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Y0uH0's 100 Gal <warning 56K>

17K views 78 replies 30 participants last post by  Y0uH0 
#1 · (Edited)
Hey guys, recently i have decided to restart my 5ft planted tank,this thread will document the entire process,all comments are welcomed..enjoy=)

This is a shot of the tank prior to restart. notice how awkward the shape of the tank is,makes planting kinda challenging because there are 2 extra views of the tank.


A rough overview of the tank and it's components:

1)The tank is 5' X 2' X 1 1/2' containing approx 100gal of water

2)For filtration, i am using 2 x Eheim 2028 external filters of which the input of one of them is connected to a surface skimmer.

3)For aquarium cooling,i will be using a Teco TR15 aquarium chiller

4)CO2 system consists of a 5 litre pressurized canister,solenoid,bubble counter and a turbo jet reactor.

5)For lighting,the entire set up is homemade consisting of ballasts and i am currently running on 4 X 8000K tubes 1 X 9000K tube.(which i think may not be sufficient?)

6)For the new tank layout,i will be using ADA's amazonia soil as well as JBL's aqua basis plus for the base fertilizer.

More pictures will come along as i progress in my setting up. As of now,the tank will remain as it is. I will be tearing it down on the 15th as the plants that i had pre-ordered will be arriving on the 17th so in the mean time,there is no point in destroying the existing layout and giving my fishes unwanted stress.
 
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#2 ·
This is a rough sketch of the new intended layout. I have not yet decided on what type of Echinodorous species to get yet as such i have left the name of the plants simply as Echinodorous.I will also be placing some branches tied with christmas moss within the pellia and riccia carpet. On top of that i will also place some christmas moss covered rocks between the dao noi and HC carpet to serve as a seperator between the 2 plant species.


The main idea of this set up is to allow the tank to be viewed from 2 sides,namely from the front and from the right side. I hope that i would be able to create an aquascape that slopes down in height from the left to the right.
 
#4 ·
we will be watching...I have a good feeling!
 
#5 · (Edited)
sNApple said:
post some closer pics
closer pics as in the old layout or the new? the old one is in a bad shape now,only 2days away from being torn down. It is currently suffering from a snail and algae outbreak but no harm letting you guys take a look at it,sorry for the poor photo quality..here goes nothing...

My Bolbitis badly overcomed with BBA


A picture of the old scape. The small dots you see in the picture are actually algae covering the glass. I have given up trying to battle them.


closer pics of the new set up will be coming in within the next few days,i do hope everything will go smoothly. It will be a waste if all the effort and money spent just goes down the drain.My apologies if the pictures do not turn out that well. The best camera i have at home is a Fujifilm Finepix A340

fresh_newbie said:
we will be watching...I have a good feeling!
Thanx,i really appreciate that,now all i am hoping is that everything will fall into place nicely. I am not hoping to be as good as some of the others,afterall,this is my first actual journal and the most serious aquascaping project i am in. i have never really focused on issues like water parameters and lighting etc until i joined this forum so a many great thanks to everyone in this wonderful forum,i have learnt alot from all of you. now is the application stage. Wish me luck~!
 
#7 ·
Architect1 said:
Beautiful tank. Nice to see it all layed out to. Its also nice to see some discus. in the tank. Nice work.
Thanx,unfortunately,this is the old layout and everything has to go. I really love my discus but their colour doesn't seem to fully appear yet. Perhaps it has something to do with the water quality or maybe because they are only about 7mths old.
 
#9 ·
That is a really interesting shaped tank. We don't see the likes of that often in the all rectangle USA. Is it two feet deep? Very sweet to 'scape if it is. I look forward to seeing your work on this tank. Your old intro tank pic looked very nice too, albeit a bit soft in focus. You probably have grown swords before and know how big they can get unless one root and top trims them. Good luck with the re-launch!
 
#10 ·
Livebearer101 said:
The plan looks excellent, the only word of caution i can give is that it may be hard keep the polysperma to such a small space as it grows and spreads like wildfire. Hope it goes well.
Thanx for that word of caution,i will be sure to heed your advice and avoid making that area too cramped. Don't want to let it overpower the whole aquascape.

Betowess said:
That is a really interesting shaped tank. We don't see the likes of that often in the all rectangle USA. Is it two feet deep? Very sweet to 'scape if it is. I look forward to seeing your work on this tank. Your old intro tank pic looked very nice too, albeit a bit soft in focus. You probably have grown swords before and know how big they can get unless one root and top trims them. Good luck with the re-launch!
Thanks for your nice comments,you are right,this tank is indeed interestingly shaped. It was originally an arowana tank until i started aquascaping as a hobby about 5yrs ago.The tank was bought by my parents when i was away at camp,didn't have a chance to participate in the decision making then or i would have opted for the conventional rectangular shaped tank instead. The 2 added views of the tank make it really hard to scape in that area so as usual it will be a big challenge to me.
The tank is 1 1/2 feet deep and there were times when i really hoped that it was 2 feet deep. Nicer to see the pearling effect that way. I will try to get better focused shots of the tank as i progress along but it will be hard considering the type of camera i have.
As for growing swords,you are right that i have had my fair share of experiences with them. They can get really huge and in no time dominate the whole scape. Their growth rates are very fast too and another point to note is how they can send their roots in all directions so uprooting them would actually mean uprooting the entire substrate as well.
Once again,thanx for the well wishes,we shall all see how things progress along the way.
 
