Maintenance and scaping tools

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Krogman

Aquarium Advice Freak
Joined
Feb 21, 2014
Messages
246
Location
Memphis
Looking to buy some plant maintenance tools soon and wanted to get some opinions on good and bad brands, useful and useless tools, what works for your plant maintenance and aqua scraping?
 
I got a pair of 12" tongs and scissors off amazon that are great, the best is the 24" planting tongs/scissors from Petco! Only $11, great for root tabbing and grabbing and actual planting! And sadly grabbing dead fish too.. Has cut way down on Arm in the tank time..
 
Yes, planting tongs are a must have! I use them to feed also(kinda funny, my GBR's are always waiting, and they grab a big chunk and the excess shoots out their gills, the perfect size flake for my cardinal tetras who are waiting below!). I also picked up a Toms maintenance multi-tool on amazon that comes with a sand rake/algae scraper/glass brush. I mainly use the rake(white sand in a planted tank gets messy quick) but the scraper is good also as it is skinny and allows me to hit places my actual algae brush would rip my plants out.
Another tool I really like is my Eheim Quick Vac Pro! It's great for a quick debri cleaning(Pleco poop removal!)with out having to get the siphon/buckets out, and also works really well with sand.
 
I would also get some planting tweezers. If you look around on eBay, you will find a bunch of cheap maintenance tool kits. Scissors, tweezers, scrubbers, etc. Make sure the tools are reliable and strong though.
 
Thank you guys. The petco ones looked like a good deal, good to hear they work well. I was afraid they would be as cheaply made as they were priced. Got my BML Dutch planted today, looking forward to some more growth
 
Thank you guys. The petco ones looked like a good deal, good to hear they work well. I was afraid they would be as cheaply made as they were priced. Got my BML Dutch planted today, looking forward to some more growth
sweeeeeeeet!!! I want one!! Well the truth is the Petco rig is only really useful with the tweezers.. After using the scissor attachment I vowed... "Never again", the 12" stainless scissors are really nice, I'd recommend using one with the other and you'll be all set.. Enjoy the bml! I've heard they are the berries!! If you didn't get the dimmer? Keep an eye out for alien spacecrafts try to land on your tank..
 
Ha yea, I got the dimmer. I have been dosing excel for a week to prepare a little too. My fiancé said "I want to see the lights" I tilted it out and she was blinded saying "I don't wanna see the lights!" Haha
 
I also have the BML Dutch 36. It is worth every penny, even though it was more than my tank, stand, filters, and heater together...
You will need to get either Co2 or Metracide for a carbon source, and may look into dry ferts to dose your nutrients as you are now high light! These three things out of whack will cause major algae growth, which is very frustrating after spending the coin on a light like this. What plants are you going with? And what size tank?
 
55g. I currently have cabomba, Java moss, rotala indica, anubias, water sprite, wisteria, some floaters that I haven't identified and some other small Anubias that grows pretty slow. I am moving in a month so I'm going to do a little trial and error for now and then when I move I'll probably change regiment and definitely redo my aquascape
Edit: I am looking into some red cabomba, a strain or two of red rotala or ludwiga. Glosso is sweet looking. Also wanna see about some limnophila hippuroides. I don't wanna go nazi with the red but going to explore some options. My bloodfin tetras look prettier and more crisp under the Dutch
 
I stole this from Bill here on AA but one very useful aquascaping tool is a simple paintbrush. Perfect for shaping and smoothing substrate when planting and aquascaping. Aside from the tweezers a nice quality (ie SHARP) pair of long scissors is invaluable too.
 
I stole this from Bill here on AA but one very useful aquascaping tool is a simple paintbrush. Perfect for shaping and smoothing substrate when planting and aquascaping. Aside from the tweezers a nice quality (ie SHARP) pair of long scissors is invaluable too.


Do you know of a good brand for some sharp/stay sharp scissors?
Petco grabbing tool seems to be +. Tweezers should be tweezers
 
The ADA and GLA ones are obviously very good quality, although you pay a hefty price. You can get cheap ones on eBay and Amazon although you should be careful as some of these will rust easily. I've actually had very good luck finding good quality SS tools on theplantedtank's classified section. Some of the power sellers there claim that their product is more or less the same as ADA's, just without the name brand engraved on it. Worth checking out for sure. I've also purchased a few Fluval brand things that have been solid for the price, which generally is pretty reasonable.

Edit: just realized you said scissors specifically. I'd likely not recommend fluval's scissors but their tweezers have been fine.
 
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