Building A Jungle Community Ecosystem_ First Aquascape NEW STUDIO! _EP07_ Warehouse To Fish Studio

Yeah it definitely needs to be black. Agreed? Sorry I was just texting my mum. Yeah. I thought you were on Candy Crush. No I completed it. I don't think you can complete it. Oh I did. That's why I'm tired. I was up all night. Candy crushing. I started a YouTube channel in my kitchen seven years ago. I was only doing it for fun, didn't think much would come of it and very quickly I upgraded to a little shed. Filled this up incredibly fast and then moved on to a bigger shed same pattern repeated filled this up very fast i then rented out a couple of small office spaces a few years later i filled those up and then finally rented out a nice tall ceiling converted barn after three years of great times in this barn i finally outgrown it and whilst randomly looking at some properties that were available one came up that i just could not ignore i was going to rent it three years earlier but couldn't afford it but the fact that it was up for sale and on for a really good price it was like a sign i just had to go for it this is the story of me converting my very own industrial unit into an amazing fish studio slash clubhouse whatever you want to call it come along for the ride i hope you enjoy it it's going to be insane congratulations thank you join us um i thought you're telling me congratulate well for completing candy crush oh no no you join us upstairs in the mezzanine area we'll have to come up something better than the mezzanine area the gallery yeah i think we can do better than that okay we'll work on that you join us upstairs the gallery oh look out there so today i'm scaping this is going to be the first scape in the new studio i'm going to opt for this one and work my way out uh we've got lighting ready we've got filtration ready we've got everything it's a creepy one creaky but i'll send it back, send the mezzanine back, how do we stop that, just don't walk there ever this is literally the walkway, yeah anyway we're not worry about that, see i'm going to be escaping this one today, it's going to be our first aquascape that i've done a proper one in like two months so i'm itching, i was going to wait and get everything sort of in but that's going to be ages and yeah i want to get something nice, something cool in here like something for you guys to see as well other than just painting everything on that we have painted that first coat, yeah yeah the last episode we we painted up to here and just for some strange reasons didn't paint that bit and then was like we need to paint that, yeah it looks much better Oh, there's that one over there as well. Okay. So, yeah, first thing I need to do, though, is as you can see at the back, I don't know if they can make out on the camera, but you can see all the pipe work. Yeah, you can see them. Once the lights are up, you can probably see it a bit better now. But, yeah, you can see all the pipe work. It doesn't look good. I think a black background on all of them will look good because, obviously, the wall is there. Then there's this big white stripe at the top, which kind of looks a little bit weird. It doesn't matter that much. But, again, let's hide all the equipment. Yeah, let's do it. Paint it black. more painting can't wait, well we're doing this very quick, oh that definitely looks miles better look at that and also since we've done that we finished this wall and then steph just started masking up this wall, we're doing this wall as well, do you know what, it actually makes sense steph do you know why, because because it does just because we're putting green everywhere but i do like the theme of it in here, it's not just gonna be green there's gonna be lots of wood accents and obviously planted tanks as well but uh at the moment look all we're getting is reflection of white in this glass yeah it will help we will not get there make it feel more like a that lounge feel yeah i think so plus it's gonna with loads of fish tanks yeah the fish tank lounge that's the fish tank lounge that's the name in the mezzanine yes we can get we will have enough room for a little sofa as well spinny chairs yes but you know like on friends that joey and Chandler have yeah and we're friends uh lazy boys that's them yeah also if this is green it clearly defines the zones yeah it needs it everything's very white yeah and we don't want it to be white we just had it white so it was a base a base in the place um we don't need to film this welcome to the MD Decorating channel today we are going to paint right we're ready to go oh that wall has had its first coat which actually means now it looks really good you have to think about these things when making productions you see yep um first thing we need is a substrate system and I'm going to use my usual eco system system system order because someone called it something mess which was quite good I'm going to use my mess system MD's ecosystem substrate thank you to the commenter who did that the viewer viewer and commenter so how do you make mess so to make mess first of all we need to get a gravel I'm going to do this all in there but you can do it in a bucket and not risk scratching up your glass first of all I've got this grain size look of gravel it's like 10 ml pee isn't it yeah 10 10 and below 10 and below yeah pea gravel plus some weird sandy stuff that was at the bottom but i have washed it important that you wash it if you get it from like a builder's merchants or something like that if you get it from aquarium shop at this sort of size which you probably won't because it's normally finer isn't it um they normally pre-wash them but yeah just give it a rinse anyway and then we want to put a two to one ratio two parts gravel one part aquatic compost into that and then mix it in there's really nothing more to it it's not that complicated but if you use aquatic compost you can do two to one if you use organic sort of compost that you'd use in your gardens um make sure it's organic and no added like stuff to it i'd go even less i'd go like four to one that makes sense yeah yeah four to one half of what you do yeah yeah because it's just because it's even more potent than this stuff this stuff designed to sit in water columns and not just make algae blooms you did it you did a test in the studio that was not that was topsoil it was topsoil yeah which naturally seems to be even less than this yeah because it didn't really do much i mean it helped but not like the plants are growing they're just nowhere near as quick i found as this stuff but yeah you can use tops you can use anything really as long as it's organic yeah i found that this to be the best oh great it's all