100g setup (lots of pics)

[Mindcrime121]

Well, after much hunting on Craigs list, shopping on line, asking for recomendations here from other members, and a few fiascos with sellers, I've FINALLY got a brand new 100 gallon, 5 foot glass tank in my front room. Painted the back pane black, got it moved into position, and am expecting the filters and substrate to arrive today. The lights arrived a couple of days ago, and I've not yet ordered a Co2 system or figured out where I wil be able to get the tank refilled, but no rush on that I don't think. Still need to get out and find some nice wood at the river too, and then decide on how I want to arrange the scape before ordering plants, but anyhow, here are the first pics... My starting point!

[cam191919]

looks great, cant wait to see it planted

[The Zigman]

Fill 'Er Up!!!

looks like you're off to a good start!

[laurenrocksth]

Nice!!! Super cute dog!

[ChrisK]

A nice start

[Mindcrime121]

Thanks. If she doesn't stop chewing things up she's going to wind up being the first occupent in the tank! LOL!!

[fishorama]

Nice stand & tank but I love your dog! Is she an eskie puppy? Adorable!

[Blown 346]

I hate these threads. It makes me want to setup another tank. I think thats the funnest part.

[Mgamer20o0]

good luck

[jm1212]

nice start

[Mindcrime121]

Thanks everyone, and she is a mini eskie. Her name is Cotton. We just got her last week. She's just under 4 months old. The pet store was keeping her in a huge hex tank with wood shavings like a hamster and we just couldn't leave her there.

As for the tank, my shipment from Drs Foster and Smith arrived today, so I have the flourite black sand in and the HOT Magnum canister filters on now and I'm toying with layouts for the lace rock which I'll be using as weights to tie down the wood once I get that, which will be a few weeks most likely since it will prolly be local drift wood and I'll have to soak it for some time. My design plans preclude buying Mopani at the pet store for the main log. There are a lot of places around here I am going to scout for a 3-4 foot log with a nice branch or two sticking out from it, and I've laid the rocks out in a way that I think will permit me to place the plants I have in mind for best effect, as well as give me workable anchor points for tying down the log. The rock will also provide a large number of caves for shelter, territory, and breeding. The log will also be decorated with moss and various anubias and so forth. Foreground will be hair grass on either side of a large patch of HC. Hard to explain, but it's going to be some time before I have what's in my head growing in my tank to shoot pics of, so I feel compelled to share the ideas in text because I'm so excited about them, LOL! I'm just really looking forward to getting it put together and showing it off! :P

2nd pic is the condition the goodies arrived in! The eco-complete apparently froze solid in transport (as did the flourish) and the bag was punctured by the rezulting frozen mass of pointy substrate particles. The green packing peanuts melted when they got wet as the stuff thawed and just made an awful green slimy sticky mess!

[Rbishop]

A great start! Looking forward to the updates!

[Dwarf Puffers]

Looking good. How much was the flourite and flourish?

[Mindcrime121]

I don't recall the prices off hand, but I got them from http://www.drsfostersmith.com/ and they said that the stuff the ecocomplete substrate is in will not be damaged by freezing, which I have to say I find questionable, and I didn't press the fact that half of it leaked out as it thawed in the truck. I did discover a problem with one of the 2 filters this morning. It is sucking in air from someplace and I can't figure out where, but it just blows the water out after filling the canister without sucking tank water to replace it and I end up with an empty canister. They are sending a replcement with a postage paid return address sticker so I can send it back without incurring additional cost at my end which was pretty good. In the mean time I pulled the one off my 20 gallon to seed the new tank. Tossed about 15 goldfish in there as well, which has always been how I cycle a tank. Got the timer on and am going to order plants when I get back from my mothers funeral at the end of the week. The cancer won the fight so I have to be out of town for a few days. I also still need to find some good wood. I'm not thrilled with the driftwood I've picked up so far and wish I could find a piece of mopani about 3 feet long. Any suggestion on that? I hate buying wood online because you can't see the piece you're getting til it arrives and it might not suit the need, ya know? At this point though, meh, I'm willing to consider it if I can get a big enough piece that way. Never seen bigger than 24" in the stores.

