go find out. I'm going to take my time with it. Good thing is it's aluminium. So it actually wore down very easily. Don't worry, I wasn't breathing that whole time either. There we go, look, just a little groove. Then we can do this now and cable tie everything tight. Right, lights are now all cable tied, fitted, and I feel they look pretty swish, don't they? The tank is currently still being lit by the strip light, which don't get me wrong, like I said, it's absolutely fine if that's what you want to go for. It has got a bit of a blue tone to me, which kind of makes the plants look a little bit artificial. Let's do a comparison. So here we go, let me set up a tripod. So yeah, this is the Superfish strip light, and then this is the new light in which looks so much better, I think in terms of coloration, much more natural look to it. It is brighter for sure, but once I get some misted covers to go underneath, then that will sort of bring it down a little bit. And the more I mist them, the more sort of down I can bring it. So yeah, it's not like a fully adjustable tank light, but for those two lights there and the brackets cost me just about 50 pounds, I think, or like $70. And that would be the same for one of these lights. So it's, you know, half the price. I think they look good. If I want to spray on black, I can as well. They're not meant for aquariums, but I don't see an issue with it at all. If you do, then don't use them. But if you've just got one tank, then these Lamini lights, Asta 120, work absolutely brilliantly. Get two of them for a four foot, you can do one for a three foot, you can do one for a two foot, and they're all adjustable. And apparently aquarium's safe as well, but let's face it, there's gaps everywhere and it's full of electric. So how much different is that? Let's be honest. I quite like these though. They're quite stylish. Well, I'm well pleased with that because it's sort of feels like it's taken me back to my roots a bit. When I started the hobby, I just couldn't afford all the proper lighting other than really low powered stuff on like Amazon that I now know would have actually worked. But back then I was like, you've got to have more power and more lights. So I used to use my LED floodlights, which would work really well here if I could find a way of attaching it neatly. LED floodlights work so well, especially if you get 6,500 Kelvin or 6,000 to 7,000 in that sort of range. For a tank like this, I'd probably put 230 watts up. You can even get away with 220 watts if you want a bit more of a dimmer sort of look to it as well. They work really well. They're weather resistant, so splashes won't matter. And they've got fans, which is great, so there's no noise. So there is that option. I might do some more of those in the future if you guys want to see, you know, how to do that again because I might have a completely different audience now to when I used to do that. But I think these look a lot more stylish and they work really well. Looks like it's designed for it kind of, or like could fit nicely into a living space. Really pleased it worked. I thought it would, but I didn't think it'd be as nice as this. Yes, but now, now it's time to junglify this tank. You think this is a jungle? You ain't seen nothing yet. What I mean is, we've mostly got larger leafed plants at the moment. Crips, quite, you know, wide leaf. We've got the big Amazon Swords there as well. But a really good way of getting all this to tie together is thinner plants and taller, and more delicate stuff as well. Mix it in. Stem plants, talking about the Dwarf Sag or Val as well, will really help just to bring the whole thing so that it doesn't look like clumps of plants. Almost like it's sort of grown that way over a long time. And over here, look, in this tank, just kind of, where's the cherry barbs gone? They were literally here two seconds ago. Great. Now I can't even show them off to you. Hang on. Guys, guys, there's some guppies. That's annoying. They were doing some, oh, there's one. They're doing some proper strong spawning behavior this morning, which is really fun. Come on, there's way more than that. Why are you hiding now? Anyway, we've got some proper prominent plants in here that will look really good. And this thing needs a bit of a hack back. There's a lot of floating plants on the surface, which is sort of trailing down and making the whole thing look more full than it actually is. Hence why you can't even see the fish. So I've got a little tub for anything we want to keep. Definitely want some of these floating plants. It might need to thin it out a bit because that is way too much rootage. Every jungle tank looks good with floating plants. So this floating plant is a mini water lettuce. Now it's called mini water lettuce, but it actually just grows massive the longer you leave it. It does take a while for it to do that, so that's quite good. And I'm removing a huge amount here, it looks like, but it grows so fast that it's actually necessary. There we go. Look, that's opened things up a ton, and it means we can now get this Mario film, which we definitely want, and get it right. Ah, here's all the cherry barbs. They're down the back here. There comes the male coming. Ah, so good looking, the male is. They'll all start to come forward, hopefully, now. Yeah, I'm trimming the Mario film really low so we've got great length to it because we want to be able to see it. Really nice plant this that I've overlooked for most of my time in the hobby, but if you want something delicate, grows fast, like incredibly fast, then this is your plant. I'm just trimming it down as low as I can so we get maximum length out of it because that's the main thing I want. To be showing through then when we plant it in the new tank. Plus, it's