solid and it's not an exact science the whole two to one thing it's like it's approximate sometimes if i know i'm going to be putting an absolute ton of plants in i'll just put a little bit more in maybe or then you know a little bit less if it's going to be just say some val at the back even if you did two to one with just val it's still it'll be good fine yeah it's a good good baseline just go two to one and you can get this stuff online as well but if you really are struggling to find it just go to like a a garden center that does ponds i mean this is like the industry standard i think around the world maybe not in somewhere like indonesia it's got a big british flag on the side of it yeah this one's from britain i don't necessarily mean this product exactly but you know a classic console i think it's quite a common thing but i'd say that's about two to one um it looks like more but there's a big pile of gravel under that then it's just a case of mixing it all in together getting rid of any clumps as well oh you've gone for the lights off stefan well i just wanted to see because it's the first time we've been filming up here properly yeah it's all new isn't it i have half on half off oh yeah yeah make sure we told the contractors we wanted that didn't we which means we've got options we've got unlit to a degree yeah but the tank's not well i don't know i'm assuming in a minute it'll be better when we've got everything in yeah so that's all mixed in and that will work absolutely fine and do well but if you really want to turbo charge it the Dennerle substrate powder back in the day i only ever used to use gravel and this stuff and i used to get amazing success with that long-term success as well so i'm just going to add a little sprinkle to it not too much just basically just packing it full of extra iron like i say you don't have to do this stage but if you can get hold of the substrate powder and Chopper could do one as well it's basically the same product yeah i'm just gonna drizzle it all over the top it's quite potent stuff so you don't want loads and loads but it's all going to be locked down as well so we're all good we then mix that in as well yeah we'll do i don't know if it needs to but can't hurt can it no so i've used like quarter of the bag there for that big area so it goes a long way if it didn't have the aquatic pond compost down i'd probably use most of that bag with mixed with gravel so i find that yeah aquatic compost for the win it's cheap it's easy and that's going to fall on our heads at some point see as i say just mix it all in a little bit so you haven't got any pockets of it sometimes you can have too many nutrients in one area for roots and they sort of get root burn and then depending on the style of tank you want to do you can bank it up more at the back if you want i've got just enough here maybe just to go nice and flat almost everywhere i'll leave it clear in the foreground just so it looks a bit bit nicer which won't matter because the roots will just find exactly where they need to go and then after i've spread it to where i want it to all to be i just go around and just compress it a little bit you know just stops any bits floating above the capping layer that we're going to do next just go get low right get low right next up is just to cap this whole layer with some washed substrate that i've used previously it's like a massive mix of everything bits of sand in there there's some gravel and i'm just putting the front first so we don't push all that soil forwards so this isn't our main like decorative layer this is purely just to lock it down a little bit and there'll be a bit extra on top of this as well there's the colors that we want that's the perfect amount yeah pretty much because i'm going to add a higher layer as well anyway so you want a good inch total over the top of your soil some areas haven't got that at the moment but that'll be fine once we put the final coloring on i do like how this looks though it looks very natural yeah it's got some real shinga in it hasn't it oh yeah yeah that's what's giving it the natural i don't particularly like the white in it though no i mean we've just mixed everything that we had at the old studio what old studio yeah just one big pile didn't we just to give us like this to be able to carry on with everything we've broken down we've kept and just made like a stockpile of it that sits outside and then we can just wash it all off as when we need it good old reuse as they say you watched perfect stuff like yeah starting again would be absolutely silly absolutely silly so silly right first of all it feels so good to be scaping again although this is just a substrate system but i've just realized we don't have anything here it's all the old studio we've got no hardscape we've got no decorative sand got a little bit but i also want to sprinkle off some actual like beachy style sand on top just to yeah right let's go back to the old studio pick out our hardscape so hardscape sand rocks i suppose that's still hardscape plants as well yeah oh we need to get a lot stuff for planting maybe we need to make a list a little yeah because i'll forget four of those six things yeah i'll just come back with rocks just two rocks damn it sand plants i'm sending this one to you i'm just saying my phone's vibrating loads are you just messaging me yeah well just put it in one message oh yeah i like to do it as a list list my bad that's how it's come through well already outside from where we previously breaking broken down some tanks we can see some stuff that's going to work really well so this piece here when you go for get that off and when you go for a jungle style which is what this tank is going to be one of my absolute favorites to do thin pieces work so well because you can just lay them in and you've still got so much planting room but you do get like a nice visual impact that piece 100 percent and i think we'll just want one more coming off the other side and then that will be it for wood oh to be fair that one could work i could be escaping outside your dojo they're a little bit different aren't they a little bit yeah but that sometimes that doesn't matter we'll go with those as potentials that's a definite i think i've got another one like that inside oh yeah we've got this nice manzanita as well steph it's got a bit more curves to it it's very prongy though that one ah hang on oh yeah that's perfect quite gnarly gnarly dude done now for rocks i mean these are massive no we're saving those for something big um we've actually got quite a few rocks left over from the kits that we did with the rack holding tanks yeah there's a couple of nice detail stones down here though