[FastFly67]

Have you tried looking in this thread for wood? Some of his pieces are amazing
http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=165384

[Bubbles2112]

I am sorry about your mothers death. cancer really sucks.

You have one really great looking tank!

[inkyjenn]

spunjin is a great guy to get driftwood from. its very clean and the shapes are lovely. and it was pretty pocketbook friendly as well

[tanker]

That is almost my exact-setup, but I have natural gravel and no rocks (no room with all my plants. Keep going!!


PS--on the HOT mags put a little vasaline on the "O" rings on the intake tube and the "D" top cover seal. That is probably where the air is "leaking" into the filter.

[debaric]

Great tank bro.. sorry about your mom's passing. cant wait to see how it turns out.

[DAVIDFBT]

Nice setup, I really like the eco-complete for the substrate, it must have set you back. I can't wait to see how it goes in the future.

[Mgamer20o0]

whats your water like? lace rock i think will raise the ph though i could be wrong.

[Mindcrime121]

Thanks for the sympathy posts. As for the gaskets on the HOT Magnum, I've never had to do that with them before, and this is the first time one has done this, so if they are willing to send a replacement, I'm good with that. No real inconvenience to me at this point anyhow. As for the eco-complete, that was just one bag, originally intended for the 10g tank I'm going to be doing for my sons, but might be doing a tank for my fiance's grandmother at her place (birthday present) and if so I will use it there and get the boys some more later to do theirs. I've got 6 bags of Flourite Black Sand in the 100g tank. Don't recall individual item prices, but the total order was somewhere around $300-$350. As for the lace rock, yes, it may raise the Ph some, but I'll be using a lot of RO water, and this tank is going to be heavy on CO2 as well which should compensate for that, and I can also run another filter with peat moss if needed. Might be some extra work, but it will be worth it. I can't post a pic from here (I'm at my dad's house now) but when I get home I'll post another pic since the tank is now full and has the goldfish in it. Soon as I can score the right piece (pieces) of wood I'll order the plants. Looking forward to this thread growing as I post new pics at each step along the way.

[addicted2fish]

nice tank !!! I have a huge pc of mopani if you are interested in it . I can send you a few pics... I just dont need the size, well if I had a 100 gallon tank I would use it :) great tank , wish I could find one . I also have alot of plants and decor and other stuff in a sale thread, I will post my mopani wood there. just come ck it out !!!~~

(ps ) really cool looking rock !! I think that pc on the right would look really cool standing up , wonder if it would ? hhmmm......

[Mindcrime121]

Definately taking Addicted2fish up on that wood and thought I'd post an update. I ordered plants from aquabotanica.com so thought I'd post the order while waiting for it to ship.

Lilaeopsis mauritius
Blyxa japonica
Petite Anubias Nana
Anubias congensis
Anubias coffefolia
Anubias minima MOTHER plant
Thai Willow moss
HEMIANTHUS CALLITRICHOIDES
Giant Hairgrass
Hygrophila corymbosa Kompakt
Myriophyllum tuberculatum
Myriophyllum pinnatum
Cryptocoryne lutea LARGE potted
Cryptocoryne balansae XXL
Amazon Sword
Red Rubin Sword
Kleiner bar Sword submersed LG
Indian Red Sword potted

Already took the 24" log out of the 20g tank and put it in the 100g, and it has an african water fern, java fern, java lace fern, and willow moss on it. Also took clipping of sunset hygro for back left corner of tank. Very anxiously awaiting delivery of the new plants.

[Mindcrime121]

Got an email today from Aquabotanica.com saying they are out of Thai Willow moss, and would I like java moss instead? Told them that I'd have prefferred flame moss, but did not see it listed availible. He said they have 3 portions, so I had him throw that into the order. Told me it will likely be Wed or Thur before the order goes out, which surprized me. That's a full week from the time I placed the order!! Anyhow, went out to Chico and bought a couple plants for the tank to give myself something to do in the mean time. It's far from the "planted tank" that it will some day become, but at least it has SOME plants in it now.

