Our 125gal Tank

[Amunet]

Yay! I wanted to wait until we got some better lights before starting a planted aquarium journal And well, we got them in yesterday, so woot! heh
I'm not sure what the scientific names are of the plants, so yeah.. ALso not sure the name of everything in the tank, so forgive my lack of knowledge hehe.


Alrighty, first up, the 125gal tank & stand we bought from Petsmart. We had to drive across town to get it b/c the one by us had one, but it had cracks all in it
long- 72"
width- 18"
depth- 23"

Substrate is mainly play sand w/ 2 bags of eco-complete on the left side of the tank. I had this vision in mind that didn't exactly come together well lol
The sand had a bunch of small black rocks all throughout it. I was a bit bummed about that, but I actually think it looks pretty nice.
We only ended up using 3 of the bags of sand. Gives us about 2 inch deep substrate.

Filter is a fluval fx5 canister filter. Great great filter. The various parts of it and DH putting it in to the cabinet

So empty!

Some of the plants I had ordered came in. Not sure what the names of all of them are. The vallis didn't survive though unfortunatly.

Added more plants... some sword plants that were in another tank that we're taking down. Looks like a big ole mess lol The yellowing anubias were there only temporarily. Their leaves died off but they did grow new ones. Didn't end up keeping them in the tank.

Tank shot after the first piece of driftwood was finally staying down on it's own.

2 pieces of mopani driftwood about to be soaked. They stayed in the tub for aroudn 2 weeks. The bigger piece was ok, but the smaller piece was still staining the water. I grew impatient though and just put them in to the tank anyway heh

The nice little cheeseball tunnel I made from a sewer pipe and some dollar store rocks glued w/ aquarium silicon heh

The smaller piece of mopani in the tank w/ some java fern tied to it

The other piece of wood moved to behind the castle.... I don't really like the way it looks there but meh

Tank shot so far

The little filter we're using as a CO2 diffuser. Works great! We got this one from Superpetz for $15.

The CO2 canister sits in the cabinet by the filter

Finally put the bigger piece of mopani in when I realized that it wasn't the one leaching tannins. Tied 3 anubias plants to it

Tank shot

It finally dawned on me to check to see what the wattage was on the lights that came w/ the tank. It was shockingly bad lol
I was seriously surprised that the plants had even survived. We figured it was b/c the room gets a lot of light and they were surviving that way lol

Last batch of plants that we ordered had come in. Dwarf hairgrass, giant hairgrass, wisteria, sprite, java moss and 2 sword compacta
Tank shot

to be continued.......... more photos coming up in just a bit

 

[AdAndrews]

nice so far..

 

[Amunet]

Yay I can add more photos now heh... didn't want the first post to be too much hehe

so continued on!

We finally got our new lights in yesterday as I mentioned. Gives us about 1.2? wpg on each side of the tank. LOADS better than what it was at before
We want to replace 2 of the bulbs though w/ a different kind

Tank shot last night after the new lights were put on

Liquid ferts I'm using

And for the rooted plants that aren't in the eco complete section of the tank
Root tabs

The anubias that is tied to the bigger piece of wood.. some of the leaves are dying. Need to snip those off. The rest of the plants w/ the leaves looks good though.

1 of the dwarf hairgrass. Doesn't look too great. Appears as though that the ppl didn't fully submerge it so it grew pods? instead of runners. Hoping it will color up and start growing well w/ the new light.

Java moss going crazy free floating in the tank, and a sword..... have I mentioned how much I love sword plants? heh

Another sword.... I'm not sure what kind of sword this one is. I think bc of the low light, it hasn't grown up, just got more bushy looking w/ the smaller leaves... I like it though *nodnod*

And whatever plant this is. Once again, not great looking but hoping the better light will help. Also 2 sword sister plants in the background.

The messy side w/ the eco complete heh. It's not nice and tidy, but I do actually like the way it looks. Looks natural... I totally did that on purpose.. *cough*

The bubble counter and the filter/diffuser in the tank. The diffuser blows out tiny little bubbles that the fluval output pushes to the rest of the tank. We had to turn the little filter just a little bit so the CO2 would actually get mixed instead of just finding the various holes in the filter to escape through.
Right now we're only using about 1bps. We were using about 3bps before, but the color in the drop checker turned yellow *shrugs*
Forgot to mention, that the anubias that you can see in the photo is getting brown algae on its leaves. Is brown algae just inevitable in a new tank? Really hoping it doesn't get worse than what it's at now.

