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120P ADA - The mission begins!

19K views 76 replies 19 participants last post by  Charrr89 
#1 ·
So I was impatiently waiting for most of the parts for my 120p ADA tank to arrive, and they finally did. BTW besides the 120p Tank nothing else is from ADA except for the Soil.
The plants/Soil are available in the local store, but most of the other stuff are not available here so I had to order them from Amazon-USA and get them delivered to my forward p.o.box in New Jersey and then shipped to Dubai from there. So it's been a loooong jorney till they got here!. The lights are arriving tomorrow btw(Finnex Planted 24/7+ ES).
The cabinet is custom made, I saw @McCarthy had done something really cool on his cabinet where he had these holes on the side of the cabinet to pass the tubings through, something similar to what ADA cabinets have but I liked @McCarthy's better. So I had them done on my cabinet and I did them on both sides just in case I decided to shift the filter's position in the future based on the layout I'm gonna have.
So!! Although it's an ADA tank, I'm going to have a Dutch Garden styled tank! So lots of colors and plants with very little hardscape, If I did put any hardscape in it, it'll probably be a piece of riverwood and it'll be covered by moss.
So at the moment I'm still researching the Dutch style and trying to learn about it, an EI Dosing system is a must so I ordered a PPS Pro pack from GLA which will be arriving within the next 4~5 days most probably. I have a 4Kg Co2 Cylinder on stand by so high lvls of Co2 will be injected in the tank!.
I still see myself to be a beginner, so there's a lot for me to learn, but this is going to be one hell of an experience to go through. I'm really depending on you guys to help me out here with different stuff, any links that'll help me with my design, any Dutch styled ideas/pics that you guys have. I've already almost seen all that there's related to Dutch styled journals and info here on PT.net and I'm still reading through different forums and youtube videos.
I happened to found a website completely dedicated to Dutch styled scapes and all, but it happens to be a Dutch speaking forum and I wish I knew how to speak Dutch!! time to take some lingo classes I guess!.

Anyways I'll leave you guys with some pics of whatever I have in right now! and I'll keep this journal updated as I go through.


The Eheim Filter's package came a bit torn out from here and there, it's been thrown around a lot till it got here I believe, I hope it's working fine lol




This is thanks to @McCarthy, his cabinet has a bit fancier finishing though lol


Some basics


That's it for today! thanks for the read guys, and as I said any suggestions ideas or pics of cool looking dutch styled plants, any tips, all would be highly appreciated.
 
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#4 ·
Indeed 120P is a good size, not too big, not too small! height and depth are also perfect! I'll come check urs :D

Bump:
The finnex is an interesting choice. You went ultra premium on all the other stuff, how'd you settle on the finnex for the light?
The 24/7 feature got me hooked lol!! having the lights on all day being able to see your fishes n all is a good feature I believe. I'll give it a month and see how it goes, hopefully it goes good, with EI Dosing and Co2 I think the plants will grow fast enough. I don't want to be trimming every week lol, so if the light extends that period to 2~3 weeks till I have to do trimmings then It's awesome, if it takes 1 month then it's even better haha!
If it happened to be extremely slow growth due to the light, then I'll add an extra fixture or something. Till then wish me luck :grin2:
 
#3 ·
The finnex is an interesting choice. You went ultra premium on all the other stuff, how'd you settle on the finnex for the light?
 
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#5 ·
So, I set up the tank today, faced some issues, 1 is minor, and 1 is major.
Minor issue is I found out that I actually ordered the wrong tubing sized Co2 reactor, instead of 16/22 I ordered some really small sized one, couldn't fit it on so I went to plan B and used a diffuser that I had, will keep the diffuser till I get my hands on a reactor or an inline diffuser hopefully within the coming 2 days.
The major issue is, the Eheim Pro 4+ 600 is either malfunctioning, or I'm doing something completely wrong with it, either way I couldn't seem to get it right, I hope it's a mistake from my part and I can fix it up, because sending it back to USA from Dubai, and then waiting for a new one to arrive will take 2 christmases!!
So the Eheim filter is turning on for like 1 minute, then it goes off for 2 minutes, then on again for 1 minute, then off again for another 2 minutes, can't seem to figure out what the problem might be, I hope someone from the forum can help me out figure a solution to this cause this is really troubling me out.