that we can take again you don't need too many because i want it mainly to be plants fish are going nuts so it's going to be a bit of a shame to uh break down the jungle tank that we've got here but like i say we're going to recreate a jungle this is too full anyway obviously i've just been putting plants into here because i wasn't able to put them as we're breaking stuff down but now we can seriously thin it out and they should just come up nicely because i've just rested them on the top from weights oh that one's bedded in well good that's how good the substrate system is proper rootage Just look at all of that. So this is the Symmetrix 53B. Some nice limna as well. Basically, in a jungle tank, what's quite cool is you just kind of do a bit of everything, but one thing that's great is crypts. They work so well as a jungle tank mid-ground. Oh, eh? Look at them beauties. Nice lily down here as well. Yeah, that could be a good shot, although we've got that really good one in the quiet place tank. So what I've done with this crypt, look, wrapped all the weights around it and just left it on the substrate surface. find that if you move crypts and you bury the roots straight away they tend to like mount off for whatever reason so if you just rest them the roots do that they find the nutrients will you do the same in the new jungle tank yeah definitely like push them in a little but not bury them i've collected our plant weights we've got plants down there and i've covered them up so they don't all just go bone dry we've got our sand i think that's it we've got gravel and hardscape outside, let's load up the vehicle, let's go, I'll tell you what though after we finish this tank, we're really gonna have to start getting some of these tanks out of here, yeah, to be fair one two three four five six seven seven are out already, eight, there was another one, these are all so simple to break down, you're going to do this whilst I'm away next week, aren't you Steph? yeah leave the shrimp because we can just do that very simply um, and if you do all of these because the the fish and the shrimp can be put into the cubes, yeah that's that whole area clear, that's that clear, these will take a day so that's half the studio done by the end of the next week, yeah, plus the new racking will be up or arrived and ready to be built as well for all the nanos okay, right, panic over, we are back, we have got, well, hopefully everything we need, probably not literally probably not, is it probably not, I'm just going to crack on anyway and uh hopefully it's building in my head, yes, seems like we've got everything, right the first thing I want to do is pull this away from the foreground so that we don't see it as much, I mean it's not too bad but I think it will look better, get all of it off before you do that, I think it'll look better with just being exactly like the rest of the substrate, the main decoration I want of decorative sand is this, our favorite stuff, love it but with a twist oh twist of lime see i'm just going to use it start with i mean it's not too dissimilar to what we've got i just don't really like the white bits in this one the one underneath yeah yeah because this one has got off white which to me is a little bit more realistic i mean it's all probably going to mix together a little bit anyway it looks exactly the same it's nice having some of the root shingu coming through being able to allow water to penetrate and flow nutrients everything like that like exchange if you like not just gas exchange because ultimately the uh the compost that we put in there will kind of break to kind of break down and make its own decent background levels of co2 and that might be just at the start that's when you really want it right you want that initial growth and then you know i've done it before i start tanks with full co2 and then after like two months the canister will run out or something and i just don't bother redoing it but the tank just carries on looking amazing it's almost like a great way of starting it and i'm kind of simulating that with the breakdown of the organics that green behind you looks great by the way i was listening to anything you're saying i didn't think you are you've had like a glazed look in your eyes yeah i was just looking at the screen you've heard it all before anyway haven't you i've never listened well you better start listening because as people have requested you will be doing one soon as in like leaving they're not doing one like do one building one oh for our american viewers do one means clear off go get out do a bit more and then i'm going to go over the top again with that other stuff just to really thicken it out and detail it love your t-shirt by the way oh have a go on you've got the new discus yeah it's one of my favorites i've got a few of these so it might look like i'm always wearing the same one but it is available now from emmyfestains.com and if you're staying still i can't hey we haven't done that for a while we haven't done that for a while we've been so busy yeah um i've spent way too much money on this um if you'd like to help us any extra other than watching which is enough don't get me wrong but like if you want to buy some merch and help support the channel future builds future development of this whole thing then you can help by get some merch emmyfestains.com no i didn't all right thanks guys i just just want to explain why i said dickus then i wasn't being childish it was because oh when you made the spelling mistake on the website on the website yeah i spelt discus completely wrong spelt it dickus Dickus, yeah. Luckily it got noticed relatively quickly. I don't think it was relatively quick. I noticed it like a week later, didn't I? Well, in the scheme of things, that's quick. Maybe we should just name it Dickus Range. I quite like that. It's funny. Yeah. You appear to just be filling up the tank full of sand. Well, it's because I need to make sure, though, as much as I don't want a load at the front creating like a big thick line, which I don't really like the look of, I still need to make sure I've got enough to push plants in that are going to get anchored down. Most of the plants have actually got weights on them, but still. These back areas here are nearly there, but this middle section I've got a feeling it's not too bad. It's about an inch, but normally I want a couple of inches to plant into, so I'm just going to keep going for a bit. Then I can go over the top lip and just add our details as well. And like I say, this is all going to sort of mix a little bit. We're not going to really see the back either, so I don't need to go too crazy on there. That looks well good, doesn't it? Even