75 Gallon

[dirtydogg]

My 75 Gallon tank has become empty recently

So I have decided that I want to step away from the large Cichlids and try my hand at some aquatic gardening. This is my journey.

First thing was to improve the stand that the tank sat on, a beautiful tank on an ugly stand is no good.

So first some shots of the stand being upgraded

As well as a cosmetic improvement, I also added a pair of electrical outlets to the stand itself.

Once the stand was ready I cleaned up the tank and did some dry runs of possible aqua-scapes in order to get an idea on how it would look.

I also got some help from the dog

Once I had a rough idea on what was going in there I began laying the substrate, a mixture of black sand and Eco-Complete black. I'm going to pick up a black background this week. Also my lighting should be in this week. Consisting of 4 T-5 bulbs with moon lighting. That should bring me to about 216 Watts of light. Until then I will leave you with a comparison shot of how the setup looked a few years ago.

 

[lljdma06]

Can you reduce the lighting by half? IMO, 216W of T5 is overkill in a tank that large and you'll need pressurized CO2 and to mix your own dry ferts to keep up with the high nutrient demand of such lighting. Perhaps only run two bulbs? I just want to make it easier for you since this is a large tank.

The size, by the way is beautiful.

Have a read of the pinned topics 'PARC'

Liz

 

[dirtydogg]

I was planning on ordering the lights today to get in by this weekend, if a 2 bulb t5 unit will do, then that'll save me some money

. I was planning on eventually doing CO2 injection if needed(I actually have a spare tank of CO2 on hand). I am currently researching plants to try and keep it somewhat in an Amazon Biotype.

 

[Jamepsss]

Looking forward to seeing this progress.

The stand looks miles better and that's a nice big tank to work with. Nice dog too.

 

[lljdma06]

I was planning on ordering the lights today to get in by this weekend, if a 2 bulb t5 unit will do, then that'll save me some money

. I was planning on eventually doing CO2 injection if needed(I actually have a spare tank of CO2 on hand). I am currently researching plants to try and keep it somewhat in an Amazon Biotype.

Sigh of relief... Two bulbs will give plenty of light. If you go with CO2 down the road, you'll be able to grow what you want. Without CO2, you'll still have a decent tank with good growth.

 

[dirtydogg]

So my lights won't be in until the 3rd. I hate waiting. I ended up ordering a fixture with 3 T5 bulbs and a strip of "moonlight" LEDs. After shipping it ended up costing me about $5 bucks more than a 2 bulb fixture. There are two ballasts in the light allowing me to run it as a 2 bulb fixture so basically I got an extra bulb for 5 bucks!

Looking at plants, eventually I may decide to go with discus in this tank(after at least a year). How much does temperature matter to plants?

 

[lljdma06]

So my lights won't be in until the 3rd. I hate waiting. I ended up ordering a fixture with 3 T5 bulbs and a strip of "moonlight" LEDs. After shipping it ended up costing me about $5 bucks more than a 2 bulb fixture. There are two ballasts in the light allowing me to run it as a 2 bulb fixture so basically I got an extra bulb for 5 bucks!

Looking at plants, eventually I may decide to go with discus in this tank(after at least a year). How much does temperature matter to plants?

What is the wattage of the bulbs?

There are plant packages that are available that do well in the higher temps required by discus. At least their fry or juvies, anyway. I hear adult discus are not as picky with temperature. There are few people here keeping discus planted tanks (go check out Simonas' tank).

Liz

 

[dirtydogg]

They are 54 Watt T5 bulbs. Has anyone worked out a proper WPG rule for HOT5 lighting yet?

 

[dirtydogg]

Finally got everything in and started. I still haven't located all of the plants that i want, but I have been able to find a couple of them locally.
First a whole tank shot.

Closer to each side of the tank

There is a game of name that plant going on here for the following plant

I don't yet have CO2 injection in the tank(probably two weeks), but I did does with Flourish a day after setting up. I'm running two bulbs on the tank for about 8 hours. The Crypts appear to be doing rather poorly, though from what I have read that is to be expected. How much flow should the tank be getting? Coming from large Cichlids I usually over filter a tank, but I am noticing that it is causing quite a bit of movement of the plants.

 

[Biulu]

It looks like C. wendtti green to me. No problem with movement; it will make sure that the nutrients reach all corners of the tank and diminishes the chance of algae.

 

[dirtydogg]

Well I had to turn of one of my filters due to noise concerns. I did that last week, and this week I noticed a bacteria bloom. I figured that it would pass in a couple of days and be fine. I came home today to find a full on green water algae bloom. Things are not looking good, I've never gone through this before, but everything I've read says to do a couple of day black out, and multiple large water changes. Water changes are fine, but won't a blackout kill of my struggling plants?

 

[Biulu]

No, they won't. Just do the black-out for 3 - 5 days. Just make sure not to peek and that it is tightly closed so no light can enter. Good luck!

I know it is a late reply. How are you doing at the moment? Did you do a blackout? Plants will suffer more with the bloom than with a blackout.