going to grow back very quickly, so that's fine. Oh yeah, that's opened things up quite nicely. See some of the cherry barbs there. They keep darting back to that corner. I know there's two males, just seen one, but yeah, opened it up. Well, it could be the same one keep coming out before I know. Yeah, nice little tank this. Zero algae, which is a rare thing to say in any fish room, let's be honest. There's always a little bit, but this one's been absolutely perfect. No filter as well. It's got a little surface skimmer in it. So I'm just going to group all of these stems up, you know, into one nice bunch. And then what I can do is either plant them straight in or put a little plant weight down the bottom of them and then they'll sit exactly where I want them to. The roots will find their way into the substrate layer. Usually I like to put the plant weights on if I've got stems like this big because it can sit right on the surface and it sits where I want it to. Whereas these are so long that I can probably just plant them and you'll still be able to see them nicely. But it is nice having a plant like this just trailing over the surface as well. Very delicate. You have to be very careful when you pick it up because it almost wants to snap in your hands. Look, that's all come from one stem. No, not that one. That's all come from one stem that I've trimmed multiple times. It's like the gift that keeps on giving. Yeah, saying that, I do want these to be able to sit and trail across the surface. So I'm going to put a little plant weight on them. That means we can then get them to stay exactly where we want and they'll anchor into the sand a bit better. Right, let's get a load of these floating plants in. I've taken or I've snipped off a lot of the roots so that they're not anything like as long. They grow back very quick. So within a couple of weeks, they'll be needing trimming again. Left some of them a bit longer though because it looks quite nice, doesn't it? They're going to make their way wherever they want to go. There is the odd bit of duckweed that I need to look out for, which is very annoying. Yeah, it's just nice. It adds a whole nother sort of element to the tank, having greenery up in the top section. And I can't get enough greenery, to be honest. Lots of you guys have a go at me for over-planting. It's just what I like to do. That's a nice one. It's going to leave little bits in the water for a minute just whilst I've trimmed it all. The reason I'm taking my time and flicking them in like this is because any bits of duckweed then I can very clearly see and remove because when it starts growing in a clump of this stuff, it's very difficult then about chucking out a whole section. I'm also using this to diffuse the light a little bit because it's going to sort of hopefully make its way around in a circle once I switch the filter to be pointing the right way. There we go. I've nicely darkened that whole side. And look, that is a good amount of floating plants. For the moment, the filter outlet is pointing directly down here. If I bring it around here somewhere, it should then cause rotational flow. I've also got the surface skimmer blowing that way as well. I mean, hopefully this works. I'm going to have to rethink my life. And once it starts doing it, yeah, I can see it's rotating. So over time, that's going to pull more that way. Hopefully. Oh, oh, oh, we've got one. It might be just that everything's clumped a bit too much at the moment. So if I get it sort of moving, should be all right. If not, just a little power head over in this corner should sort it. Yay, we're getting rotation. It's like a roundabout of plants. Bit of a traffic jam in this bit. It's somewhat peaceful and mesmerizing from below. Well, it will be when there isn't all these bits floating around. Thanks for spoiling the video. Right, next up, the Mario film. Oh, roots there. And I'm thinking of two spots. The first one just behind the log so that it's poking out. Yeah, about there. Oh, hit the light. Good to know that that's okay. Some more roots in there, look. Looking good. Flare it out a little bit. Oh, au naturel. And then I want the other one over in this section behind this bit of wood as well, which you can't see the top of just yet. Oh, you can a little bit, but I just quite liked being able to see it through the wood. And then for cohesion, I'll go around and like plug little individual ones as well, or like a pairing of them, just dotted about. I've also just spotted that duckweed. Oh no, and there's more. And now is the time to be getting all this out. So I'm going to keep coming back to this tank every 10 minutes for the rest of the day, making sure I can see if there's any dotted about. It's so hard to tell, see, because sometimes it gets trapped underneath these plants. So you just got to bump them about a bit and hopefully see stuff that comes off. I think we'll be all right. Worst case, I take them all out. Just sort of start again with a tank where I know there isn't any. Unless you want it, of course. And good luck to you if you do. I used to put duckweed in all of my plant tanks when I very first started, and it got to the point where I just couldn't see anything in the aquarium. So never again. That's why I like these ones, they stay big and you can just pull them out whenever you want. All right, I think we're good. That is staying there. So I've now fitted an internal filter, and we're probably not going to be able to make it out, but you see the surface skimmer there. Oh, I could just come around, can't I? Yeah, so here is an internal little filter. It is working to a degree, look. It's sending the end floating plants doing a rotation, but I don't want this big area here. So let's see if we can fix that. So I've got a