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Tharsis' 75 gallon - The Rhode Island Chapter

11K views 56 replies 19 participants last post by  Wingsdlc 
#1 · (Edited)
FTS 12-29-2012



FTS 12-01-2012



FTS 09-04-2012



FTS 07-10-2012



FTS 07-05-2012




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So I have maintained a 75 gallon in Colorado and then Indiana over the last few years with pretty much the same set-up.

Here is the link to that thread.

Unfortunately on my most recent move to Rhode Island, all my fish died and I had to abandon my hardscape, so that means I get to have a complete fresh start!

I have gone almost exclusively wood in my scapes and I am thinking that I would like to venture into the world of stone. There is a ton of rock (glacial till) in the woods around my house so I think I may incorporate that. I am thinking the traditional cliffs with the path between them kind of scape.

I am going to go low maintenance on this version, mostly anubias, HM and java fern. Maybe some crypts...not sure yet. But I want it to be dramatic but simple.

I think I will do fire red shrimp and a single small schooling fish like black neons...or harlequin raspboras.

I am probably going rock hunting this afternoon, will post the results!
 
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#2 ·
Sorry to hear about what happened. I just started playing Diablo 3 so I haven't been on this forum much :X! So your fish ended up dying from the heat? That's really sad that you had to ditch your driftwood as well. What happened to them? Did you just put them in a dump somewhere :O? I woulda paid for them :(.

How did rock hunting go?
 
#3 · (Edited)
Ah diablo 3 claims another victim.

My guess is partially the heat and partially the extra eight hours in the bags with no water change/oxygenation is what did them in. It was a real bummer but I am excited for the next tank. I don't think I will be moving fish again any time soon. The next time I move I will just sell everything.

The wood was left in the garage, hope the landlord didn't mind haha. It was a final hour decision to leave it behind. There was literally not an inch of space left in either the truck or the van...it was crazy.

I did get the rocks and I piled them all into the tank and it is mostly planted. I ran out of steam halfway through so I didn't finish it off. I have two islands with tons of anubias and HM as the foreground. I can't find my camera though so no pics yet...
 
#6 ·
Yeah... the addiction. And hm.. I feel like they woulda had a better time if you put the fish into 1gallon jugs. My drive wasn't 8 hours, but the 5 hours in traffic from NJ to CT went perfectly fine. I put like 2 fish per gallon jug with a little plant. THE POOR WOOD LEFT BEHIND!!! :(. Must've had some really nice ones as well. Got any pictures of the moving process? I'd like to see how full your cars were :p!

Take your time with the pictures man. Get settled down in your new house first!
 
#7 ·
I actually had them in large bags for the first day and then transfered them all to a large rubbermaid tote with 50% fresh water and I oxygenated overnight in the hotel. The plan was to do the same thing the next night but we didn't get into the hotel until 3am, as opposed to 7 pm like we planned...so by that time they were toast.

The would stings too, but I am sure I will find some awesome pieces on the beaches here.

no pics of the truck and van but believe me they were fully loaded! I wouldn't have been able to squeeze a baseball in!
 
#9 ·
lol, yeah it is a disaster when my wife packs. I kind of enjoy packing, I see it as a jigsaw puzzle, or a crazy horizontal game of tetris...
It gets pretty crazy when you get to the sofas and lazy-boys.

So I took some pics of the tank tonight. I used a camcorder because I still can't find my camera :(





Once the tank and plants stabilize, I plan on keeping the anubias trimmed. i am going to trim all the older bigger leaves and let all the small leaves dominate.

I plan on having the HM come in pretty thick in the foreground, not sure if I should keep the center valley unplanted...that will be something to deal with later. I also have a bunch of stems behind the rock piles that will add some height.

The more I think about it, the more I want to have it as a PFR shrimp tank.
 
#12 ·
Thanks! It was fun lugging those rocks out of the woods haha. I think I made 5-6 trips with the dogs.

Its hard to see in these pics but the rocks have some really neat textures, and they are slightly iridescent green. I will try to get some better pics of the rocks themselves...when I find my camera grrr.

The more I think about it, the more I want to have the painted fire reds in this tank. I will start with a fairly large colony and when they are established I will introduce a small schooling fish.
 
#13 ·
How did you clean those rocks? Looks really nice! Did you super glue the anubias down before hand?

You can definitely go PFR's and mosquito rasboras, unless you prefer larger fish. Or.. if you don't want so much red in one place :)
 
#14 ·
Thanks! I just hosed the rocks down and scrubbed off the spider eggs etc haha.

