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K's High tech 55 gallon Journey

6K views 30 replies 6 participants last post by  Mr.Desert_scape 
#1 · (Edited)
This is going to be a fairly detailed recap so bare with me. :D

So here it goes Started this tank a little more than a year ago with not even the knowledge of planted tanks. The first picture shows what it looked like exactly how I bought it. It came with a Tetra HOB filter, UGF, a broken heater (found when I came home to my room being a cool and humid 90 degrees), some t8 florecents, some plastic decorations, a crappy background, and brown gravel. Sorry for the side shot.



After that I replaced the T8 bulbs with 18k bulbs purple and blue bulbs(I know not the best choice), kept the HOB filter, switched to black gravel, black back ground and some fake plants. Again sorry for the side shot.



After a while I switched to the Marine Land HOB bio filter which was alright in my opinion. Still had the t8's but started looking into planted aquariums and thought i would attempt it even though it was a bit overwhelming but got off to an embarrassing start as you can see. Bought some plants from Petco.:icon_roll Also still had the fake plants as well.



Not satisfied with my lighting situation I noobishly got talked into some Marineland single bright LED's especially because of the power consumption. I liked the look of them but found they were not that great for what I wanted to do so I had them for only about 2-3 weeks. started to add a few more plants and started dosing excel and a name brand liquid fert.



Then I decided to step it up and got an Aquatop Cf-300 canister filter, and an Aquaticlife dual t5 fresh water fixture and started doing some DIY co2 which I was dispersing with a powerhead. Also started to phase out the fake plants. First picture shows my canister filter seeding with my HOB running still, so it was kind of a cluttered mess.



Organized the equipment a bit better. Finally got some real plants off some members here and also a LFS. Started some pressurized co2, still being diffused out of a powerhead and then later switched to an inline reactor. I also started to attempt using dry ferts which has gone pretty well so far. Still using plain gravel.



Still being a bit unhappy with how the tank was turning out and a bunch of scratches along the top from trying to remove some bad calcium in the beginning I decided to do a total rescape, replace the gravel, remove some equipment, and change out the tank. Also added a glass drop checker. So this is the tank as it stands now. About to add some Malaysian drift wood as a center piece to fill up space(soaking) and some more plants. The hills are a bit bigger and more curvy in person.



Sorry for the crappy cell phone pics, I will be getting some nicer pictures with my DSLR when I get the chance. Let me know what you think or opinions or anything. :D
 
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#2 ·
Here is an update =) pictures are only 6 days after the last ones and I had some amazing growth. Also threw in the driftwood and getting a bunch more plants in thanks to scream-aim-fire, Joraan, and orchidman. Mostly all current plants were from nvladik which came in looking great. Thanks a lot guys. Will post new pics when I get all the new plants in the tank.



Should be getting my better pictures posted up soon... I broke my CF card reader. :l
 
#20 ·
Ended up moving the tank and rescaping it. Also got a TON of plants from Sky so here is a crappy picture to show what I did A better picture will come next week.

Looks great man! That tank is gonna be a jungle once all those Water Sprite start growing :). The Rotundifolia looks good on the side, it will grow and curve at the top which would look really nice over the DW IMO.
 
#22 ·
the R. Rotundifolia will turn orangish/redish/pink under high light. I'm working on getting some of my new stems grown so that i can start distributing some of those to people locally so i'll let you know. They have nice bright reds and oranges so far.
 
#27 ·
I would trim the stems back now, try and encourage more compact growth and all
really like how your tank is coming out so far, can you post a pic of how you are doing your CO2?
 
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