Jim's 60 Gallon High-tech Planted Journal

[jimboliana]

Just a pic of what it looked like last night i moved the wood slighty to the left to try and get the balance a bit better, i was ready and waiting for the plants to arive and for the RO to fill my container! anyway you dont want too much water in the tank when planting.

 

[qwikimpss]

Looking awesome Jim.

 

[riverman444]

Nice work so far. Can't wait for the final pic

 

[jimboliana]

Well at last, this morning at 7.20 i shot out of bed as the door bell rang and it was postie with a box full of plants for me i know what your thinking, did i bother answering the door, well yes i did with a large smile and took the box to my tank and started unpacking them.

Now it may seam strange as alot of people out there plan what they want to do in there tank or at least have a picture in there head what they want it to look like and as you can guess i didn't. I did know i didn't want too many different species of plant in my tank which is why i only have five.

It has taken me the best part of the day to plant the tank and i must say for a first attempt i am pleased with the results

I have turned all the equipment on, got the CO2 working at 1 bubble every 4 seconds or 20/min which is a starting point, i will adjust in the morning as it can take up to 48 hours to settle.

The picture below is how it stands at the moment, tank half full of water, just waiting for the RO to fill up, so by the end of tonight the tank should be cycling!

 

[riverman444]

Well at last, this morning at 7.20 i shot out of bed as the door bell rang and it was postie with a box full of plants for me i know what your thinking, did i bother answering the door, well yes i did with a large smile and took the box to my tank and started unpacking them.

Now it may seam strange as alot of people out there plan what they want to do in there tank or at least have a picture in there head what they want it to look like and as you can guess i didn't. I did know i didn't want too many different species of plant in my tank which is why i only have five.

It has taken me the best part of the day to plant the tank and i must say for a first attempt i am pleased with the results

I have turned all the equipment on, got the CO2 working at 1 bubble every 4 seconds or 20/min which is a starting point, i will adjust in the morning as it can take up to 48 hours to settle.

The picture below is how it stands at the moment, tank half full of water, just waiting for the RO to fill up, so by the end of tonight the tank should be cycling!

A forest of micro sword?

 

[jimboliana]

How bizzar is this, my plants have only been in the water 8 hours and i swear that some of them are pearling already, i may be compleatly wrong but by the look of where the bubbles are forming they look as if they are starting to pearl, anyone else had this so quickly or am i just plain stupid?

Riverman they are Echinodorus tenellus or Pygmy chain sword, back left is the Hygrophila Polysperma (Dwawf Hygrophila) middle right hideing behind the wood is Rotala Roundifolia (Small Rotala) back right is the Alternath Reineckii (Red copper leafed Alternanthera) and floating i have a coupl of Pista Stratiotes (Water lettuce)

 

[riverman444]

I can almost see how this is going to look. Nice, to say the least.

So, how much $ did this whole setup set you back?

 

[jimboliana]

to be honest i dont really know but a rough guess would be between £1200 and £1500

 

[riverman444]

Kinda what I figured. The insides of that cabinet probably ate up most of it

Nice work......very nice indeed.

 

[zig]

The water you are adding probably has a lot of dissolved oxygen in it, this is very common after a water change or when you add new water, its a type of false pearling, thats probably what you are seeing.

20 bubbles per minute is not very many, Id say you may need to double that at least, if there no fish in the tank i wouldn't worry about increaseing the CO2 it wont do any harm to the plants.

How many watts have you over the tank? is it T5 lighting?

But a good start look foreward to your progress.......

 

[jimboliana]

Zig, i've got 1 X 150w metal halide bulb and two 18w fluros, i will increase the CO2 to get the pH down on the monitor a bit quicker,

That is prob what i am seeing, thanks

 

[zig]

Thats quite a lot of light you have over the tank, a shade over 4WPG, you would really want to up the CO2 levels and get them in the correct ballpark, id even lose the 2 flouros for the moment until the tank settles a little, the MH will be giving you over 3WPG on its own. For the CO2 i would probably aim for about 40-50 bubbles per minute and take it from there.

Best of luck with it, in the beginning it can be tricky, a bit of a balanceing act keeping everything in check.

You might want to add a few more plants as well, in the beginning lots of fast growers will help bigtime, you can remove them later, in the beginning its more about biomass, and lots of fast growers will help balance the tank quicker.

 

[lljdma06]

The tank looks very nice, but I agree with zig about adding more stem plants. Sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and put plants in there that aren't your cup of tea until the tank settles down.

What are you planning as far as fertilization is concerned. Again, very nice tank. I especially like the shape of the bogwood. That gives the tank a lot of potential for aquascaping.

 

[zig]

Ok i forgot about the sump on this tank, i was getting confused with the title of the thread with the tank being a 60 gallon tank, for lighting and WPG purposes i would consider only the main tank being lit, which is 46 US gallons, thats what im basing the 4WPG on, just to clarify it for anyone else reading it who thinks math is not my strongpoint

 

[jimboliana]

Ta zig, i can also raise up the light to give less intenserty, i am only putting in 20 bubbles per min at the moment as the water in the top tank is still untill i have enough RO water to top it up to flow through the who;e system which should be in a couple of hours (late night for me then)

I will then let it settle tonight and raise the CO2 in the morning, i can go and get more plants but so far i have planted loads and running out of room, i dont think the pic does justice on how many plants are actually in there!

I planted about 100 individual pigmy chain sword today as well as the rest, all the plants that i have are recommended by Dennerle as start up plants as they are fast growers

I planted 8 red copper leafed alternanthera, 15 small rotala and 9 dwarf hygrophila.

As i have all the dennerle gear i am starting off as they suggest and doing exactly as the book reads!