And the tank in the dining room. Forgive the mess... Haven't cleaned up the boxes the lights have come in.
I wanted the tank centered, but DH didn't want it to block the outlet, *shrugs* oh well heh

So lets see.... list of the plants in the tank..
2 ozelot swords, 2 sword compacta, 7 other sword plants (not sure wht kind probably just regular amazon), 5 anubias (no idea what kind they are)...
5 marimo balls, java moss, 2 dwarf hairgrass, 1 giant hairgrass, couple strands of hornwort, water wisteria, water sprite, dwarf sag, 6 java fern and a couple other plants I have no idea what they are lol

Fish so far.....
6 giant danio, 6 hybrid rainbowfish, 1 golden panchax killifish, 8 peppered cory, 3 skunk cory, 3 julii cory, 2 rubberlip pleco, 6 tiger barb, 1 black ghost knife

 

[Amunet]

Alrighty... got a few more plants and fish this weekend.
Fish we got.. 6 more clown loaches.. ich free so far, woot! and 6 albino tiger barbs.
New plants.... 2 bundle of cabomba from Petsmart (looked great) and 4 other plants from the LFS. Threw away one of them b/c I don't think they were aquatic, and I'm still not sure on another but kept that in the tank. 1 I know is aquatic b/c I've seen it in some tanks posted here, and the other is corkscrew vallis.

Random photos time

The giant hairgrass isn't looking too good. Really hope it's ok though and starts to grow offshoots.

Brown algae seems to be spreading a bit which sucks... also seem to be getting some algae on the glass. Doing a water change tomorrow so will clean off as much as I can

And full tank shot. No idea if things are improving b/c of the CO2. Looks like things are growing... but the algae is concerning. Not sure what to do about it.

 

[bagu]

nice tank!

will look FAB when it fills out

the water wisteria will do that quickly ;D

 

[Amunet]

nice tank!

will look FAB when it fills out

the water wisteria will do that quickly ;D

Thanks!
Really hoping it fills out. Love the look of lush planted tanks and really hoping that will happen.. at least a little bit hehe

 

[forby3]

awesome tank mate take some night time photos bet you it looks amazing at night

 

[mixmaster jay]

very nicely planted mate

 

[Amunet]

awesome tank mate take some night time photos bet you it looks amazing at night

I'll get some photos of it tonight if I remember Our camera isn't all that great though, need to mess with the settings some more heh.

 

[aaronnorth]

i thought you had some kitty litter as substrate when i first saw this picture

nicely planted although the castle isnt to my taste
Should fill out nicely

good luck,

 

[Amunet]

LOL..... I shook my fist at my cat and threatened it with a kick to the butt if he thought about using the sand as a litter box. He just gave me that indifferent look though lol

Heh... yeah I didn't really like the castle at first either, but we had bought it a long time ago and it never got used, so we decided to just go ahead and put it in to the tank. The BGK loves it though, so.. in it stays heh.

 

[Amunet]

Okedoke, remembered to take some photos tonight
Not great quality but well, our camera isn't the greatest heh...

The clown fish food clip isn't in there all the time. Had some tomato I thought the fish might like, but they don't seem to really have any interest in tomatos heh

And a video! YAY! hehe Don't laugh at the end when I almost end up falling over the chair that I bump in to lol
Clicky Here

Did a water change today and cleaned up as much of the algae that I saw on the tank walls. There was a lot more than I thought there was. Lots of brown algae spots over on the right side.. and some kind of green algae on the back and on the left side.

 

[aaronnorth]

i didnt see you bum into the chair
lol, what is that orange thing in hte centre?

 

[Amunet]

It's the food clip It's shaped like a clown fish. I put a little bit of tomato in to the tank last night to see if any of the fish would eat some of it, but nope heh.

 

[Amunet]

UGH, I'm so bummed out right now.
Found one of the plecos half eaten just a few minutes ago.
This is the 2nd one so far. No idea what the heck is going on and why they keep dying. So frustrating!
I have no idea where the other one is either. Disadvantage to having a fairly well planted tank I guess... sigh. I hope it's ok, but I doubt it since I haven't seen it in a while.
I guess we should just stop trying plecos or something...*shrugs*

EDIT: Alrighty, finally found the other pleco. It was alive and well it seemed. Coloring wasn't faded or anything and it looked healthy.
Looks like the dead one was the newer one we had gotten to replace the previous one that had died. Poor fishies