75 Us Gallon

[qwikimpss]

After a couple years of daydreaming about planting my big tank the time is almost here. I have my equipment all squared away and ready to go and the plants should be here this week so I figured it would be a good time to start a journal.

Tank: 75 US gallons, 4 feet long

Lighting: Current 2x54 watt T-5 HO, timed for 10 hours on

Filtration: Fluval 305

CO2: 20 pound cylinder, Azoo regulator with solenoid and needle valve built in on the same timer as the lights, bubble counter, ceramic diffuser, drop checker,

Substrate: AquariumPlants.com's own, 9 gallons of it as it's sold by gallon in buckets and not by pound

Livestock: None as of yet but planned stocking will be all South American, I have a group of 9 Neon Tetras that will move over, planning on 15-20 rummy nosed tetras, 8-10 common hatchet fish, either Bolivian Rams or German Blues are planned

Plants: They're on their way, should be here Wednesday
Heteranthera zosterfolia - Stargrass
Echinorodus bleheri - Amazon sword
Eleocharis parvulus - Dwarf Hairgrass
Limnophila indica
Echinodorus martii - Ruffle Sword
Rotala roundifolia - Rotala Indica
Alternanthera reineckii
Hydrocotyle Leucocephala - Pennywort
Egeria densa
Cabomba pulcherrima - Red Cabomba
Lilaeopsis Mauritiana - Micro Sword
Nymphaea zenkeri - Red Tiger Lotus

I know South American 'biotope' tanks have been done a million times but I absolutely love South American fish, Charchins especially. I may try my hand at Discus eventually in this tank. Eventually I will try and put in only South American plants.

I feel that the Fluval 305 may not provide enough flow so I may invest in a powerhead, time will tell on that one.

Here is a pic of it as it sits now. The glass is dirty as poop and the java ferns will be moving to my 29 gallon tank. I plan on picking up a couple more pieces of driftwood and then playing around to find a pleasing layout.

 

[qwikimpss]

Today I picked up 16 rummy nosed tetras. The clerk at my LFS was so excited that I bought a good sized school that he gave me 10% off. Apparently he has a lot of people go and buy one or two specimens of a schooling species despite his best attempts to advise them otherwise.

UPS says my plants should be here tomorrow. I can't wait. Pics to come!

 

[Biulu]

Sounds good with a nice plant list! Hopefully the plants arrived today so we can see some pictures tomorrow!

 

[qwikimpss]

And we have plants. The UPS box was on the counter when I got home from work along with my other package with my 4dkh solution for my drop checker. Once again AquariumPlants.com doesn't disappoint, all the plants were very high quality and in great shape. I dosed all my ferts and started planting.

It looks a bit amorphous right now with no real focal point. I need to grab a few more pieces of Malaysian driftwood.

There will be more, better pics coming when the water clears up.

 

[ian]

looks good! Nice Rummy's as well. Any change of getting a close full tank shot?

 

[qwikimpss]

Closer full tank shot coming right up!

Upon coming home I saw my drop checker laying on the substrate so I had to take it out and refill it out of precaution. Hopefully it stays put this time.

I think I may switch the dark cabomba and the ruffle sword on the left part of the tank.

I'm still learning my DSLR. I need a remote flash so I can use a smaller arpeture and faster shutter speed to get a better depth of field and more clarity in my shots.

Anyway, here is the pic.

 

[minnnt]

Looks stunning, can't wait to see the progress!!!

 

[Biulu]

This scape has great potential. With those 3 pieces of driftwood you have created 2 focal points. I suggest you turn them into 2 islands, only connected by plants in the back. I would put the plant next to the red cabomba and left of the right hand side wood completely at the left or in the place of the red cabomba. Then move the red cabomba behind the wood, in between the sword and the limnophyla. In general I would say, try to put lower plants in front of the middle piece of driftwood.

 

[qwikimpss]

It took me a minute to visualize what you meant. Now that I can kinda see it in my head it seems like a possibility.

Right now all I'm trying to do is get things steady and make sure every thing is growing well. Then I'll worry about nailing down a scape.

Also waiting for the tiger lotus bulb to sprout.....so much waiting!

 

[Biulu]

Fair enough! Sometimes that is hard enough in itself.

 

[qwikimpss]

Just did my 50% W/C and dosed macros.

I've lost a couple tetras, rummy noses always seem to acclimate poorly for me.

I'm already seeing a fair bit of growth. New leaves everywhere and my micro sword is already starting to spread.

 

[qwikimpss]

So, yup, I haven't updated since March, wow.

Well the tank went to crap for a while. The ballast on my crappy Current brand T-5 ho fixture kept burning out, it went through three of them before I gave up on it, and I was not able to replace it so I was running two normal output T-12s over the tank. Growth stagnated, some plants died. For a little while I stopped paying as much attention to my tanks as I should have been. A couple weeks ago I removed a TON of duckweed from this thing, I don't even know how it got there, that's how out of it I was. So far my remaining plants in here are the Heteranthera, Rotala, both the swords (which are huge now and quite healthy), the chain swords and hairgrass. I'm not even going to bother taking a pic because the tank is in such an embarassingly sad state.

I have a new, Coralife brand, T-5 fixture coming in a couple of days and I will be ordering some new plants next weekend.

Let's see if I can turn this around and into a good looking display.

 

[qwikimpss]

I got my new Coralife light unit yesterday. Feels like a quality piece and I'm pretty stoked to see if it lasts more than three weeks.

Ordering some new plants on Friday and gonna try to pick up some more rummy noses and maybe some rams this weekend.