Nicklfires 55g Planted Journal

[nicklfire]

Hey guys,

Many of you know me or probably recognize the name, i been around for a while and pop in and out at times and give my 2 cents.. never really had a journal to show people but now i'v decided to create one as i'm upgrading to the 55 gallon. I'm taking all the knowledge i'v learnt and begin over again with a nice real tank. I'v been on this site for a long time and pretty much everything i'v learnt is from people on this site. It's funny how much of a family can form just by random ppl online, kinda neat if you think about it. Like george... that guys amazing i dont know if you guys saw it but he had a article in a magazine not to long ago.. maybe he'll tell ya about it: ) Anyways getting off topic. Ok here's the storey. I currently got a 33 gallon planted tank that i've had for years recently i moved into a new place with my g/f. My tank is still at my other place... (used to live with my mom... dont laugh... ) anyways... i moved into this new place and really didnt want to stay with a little tank so i decided to save up some money and buy a 55 gallon tank with stand 2nd hand off the local classified ads. So what i'm doing is taking this tank and going to town... Here's my journey with the 55gallon tank.


Day1: So tonight i went to pick up my tank from town (about 2 hour drive to vancouver,bc) anyways get the tank and bring it home. With the tank came a stand not bad decent stand... Anyways get it all setup and here it is.. beatiful eh... ewww... you can see the salt water took it's toll on the tank...

After some nice hard scrubbing and scrubbing here what i got it to look like. Not perfect 100% but good enough for now.

You can notice the light i bought from the local classified ads is a coralife 48" 2x65 watt 6700k light. (i'm going to be upgrading this to the 4x65watt when i sell my 33 gallon) It's actually a pretty good light, i bought it for 120$ canadian used for about 1 month. Even came with the legs lucky me.

More information about the light can be found here [URL="http/www.hellolights.com/482xcofraq2x.html"]http/www.hellolights.com/482xcofraq2x.html[/URL]

I went down to my LFS tonight aswell when i was picking up my tank to get some substrate. Originally i went to get the ECO-Complete at 29$ a bag but they only had 2 bags.. i was mad.... until i saw right next beside it a blowout clearance price of 19$ for the redsea Flora Base which is exactly what i used in my 33 gallon. The usual price per bag is 34$ so i got a good score. I could only get 3 bags.. that's all they had left so i'll have to pay for price for 1 more bag. Usually the rule is 1 bag per 10 gallons.. but 4 bags will be enough.

More information on the substrate can be found here [URL="http/www.redseafish.com/Product.asp?dir=...1&proID=237"]http/www.redseafish.com/Product.asp?dir=...1&proID=237[/URL]


Well it's about 11pm now and i gotta work in the morning i prob spend about 1.5 hours on the tank and 1 hour on this journal entry haha. I'll post some more tomrrow i hope to get another bag of flora base and then clean the glass a little more then pick a spot in the house to put the tank and filler up. See ya then.

 

[Themuleous]

How do you find the flora base? Seen it a few times but never heard of anyone using it? What are your plans for the scape?

Sam

 

[nicklfire]

Hey dude,

Not sure where in england you can find the stuff but it's readily availiable in most Fish Stores here in canada.

to be honestly i'm not sure what i'm doing for a scape yet, i got some vals and my driftwood with java moss on it from my old tank but.. i still am thinking about what kind of theme i want to do... and what aquascape.

 

[Themuleous]

Sorry didn't explain properly you say you have the flora base in your other tank? How is it as a plant substrate, you getting decent growth and/or good colours?

Sam

 

[RadaR]

How do you find the flora base? Seen it a few times but never heard of anyone using it?

Sam

Sam, I used it in my Rio 125. It's ok, nice growth and didnt cloud that much. However it broke up into powder soon and so I found my substrate layer was getting less and less. Ive had to top up my substrate with ADA soil. You get more mass with ADA soil for the same price as the florabase too.

Dont mean to put you off it nicklfire and im sure you find it well. Look forward to the tanks development.

 

[Themuleous]

Oh right cheers Fred.

 

[nicklfire]

No no worries dude, i used it in my other tank for the last like 2 years, it's worked great for me, very min cloudyness unless you really sturr up the tank for whatever reason but it always calms down pretty fast. I get good plant growth yea.... i think my last problem i was only running like 2wpg and i'm going to be doing like 4.5 on this tank , plus i wanna do injected co2 down the road a bit... we'll see it should be good. hopfully i can do a little more work on it tonight.

 

[nicklfire]

Hey guys,

Well here's a bit of a update for you. i kinda went a coupel steps ahead of where i should .. i wanted to do it in steps so you see.. but i got carried away lol.

So from the last point this is what we have done now. Filled it up with water and let it sit for 2 days... Had to go to the LFS and get a 300 Watt Elite heater cause the old one just wouldnt cut it. I got my driftwood and java moss from my other tank and transfported it and stuck it in this tank. I also went back and got my eheim pro 2 2028 and hooked that up, at the same time i got my Laguna UV sterilizer and hooked it up to my eheim filter as a inline. Then i got my fish and stuck them in (trust me i woulda loved to cycle it properly first but we were moving and i had no time... They are doing great though, the move went very well.