#11 · (Edited)
15/06/06:
After 2 days of labouring,i have accomplished the following:
1)Catch out all the fish and shrimps that were in the tank
2)Remove all the plants and the old substrate
3)Scrape off all the algae from the glass.

I shall be working on the hardscape tomorrow and more pics will be posted then.
 
#14 ·
What is the plan for the new scape? Looking forward to it.
 
#15 ·
jeffboyarrdee said:
thats a pretty BIG TANK! harscaping huh! i cant wait to do that...maybe in a couple days!
yeah,it really is one big tank,at least to me because all the washing and clearing of the old substrate really drained the energy out of me. from the way you put it,looks like you are also working on a tank of yourself,i will be looking out for it=)

fresh_newby said:
What is the plan for the new scape? Looking forward to it.
the plan can be found earlier up in this journal of mine but i believe there may be some changes because i am now trying to apply the golden triangle ratio to the new scape.
 
#16 ·
fresh_newby said:
What is the plan for the new scape? Looking forward to it.
Yeah ignore that....I saw the layout and thought it was your old layout...sorry. But as we all know our plans change when reality sets in, as I am finding out quickly. This seems to be an ever-evolving process that seems to attract perfectionisys with insatiable apetites...lol I know that is me anyway.
 
#17 ·
fresh_newby said:
Yeah ignore that....I saw the layout and thought it was your old layout...sorry. But as we all know our plans change when reality sets in, as I am finding out quickly. This seems to be an ever-evolving process that seems to attract perfectionisys with insatiable apetites...lol I know that is me anyway.
yeah you are right,my plans for the layout really did change a little but most of it is still about the same. Hmm,i feel that we need not neccessarily change our plans just because we are perfectionists..most of the time,i feel that t he plans were changed because the situation made us do so..like in the case of my scape which you will notice after i post some updated photos,changes were made because i was unable to obtain the plants i wanted,hence i had to make amendments to get everything right. but at times,i have to admit that we change because things aren't gdoing as well as we wanted them to be.
 
#18 · (Edited)
Hey guys,here are some updated pics of my tank which includes the set-up process as well as pictures of the completed scape. All comments are welcomed=).

Planning stages for the driftwood arrangement


In goes the JBL Aqua basis base fertilizer


Followed by the ADA amazonia aqua soil(notice the marker drawings on the aquarium glass? those were used to compute the golden ratio for my tank)


Rock scape has been arranged so for the next step,in goes the water till it just covers the substrate to fascilitate planting.


Shot of the tank a day after set up:


Another center shot of the tank.If you notice,the intended focus of the tank derived from the golden ratio calculation is meant to be on the red plant as shown in this picture.Not sure if i got it right though.


More pictures will come along as the water continues to clear up. I will also be posting a final plan of the tank layout in the next few days. Had to move and swap some plants because some plants i ordered did not arrive. However,i still stuck to a very large portion of the inteded plan for my tank.
 
#19 ·
Fauna in my tank:

1 snow white discus
6 turquoise discus
6 leopard snakeskin discus
1 angel
8 glass catfish
3 chinese algae eaters
1 SAE
4 leopard corys
7 black mollies
6 zebra danios
2 freshwater puffers
7 otocinclus
 
#21 · (Edited)
100gal planted tank, 1 week on..

Here is an update of my tank one week after initial set up. As you can see,my foreground is suffering a little. I am considering replacing the HC with hairgrass which is already growing behind it.The water is almost crystal clear except for a very mild cloudiness due to a water change which i had performed prior to the pictures being taken.

Also you can see how much the centre of the tank has grown in from when the tank was just set up.

 
#22 ·
Looking good! I love the glass cats schooling too. Nice job ~
 
#25 ·
thanks guys for the compliments,i hope things will go on find in time to come. for now,it has only been one week since the initial setup and it is still too early to say how things are going to be eventually. My foreground needs a little tweaking and i will get back with a further update as things progresses.

as for the glass catfish,i am really crazy over them. just love the look of being able to see through them. my relatives are also amazed at such fish,probably because we seldom see them at our local LFS.
 
#26 ·
I encountered a little problem with my HC foreground. Things don't seem to be going the way i had wanted it to be. Apparently my HC are not carpeting like the way i had hoped they would. Furthermore,some parts of them seem to be melting off. One of my planted tank enthusiast friend actually told me that the melting part is normal for HC when they have just been newly planted into an aquarium as they will need time to root and during this period of time,parts of them will just melt away however they will eventually bounce back. Is that true? If it isn't,does anyone know the reason why they are in that state? My PH is around 6.5 while my KH is 1. I don't think it has to do with lighting because my hairgrass are doing fine and they are supposedly high light plants.
 
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