I'm going to use this thread to chronicle the setup of my latest venture. It's a 100 gallon planted tank that was up and running as a reef tank until the beginning of October 2004. I switched to a planted tank for a variety of reasons, the main one being the beauty. The reef was nice, but it was just too harsh of an environment for my liking. The tank's in my living room and is the first thing you see when you come in the front door. I've already taken a lot of cat naps on the couch that's nearby as the utter silence of the tank (a brand new experience for me) coupled with the relaxing environment inside is more than any insomniac could bare
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The tank itself is a SeaClear 60x18x20. It's lit by 4 GE Daylight Ultra NO bulbs (6500K) driven off of IceCap VHO ballasts. I'm estimating roughly 2.5 wpg under this configuration and I may add another bulb or 2 as time goes on depending on how things go. The tank is filtered by an Eheim 2028. I'm running pressurized CO2 via a DIY bubble counter and in-line reactor. The substrate is 100% Eco-Complete
So far, it's a mixed bag of plants as I want to have several varieties of fast growers in there initially and also to see what does well in my tank. My theme for the fish is heading towards "one large tank, many small fish". I've got a school of silver tips in there now, a few panda corys, 7 otocinclus and a few kuhli loaches. I'm thinking the largest fish that will go in there will be no larger than a dwarf gourami.
Wow, sorry for being longwinded, enjoy, and please provide me with any constructive criticism as this is my first serious attempt at a planted tank. I'll shutup now and post a picture or 2, or 5
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The tank is ready to be filled:
Here's a full tank shot as of 11/10/2004:
Left side:
Right side:
The CO2 system:
