Heres My 135 Gallon Oceanic Showtank

[aquamike]

This picture really makes the tank look small. This is my first large tank. I plan on having kio angelfish, cory catfish, tetras, plecos, and misc fish that will get along with each other. Any suggestions on the fish and comments on how the tank looks would be greatly appreciated.

Mike

 

[Built2Prfctn]

9 out of a 10

Really nice only thing i dont like is the
fakeness of hte plants couple of them look
really fake..

If they are you should try to throw some real ones in
would make it a 10!!

 

[Built2Prfctn]

O and the stand is reallly nice =0)

 

[SandMan8388]

Looks very nice. Like previously said if you can put some live plants in there that would be great! Otherwise great job!

 

[aquamike]

O and the stand is reallly nice =0)

Thanks for your honesty and compliments. Yes, unfortunately those plants are fake. Maybe down the road i will try my luck with real plants.

Thanks,
Mike

 

[Loko17]

Real Plants are really quite easy to keep and they are much better than fake plants

 

[LisaLQ]

...but sometimes fake plants are necessary, like when you've got herbivorous fish or big fish/plecs who'll move stuff about

I think it looks really lovely, and a whole lot better than mine does with fake plants in (but it's functional so cant complain)! Yours must be better plants *lol*

 

[jayjay]

Some sort of plant will work for nearly every fish, things like Java ferns which there are only a few fish which can digest it, deep rooting plants like Amazon swords for fish that dig. Floating plants work for digging fish as well. There are many many possibilities.

What are the dimensions of this tank?

 

[dasmall1]

I think the fake plants are fine. Once you start putting live plants in, you want to make them grow faster, and you research more, buy more, and it's an endless cycle until you finally have tanks with nothing but plants!

 

[Loko17]

I think the fake plants are fine. Once you start putting live plants in, you want to make them grow faster, and you research more, buy more, and it's an endless cycle until you finally have tanks with nothing but plants!

Now lets not get carried away here. Thats a little ridiculous

 

[Gankutsuou]

I think the fake plants are fine. Once you start putting live plants in, you want to make them grow faster, and you research more, buy more, and it's an endless cycle until you finally have tanks with nothing but plants!

Now lets not get carried away here. Thats a little ridiculous

ridiculous?! look at my new approach to my tank. It's true that once you start to buy plants, you just can't stop. Then you end up paying for things like special lights and c02 injections.

but the fish are still in there. Plants create home, space, and territory, which, when combine with over-filtration, allows you to overstock. (Bad practice. I don't strongly suggest it, but I do it.)

 

[LisaLQ]

We have one planted tank and one fake planted tank (due to sevs - which cant have any plants in there, so I wouldn't waste hard earned money on expensive java fern for it to be turned into lunch lol). Must admit the planted one looks nicer, but you have to worry about feeding the plants, lights, technically we should have co2 but we dont, then you have snails which inevitably turn up, it's much harder work, you cant just plonk them in and leave them. And then you have to keep trimming them, and removing dead leaves - you dont have to do that with fake. Now dont get me wrong, I'm planning on losing the fake plants when my sevs are sold (if they're ever sold lol), but I wouldn't plant it to the heavens for the sake of looking nice - sometimes practicality comes first. And there's good and bad points to both real and fake - so why the hoo-ha?

I think his tank looks great

 

[Mako Man111]

Nice Tank! I've got a 105 gallon oceanic tank with NW cichlids and use fake plants and I think they are fine, for all the reaons Lisa said. No trimming and cleaning out dead leaves especially is why I kinda like fake better, at least for the 105 gallon. I have a low tech planted 20 gallon thats nice but the plant work gets annoying sometimes.

 

[jayjay]

I must say I've never fed my plants, don't use CO2, all the effort of planting them and that is it for the simple plants. Only occasionally take out dead leaves. I only use fake plants on my largest tank as the plants wouldn't do well under the low light, my other tanks all run on halogen bulbs, no where near the best but work well on my tank rack.

 

[aquamike]

Nice Tank! I've got a 105 gallon oceanic tank with NW cichlids and use fake plants and I think they are fine, for all the reaons Lisa said. No trimming and cleaning out dead leaves especially is why I kinda like fake better, at least for the 105 gallon. I have a low tech planted 20 gallon thats nice but the plant work gets annoying sometimes.

Thanks to everyones compliments and or suggestions. I agree 100% that live plants look better than fake. I elected to go with the fake plants because i wanted to learn one thing at a time. My first goal is to learn and properly maintain this tank making sure i have outstanding water quality for the fish i intend to keep. Once i feel confident on the fish keeping part, i will do the same with live plants.

,
Mike