load of pipe worky stuff. Pipe worky stuff? I don't know what that means. Got a load of pipe work here. Basically I'm thinking if we can just put this into the outlet of that little internal one, it'll bring the water to the top and direct it across the surface. We'll get some nice agitation as well. But that's quite long. Don't know if that'll be too much. Let's try it. Right, let's give it a go. Slot it onto the hole. Where's the hole? There it is. Oh, oh. We might be good. Hey? I mean, that's definitely working. Although it is kind of blocking this whole section. Yeah, so it's definitely pushing everything around, look. Making it come back on itself. But I don't think I need it to be this big of a section. So I can just cut this and have like three jets. Three jets will be enough. Right, now we should be perfect. Oh, there we go. That is working a treat. Round and round we go. Round, I don't know what I'm singing. That's not even a song, is it? Now we've got another problem. It's collecting there. I think that's fine, because I think it can only collect that much and then it sort of pulls the rest away. That's fine. Been too picky, aren't I? Right, that's that taken care of. Now it's time to finish the planting. Next up, I'm going to grab some dwarf sage from my no filter bowl. There's loads in here and it's starting to take over a bit. So I need to thin it out a bit and it's really healthy. I also got some nice healthy Vallisanera from some of my other tanks as well, which will look really good streaming across the back. So during this process, all I'm trying to do is just add those different textures. Like I say, we've already got a lot of thick-leaved plants and now we're just adding in something a little bit different. And what I'm doing next is just adding in even more little stems. Just poking out here and there, again, adding textures, a little bit of a color tone difference. All of this is just to give the illusion it's been growing for a long time. And at the end of the day, we're going for a jungle vibe. So let's get it looking like a jungle. Now, if any algae can grow in that lot, well, fair play to it, I say. Crack on. Right, we are ready for fish. Now remember, this tank has been running for a long time. Well, the filter has been running for a long time. It's all cycled. It's all good. So we can put fishes straight away. If you've just set up your tank like this, give it a good couple of weeks to three weeks. Just don't rush it. Take your time with it. Let the plants grow in nicely. And then you should be absolutely fine to add fish. But don't do a ton of fish in one go. One week, get a few. Then next week, get another school or something like that. And just do it steadily. It's actually more fun that way as well, because each week you get to go back to the fish shop. You probably end up buying more plants as well. So the fish that I'm going to add are actually from the tank, the other side of here, which has now got the discus in. And here are all the discus. Looking absolutely amazing. They are not shy anymore. Such a right move, bringing them back into the studio because they're all looking so healthy, eating amazingly well, not skittish at all. And throughout the video, you might've been thinking, what on earth is this? When I first put them in on day one, they were very sort of skittish at being moved again. And they kept swimming up into the corner and just sort of like jumping up a bit and flapping this side. I don't know why it was this side. They didn't jump out or anything, but I was just a little bit worried. So I put this here. They don't do it at all now, to be honest. The floating plants have probably helped, but just feeling a lot more comfortable, I guess as well, has helped. So yeah, I don't actually need that there now. Let's get rid of that. Now, obviously when I moved the discus in here, I had to strip down a tank that was previously set up because we needed the space for them quickly. And all the fish that were in that tank are now in this one. So I can now move them into that new tank. I think they're gonna do really well in there. Look at these emperor tetras. Oh, stunning. And that's even with all the light being blocked from the floating plants. I just left all the floating plants in there with them just to make them comfortable. We've got cardinal tetras. We've got some neon tetras. Harlequin raspora. We've got all the platys in there as well. So they'll add a little bit of a live bearer element to it. And I've also got all the fish that are in this tank as well that I wanna put in there. We've got rummy nose. We've got a golden tetra. I think they're all orange tetra. We've got more cardinals as well. Some guppies. And there are panda corys as well, but it's just ran straight into the middle section as they came to the tank. I'll get them all out, put them in. So as I say, there's a decent amount of fish that's gonna be going in this tank in one go. The canister filter that I've got at the bottom is completely cycled. I'm running an Oase Biomaster 250, which is gonna be more than capable of the water volume plus this amount of plants. But I would say if you just set up your tank and you put in this number of fish, it's not a good idea at all. You can do it, and I have done it before, but it requires careful monitoring. Any spikes in ammonia or nitrite, you need to do at least a 50% water change and be measuring that water for at least a week. And in some cases, if you keep seeing rises, you need to do it a second week as well. It's easier just to leave it running a couple of weeks with the plants growing in, and then you should be good. Now, the first thing to do is get a little bit of a cleanup crew going. And in this tank, I've got a big collection of Amano shrimp. Have I? Yeah. They're