For now I'll leave you with the picture.










Here you can see how the tube is way bigger than the reactor's fitting


The Solenoid Co2 regulator


Filling up with water.

Took forever to fill it with the small pump I have!!


Finally




Some smexy lightning features




That's it for today guys, thanks for the read.
If anyone knows what the problem might be with my eheim filter please help me out with this! It'll be a major help from you guys!
Thanks again.
 
#8 ·
Thanks bro, yeah thanks a lot for the suggestion bro, I actually bought the voltage converter today and now the filter is running just fine with no issues at all, really appreciate your help. Glad the filter has some safety and was cooling down the head when getting heated, otherwise I would've burned my filter without even knowing what has caused it.
 
#9 ·
Good to hear the suggestion worked for you! I have a Eheim Pro 4, Model 350 on my 75g tank (like it a lot). Having some knowledge about electricity it just seemed odd that your pump was doing what it was - only thing I could think of was a voltage / frequency mismatch.
 
#12 · (Edited)
They seem to be quiet good filters(if you know how to use them that is lol), anyways. I have something that's bothering me. Thought I'd share it here and get some suggestions.

So I have this big riverwood piece in the middle of the tank which looks nice and all, but I've noticed that it's disturbing the water flow in my tank and causing some dead spots that have no water circulation.
A Demonstration: Red lines showing the dead zone in the tank~


So I have to play with the lily pipes a bit to get a good flow going on in the tank, if it didn't work out I'll have to put them on the other side of the the tank.
Here on the left side of the tank you can see some movement on the water surface:


on the right side of the tank which comes after the riverwood you can notice there's no movement on the surface:


The plants in the right edge of the tank are completely stationary and aren't moving at ALL which is where the dead zone is:


I'll try to play around with the lily pipe for now to see if I can figure out something, mean while it'll be great if someone has some suggestions. Listening to other's ideas and thoughts specially from those who have experienced things and figured out something is always a good thing, so as always I'm open to suggestions :D

Thanks for the read

Bump:
Do you have plans for the stand you built ?
Basically I just gave the carpenter some sizes and photos and he made it for me :D by plants you mean like blueprints or something?

Bump:
I'm just gonna give you one big problem and one big complement. Your going to need at least two of those lights for your plants to just stay alive. But you will definitely not have to trim that much.....if you get two. You won't have any plants to trim with one light.

On the positive side, wow...... it looks so good. Especially at how fast it went up. Looks great man, keep us updated.
Haha, well I heard good things about the SE version of the 24/7, they enhanced some of the lacking areas, also saw some videos of normal people reviewing it not advertising it, read some threads and people are having good reviews about it. So I'll wait for like 2 weeks, see if there's any growth, from there I'll decide if what I have is enough or I have to order another fixture and have 2 of them running.

It didn't go as fast as the post believe me, it took me more than a month to get everything ordered, delivered, built. I live in Dubai so I ordered some stuff from USA and that's a long wait believe me lol. Thanks for both the compliments and the criticism, without criticism we won't learn and won't improve :grin2:
 
#11 ·
I'm just gonna give you one big problem and one big complement. Your going to need at least two of those lights for your plants to just stay alive. But you will definitely not have to trim that much.....if you get two. You won't have any plants to trim with one light.

On the positive side, wow...... it looks so good. Especially at how fast it went up. Looks great man, keep us updated.
 
#16 ·
around 2 inches in front and 4.5 inches in the back.