just like that. Yeah. Boom. Substrate system done. Now, hardscape time. Hardscape. I'm only doing this so that I remember in the edit to do that. Oh, right, okay. Yeah. I hope you're quite enjoying it. The good news is this has not long been out of a tank, has it? So we aren't going to have to, like, glue a ton of stuff down. We will a little, though. There's no Cleopatra on there, is there? He means Cladophora, but he always calls it Cleopatra. No, there's not. this completely different tank what was it Oh this was from the um yes Tapajos no opposite oh yeah the natural style river yeah um but i was thinking then have it coming out the top like that we actually want to do something over this overhang don't we at some point yeah but that still might work you think it's not going to get in the way is that okay yeah that looks good it's quite central do you know what I mean that up that's right it's very upright if we do that instead and the other piece can be either in front or behind or wherever we want all what i'm trying to do is create like an impression of wood like that you'll see through the plants so not not a complete structure whole point of this type of tank is we want so much planting room we are going to get that but that's not really working maybe i'll try flipping this one round or something I'm going to flip it, see what we get. Oh, already it's going to work better. Yeah, much better off the bottom as well, which means we've got more planting room. I wonder if we could bring it up even further. That becomes too straight and upright but maybe that's cool. That is quite like how it's coming out the tank. That is very, um, contemporary. Seems to be where we're going with everything these days to be fair, so if we so at the moment all we've got in the tank is this wood, but if we can visualize plants themselves as hardscape plantscape. Can you chuck us a wood stuff? Yeah sure, I said passes a wood but I meant rock. Yeah, you had to clarify that. What would okay, so like now, so this is central and looks weird. Yes, this is empty but if we visualize plants in here you won't even see that, but you're going to see this and you're going to see this. If we want we can also add a little piece of wood coming down at a later date that we can attach to something else so that it's not, you know what I mean, add it once the plants are in, it's a later date because we haven't brought enough wood with us. That's right but I think that looks, that looks cool I like how it's coming out the top like that, okay, striking against the background. Yeah, it's almost like a tree. Yeah, that looks really cool. All right, let's get the fish in. The only thing is I can't plant behind that now because it's against the back but i can glue it to something so now it's fine i can i can let stuff flow in and around there's enough of a gap up to that point so I like it because it's got quite cool composition as well without even trying for that actually that's a happy accident oh okay cool stick with it a few rocks down and uh I can plant it now for the rocks I'm going to bring them again they're going to look a bit random on their own front because I want to be able to see them other than in all the plants so this bit is not the conventional way of doing hardscape with this jungle tank remember it's all about the plants it's all about the plants so yeah as I say I just put a couple of little outcrops at the front which like they're gonna look weird initially but when you've got this big plume of stuff behind they won't one set back slightly i think where would i have an opening area yeah be a bit more open in the center or off center trying to think ahead here a friend a little a friend yeah not quite as friendly no be difficult sometimes to make stuff look natural when thinking about it well the key is not to overthink it right yeah which is what i'm doing it's because you're out practice i think i am it will look good like i always say the plants the plants make it look good obviously i'm going to be cheating a little bit because all my plants are grown in um but i'm making a production for you guys and if i had to wait for all my tanks to to like grow even before showing you we wouldn't have videos for like three or four months so yeah just watch us put racking up for three months yeah that's pretty much what we're going to be doing no all right this doesn't go at all but you're not going to see it just want to put it there up against this wood so it's just got something to anchor to with the glue we've got some super glue gel and i've got a reactor because you know i'm patient i am i don't want to wait just going to pick some nice solid glue points down there get it nice and thick up on there like i say this wood is already saturated but stop it like falling apart when it gets knocked let's give that a lockdown sometimes you get a stronger reaction when you put a bit of pressure on as well Under pressure. What are you doing? I just had a thought of, you know those new ones, those little stones I put at the front? Yeah. I think we need just something a little bit more impactful. I'm trying to pick something with a low surface area so we can get the height but not take up planting room. Let's see. I'm going to rinse them because it's so dirty. This is good, isn't it? There's not much going on in here at the moment, obviously, but this is going to be shelved up to the nines, hardscape all on display for us to be able to pick each individual piece and obviously a ladder to get to it and that um because at the moment i've always had piles of wood you can't see what's good and that rhymes in the hood get rid of this one or bring it forward a little because i'm just looking at it thinking by the time i've got all plants in there you're probably not going to be able to even really see these this much that much so as now we've got a bit more of a it works compositionally as well right and now for the planting just for the edit yeah just thinking oh god should we fill it up first all these plants are like there and then i can see exactly how they're sitting yeah do it then i think it's one of the best ways to do it here ordinarily if they're short and whatever you can plant it but this would be better got all the plant weights which means all i've got to do is just take take the base of it and just gently put it in i think we fill it up okay first fill up upstairs yeah we don't know the method for this okay i've just got to reel it up i can overhang it from the i'm recording just for a bit of you should have said what we all right there's that we need the little bobbin don't we the little bobbin do you mean the the hook the little bobbin you mean this yeah yeah