[calivivarium1]

That's going to be an impressive tank once it is all settled in. I look forward to more pics

[JAY973]

Sweet! It's going to look even better when it starts filling in:clap:

[Mindcrime121]

Thanks. I'll probably rearrange the plants a million times before I'm truly happy with the way they look against each other, but that's 2/3 the fun in my book. :) Got the replacement filter from DrsFoster&Smith today by Fedex and am debating on running all 3 HOT Magnums on this tank and leaving the box filter I've been using on the 20 as it is. I hijacked my original HOT Magnum from there when one of the two I ordered for this tank arrived flawed, and between doing that, and taking the log from the same established tank, the cycle in this bad boy went by REAL fast! I got a notification this morning that Aquabotanic has charged my debit card finally, so should have my first major shipment of plants tomorrow or the next day at latest, and my fiance got the money order out in the mail this morning for another nice piece of mopani from Addicted2fish, so by the middle of next week it should start really looking like a planted tank! Thinking really hard about getting an RO/DI unit since the tap here is liquid rock, and still need to order the CO2 unit. In about 6 to 8 months this tank should look utterly amazing! I'm REALLY happy with the way things are coming along! MUCH thanks to everyone here who has inspired, informed, and advised me regarding the various aspects of planted tanks! :)

[Bnoble]

the tank is awesome, cant wait till its finished!

[Mindcrime121]

Still toying around with plants I'm stealing from my other tanks, and thought I'd toss out a pic... Can't wait til my shipment gets here! Hoping that it will fill things in a bit!

[rich311k]

Very nice!

[Luc]

Find a lawyer...It's a criminal offence to have you wait so long for those plants.
Even worse, it's coming close to multiple/repeat offences committed on all people here waiting for you to start filling your tank.

Following this, will need to decide some time soon on substrate and plants for my own 99G.

[Mindcrime121]

Well, the plants finally arrived. Now I have some questions for those of you who have bought plants from online dealers.

1: It it common for them to take a week to process an order?
2: Is it common for them to simply sick something in your order to replace something they are out or, or change the size of the plant you ordered without asking if that is ok with you?

I got 9 or 10 of the type of hairgrass I ordered and they put a different kind in to fill the order for 10. Should have just sent the 9 and knocked the 10th off when charging my card I'd think. Likewise, I didn't WANT SMALL sword plant, or I'd have ORDERED a SMALL swordplant. I'd have passed on it if given the choice. Wasn't too thrilled with the email exchanges either to be honest. The plants I got seem to be in good condition though. I've gopt a LOT of work ahead of me today getting them all planted, that's for sure! :) I'll post pics after the dust settles! LOL!

[Mindcrime121]

...And as an added bonus, when you buy plants through them, you get all the free duckweed you can eat!! Along with some sort of large white eggs in the roots of a mother plant....scary, yes? The work continues.....

[jake gillespie]

keep the pics coming !!! looks great

[Mindcrime121]

Planting the HC now... man that is WORK in a 5 foot long tank!! Seriously though, if anyone who has experience buying plants online could post, I'd appriciate some feedback on how this place did me, and wether this is commonplace or not. I wrote them and told them I really did not appriciate getting 9 of 10 out of a group of the same plant and having the 10th swapped out for a cheaper plant which does not fit into my aquascape plan, without being consulted, and without having a reduction in the charges to denote that the 10th plant was a buck cheaper on their site that what I ordered and got charged for. I can hang with getting a smaller sword than I ordered, because they reduced the price and it's the same plant, but tossing in a different type of foreground cover?! Not cool in my book. Better to just drive to the LFS in the next town over and give him a list of what I want so I can make sure I'm not paying full price and getting something of lesser value that I didn't ask for or can't use.

Anyhow, the tank is coming together well. Looking forward to when the HC patches all fill in! Gonna look real nice by then! :)

[Rbishop]

Looking forward to the grow in and the new planting!

[Mokomon]

Beautiful!!

