Jeffrey's "Big Boy"---120g Planted
- Thread starter jmhart
- Start date
The tank is finally in a semi finished position. I've got all the electronics hooked up and the programs setup on the controller. Lights are installed, canopy is in good shape, co2 is pumping....and I even got some plants in there.
This is my no means "scaped." I just put it some plants I had around and a few from a small order that came in on Friday. I plan on picking up a fair amount of plants at our club auction on March 7, and then the real scaping will happen.
Here you can see the TEK fixture mounted in the canopy. For now I'm only running 2x54w of light.
I still have to figure out how/where to mount my power supply, but for now it's resting comfortably[sic] on top of the cannister filters. The wires look all spaghettied, but they are actually, mostly, all organized. Everyone has a drip loop. As soon as I mount the PS, it'll look a lot cleaner.
Here is the mini float valve. I like to think of it as my personal flux capacitor... you know, the thing that makes time travel possible. It's lets me feel safe when I'm away(not to mention the controller cutting off power to it after an hour).
I have a 15 rpm peristaltic pump in the house, and I'm expecting another 30 rpm one to come in today. After that I need 2 gallon bottles and then I'll be plumbing in my automatic dosing setup. I was originally going to wait for a while to do this, but we're taking a big 3 week trip here in about 2 months. We'll have a house sitter, but I didn't want to make the responsible for the tank.
This is my no means "scaped." I just put it some plants I had around and a few from a small order that came in on Friday. I plan on picking up a fair amount of plants at our club auction on March 7, and then the real scaping will happen.
Here you can see the TEK fixture mounted in the canopy. For now I'm only running 2x54w of light.
I still have to figure out how/where to mount my power supply, but for now it's resting comfortably[sic] on top of the cannister filters. The wires look all spaghettied, but they are actually, mostly, all organized. Everyone has a drip loop. As soon as I mount the PS, it'll look a lot cleaner.
Here is the mini float valve. I like to think of it as my personal flux capacitor... you know, the thing that makes time travel possible. It's lets me feel safe when I'm away(not to mention the controller cutting off power to it after an hour).
I have a 15 rpm peristaltic pump in the house, and I'm expecting another 30 rpm one to come in today. After that I need 2 gallon bottles and then I'll be plumbing in my automatic dosing setup. I was originally going to wait for a while to do this, but we're taking a big 3 week trip here in about 2 months. We'll have a house sitter, but I didn't want to make the responsible for the tank.
Very nice. How do you keep that rats nest of wire and plumbing under control? I have a similar if not worse nest my self. You have inspired me. Thanks.:thm:
Zip ties, electric tape, cable hangers. That's the worst part, trying to figure how to organize all those wires. I have a piece of wood attached to the back of the stand that I used to support the plumbing, I ran the wires behind and over that, so that they are forced to stay tucked away. It'd be easier if I had another 2 feet on most of the cords because that way I could curve and bend them to the point that they are nearly invisible.
Jeff,
Tank is looking awesome and really enjoy readin through the thread
I bet you can't wait for the auction to get some goodies for the tank :thumbsup:
Tank is looking awesome and really enjoy readin through the thread
I bet you can't wait for the auction to get some goodies for the tank :thumbsup:
Well, I've been more than remiss in my updates. Life got a little busy for a while and I was focusing on other things.
The big items that I haven't updated on are:
*At the suggestion of a lot of people(see previous posts in this thread) I shifted the entire hardscape to the left. I like it a lot better.
*I added a ton more plants, include two Aponogetons, many crypts, and some bolbitis. I also planted a bunch of dward[sic] hairgrass. It was sold to me as E. parvula, but was E. aicicularis.
*I added about 30 olive nerites
*Finally, and this is the big one, I bought 12(received 13) Angels off of Aquabid. They are 50% Wild Peruvian Scalare, 50% blue gene. I'll probably only keep 6 of them depending on how they pair up and how they develop, but I'm going to hold on to all of them for a few more months before I start to thin them out.
Those are the big things. I haven't really focused too much on a scape. It's very jungle-esque, partly to give time for the crypts to grow and spread and partly out of laziness.
I then had to prepare for a 3 week vacation to Europe, so I had to make sure automation was fully up and running. Waterchanges, autodosing, co2....got it all setup, well, kind of. 2 days before we were to leave I had some issues with my macro pump, so the tank went with micros only for the trip.
After the trip, this is what it looked like:
Sorry for the bad picture, it was a quick snap before going to town with scissors. As I mentioned before, that was 3 weeks with no macros, only micros. As it turned out, I didn't know how to use my recently acquired Pinpoint pH controller as well as I assumed, so I set it up wrong and the tank went without CO2 during the trip. Not a big issue, for three reasons: the tank is relatively low light, duckweed QUICKLY took over, and I mix my micro solution with glutaraldehyde, so the tank didn't have too many problems.
After a large LARGE trim(and duckweed removal), this is what it looked like:
I'm having a pretty large detritus issue, but I think two things are going on. One, the filters need to be cleaned. I haven't cleaned them since I turned this thing on. Two, with no macros for 3 weeks, some of the plants struggled and lost some leaves.
I removed all of the dwarf[sic] hairgrass. It just wasn't doing it for me. Too tall and just not the look I was going for. I haven't decided on a new foreground yet but I'm thinking about some form of lilaeopsis, probably brasiliensis.
So far I've only been on 2x54w of light for a breakin period, but I'm thinking about upping that to 4x54w of light, at least for a couple of hours a day. I'll probably definitely need to do this if I go with lilaeopsis to get a good carpet going.
