100g setup (lots of pics)

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!

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A great start! Looking forward to the updates!
 
Looking good. How much was the flourite and flourish?
 
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.
 
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I am sorry about your mothers death. cancer really sucks.

You have one really great looking tank!
 
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
 
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.
 
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.
 
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