all hiding right at the back. I think you can just about make some out there at the bottom, but they've all gone right underneath that area there, but they should just all come out when I put my hand through it. Misted up the tank quite a bit, but where are you, Amanos? There's some. There's loads there. There's also Pearl Grammys in this tank as well, but oh, there we go. They're all coming out now. Come on then, come to the front. Let me catch you nice and easy. We'll get a nice little group of them going. Any more? Where's the rest of you gone? Well, I got one then. This might take a while. Right, here we go then. First animals. Nice collection of Ramsworn snails and Amano shrimp. You guys gonna come out? Oh, there we go. Oh, one left. Couple of snails. So I know a lot of people, they're not fans of snails. Whoa, look at the size of that big mama there. She's a beast. But yeah, I know a lot of people aren't fans of snails, but I am. I mean, I just think they're brilliant. Any sort of ecosystem should have critters in, like snails and shrimp and that sort of thing, if you ask me. And here's the thing, if you don't overfeed the tank, the population just stabilizes itself. They'll continue to breed, but the numbers will just stay at a much more manageable level than some of the tanks I've seen in the past. My father-in-law, for instance, was feeding like three times a day, and there was like hundreds of snails in a tiny tank. So yeah, just once a day, do your feed until your fish have stopped eating, and that's enough. All right, now for our fish. I'm gonna see if I can get as many as I can in one scoop. Most of them are fast though, so it's gonna be tough. Okay, that's good. That'll minimize, oh, that one nearly jumped out. That'll minimize stress a lot, all in one go. And again, got a lot of crud in there. Bit of crud in the water, but that won't matter. There's a couple of them left, but I didn't want to keep these guys in this pot for too long. The filter will clear all that mess in no time. Oh, look at that. Come on, guys. Such a good mix there. Oh, that looks awesome. I just love a tank that's got loads of different colors, species, you know, fish that are all happy together. Oh, that looks so cool. Do you know what? I was gonna do the fish from that tank as well, but I was just sat here watching the fish for a minute, and I think it's just the right amount. I think it works, the different colors, the way they're all moving still in their schools. Look at these Danios up here. Very, very cool and underrated fish. They're staying together nicely. But I'll tell you something, the lights that I've put on here are really making the fish's colors pop. Look at that, I can't even talk. Oh, they look so cool. What an awesome choice. Just noticed that none of the cardinals are out, so they've all probably gone to the back somewhere and just hiding for the time being. But when they do, this whole thing is gonna come to life even more. Oh, it's been about 10 minutes, look. All the cardinals and the neons, and it's starting to come forward now. They're all in a little pocket down there. Can you step back? This tank is awesome. I mean, who wouldn't want this? There's nothing better than a mixture of smaller fish. Obviously, we've got the Pearl Grammys in there as well, which are always way more shy. They will come out eventually. Loving the Harlequin Raspora as well. And because we've just transferred them from one tank to the other, there's minimal stress, which means you just get coloration straight away, which is awesome. There's quite a few guppies and endlers as well in here. So they'll add a nice little bit of movement up in the top sections, and all the other fish will pretty much just go everywhere. Now, it does tend to be that the longer you've been in the hobby, the more you like to get a little bit more species specific with tanks. And that's understandable. It's the natural sort of progression of any hobby, isn't it? And sometimes people have commented, oh, there's too much of a mix of fish in there. It looks messy, that sort of thing. But you have to do what you like. And what I like is lots of different kinds of fish. Even at home, my home tank, now that we've got big chunks in there, we've got the Electric Blue Akara, I've still got a ton of different Corys, Plecos, Cardinal Tetra, and there's even some Danios in there as well. Now, don't get me wrong. There is something to be said for a nice big tank full of one huge school of fish. That does look amazing. But it's a different kind of tank, really, isn't it? It's more of a showpiece, whereas this one is more like a hobbyist tank, I would say. People that just love coming, sitting in front of the tank, taking a look at it for a long time and just notice what the fish are doing, any behavior, spotting any changes, that kind of thing. I think if you want maximum enjoyment out of your tank for the longest amount of time, then having a wide variety of fish can really help. Obviously, you have to make sure that they're compatible with each other. And the fact that these have all been together for a long time tells me that they are. Also, they're all of a similar size. The biggest fish are the Pearl Garamis. But as I say, they're very used to these fish. They might be able to pick off some of the live bearers, not the actual parents, but when they have some babies, which to be honest is not necessarily a terrible thing because the tank could be overrun in no time otherwise. Anyway, I hope you've enjoyed this tank. It's given you some ideas and inspiration. If you've made it this far, then surely you can hit the subscribe button for me. We're over a million now, but it'd be cool to keep that going, wouldn't it? Anyway, I hope you've enjoyed it. See you on the next one.