we're one step ahead of you take her away steph you got it yeah we'll put it over a stone yeah i have done that genius move haven't you put little gravels in there yeah i put a little i filled up the end of this with gravel it dissipates it a lot nicer very very clever you're so proud of yourself when you did it i was and you didn't even care no this will help a little okay should i go soft gentle to start yeah we got any yet no i'm just gonna go for it that's full there she comes is it all right yeah fine oh good kind of uh no gentler if you can that should be fine okay it's normal to have loads of soil in the water yeah very funny and what we'll do actually is we'll just put a ball valve here like we uh did we have that in the last no we didn't yeah we did yeah we did from the pump one this is a different reel isn't it yeah we'll get all that fitted properly because you can control the flow there we go nicely filled up a little bit dusty but that'll clear very fast once we get the filter and everything running but before that plant time now i did get a good amount you did yeah i just think it's better let's get them growing and we can even if there's too many in here at some point i can switch them across and what have you But what we need to do first, Steph... Do we need a tray? No, I think we'll be all right on the floor. It's all waterproof, isn't it? But what we've got to do is lay them out in size order. So we've got tallest at the back, mid-ground, and then foreground, OK? When you say we, might be quicker. Right, I'm going to pick this crypt straight away. There's actually a couple. Oh, there's quite a few. Beautiful-looking plants. So as before, I'm going in, but I'm not going to plant it, plant it. I'm just going to push it near the substrate, like that. Oh, yeah, we've already got that area filled out nicely. How's the lighting, Steph? Shall I go up on the tank, or is it perfect? It's looking pretty good. Okay, cool. Yeah, it's dusty, so it's slightly misleading. That's true. But I think it's good. So we've got quite a mixture then. We've got some dark crypts and some lighter crypts. I think it's Wenty and Patchy. So if we go for some lighter plants in front of it, like this, I can feel a Simon's 53B and this other Wenty. So what I'm doing now is just closing up the stemmage point underneath so you can't see it as much like that area underneath technical term the stemmage area they're going to lighten it up as well nicely because it catches the light so well nice color that 53b isn't it yeah this one's seen better days because it was right down underneath some plants but there it's going to come back lovely good bouquet that i really want to hide this rock as well so i've got some more crypts to go in that area oh works a treat and then you won't see stems because they're rock and they'll put something else in front of it as well i mean as a bouquet of its own, that looks insane, doesn't it so you might be looking at that thinking how many plants is that? Well, believe it or not we've got one pot two pot three pot four five pots that have all grown over time and just got bigger and bigger because they would have started off as like that, but they have been like there for a very long time, their crypts aren't the quickest growing things, no, I mean these, those there I took from another tank even before the last one, so they've been growing for oh several, about a year and a half probably now, the good thing about crypts is that you can just dot them about and they'll just do their own thing and look brilliant, so that is what I'm going to do, so those ones you are sort of pushing in a bit more yeah because we've got the depth there so and they're all small, if it was a massive grouping I'd want to actually add some um weights to it but there's just enough here that I can put the gravel over the top nicely, oh, Pogostemon erectus, very pardon it's a Harry Potter spell oh, the Echinodorus, right, okay, how could you forget that I forgot the Echinodorus, right definitely gonna need a weight, I just thought that was a pleco in there as well that little bit of wood, yeah, it's perfectly pleco shaped, isn't it? Yeah, right, so I'm going to pull the roots through and then weight onto the roots, not onto the stem because it will just break off there's a couple here I can see that need to just go already, yeah, it makes sense because the leaves look rubbish, little prunage, I think there's this area here that's looking perfect for it it might get caught up a bit too much in the wood though we'll see yeah i think it does ideally i'd want it further back could it go it can't because the wood's in the way i mean it looks fantastic actually it does look good as that as its own standalone but you know what actually seeing as that looks so good like that i was going to have loads of taller stuff in front but i'm not i'm going to keep a couple of areas clear uh crypts don't mind a little bit of shade as well we can turn the lighting up if we need to i'm not going to go crazy now steph what he says i don't think you've ever said that before you've said the complete opposite well i've got the smaller one right i've got a plan like just bear with me i'm going to go into autopilot mode now okay see you on the other side and i know i said with some of the crypts it's good just to leave them on the surface well i'm barely burying them they're not going in nutrients they're all around the gravel so that should stop them from sort of melting i mean just to grip them in yeah time will tell though but i'm not burying the the crown i'm burying so i do that and i bury the root system but not the crowns because that's the thing i think that can be a problem is there a way i can get that echinodorus back i think i can if i spread the leaves yeah i feel like it's sat i do feel like sat too far forward it's quite i can do it i just got to be very careful not to snap stuff off i'm pulling it through the gap of the leaves so that half of it's going to be sat either side they don't like to fold much echinodorus leaves and that's a good amount now i should be able to move it i've released a load of soil there but it won't be a problem yeah it's nice having that wood coming through between the leaves this should really be at the back given its size i love echinodorus don't get much better bang for your buck it's filled up this side as well really nicely yeah it's looking much better it's not like force forward yeah it's too far forwards so i don't currently like this little area here because there's a lot of weirdness to it just because of how roots are going so i'm going to hide it with this little bunch that i've put together here there we go and i'll put another