150 Gallon Build Thread ... From the Start

DrVader said:
Lookin great Coy!!! Just got back in town.

Your standing water measures lead me to believe all is golden. No need to tweak with your KH etc. and your ph appears to be stable. I'm a little confused as to why you'd have no nitrates with the new stock addition though... remeasure? In my mind, you can stock up conservatively and in small groups to allow the biolad to adapt (this is good practice regardless of how old the tank is).
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Hey Vader - will take some readings tomorrow and post (got the latest DFS box today - polishing pads - sweet).
 
Mindcrime121 said:
For planting suggestions, I know it's not among the more "desirable" plants, but planted densely sunset hygro does look nice and bushy in the back, and a variety of more interestingly colored plants in spots to break up the overall look makes it all the more pleasing to the eye. That's what I'm working towards now, and the hygro certainly fills in fast under good light and CO2. Rotala is my favorite stem plant for breaking up the backdrop, along with some nicer reds, which I'm working on acquiring and propgating myself right now. Hornwort can look nice too when placed right, but getting a little frustrated with mine wanting to float free of the sand, mostly thanks to a whiptail catfish my wife just HAD to have, LOL! Wysteria makes for nice breaks in the "treeline" as well. My own lights are T5 HO, 8x80W 6,500K, running 5 of them for 9 hours per day trying to get the HC to spread into a nice carpet, but it isn't going well, again mostly thanks to that catfish. I think that little guy is likely to end up in the 20 gallon tank again shortly until things fully root in the 100g and take off! As for the discus, not here man... my wife saw the price tags, LOL!!! Besides, my tap water is liquid rock and I'm having issues with that in the tank anyhow. Beginning to think hard about an RO/DI unit as my next major tank expense! Looks great with the additional substrate man, real nice work.
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Thanks Mind for the great input and suggestions.

Are you having any algae issue running 400 watts? I am having a little pop up running only 160. I "need" to get more plants in this baby to eat up the nutrients. Plan on adding more this weekend.
 
yikesjason said:
The tank is looking great. I can't believe how cleanly it started. No cycle issues. Great job.

It looks like you could still use a bunch of plants to fill that tank up. There is plant swap in a couple of weeks and you are more than welcome to come. I guarantee you will go home with loads of great plants. The details are below.

Oregon Plant Swap Meet
Date: Saturday, April 4th
Time: 1:00
Place: Pizza Hut
8335 SW Tonka St
Tualatin, OR 97062

Anyone else in the Portland area is welcome to come.
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Thanks a million for the invite Jason. I would feel kinda' bad, however, with not a lot of plants to "trade" on this end. The 150 is just kickin' off and the 45 has been rescaped (stole / moved a couple over to the 150).
 
cfsinc said:
Hey Vader - will take some readings tomorrow and post (got the latest DFS box today - polishing pads - sweet).
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Readings are the same today:

pH: 6.4
kH: 2.5
Co2: 30ppm
Nitrate: 0
Nitrite: 0
Ammonia: 0

The N/N being zero seems kind of weird to me - but it tests out the same as a few days ago.

Will start adding small groups of rummies soon ...
 
cfsinc said:
Thanks Mind for the great input and suggestions.

Are you having any algae issue running 400 watts? I am having a little pop up running only 160. I "need" to get more plants in this baby to eat up the nutrients. Plan on adding more this weekend.
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Only on certain slower growing plants actually. I previosly had a bad bloom of filimentous algaes in my 20g when I went out of town for my moms funeral for 5 days and came back to discover that I'd had BOTH 65W PC bulbs turning on with the timer instead of just 1 of them. Got it under control (I thought) and when I set up the 100g I transfered the large log and some of the plants, only to have those algaes bloom back up on the slower growing low light stuff and quickly spread to the large anubias' I'd ordered. Lately it's been much better thanks to getting my presurized CO2 up and running steadily (had a delay in getting it ordered and was running less light til it got here of course), along with the help of a couple SAE's, a large sword tail, and some platies I have in there chewing the staghorn algae down to a nub on the anubias, java ferns, and similar problem areas. Still have a considerable about of hair algae in the moss though, but the moss is clearly growing well in the mix. Been trying to thin it with a toothbrush. As far as any green water or algae on the glass or stems it's been extremely minimal, but I have about 7 otos, 6 amano shrimp, and a whiptail cat, and countless ramshorn snails along with the other members of the cleaning team, and the stem plants are gowing rediculously thick and fast, sucking up nutrients. Planning to get some Flourish Excel and see if that helps with the moss as my next step, but if I can't get the hair algae at that spot resolved that way then I'll likely drop back to running only 3 of the bulbs for a month and see if that does the trick. So at this point that small pocket of hair algae and a bit of staghorn along the high spots on my water onion are the only algae issues I have.
 
Mindcrime121 said:
Only on certain slower growing plants actually. I previosly had a bad bloom of filimentous algaes in my 20g when I went out of town for my moms funeral for 5 days and came back to discover that I'd had BOTH 65W PC bulbs turning on with the timer instead of just 1 of them. Got it under control (I thought) and when I set up the 100g I transfered the large log and some of the plants, only to have those algaes bloom back up on the slower growing low light stuff and quickly spread to the large anubias' I'd ordered. Lately it's been much better thanks to getting my presurized CO2 up and running steadily (had a delay in getting it ordered and was running less light til it got here of course), along with the help of a couple SAE's, a large sword tail, and some platies I have in there chewing the staghorn algae down to a nub on the anubias, java ferns, and similar problem areas. Still have a considerable about of hair algae in the moss though, but the moss is clearly growing well in the mix. Been trying to thin it with a toothbrush. As far as any green water or algae on the glass or stems it's been extremely minimal, but I have about 7 otos, 6 amano shrimp, and a whiptail cat, and countless ramshorn snails along with the other members of the cleaning team, and the stem plants are gowing rediculously thick and fast, sucking up nutrients. Planning to get some Flourish Excel and see if that helps with the moss as my next step, but if I can't get the hair algae at that spot resolved that way then I'll likely drop back to running only 3 of the bulbs for a month and see if that does the trick. So at this point that small pocket of hair algae and a bit of staghorn along the high spots on my water onion are the only algae issues I have.
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Wow - looks like I need to step up the clean up crew a bit. Right now we just have 3 small SAEs, and a small albino pleco; along with some kind of wild looking stick creature (a cousin to a whip tail I believe) ...

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All we are getting so far (knock on wood) is some green on the glass. I currently run 160W 11 hours a day: 7am - noon and then 2pm - 8pm.
 
Slime time - we are getting that same thin coat of slime on top of the water of the 150 that we got on the 45. With the 45, we run the airstone at night and it takes care of it. I hate to mess with the airstone on the 150 - right now it's only set for 1 hour a day - don't want to interrupt the Co2 mixing. Any ideas to get rid of the slime?? Also tried black mollies on the small tank - although they did the trick, they died off as fast as we could add them to the tank.
 
Actually, the best solution I've been offered regarding the slime issue was given to me by Orlando at GLA. He says it's from organic matter breaking down in the water column, as I've also heard from several members here as well. You can get a small skimmer attachment which you can attach when needed and run for about 5 minutes on the intake of one of your filters, then swap back to your normal intake. Clears it right up. You can get them at Drs. Foster & Smith pretty cheaply he tells me. Oh, and yes, that definately look like a whiptail cat of some kind.
 
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