New Kid To The Forum

[MinionZer0]

What's up all?!

I'm Mark from Connecticut. I just set up my first large tropical aquarium. Previous to this I had my 55 gallon set up with 4 Red Belly Piranhas and when they passed I decided to take an alternate route and went with a community tank.

This tank came out pretty bad @ss if I do say so myself. I had to change the actinic bulbs to regular bulbs because the fish weren’t very active and their color didn’t stand out. The actinics were there for the Piranhas due to their sensitive eyes.

As of this weekend the tank is populated with:

9 Neon Tetras
5 Glowlight Tetras
5 Black Neon Tetras
3 Flame Tetras
3 Buenos Aires Tetras
3 Hyphessobrycon
3 False Julii Cory Cats
1 Leopard Danio
3 Zebra Danios (Big finned)
3 Cherry Barbs
2 Gold Algea Eaters

Tank with 100% actinic bulbs:

Tank with standard bulbs:

Here is a vid of the whole tank setup:
http/www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVu6rm1j8lw

Here is a closer up:
http/www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0Ti8-3cHwc


Instead of buying the mad expensive plants from the pet store I decided to craft my own. Let me know what you think.

- Mark

 

[mark pallister]

hi mark
nice set up
what did you craft your plants from?

 

[MinionZer0]

It was actually really easy and really cheap. I went to the arts and crafts store and picked out some plants that I liked from their selection, which is pretty varied. They come with really long stems so you have to cut those down. It's usually several steel wires wrapped so you might have to cut away the the cover first and clip them individually or keep bending them back and forth between two pliers until they break. Then for the base I used a clear silicone. I laid out a piece of plastic wrap and poured the silicone into a cube big enough where I thought it would keep the plant steady underwater, about 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick. Make the cube as big as you think is necessary. Stick the plant into the cube and wrap it up with the excess plastic wrap. I molded it by hand once it was covered to make sure it was smooth and covering the stem of the plant. Drop it in a big plastic cup and let it cure for two days. You will probably have to set up some splints to keep the plant standing straight. After two days you are good to go. You can even add rocks to the silicone once you have poured it and before it dries to mask it's appearance better.