one another one have a go the valve for detail is always nice. Got some Hygrophila Polysperma Rosanervig here and it's got some nice pink tops to it just for something with a bit of colour in there. I'll stand up shortly go towards the light and go even more pink as well. There we go so the key to making a successful planted tank is a silly amount of plants. Had to be done though I mean I'm kind of treating it as a plant storage tank but also looking cool i mean this is what you can expect a tank to look like if you put all your plants in all those different varieties in three to four months i'd say especially with a decent powered light like this one let's get a filter on get it clear and then i can determine if i need to up the lighting levels or not i definitely can given the amount of plants it does look cool that's why i wasn't worried about the wood you know in the middle because most of it's at the top again we could bring something that looped around here we can add anything you want now to some of the channels yeah i think that might help yeah because at the moment it is a lot of plants it's quite it's like a devon hedgerow oh nice that's exactly why i meant it to be but there definitely wasn't room for this valve though so i'm going to bunch it together and put it down in the racking system because because that's what it needs more of this more valve you can never have too many plants in a fish holding tank until it becomes a plant holding tank with fish fish in it we're seeing as the rest of them all got vallisneria already and this one hasn't it seems appropriate there we go final piece it needed i just need a fish in there yeah that one's the only one that's empty isn't it right we can now start the filter but we do need to prime it first otherwise it's empty if we turn it on just air so fill it up pumps the first lot through with the air pulls it back in is it spur out step or is it steady i'll find out in a minute Yeah, we're good. Tell me when you want it off. Will do. Definitely need a ball valve. Okay, took it to the limit Alright, lid going on. Now it should be able to just plug it in and go There we go, the valve's shut. Can it flow? Oh, yeah, will be in a sec. There's a bit of air I can hear but that'll move out. Now all that's left to do is just to wait until tomorrow when it's clear Add some beneficial bacteria and add the fish. Look, I've had a couple of questions asking how do I cycle a tank so fast? Well, the truth be told, the tank isn't cycled. It's not cycled for ages. I have never, ever cycled a tank. And if you talk to most creators as well that I do behind the scenes, they'll tell you the same, they don't either. What we tend to do is fish in cycles, in the planted tank world anyway. If I'm doing a setup that's gonna have a load of fish going in straight away, then yeah, I will wait. I'll let the plants go in, let it naturally cycle. But in this instance, I've got a ton of plants in here, so I can probably add a good 20 small fish to this. No problem at all. If I was adding bigger fish, I'd make sure I was doing water testing and everything like that. I mean, I will do anyway because why wouldn't you? But the amount of plants in here, like ammonia and nitrite, just wouldn't stand a chance. Just eat it instantly. And they're covered in beneficial bacteria already because they're from another tank. So you've already seeded the tank. And I'll still put beneficial bacteria into it when I add them as well. So you're covering everything when you're doing planted tanks, especially when you get this many plants in there. if i was starting off with like five or six pots in here i'd actually just let them grow in first what's the rush i mean especially if you've got stems and they let them grow up trim and replant them give it a month or so like by the time then you'll i know you'll be desperate to put fish in as i was i mean i never took this advice because i'm very impatient but i was always really careful and completely willing to do water changes every day and i always had a test kit as well some people like you don't need a test kit i was like well i did because i wanted to make sure it was all right and it always was because uh i just changed the water if it wasn't so like day two you might start detecting a little bit of ammonia and if you show any signs at all that would tell me whip it down bring it back up again so it's called a fish in cycle but if you're not experienced as your first tank i wouldn't suggest doing it just just build your tank put your plants in let them grow out for a good month or so it's fun in itself watching the plants grow you know and if you want to add after say a couple of weeks a few fish just to get help with ammonia they will add of the tank that add plant food if you like they'll breed they'll cause the beneficial bacteria to like continue breeding so you get a good colony you just add nice and steadily and by that point your tank's growing it's all evolving together and it's fun going to the fish shop every week for like two months we haven't done in ages no we haven't we just haven't had a chance and i really want to go and cheryl wants me back into the shop to do some stuff but this has been crazy so just it's just zero time at the moment but yeah we've done this in record time stuff actually what's this taking us five hours with production that's pretty good see you tomorrow and there we have it the next day oh absolutely perfect to be fair i was expecting that brand new clean filter it's decent size really for compared to what i usually use you know little internals and stuff not compared to a giant canister but it's unnecessary in a tank of this size remember the whole filtration is going to be mostly happening biologically through the substrate so what this is for me it's just something to polish water and create a bit of flow thanks flow so what i'm thinking is we're almost there's a real Steve Irwin moment there god rest his soul so what i'm thinking is we need to have a little bit more of an accent in this area yeah so i want to put a couple of pieces of wood just trailing like out through the crypts there into the front there and maybe one this side as well also think it needs a nice big lily there the big red the big red one from this tank yeah yeah that'll help and also it needs fish oh yeah fish and with this much green there's only one thing for it fish cardinals oh yeah if we can catch them probably right here's what i'm thinking both these tanks need breaking down anyway we are not going to catch any of these fish in the whole fake mangrove setup but i really did like this design it's going to be a great feature in the amazon area anyway instantly went off