Mott's ADA 120p "Pathway to nowhere"

[MoonstruckMuse]

Beautiful tank!! That's so striking.

I love the look of rimless tanks, but wow, the speed of evaporation really shocks me, hahaha. I just started a little rimless recently and it just feels like more maintenance than anything I've ever had.... Any tricks you've found?

 

[mott]

Beautiful tank!! That's so striking.

I love the look of rimless tanks, but wow, the speed of evaporation really shocks me, hahaha. I just started a little rimless recently and it just feels like more maintenance than anything I've ever had.... Any tricks you've found?

Thanks!
Yes I have found a trick...MAKE IT YOUR ONLY TANK LOL

 

[mott]

So I am back with a long overdue update, I have had my up's and downs with this tank the past year. the downs being mostly due to the dreaded BBA and the latest power outage.

I have been battling BBA for a good year now never seeming to win until recently when I started cleaning my canisters regularly.
I really believe having a clean canister helps curb BBA tremendously. It is now under control at least in my estimation.

With the last power outage I lost all of my Rummies. When I got home from work the house was down to 40 degrees and the tank water had gone down to 50! When I walked in I noticed all of the rummies were scattered around the tank floating upside down not moving.
My ram was floating almost upside down with her fins barley moving. I immediately did a big waterchange with warm water to bring the tank up to about 65 slowly. The ram came back to life in front of my eyes as the warm water entered the tank! I was happy to say the least.
All others seemed to fair just fine, 6 Chain loaches, 4 ottos about 10 amano's and a dozen cherry shrimp.
Now I'm looking for some new fish and I have my eye of about 50 green neon tetra's! I really like em, they stay real small and look fantastic in a big school.

I added some rotala magenta, Camboba, true DHG and an unidentified plant I grabbed from my shrimp tank(next to the rotala)
which was barley an inch tall and almost dead! now I have stalks shooting to the top of the tank and reproducing very quick!
Most of my Erio's didn't make it due to BBA but I still have one and it's looking super healthy. Actually I started with one and split them until I had around eight!

Oh and I added a Black background!

Onto the pic's.
These were taken before the outage and nothing has changed except some of the livestock

Side shot

DHG and my pretty single Ram

Just wanted to show how I hooked up a Fluval skimmer with the Eheim install intake

 

[myswtsins]

Very nice tank!! I saw the start date of the thread and as I was reading I was praying that there would an update at the end. Sorry to hear about your loss but green neons are probably my #1 desired fish so I'm rooting for you! Looks like you certainly got the BBA under control because even the anubias leaves are sparkling.

Did you ever get an ID on that crypt? If not check out spiralis and retrospiralis, see if any of the pictures match yours. How many plants/pots did you originally plant? It looked quite full from the start and I am getting ready to buy some.

Is your beautiful ram full grown? Does he get any amano snacks or just some RCS?

All your pictures are great but the 2 of the ram in the hairgrass are my favorite, good job!

 

[mott]

Very nice tank!! I saw the start date of the thread and as I was reading I was praying that there would an update at the end. Sorry to hear about your loss but green neons are probably my #1 desired fish so I'm rooting for you! Looks like you certainly got the BBA under control because even the anubias leaves are sparkling.

Did you ever get an ID on that crypt? If not check out spiralis and retrospiralis, see if any of the pictures match yours. How many plants/pots did you originally plant? It looked quite full from the start and I am getting ready to buy some.

Is your beautiful ram full grown? Does he get any amano snacks or just some RCS?

All your pictures are great but the 2 of the ram in the hairgrass are my favorite, good job!

Yup they are retrospiralis! I planted maybe 15 plants to start, lately they have been not growing well though. I think because of the seachem stability I have been adding with my weekly waterchange. I noticed a change after I started adding that.

The GBR gets any shrimp she can catch, amanos are too big tho but mainly a diet of bloodworms and cooked mushy green peas.
Thanks for the nice words

 

[fishorama]

I can't believe I didn't post a comment on your tank before, it looks great! Had to read the thread again. Love the pic from above. I also like the black background, adds a nice moodiness.

Sorry about your troubles, it amazes me how resilient some fish are.

 

[londonloco]

Beautiful tank!

 

[plantbrain]

Good clean filters are a must. Actually, the flow rates are greatly affected by clogging on canisters.

That in turn, can lead to reduced flow and CO2, which in turn, can lead to BBA.

I switch all my canisters out to Wet/drys, which present their own challenges for CO2, but are fairly straight forward.
If the power is out and you have gas heat, then you can do water changes to keep the temps up or fire place etc.
A gas grill and a pot of tank water on that ...........also works.
Those table top style gas grills can work if you are in a pinch.

Not much you can do if you at work and come home to this.

Erios and the belem grass will not grow well/thrive without good CO2 IME. they will do okay, but not thrive.
The other plants will fair okay........

 

[plantbrain]

Under the hood:

Pressurized co2 #5 tank Milwaukee ma957, Hydor 200w inline heater and a AM1000 reactor Runnin through a Eheim 2026

I'm going to put my 2217 with a surface skimmer,Hydor 200w inline heater and a 9watt turbotwist UV on the right side in a week or so when the livestock goes in.

and there it is......................the source of the reason for the CO2 issue when the filter is clogged vs cleaned frequently.

You can try an independent CO2 needle wheel to confirm and allow the canister to clog and see.

Consistent flow= consistent CO2.

A nice ripple on the water's surface: decent O2 for the fish, but not enough to break the surface.

Good O2= good wiggle room with CO2, you can add more if the O2 is higher without as much risk.

You really do not have a lot of plants that really chew through CO2...........but some of the species are not aggressive about getting it or defending their leaves.
More shrimp will also help.

AM1000 reactors have 3/8" in-out which constricts the flow on most canister filters also which tend to have 1/2" to 5/8".

Some folks run 2 canisters on their 120 p's.
I know an ADA vendor that does.

 

[mott]

and there it is......................the source of the reason for the CO2 issue when the filter is clogged vs cleaned frequently.

You can try an independent CO2 needle wheel to confirm and allow the canister to clog and see.

Consistent flow= consistent CO2.

A nice ripple on the water's surface: decent O2 for the fish, but not enough to break the surface.

Good O2= good wiggle room with CO2, you can add more if the O2 is higher without as much risk.

You really do not have a lot of plants that really chew through CO2...........but some of the species are not aggressive about getting it or defending their leaves.
More shrimp will also help.

AM1000 reactors have 3/8" in-out which constricts the flow on most canister filters also which tend to have 1/2" to 5/8".

Some folks run 2 canisters on their 120 p's.
I know an ADA vendor that does.

Tom, the thing is that my 2026 doesn't reduce in flow all that much even after a year of filtering! I really feel I have everything dialed in perfectly the only thing I noticed was the bba growth followed the filter flow path. In conclusion after everything I have tried to eradicate bba including advice from yourself it had to be a filter cleaning issue. I used to pride myself on seeing how long I could go without cleaning my canisters. I now realize that had to be the culprit. Since I cleaned them out, which has been a month now or more, the bba has been very controllable, nowhere near the level it used to be.

I will now be cleaning and replacing fine filter media monthly from now on.

I also forgot to add, which I eluded to early on in this thread that I was about to add a 2217 on the other side along with a 9 watt UV has been on this tank for a good 8 months now, you can actually see two sets of Eheim install kits on each side of the tank.
But here it is anyway just because I love Filters and Equipment a like.