That's about it for the update. For good measure, a couple of rough Angel shots:
The big items that I haven't updated on are:
*At the suggestion of a lot of people(see previous posts in this thread) I shifted the entire hardscape to the left. I like it a lot better.
*I added a ton more plants, include two Aponogetons, many crypts, and some bolbitis. I also planted a bunch of dward[sic] hairgrass. It was sold to me as E. parvula, but was E. aicicularis.
*I added about 30 olive nerites
*Finally, and this is the big one, I bought 12(received 13) Angels off of Aquabid. They are 50% Wild Peruvian Scalare, 50% blue gene. I'll probably only keep 6 of them depending on how they pair up and how they develop, but I'm going to hold on to all of them for a few more months before I start to thin them out.
Those are the big things. I haven't really focused too much on a scape. It's very jungle-esque, partly to give time for the crypts to grow and spread and partly out of laziness.
I then had to prepare for a 3 week vacation to Europe, so I had to make sure automation was fully up and running. Waterchanges, autodosing, co2....got it all setup, well, kind of. 2 days before we were to leave I had some issues with my macro pump, so the tank went with micros only for the trip.
After the trip, this is what it looked like:
Sorry for the bad picture, it was a quick snap before going to town with scissors. As I mentioned before, that was 3 weeks with no macros, only micros. As it turned out, I didn't know how to use my recently acquired Pinpoint pH controller as well as I assumed, so I set it up wrong and the tank went without CO2 during the trip. Not a big issue, for three reasons: the tank is relatively low light, duckweed QUICKLY took over, and I mix my micro solution with glutaraldehyde, so the tank didn't have too many problems.
After a large LARGE trim(and duckweed removal), this is what it looked like:
I'm having a pretty large detritus issue, but I think two things are going on. One, the filters need to be cleaned. I haven't cleaned them since I turned this thing on. Two, with no macros for 3 weeks, some of the plants struggled and lost some leaves.
I removed all of the dwarf[sic] hairgrass. It just wasn't doing it for me. Too tall and just not the look I was going for. I haven't decided on a new foreground yet but I'm thinking about some form of lilaeopsis, probably brasiliensis.
So far I've only been on 2x54w of light for a breakin period, but I'm thinking about upping that to 4x54w of light, at least for a couple of hours a day. I'll probably definitely need to do this if I go with lilaeopsis to get a good carpet going.
That's about it for the update. For good measure, a couple of rough Angel shots:
Tank looked good following a three week vaca. Angels look awesome, but what happened to what looked like an Ulvaceous (?) that was a great looking specimen. Good luck.
It was huge, really huge. I trimmed it all the way back to let it start from zero. I've got a aponogeton ulvaceus and an undulatus in there. Cut them both pretty far back because of how huge they were. Three weeks with low light and no macros and they shot right for the surface. Cool thing was they each flowered like crazy.
Well, things are slow going. The A. ulvaceus didn't care too much for the large trim, but it was HUGE. It's doing fine, but it was unhappy there for a minute. Given that most of the tank is crypts and anubias, not much has changed.
I ordered 7 pots of Lilaeopsis mauritiana and 2 Red Melon Swords from Sweet Aquatics. They're hanging out in the tank until Tuesday when I'll have some time to plant them.
I also upped my light. I'm still at 2x54w for 8 hours, but now I've got my other light bay(the 4x54w) coming on for a 2 hour midday burst. I started that a few days ago. So far no issues. The narrow leaf java fern and Nymphaea zenkeri really like the extra light. I'm doing this mostly to help develop the Lilaeopsis lawn once I get it all planted. The fish kind of hate me a little for the bright light, but there's plenty of big leafed stuff in there for them to hide under.
On the fish front, the tank already had about 25-30 otos(I forget), the Angels, and a lone Dojo loach that I've had for YEARS. He's the only thing keeping this from being a full fledged SA tank. I also had 2 Red Phantom Tetras in there.
Well, one of our head honchos in the local club here manages a fish department, so he was nice enough to order some more Red Phantoms for me. I now have a total of 10 in the tank, and 2 more in the QT. I bought them in phases(I don't really have a good reason), planning to buy 10, and then another 10, but when I went back for the second round, they only had 2 remaining. Oh well, guess I'll have to breed them.
I also have 6 Nannostomus marginatus in QT as well.
Anyway, that's where I am now. I'll get some pictures after I plant all the laeliopsis.
I ordered 7 pots of Lilaeopsis mauritiana and 2 Red Melon Swords from Sweet Aquatics. They're hanging out in the tank until Tuesday when I'll have some time to plant them.
I also upped my light. I'm still at 2x54w for 8 hours, but now I've got my other light bay(the 4x54w) coming on for a 2 hour midday burst. I started that a few days ago. So far no issues. The narrow leaf java fern and Nymphaea zenkeri really like the extra light. I'm doing this mostly to help develop the Lilaeopsis lawn once I get it all planted. The fish kind of hate me a little for the bright light, but there's plenty of big leafed stuff in there for them to hide under.
On the fish front, the tank already had about 25-30 otos(I forget), the Angels, and a lone Dojo loach that I've had for YEARS. He's the only thing keeping this from being a full fledged SA tank. I also had 2 Red Phantom Tetras in there.
Well, one of our head honchos in the local club here manages a fish department, so he was nice enough to order some more Red Phantoms for me. I now have a total of 10 in the tank, and 2 more in the QT. I bought them in phases(I don't really have a good reason), planning to buy 10, and then another 10, but when I went back for the second round, they only had 2 remaining. Oh well, guess I'll have to breed them.
I also have 6 Nannostomus marginatus in QT as well.
Anyway, that's where I am now. I'll get some pictures after I plant all the laeliopsis.