track we can break both of these down there's cardinals in there and there's a big group of cardinals in there i definitely want those they're going to look so good against the green um there's angels platys there's all different tetra i think if we put those all in the other spare forefoot on the racking system then those all four are taken up we've put a lot of fish in safe spaces and we've got the ones we want for this new one as well and two empty tanks and two empty tanks look at yeah show them the mulm stuff mulm look at that so that's basically all from the chewed up the plecos have been chewing on all the wood also i need some of this wood that'll be good to add as accents yes so we've got a bit of work cut out for us um but it needs doing anyway so let's just crack on also want these pieces tops they're going to go to the top of the jungle tank i want all of those tanks just to be green at the top now they've got full-on root systems on them but we bought some boxes that they go in a black so they sit against the black background and then you won't even see them i mean you won't in this one anyway because it's jungle but if we did like an iwagumi you can still have plants come out the top it doesn't spoil the view that was my thinking with that because yeah the roots look great in like a naturalistic style tank but if you're going to do an iwagumi yeah maybe you do do that and you go for something completely different breaking the status quo is that a saying the rules the rules breaking the rules right as well that monster yes it's just gone berserk it's so good that's gonna look brilliant in the amazon area as well we've got so many cool plants the whole amazon area is gonna look like the amazon which is good just the plan that is the plan right steph we've got to get breaking down um i still want to keep quite a lot of these plants as well so the original plan was to take plants out and then capture everything and use one bucket we're full of plants we need to go back sort these and then come back by then the water would have cleared a bit more in both tanks it'll be easier to catch as well i think then there's no rush we've got all day today so yeah we've timed this really well really good organization for once do we need to take any little pebbles with us for to weigh down some of the plants oh we've got loads of stuff like that there haven't we from the oh yeah we do from the kits yeah let's go you know i can't throw things away there's a lot of val understandably not throwing that away that's like years of growth excuse me sorry years of growth let's take tray this time we need a tray have we got trailer i think we've got a tray there a tray what about b tray jenny tray i don't know you definitely tell us this i want this as well that lily yeah if i can get in without destroying everything i mean the tank is going to get taken down anyway that's true oh so good the roots that's going to take off in that new tank and then we've got the wood as well yeah here the wood options but we've got all our plants we do need to organize them all upstairs so we can group them bunch them put them in tanks this though is the one that i really want upstairs look it's still got a little baby bulb on it and i swear this came off of one of the big bulbs i didn't know they made new bulbs which is quite bizarre i suppose they have to don't they i guess so so what i could now do take that bulb off now i've got a root system plant that or put it on the substrate and it would do it again i don't want to risk it though so i'm just going to leave it i might be drawing some of its nutrients from that bulb yeah it will be if that's how it works initially but i mean good roots great roots so that will go up there, and also these sticks as well Now as beautiful as this lily pad looks, so you can see it's green, and these are all tiger-y pink beautiful as that looks, that will now hit the surface When it hits the surface, it kind of tells a message to the rest of the plant, don't waste your energy on stuff underwater, there's plenty of CO2 and stuff on the surface so if you leave it, the bottom dies off But if you cut it off, it carries on. Clever stuff, eh, Steph? Plants. they are smart plants They really are. Right, I'm going to go right in this gap here, because there's a good bit of light in it. It's just off centre as well. And what a centre piece, eh? it works, doesn't it? It works. Bring those ones forwards. Amazing leaves on there. yeah, see it's sending up another lily? Yeah. Lily pad. Because that first one would have been on the surface. I can leave that one for now. You just don't want it to hit the surface for too long. That's good. Oh. I want this piece of wood, but one prong was going in the wrong way. I think now it'll kind of work a bit better. So what I'm looking to do, something that comes and wraps around through this little channel. I've got to be careful not to uproot anything. Oh, literally just uproot something. I was just trying to get this glue off. I just want to bury the back end of it into the plants so you won't even see where it starts. Let's bring some of those forward, I think. It's pressing against. Ah, these. Yeah, a little tweakage. I think if I pull them all forward, you won't even see it though. No, no, no, I know. It's quite good actually. It looks like a continuation of that piece coming up. Yeah, it does. place a little one down here as well just a bit of foreground action i mean i could just keep going all day but you've got to call it at some point and i think that's really nice we've got our red detail now and this light hasn't been on for very long i should have left it on last night because the plants would be stood up a little bit better now but you know as the days go by this is going to grow bigger and bigger in this area it'll search for the light as well let's get the rest of those plants sorted Oh yeah this worked a treat and looks natural. Get yourself a rock, some cable ties, a bit of paper towel, get the root systems and you're good. And it just means this is definitely not going to float. This is a lot. I have to go over that one I think. I've got to try and put this in without dropping it as well, which is fine. Just leave it like that yeah. Whoa that's crazy. It is the length of the tank. That will come in handy at a later date though Steph for sure. Kind of want it it going over the back area though so i'll lock it in place over there we'll still get light coming through I'm naturally on 12. well that's pretty good yeah didn't block too much still got good light coming in there this crypt one that's a lot of crypts ah we're going to put this up in the new tent down here will be good it's very close