I threw all the other plants out that i had and kept the vals.. and just stuck them in for the time being. I'll be going to vancouver to find some plants at BIG ALS until then these vals will have to do.


so here's what it looks like so far, for some reason with the flash off the pictures are really blurry so i had to keep the flash on.

Here's my eheim professional II 2028 filter with upgraded spray bar and inlet tube. A link to the filter is here : http/www.marinedepot.com/md_viewItem.asp?idproduct=EH2028K

After hooking up the filter properly i grabbed my Laguna PowerClear Max UV Sterilizer / Clarifier 1000, used more for ponds but what the heck lets hook this sucker up. More information on the uv sterilizer can be found here http/www.lagunaponds.com/lagunaeng/uv/pc...at.php?link=172

Here's a picture of the driftwood with the java moss on it, yes i know i gotta cut that sucker back haha. Gotta get a background too.

Well the next thing on the agenda is i'm going to buy a complete Red Sea Co2 system, hopfully in about 2 days.. that should be cool i actually have not used one before. The one i'm going to be buying is this one http/www.redseafish.com/co2_pro.asp valued at i believe 190$ canadian.

Anyways.. until next time guys hope this is looking on so far :0

 

[cleekdaFish]

niceI luv ur bogwood nice tank

 

[Bozza]

Really nice tank. I like the back plants and the centre driftwood

 

[nero]

Hi there Nicklfire!

Glad I just found your post! Looking good so far dude!

Im interested that you use the Red Sea gear, not alot of people seem to, and it's not very dominant over here in oz. I was looking at the reactor that comes with that kit the other day, it looks pretty good, be interested to see how it goes.

I don't have any proper planting substrate in my, but I added the red sea florabase or whatever its called, its just an additive you spread under the last inch of gravel. And I gotta say, you dont wanna stir that sh** up. My tank is so cloudy right now I can hardly see the back.

Anyways, its lookin great, can't wait to see the developments! Are you gonna be dosing EI btw?

I'm adding my external reactor tonight, so I'll let you know how it goes!

Nero

 

[Dave Spencer]

Good stuff, I like it when people show pictures of the hardware. CO2 systems from German eBay sellers are becoming popular in the UK and I am running a journal that shows how it all goes together.

You probably already know this, but I wouldn`t go for the full 4.5WPG until you have the CO2 up and running if I were you. Do you intend getting a lot of fast growing stems in there?

Personally, I would move the wood off centre to the left to make things look less symmetrical.

Make sure you post a picture of you lights set up when it is sorted.

Cheers, Dave.

 

[nicklfire]

Im interested that you use the Red Sea gear, not alot of people seem to, and it's not very dominant over here in oz. I was looking at the reactor that comes with that kit the other day, it looks pretty good, be interested to see how it goes.

I honestly cant say i know too much about co2 hardware, i really like red sea products and when i saw that they made co2 hardware i couldnt resist setting my sights on there hardware, i will deifnately hear around for both posative and negative things about it, i only want the best of course.

I don't have any proper planting substrate in my, but I added the red sea florabase or whatever its called, its just an additive you spread under the last inch of gravel. And I gotta say, you dont wanna stir that sh** up. My tank is so cloudy right now I can hardly see the back.

Is it the laterite stufff?? I know the flora base substrate that you see in the pictures above its.... wonderfull. It does not really cloud up at all, even when i added the water into the tank. If it does cloud up because of the pleco gets scared or somthing it will settle within a couple of minutes. The other reason i like this flora base is that it buffers the ph level.. which is nice.

Anyways, its lookin great, can't wait to see the developments! Are you gonna be dosing EI btw?

HELL YEA! lol, i want to do everything right so i'm going all out, i really want a nice looking tank and the amount of money i'm going to be investing into this thing.... i'm just doing it up. With all the help i'v been given on this forum over the last couple of years i think i can do pretty good. I'm going to be ordering my chemicals from http/www.gregwatson.com/categories.asp greg watson i have heard ok stuff about them. I will be going through it step by step cause i really have not seen much noobie artciles about it.

CO2 systems from German eBay sellers are becoming popular in the UK and I am running a journal that shows how it all goes together.

Yea man i'd definately like to see that, as i said before i'm by far no expert with co2, this will be my first endevour at the pressurized systems. So hopfully it will workout fine.

You probably already know this, but I wouldn`t go for the full 4.5WPG until you have the CO2 up and running if I were you. Do you intend getting a lot of fast growing stems in there?

Yea i was not going to be getting the light until i had the co2 up and running i didnt want a huge algae bloom happening haha. And yes i'll be getting alot of fast growing stems, have any suggestions? (remember i'm from canada )

Personally, I would move the wood off centre to the left to make things look less symmetrical.

O trust me there will be alot of redesign in the next 2 months lol basically just want to get up the beneficial bacteria and get past the ammonia spike then i can really start working it.

 

[Themuleous]

Looking good so far like the java moss wood, should look nice once it gets established.

Sam

 

[nicklfire]

I can only hope i suppose :0

I'm trying to find some online suppliers for plants in canada, anyone have good experience with affordable prices?