They were pretty clean to begin with, alot of loose rubble and rocks in the area. I wedged the big rhizomes between rocks where I could and glued the smaller ones where I couldn't.

Yeah the mosquito raspboras would be too red...I want a bit of contrast from the shrimp. My initial inclination was harlequins or even black neon tetras...but they are a little too plain. Some scissortail rainbows would be cool but I think that would break the bank...

Atleast i have some time to think it over :)
 
#19 ·
haha, yeah there was an indiana, colorado, indiana and now rhode island version! I only have a two year contract here but there is a possibility for a permanent position so I really hope that that pans out because I am sooooo sick of moving!

Rhode Island is a great place, I really like it here so far.

Di: ok cool, I will check that to make sure. Thanks for the tip!
 
#20 · (Edited)
Hey I'm from Indiana! Go for the shrimp tank + a school of CPDS and corydoras habrosus! Large schools of nano fish gives a large a tank a lot of life. These are all relatively shrimp safe, but get a shrimp colony started first to be safe.

C. Habrosus:


C. Pygmaeus:


CPDs:


PFRs would be huuge contrast on that green + rock:


Tank is looking good! Hope that helps :D
 
#22 ·
xenxes:
Yeah I have definitely decided to go with the PFR's, and I would love to get the CPD's as well, they are just kinda pricey. I guess I have a lot of time while I wait for the shrimp colony to get established so I will be able to save up for the CPD's.

Good idea with the pygmy cories. I think I may go with them as well.

MyMonkey:
thanks! I hope to make it worthwhile :)


The tank is coming along nicely, the stems are growing behind the rocks, it won't be long before it starts to fill in. I will take some pics when the sun goes down. I haven't tested the water to see where I am in the cycle but I should be getting close to being ready for shrimp. Probably at the end of this month...

I haven't connected the CO2 and I have been keeping a pretty short photoperiod as a consequence, so there is no algae to speak of. I may try to avoid CO2 altogether for this tank, hopefully I can get by on this tank with just a bit of glutaraldehyde dosing. I will then use the set-up for a calcium reactor in the saltwater tank I am assembling.
 
#23 ·
I got CPDs at my LFS for $2 each. Scratch my pygmaeus suggestion, go with habrosus, they're less shy and more active. You will rarely see your pygmaeus in a densely planted tank.

For the plants you have you don't need CO2. Well, you never *need* CO2, just more patience :)

I only dose glutaraldehyde (Excel) sparingly when I see lots of algae growth. Use some floaters if you're getting too much light.
 
#24 ·
I have only ever seen them for $6 a pop...but if i can find for $2 i will buy tons of them. I have never had a really big school of fish before. The most I had were of serpae tetra and I think I had ~15 or so.

Yeah I purposely kept the 'easier to maintain' plants so that I could avoid CO2. This tank is in my dining room and it is an open stand, so [STRIKE]I want[/STRIKE] my wife wants to keep the clutter to a minimum. The co2 tank and the cerges reactor create alot of clutter under the tank. If I run into a problem I will jsut raise the light up a bit. I am not very fond of floaters for some reason...

That is what I had in mind for the glut as well, maybe do one or two small weekly doses.
 
#25 ·
[STRIKE]I want[/STRIKE] my wife wants to keep the clutter to a minimum. The co2 tank and the cerges reactor create alot of clutter under the tank. If I run into a problem I will jsut raise the light up a bit. I am not very fond of floaters for some reason...

:hihi::hihi:

It's not a problem if you stick with the larger floater variety, red root floaters, water lettuce, frogbits. Easy to scoop out whenever. Avoid salvinia minima and duckweed, ick.
 
#28 ·
long time since I updated, been super busy at work and no time for tanks unfortunately. The lights are still on only afew hours a day so the growth is very slow. Still no livestock, except for a couple redwag platies and a couple black mollies (the kids were tired of no fish so they picked them out).

i still want some shrimp in there eventually.

I have some green hair algae in the HM...I kinda like twirling it out with the toothbrush haha.







I had an awesome curbside pick up last week, got a fluval 306, wet/dry filter filled with bio balls, huge HOB overflow and pump and one of the huge aquaclear hob filters for free. Everything worked great so I added the canister filter to this tank and will use the wet/dry filter in my saltwater set-up.

I think I want to add CO2 to the tank, the plants are not terribly happy right now so I want to get a boost with the CO2. I managed to fix gthe solenoid issue I had with the milwaukee set-up so I will connect it up to the cerges reactor and the fluval canister.
 
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