look at that there we go done plop and drop they call it do they Echinodorus over here with the other Echinodorus i think no there's a good space there Yeah, there's a good gap up there as well. Remember when I said we're not going to put many plants in here? I do remember, yeah. This is holding. It is still holding. They're progressively becoming more and more scaped and beautiful. A bit of refuge in this front area in here, look. There you go, so they've all got some cover areas now if they want them. This red one at the bottom now is looking amazing. There's something about it actually, because I didn't think it was going to work that well, those rocks, what with not having bigger ones, but with that substrate, the little sprinkle does work really well. really well the Echinodorus at the back hang on we've not done the thing look at that fish are well colored up as well now they're looking great the whole the whole rack looks insane rack that just keeps getting better oh got a bit of foam build up there that's probably something that was in the gravels but could be bacteria die off you get that in like rivers and streams and things yeah i think it is more bacteria than anything because there's no color to it so like hummus or something is it that's what you ate yeah i think basically that this tank obviously hasn't got any livestock in so a lot of the bacteria that's all over the plants we put in is is sort of dying off because it hasn't got a food source yeah the ammonia from the fish but the rest is all pretty good it's just yeah so we're about to put fish in there so that's true that'll get it all sorted um again when i put fish in here i'll be keeping an eye on it all we'll be testing each day water changes if needed all the rest of them are completely fine now we know that all right we're back again and watch this for a quick fill up method we'll be careful all right now we are going to need to drain down both of these tanks to be able to catch the fish um but as always we don't need a huge amount of water there's then none of them are really big even the angels over there are quite small so we'll just drain it down put them all in that one tub i think take them over to new studio we can take out the specific ones that we want to go the new tank versus the other one on the rack and i think that's enough yeah i think we go with the cardinals and i really like the harlequins actually as well well they're quite big to harlequins also got the danios oh we can make a decision once we're there let's drain it down we're looking forward to getting the suckmaster 3000 over there even though it's just not worked i haven't got the wi-fi on got some food on them shepherding shepherding come on guys come on go, a lot of platies yeah they'll look really good actually in the forefeet so i need to catch out from this ball of fish here the cardinals and the danios i think and oh they're there there you go, the amano shrimp as well i want the amano shrimp in the new tank be perfect for them if they want to get off the net cool i'm just going to keep going and then we can put whatever needs to go and whatever right we've made our selection for the tank upstairs but first of all i just want to put all of these fish into that tank up there it should be nice and easy we've got the bigger net oh it's upstairs there's one there okay a nice big group to minimize stress guys so much smaller angels than the rest of them i I wouldn't want to put them in with my big ones because they're still growing out. We've not had them that long Right, we've got flash plecos the long fin bristle nose as well. There's a flash. There's a little long fin Hang on So in this tank, you're gonna see them a lot more but also flash plecos do tend to like a bit of wood So i've brought that as well. This is manzanita should sink. I'm just gonna lay it out a little bit like that There you go. Then I've got something to chew on, it's only two of them So that's plenty and lastly we've got a couple of corys as well then i've got my selection here which is the cardinals, harlequins, danios, black mollies and the amano shrimp and i think there's one ruby tetra i just saw as well but that's all right there you go nice look at that it's one of the beauties of being able to transport them so quickly is that you keep the colors but the harlequins are a good choice oh the danios look great but in a minute the cardinals they're all going to come forward they're always quite shy to start with they'll be tucked around the back just leave them to it for a second and they'll be real comfortable i'm so happy finally oh see one down there a little group down the bottom but i'm so happy the first aquascape i mean it was pretty much just plonk them in the plants but you know i've got a lot of plants and i want to keep them going it's almost it's weird after a while of having planted tanks plant collection becomes almost as as like fruitful is that the right word or as exciting as fish collection as well especially when you can just nail it and get to grow good especially with the mess system that's sticking yeah it's done that's it thank you to shout out to that subscriber who said it so as always when i filled up this tank with tap water it's fully dechlorinated plus it would have gassed off overnight as well but we've removed heavy metals and things like that now shortly after adding fish in i always add some beneficial bacteria as well but like i say there's so many plants in this tank that there's not going to be any issues with rising ammonia or nitrite but i will be testing the water daily for at least a week just to make sure because you know anything can happen so it's a bit of a mix of fish and i like to do that in jungle tanks i just think it makes it way more interesting and i know it's not to everyone's cup of tea they'd like to see like a single species but just look at how it is there's always something going on and the cardinals haven't even come out yet this is literally two minutes after they've been put in and they're already you know behaving really nicely so as as many of you know jungle tanks are my favorite kind of tanks but the studio isn't just going to be filled with these obviously I've got a lot of plants to transfer over and setting up planted tanks heavily planted tanks to start with just makes sense as we progress we'll be doing completely different styles in different places more saltwater African style the world is our oyster anyway I hope you've enjoyed this episode and I look forward to seeing you guys in the next one where we're gonna be progressing even further we've got even more plans we literally just got started so yeah I'll see you guys on the next one. Bye!