We use the Metric system: The metric system is an alternative system of measurement used in most countries, as well as in the United States. The metric system is based on joining one of a series of prefixes, including kilo-, hecto-, deka-, deci-, centi-, and milli-, with a base unit of measurement, such as meter, liter, or gram.:grin2::grin2::grin2:
 
#17 ·
So it's been only four/five days since I planted this tank and set it up, with 1 day being with no pump running and Co2 off till I fixed the pump issue. So I'd say the tank been running good for only the past 3 days, and there's already some new growth, So far I'm happy with the light, seems to be working fine, so for now I don't plan to add an extra fixture, but we'll see about that in a month or so. I've ordered an inline diffuser now since my reactor was the wrong sized one, so for now I'm using a normal ceramic diffuser which looks pretty ugly lol.
Here are some pics:

I'm really bad with the plant names, so I don't really know what the names are I remember them by the way they look.




These stems are dead at the bottom but there's some new growth, as suggested by @burr740 I'll trim the tops and propagate them and toss the old dead stems, but I'll have to wait till the new growth gets slightly bigger.


not sure what's the name of this plant, but it's growing well and lot of new growth on it.


Not sure of the name as well, but some good growth, btw the red plant at the back, it looks way more reddish with bare eyes than it looks in my [censored][censored][censored][censored]ty phone camera, will try to get better pics of it in the coming days.



These are also dying at the bottom but lots of fresh good looking new growth.



I'm thinking I might actually leave the tank to be for now till the nitrogen cycle is done, and then only I'll go do some trimming and propagating.

Btw all the moss that I planted looks dead with no new growth at all atm, is this normal or sometimes moss just don't grow back?!

Thanks for the read.
 
#18 ·
Something I learned with my tank is when my fert mixture was not right, the lower leaves would die off and the newer leaves look ok to good. Took me awhile to figure out my fert dosing (started with PPS Pro, then switched to EI). Once I got things a bit closer to what my tank liked, and I started listening to Burr (replant the good tops, remove the ratty looking bottoms), the plants started looking better. Now I have a few stems that get more than 12" tall AND still have all their leaves. Has been a learning curve, and I likely still have a LOT more to learn, but that is part of the fun.
 
#19 ·
Sounds right, but I think in my situation it's not the lack of ferts since the tank is fairly new.. haven't been a week yet, I think it's mostly because when I planted the tank, I had to leave the plants without water in the tank and run to a store to get a big bucket of water and some ice to fill it up since the tap water in Dubai is EXTREMELY hot in summer. So I think lot of these stems dried out during this period of time that I was out(Around 2 hours). Anyways for now I'll replant the tops and toss the bottoms, and once my PPS package arrives I'll start dosing. and maybe a month from now I'll have a more clear picture of how the tank is doing.
 
#22 ·
Looking forward to seeing how this tank progresses. Especially interested to see will one Light fixture do you. My is going to be 60cm in width. Gonna def need two I'd say, but if one was to do you I'd consider bringing my width back into 45cm.

Show me the way [emoji23]
Thus far I don't feel like I'll need to add an extra fixture, growth is going good, but I'll wait for a month before I can give a proper review.
 
#23 ·
So I got some new goodies today, main 2 things are the PPS Pro Package, and the other thing is the inline Co2 atomizer, finally getting rid of my rubbish in tank Co2 diffuser.
So first things first, I've installed the Co2 atomizer, and on the same pressure that I used to have before, the bubbles are afcourse way finer than they used to be now, but I think I need to reduce the Co2 pressure because now more Co2 is getting diluted in the water than before, I'll see how my drop checker reacts and adjust according to that. Here's a pic of how it looks now, and yeah new lily pipe from GLA:



The goodies that I received today:


I also ordered some Flourish Tabs, thought I'll give it a try and see how it does. Time to do some PPS Pro dosing calculations and see how much I need for my tank.

Will update you guys in few days :D
 
#24 ·
So I was checking GLA website for instructions on how to use the PPS Pro, and it says I dose Macros and Micros together everyday, is this the right thing to do for PPS Pro?! because for EI Dosing I remember it was Micro one day, and Macro the other day, and 7th day you do the water change. anyone has any idea about this?

