125gal Planted Tank

Hi folks. I just joined your forum yesterday. Looks like a great site. Here are some pics of my discus tank, though I don't have a good pic of the fish. They hide from the red focusing light on my camera.

to TFF and thanks for posting your stunning photos

Can you give us some more information about the tank ?

Great looking tank!

What's the set-up? (Plants, Fish, Equipment, Fertilizer/Maintenance Routine)

You bet, Bloo. It's 125 US gallons. It's been running about six months now.

Stocking:
1) adult wild-caught brown discus
3) juvenile red/ turq. discus
1) juv. blue diamond discus
15) neon tetra
10) harlequin rasbora
8) otos
10) pygmy aspidoras
6) kuhli loach
8) SAEs

Plants:
echinodorus swords
anubius frasieri and nana
crypt wendtii bronze
crypt. spiralis
sag. subulata
dwarf lilly
java fern
java moss
telanthera
rotala magenta
lud. repens
jungle val
corkscrew val
lilaeopsis
glossostigma
a huge apon that I've yet to identify

Eheim 2217, Magnum 350 canister filters
Press. co2 with DIY reactor
400w 6700K pc fluor. 10 hour per day
100w 6700K n.o. fluor. 3 hour per day
EI fertilization
50% water change at least once a week, often twice a week

That's all I can think of, now. Overall I'm happy with it. I get some awesome pearling and lots of plant growth. Right now I'm wrestling with the end of an algae attack, but I've just about got it whipped. Thanks Bloo.

Mark

Thats an immense tank, i love your planting!

Wow top tank mate and welcome to TTF.

Simon

fishkiller_nomore said:

125 g!!!!!

I guess it's true --- everything's bigger in Texas

Click to expand...

That's what all my Texan friends say! Great tank Wesleydnunder, beautiful setup. I love the rocks. Most of those look bigger than some of my tanks! Another fine discus tank. Saw you over at bettas, but I'll say welcome here!

llj

Thanks y'all. As with everything, it's a work in progress. I have to wait until after Father's Day to take more pics as my daughter is home from college for the summer and has repossessed her camera. When I went to buy a camera, my wife had to spill the secret that our kids are pitching in together to buy dad a camera for Father's Day.

It does look different now than in the picture. I've pulled the glosso and lilaeopsis and am replacing it with macracanthemum. I've never used it before but Jeff Senske at ADG has a display tank in their showroom with a few select rocks and macracanthemum ground cover, reminiscent of some of Amano's 'plains' tanks. I like the way it looks and it grows relatively fast so I'll have a lawn again in no time.

Oh, and I forgot to mention I used a layered substrate of composted peat/pumice/carbon, Seachem Fluorite, and quartz blasting sand. This is the first planted tank I've done without substrate heating. To tell the truth, I haven't noticed any difference in plant growth. Many think substrate heating is another myth, like prophylactic salting of freshwater fish. Maybe they're right. I know I saved a lot of money not buying heating cables and thermostat.

Mark

Once again beautiful tank.

My question is how do you those massive water changes? I imagine you use a python to syphon it out, but what do you do to replace the water? Do you treat the water in buckets then pour it in or do you just put water straight from the tap and then treat it once inside? It just seems like a lot of buckets. I'm clueless to how these large water changes are done.

Also any plants that has been a pain in your tank, any that have been great to have?

At home I have a 200 gallon plastic tank in which I condition and temper my water. I have a 400gph pond pump that I use to pump the water into the aquariua. I just connect the pump to the python hose and pump to the tanks. My 125g is not at my house. It's set up in a lfs as an advertisement for my company. The owner of the pet shop knows nothing about fish or aquaria and hired our company to maintain her sales and display tanks. She allowed me to put the 125g in her shop. We both profit from it. The shop doesn't have any room for a large storage tank so I use a 44 gallon Rubbermaid trash can on a round dolly in which I condition and temper about 500 gallons, 40 gallons at a time, when I service the tanks. I use a python to extract water and a drop-in pond pump with a length of plastic hose to add water. The 125g takes about an hour to do a 50% partial with bottom vaccuuming and filter service.

The only plants that I'm having trouble with are the swords. They've become massive. I knew they would but I like the way they look so... Now I've removed two of the red melons and will probably remove one of the larger green swords (sorry, can't remember species right now) because they've begun to take up too much room. The jungle val grows like kelp and has to be trimmed at least weekly, as well as clipping runners to keep it from taking over the tank. The stem plants have to be cropped every 8 to 10 days. I also don't like duckweed. I've had it hitch-hike its way into every planted tank and in the 125g it covers the surface in three days. I net it out every three days.

Mark

Great tank good to have you on board, nice to see someone with some EI experience joining, hope we can learn from each other

Sam

EDIT - well not necessarily from me, but others on here who have more brain power than me

Hi Mark, I wouldn't call massive swords and massive frequent trimming having plant trouble, but to each is own. I won't go near regular swords, they get WAY too big for my tanks.

I've been doing some research into alternative algae-eaters for smaller tanks and the American-flag fish (Jordanella floridae) kept coming up. Your tank isn't small, but the AFF has been know to munch on Lemna minor (Duckweed). It's a common fish in the SE US. It can be kept in conditions as extreme as low pH acidic planted setups to brackish conditions. Very adaptable. Rather attractive as well. The American-Flag fish is an odd member of the killifish family. I hear they are also as good at eating many types of algae as SAEs. I sound like a species profile. Just in case you felt like looking for something to combat Duckweed. I manually remove mine.

llj

Sorry, that was kind of a back-handed way of saying there weren't any problem plants. Sometimes I let sarcasm get the best of me.

I did a lot of research into algae eaters over the last couple of months. I've read about the flagfish but it didn't mention them eating the hair and staghorn algae that was growing. I got some help from Tom Barr and it's just about gone. The algae did, however kill off most of my "lawn". That's why I bit the bullet and got it out of there. I was able to salvage a few pieces which I moved to another tank. If the duckweed ever becomes enough of a PITA I'll look into the flags. I'll have to look them up again to make sure they can take the heat.

Mark

American-Flag fish do eat hair algae and thread algae, that's why they peaked my interest. A lot like SAEs. Those are the algae species I'm most susceptable to. Some people have even seen the munching on BBA, though it was not from well-fed individuals. The heat issue bothers me a bit. I doesn't make much sense to me. I've lived in South FL for years and the water temperature can be extremely high during the Summer months, certainly not coldwater! Surf temperature can be as high as 90 in the Summer and only dips into the mid to upper 60s in the Winter, and the ocean is a much larger body of water than any ditch canal in South FL. Not saying the entire Ocean is 90 degrees, but the coastal portion, which is still quite large. I really think wild-caught and tank-raised American-Flag Fish can be acclimated to thrive in regular tropical aquaria. I don't understand why they are often labeled as a coldwater species. I think they are rather more like guppies and mosquito fish and just adaptable to various conditions. Sources have said both, so I'm going to treat mine, when I get them, like low-end tropicals and I'll see how they do.

Sorry for the ramble, but it's interesting discussing an uncommon species in the trade. Great discussing it with you.

llj

Great stuff, more fish stores need to have planted display tanks.