[Mindcrime121]

At BK's direct request and good suggestion, here we have it... I'll be relaxing beside it tonight! :thm:

Looking forward to the background plants growing in tall enough to BE background plants, and the forground filling in the gaps. Also got my CO2 system today and will be filling the tank and setting it up after the weekend, as I'm going out of town for a couple days. :)

[savi]

It looks great! Makes me want to redo mine with plants like tomorrow. I love your layout of your tank, it looks very nice:)

[Slappy*McFish]

Sweet tank, man. Nice work.

[Mindcrime121]

Just a little update... Got the CO2 up and running, but made a noob mistake and didn't get a drop checker so that's on it's way, ordered it this morning. Having a bit of trouble with hair algae from some plants I transferred into this tank, but getting it under control (I think). Just waiting for the foreground plants to fill in and the background to grow out. Added some fish (obviously)... Currently there are 14 glowlight tetra, 5 black skirt, 7 otocynclus, 1 GBR, 5 fancy guppies, 1 swordtail, 1 cory cat, 2 SAE and 5 amano shrimp.

[Rbishop]

Looking pretty good!

[Jag1980]

Looking pretty good!

:iagree:

[WiJosh]

do the plants root into the lace rock or do only things like moss do that?

[Mindcrime121]

Anubias and java ferns will grab hold of it. I placed the riccia so that the mopani will hold it down on the right end on that large pice of lace rock and am toying with the idea of filling some of the bowls in the rock with substrate and placing some of the small foreground stuff there but not sure if I want to go that route yet.

[tidioute06]

Looking great!

[fishorama]

Very nice! (you need to get your cory some friends after the carpet is established)

[Mindcrime121]

Yah, was planning on adding about 4 more. Added the whip tail cat today.

[Mindcrime121]

Decided it was time for a trim, and took a couple shots before doing so. I've added numerous fish, but the ground cover isn't filled in enough yet for the additional cory cats, and as luck would have it, they were out at the nearest LFS anyhow. Still haven't found any angelfish that I'm into yet, so will likely be ordering some online to get what I want. Suggestions for a reputable online fish dealer would be appriciated.


(...I seriously need to get some bright red plants in there...)

[Rbishop]

looking great! can't wait for that ground cover to take off.

[cam191919]

awesome!

[Fish-Addict]

Amazing tank, great job! :thm:

[Mindcrime121]

Slightly off topic, but some of you commented on the pup in one of my pics of this tank, the mini American Eskimo... Well, she was WAAAAYYYYY too hyper to share an apartment with my 4 year old son so we had to get rid of one of them, and my son is already potty trained so the decision was made for us. Took her back to the pet store and they promptly resold her. The wife wasn't about to go dogless after we paid a $500 deposit to HAVE a dog, so we got this one... Boston Terrier. He's a 6 year old from another household that couldn't keep him any more, and so far so good.

[Mindcrime121]

Tanker sent me some "RED" Nasea and a couple nice crypts to add to the tank, so here is how things are looking currently. I had some trouble with filimentous algaes for a while which took off between startup and getting the CO2 going properly, but they are not only no longer spreading, they have begun dwindling off, and I've added 2 SAE, 3 plattys for assistance in reducing and controlling it and it's like having living lawn mowers in there where this tuff is concerned. Have not yet bought the angelfish though. I'm running 400 watts at this time with a LOT of CO2 (bubbles are flying up the counter too fast to count, but the drop checker is staying a nice pretty green), all on timers. I'm dosing about 2 capfuls of Flourish once or twice per week (depending on if I remember to do it a 2nd time per week, LOL) and the stems are for the most part growing VERY fast. I've trimmed the sunset hygro down quite far, and have been spot trimming the rotala (which needs it again) a few stems at a time. Seems that they are all growing decently up to mid hieght in the tank but as soon as they reach up into the top 1/3 they go into growth rate overdrive! I'm still having hair algae issues amongst the flame moss, but planning to buy some flourish excel to spot treat it, and if that doesn't work then I'm likely going to cut back to about 240W for a month as see if it has any negative effect on the high light stuff, primarily the HC carpet, which I'm having a LOUSY time getting a carpet out of as things stand anyhow... mostly due to a whiptail catfish that my wife just HAD to have, LOL! I keep finding the stuff uprooted and floating around the tank in little clumps and having to replant them, along with a number of stem trimmings that have not yet taken root along the back. So, here it is...