This is a screenshot from the website:
 
#25 ·
Although I liked the piece of riverwood that I had, unfortunately it was taking up so much space in my tank giving me very small space to play with, so I decided to remove the riverwood and rearrange my plants.
After removing the riverwood my tank looks semi naked, too much free space, my LFS is getting a new shipment of plants this Thursday, so I'll get bunch of plants to fill up the empty spaces. the front will be UG plant & Montecarlo, maybe I'll seperate them with some alternanthera reineckii mini.

 
#30 ·
Ya, Dead Wood.
Drift wood*
Well, yeah I'll put a piece of drift wood, actually I already done adding the extra plants and a smaller DW. Couldn't wait till Thursday so I went and got myself some plants from a fish shop in another city.
here's how the tank looks after filling up the empty spaces created by removing the older big ass DW.

The DW is on the left side of the tank to the back a bit.

 
#34 ·
Or maybe just move a portion of the driftwood closer to the front glass? I'm just thinking that you wouldn't want to put effort into growing moss on the driftwood and then it could end up hidden
I'll see what I can get and do in the tank. this weekend I'm not getting any chance to visit any LFS to get some more wood, but I'll try to go within the coming few days..
btw.
Did some Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate test today... Ammonia is around 2~4PPM, nitrite and nitrite are 0. I think the tank still requires some time to cycle..
Now about water changes, I'm worried about doing water changes since the plants aren't rooted well yet, so I think a water change might disturb and uproot some plants.. What do you guys suggest?! shall I do a water change, or just keep the tank to be for meanwhile till it cylces and then do a water change? I think if I did a water change I won't do it before another 7 days or so.
#22Omar EAZi, A moment ago
 
#35 ·
Did a big water change today, cut some new tops and replanted them.

Water Change:


Filling it back:


Before water change and pruning:


After water change and replanting tops:



Tank seems to be doing fine so far, there's a bit of debris at between plants and soils, some dead leaves, but it's hard to vacuum them at the moment, so I tried to clean whatever I could only.
 
#36 ·
well, it's been over a week since I updated the tank, I've done some pruning, some re-positioning, added some more plants here and there, and now I have 50 cardinal tetras, 10 pygmy corys.. not sure how many red cherry shrimps and amanos I have right now, but I definitely need more, got 3 blue electric rams in there as well, really love these guys.
Tank is still maturing. There's still some repositioning is required, I'll do that around the next water change probably, the carpet is taking it's time growing up, the Co2 is okay, I'm doing PPS Pro dosing, stems and other plants are doing fine, but MonteCarlo which is supposed to be an easy carpet is taking a while, and UG is also taking a while, I'll bring up the Co2 a bit in few days if I saw the growth is very slow, the stems on the extreme ends(right&left) are growing very fast, I have to trim them every few days, I'm also planting the extra cuts in my other tanks and making a jungle out of them lol. anyways enough talk I'll leave you guys with the pictures.

Full view


These guys in the back grow fast, I trim these the most, in front you can see the monte carlo just sitting there not growing or anything.


These guys are also growing slowly, I'll give them time though, the dark red plant to the left, not sure what it's called but it's growing nicely


The UG is also taking its time, I got 2 more cups yesterday and filled up the empty spaced a bit, (on the front glass to the left you'll see my black helmet mystery snail digging into the soil).


The alternanthera reineckii mini is growing fine, but the leaves are turning dark red in some places and getting destroyed, not sure how to explain it, but at certain places it looks like it's infested.


I have a subscription with MyAquariumBox, and they sent me some stuff included in the box were these 3 wood pieces, I'm thinking of covering them with moss/or some rock/wood growing plants and keeping the sides open making it a good hiding space.


Lastly my new added cardinals haven't colored up yet, I added them to the tank yesterday, they looked pretty pale, now the color is slightly coming back, not sure how long does it take till the red is fully back.


The blue electric ram chilling around the plants I don't know the name of



That's about it for now, I think I'll prune the AR mini and give them a wider area, and do some repositioning to the front part of the tank once they grow a little more.
 
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