Aussie's 187 Gal Planted Tank

hey all
i finally have my 187 gallon tank up and running. Since i have had fish tanks i have wanted the biggest tank i can and for it to be fully planted, this why i save a alot of money and got my 187 gallon tank with all the gear to make it a planted tank. This is only the beginning of it and this is m journal so you can enjoy the highs and lows of it, and before i even got water into the tank there was a lot of lows lol.

The other idea of this tank is to breed dwarf cichlids. Mainly rams and apistos. Im going to try and breed peppermint bristlenoses aswell.

Tank specs.
72 x 24 x 25 standard custom made tank with centre weir incase i want to go saltwater later on. 10 mm thick glass. If not sure why it is 25 inch. wide just like them when i picked it up.

Filtration
I have two fluval 404s with peat fibre in them

Lighting
2 x 150 watt aquamedic oceanlights
2 x 36 watt bluc actintic tubes
Soon to get some computer fans to put into my hood for cooling

CO2
I have a pressurized system with the milwaukee regulator, bubble counter, needle value and electric solenoid, which runs into the aquamedic reactor 100o which is inline with the filters .I also have the sms122 ph controller unit to control it all for me. I love it so much

UVC unit
Pondmaster 36 watt UVC unit connected in line with the filters.

Subtrate
I uses 8 bags of JBL's Aqua basics. I was going to get Eco complete from the States but it would of cost me about $500 AUD just for gravel and the LFS had this on special so i went for it instead, just had to get some extra bags of standard gravel to go on top.

Plants
8 bunches of Ludwigia
5 bunches of Wisteria
2 pots of Echin cant remember the rest of its name
4 bunches of Blue stricta
4 Bunches of Zosterfolia
2 Bunches of Ambulia
2 Bunches of violet
2 Amazon Swords
And so bits of driftwood with Anubias nana on it.

I have got these casue most of them go big and bushie so then i can work in front of them with other plants.

But one bad thing about the plants is that they came with snail eggs in them and i didnt know until today when i found about 20 tiny snails around the tank, but they will make nice food for the peppermints when they come.

I havent tested the tanks levels yet but im going to do that tomorrow after work.

So here are some pictures

here is the system to run it besides the lighting

The view from my bed

And a view from the other end of my bed

Im trying to get some better pictures but its a bit hard with a big tank and a very small bedroom that have. Im going to get some SAE and some ottos so start to eat some of the algae that has started to grow and im going to sydney on the 24th of this month to get the peppermints in sydney and might try the LFS down there for some dwarfs

The lighting you have is very far from ideal for a planted tank. Very blue end of the spectrum, great for algae, not so good for plants. If you want to get seriously into planted, you'll want to swap some of those lights out. Actinics are next to useless in a planted tank.

You want to go for a full spectrum with a good amount or red in it. A tank that size gives you a lot of scope for mixing various lamp types together to create the desired spectrum so a reco is almost impossible, but an overall colour of between 5000K and 6700K is optimal for plants.

Impressive set-up. I look forward to seeing the progress. I take it your water is soft for the breeding?

Do you have a lot of spare time? You'll need it to keep those stem plants in check!

awesome Tim!!

I reakon you should of made use of the wier and run a sump on it, with the fluvals the intakes are going to blocked up every 5 mins with plant matter.

should look alot better once it fills out a bit.

i have the same problem trying to fit the whole tank in with small rooms!

Lateral Line said:

The lighting you have is very far from ideal for a planted tank. Very blue end of the spectrum, great for algae.

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Yea, i went to the LFS today and got two 36 watt grow easy plant tubes, which are 6500k .

I havent checked the pH yet, put the SMS122 pH controller is set to 6.7, so i think that is low enought for now. Well i did before i started setting it up but i will have none when and of the fish breed when they are in there.

Well i have got a bigger intake to put onto the filters when the plants grow a bit. Using a sump reduces the effect of the co2. Yea cant wait for the tank to start to take more shape.

The UVC unit blow up today. The seal around the top came off and water was able to get into the light part ( quatza sleeve i think its called) but is on warrenty so they are getiing me a new one in, just puts back when im going to add some fish. I was going to get some SAE and ottos on the weekend but im going to wait untill next weekend i think.

looks great Aussie

DD

Aussie_Star said:

I havent checked the pH yet, put the SMS122 pH controller is set to 6.7, so i think that is low enought for now. Well i did before i started setting it up but i will have none when and of the fish breed when they are in there.

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Do you know your KH? If you set your pH at 6.7 with a high KH then CO2 levels might be too high. Then again you are using peat fibres. Anyway, it looks great and I'm jealous!!

gf225 said:

Do you know your KH? If you set your pH at 6.7 with a high KH then CO2 levels might be too high. Then again you are using peat fibres. Anyway, it looks great and I'm jealous!!

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im getting one of the massive test kits with all them in it on saturday morning so i can do all the different aspects of the tank.

Can wait until it gets going should be good

i got the test kit but havent had time to do the testing. Bad week for the tank.
1. The UV unit blow up, a faulty O ring around the top of the unit let water run into the socket and yer it blow up.

2. The timer ( casue the pH contoller unit is working due to given some wrong parts) that i have on my CO2 unit is broken so co2 was running on straight for 3 days until i check it out so their was a massive algae attack in my tank, si i clean as much as i could of and left the back for the start of my cleaner crew
2 very tiny bristlenose
2 suckermouth catfish
2 Flying foxes
im getting the new uv unit on tuesday and i might get some more fish to put in to speed up the algae eating. So ill post a pictures then, but the plants have grow so much, im loving the start besides the problems

They sent out the uvc unit but no globe so that should be here on friday so ill update on the weekend i hope

Well Done aussie star , looks great, maybe I need to trade my 3 footer in for a 6'

The tank looks great, must be a bit disheartning all the "issues" your having, Hope the luck starts to go your way soon

Katchan