[Mindcrime121]

Bump... I keep forgetting that when I update this thread at 2AM it's far down the list by midmorning the next day and no one sees it, so I'm kicking it up the list this evening for those who have shown an interest so far.

[moonstream]

wow!! nice tank! and cute boston too, by the way, they're amazing dogs!

[marinkafuschia]

that "RED" Nasea really pops and adds so much to the tank! looks amazing!

[wjagw]

Really nice looking tank. Love the cabinet.
Plants look green and healthy, well done.
It will look beautiful after front ground get covered.

Cheers

[StarStruck8]

Great job!

[Rbishop]

Looks great!

[dafferspup]

Just saw this thread. You did a GREAT job with this. I like it a lot. What kind of CO2 set up do you use? And how long will it take for the foreground to fill in? Gonna look more awesome with that all filled in.

Your substrate is one of the best. I use that too and I swear by Flourite.

As for buying plants online, I have before and yes, the shipping is done on a set day no matter when you order. I have not had a problem with them switching things out on my though.

[tigerbarb88]

sweet-effin-tastic! lovin the tank man :D

[Mindcrime121]

Thanks everyone, the compliments are much appriciated. A friend in Florida sent me some new stuff today which I'll be growing out in the 20 gallon for a while, but among it was a mad amount of blyxa which went right into the 100g. I'm going to go ahead and pull the HC and use it in the 20 gallon tank since I'm having trouble growing it out in the 100g for the carpet idea I originally had, and I'm going to pull out one or both large rocks and rearrange the log and smaller pieces of wood to provide more room for planting midground plants. Might pull out a fair bit of the larger species of anubias as well, but not sure on that just yet. The sunset hygro is going nuts, as is the rotala, but some other stems are just not going anywhere, so they will be going into the 20g as well. Just a matter of getting the gumption up to do it at this point, but it should make a substantial difference in the look of both tanks. I'll post pics of both when I get it done. I just feel like the 100g is too much like my office at this point... Got some nice stuff in it, but it's organized VERY poorly and just looks cluttered to me, LOL!

[Mindcrime121]

Oh, and it's on presurized CO2, running on the timer with the lights 9 hrs / day.

[tidioute06]

looks great!! keep up the good work.

[Bubbles2112]

Your tank looks really nice!!

[ChrisK]

Coming along nicely looks great

[fl4ian]

need another pics after the grooming... lol.

[Mindcrime121]

In need of another trim, but here's a vid I just shot and posted to YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKPAOD2d9k8

[RhondaAnn]

Thanks for posting the video, just found this thread today. Awesome looking tank! And the song by Metallica fit in perfectly with the video.

[Mindcrime121]

Came home from a week vacation for Easter and things were grown WAY out of hand, so thought I'd post a shot or two. I'll post again after I do the trim. Have a few people I'm giving trimmings to and sending out to tomorrow so gotta get it done in the morning.

[DrNo]

Forest... get cutting! Awesome growth.

[AquatiCreations]

Awesome tank!

Have you had any luck with the Hair grass filling out and spreading?

[Mindcrime121]

Have been away from the site for a while, so sorry for the late reply. No, the chain sword has pretty much stayed as planted. Seems to be doing about the same in either high lighted or heavily shaded areas though, so at least it's versatile. The floating plants keep getting ahead of me and shading out the tank which has wreaked havoc on the stem plants, especially the lower leaves. I'm thining the bejeezers out of them and the tank looks pretty crappy at the moment, so no pics for now. Been toying with the idea of getting away from the heavily planted thing and replacing the smaller fish with some larger agressives actualy. We'll see. The idea of a clown knife and an oscer or two in there seems really apealing at the moment.