My 75 gallon

[tritan]

I just got a 75 gallon acrylic last week after upgrading from my 55 gallon hex. It is so nice to have a tank finally that i can plant and have the right amount of light. Its low tech with no CO and mainly rooted plants.
Lighting is on the way, I currrently have two standard 32 watt 48 inch strip lights and one t-5 fixture .I have 2 T-5 fixtures coming one standard freshwater light and one marine light with actoinc bulb for better color for the fish. I don't care for the orange look. I have 30lbs of flourite base and then some standard fine gravel with iron in it 100lbs on top layer. The colors of the substrate are so close to the flourite i couldn't hardly tell i added the gravel.




front



right side



left side

fish are

7 med. angels
6 clown loaches
6 tetras

I was afraid the angels would want to eat the plants but so far they haven't touched anything after a week.

I don't know many plant names but here are a few I do know.

westria
red ludgiwa
narrow leaf ludgiwa
penny wort
money wort
red cyrpts
java fern
moss ball
carnial plant
rostria


any suggestions on growth of the plants what grows faster then other or taller let me know. sorry about the poor pics.

[Rex Grigg]

More light, CO2, ferts.

[tritan]

Originally Posted by Rex Grigg

More light, CO2, ferts.

i should have know you would say that.

[fresh_lynny]

It is very pretty and has a lot of potential...Rex is right tho

[tritan]

ok what is the pearling think. Everynight about 8-9 pm I get a bunch of air bubbles on all the rocks.What is the cause of this and is it a problem? I also have had tank up a week and a half now, I had a good layer of algea on the acyrlic that i had to scrap off and noticing some on the plants. Do i have to much light? I only have two 32 watt strip lights and one 30inch T-5 light in the center with just two 18 watt bulbs. I took down one of the 32watts for now till I can figure out what is going on.

[fresh_lynny]

Do you plan on adding light, dosing ferts and adding pressurized CO2? If not, I would imagine this new tank will cause you to have constant battles until things get situated. My suggestion is to do some reading under the low tech section of this site. In addition, do some reading on Tom Barr's site. It is insightful regarding tanks such as yours. New tanks go through a lot, so you have to strike a balance.

www.barrreport.com

[esarkipato]

Algae is very normal (although avoidable) at the startup of a tank. I would not reduce the lighting....100 watts will probably allow you to grow (some of) the plants already in there. Any less and the plants might not grow at all!

Any idea what KIND of algae it is? You say it is easy to wipe off?

I would usggest getting an army of oto's from petsmart/chow hound/petco, or trying to get Tim to order you some SAE's. Either of htose fish eat LOTS of algae.

[ringram]

Originally Posted by Rex Grigg

More light, CO2, ferts.

I would say more plants also. Otherwise, you'll run the risk of serious algae, especially if you increase the light.

[tritan]

Ok added some more fish and got ride of the bigger angels as they started to pick on some of the plants.

Fish added
6 yellow barbs
12 cherry barbs
4 ottos
4 flat looking algea suckers( bornasomthing)
3 long fin highback albino cory cats
3 red/black stripped rainbow fish
2 yellow rainbow fish
2 firefox

existing fish that I am keeping
6 clown loaches
1 silver med angel
1 black angel
4 rohal tetras
3 zebras
1 emeral tetra

Lighting added was 2 T-5 fixtures from coral life one fresh water 6700/colormax and one 6700/10,000. 6700/10 set for 7am-8pm the 6700/color set for 7am -9:30pm.

Fert has been plantabbs added to the roots of clustered plants every 2 weeks. Trying to keep this as low tech as possible and waiting patiently for the tank to age itself to contentment.


after the first 2 days the 1 red rainbow developed a white fungus on his sides. So I pulled the other rainbows and going to return them. I have lost the 2 firefoxes, one loach and the 3 rainbows I was telling you about.

I have had the ottos and flat suckers doing a great job at the fine algea that I was commenting on early they do a great job of cleaning but now I am in a different problem off a thick blue/green algea on the plants , wood, rocks etc. I guess this is the growing pains of a new tank but wondering if I could be doing somthing wrong as I never had this in past planted tanks.




Its growing on everything and keeping the java mose from taking off.



front shot after 3weeks growth.
before top shot


after 3 weeks notice I removed the naste looking thing in the back middle don't know what it was but won some of the taller stuff at a fish auction an it looks alot better.




side shots
before on top


after 3 weeks



other side
before top


after 3 weeks




I am wondering how many is to many fish. I found an odd looking cherry today and a dead loach, I have had the loaches for over a year so was very surprised to see him floating this morning. I am wondering in this closed top acrylic if I should be keeping the water level down an inch or so for better air circulation. I don't hardly have a ripple on the top of the tank water is that good or bad? Should I treat the tank for dieases? If so what can I use that won't hurt the plants?

[esarkipato]

Hey, tank's looking good. I missed the fish auction, and wasn't too happy about that. Hope it was a good time. Looks like you got some nice peices of wood/rock there!

I would definitely, and even more definitely if you aren't injecting co2, try to create surface tension. One easy way is to just get a simple air pump.

I don't know why the fish would be dying, other than it seems like you might be adding them in too fast....

And, as far as tthat blue/green-ish algae, if it's slimy and easy to wipe off, it's cyanobacteria. This often results from nitrates bottoming out to zero. Make sure you are feeding regularly and nitrates should be above zero, especially with your fish load. Do a search here at PT to read up on different ways of treating this algae/bacteria.

Lookin' good, though! Nice work, way to be persistent.

[tritan]

lost a clown loach yesterday morning , lost an angel this morning , what is going on? Do i not have enough surface tension and the fish are getting dieing over night due to this. Going to add an air stone with air pump tonight and see what happens tomorrow.

[esarkipato]

Seriously, the only thing I can think of is the biological cycle isn't ready to support that many fish. Dunno.....do you ever see them gasping at thte surface? Do they all eat enough? Any other strange activity?

[tritan]

I went to AQUARIUM SERVICES LLC place today and asked about the thick green layer of algea and the fish that died each morning. I have figured it out. Notice in the first pictures you see a powerhead in the back. That is a 1200 marinland powerhead that was in a nonplanted tank. I had to shut it off due to the force blowing the plants apart.
The problem is poor water circulation . i needed to get water circulating better and getting it over to the the filter intake on the other side of the tank. The lack of circulation causes the stagnet water and that is where the blue green algea on the plants is coming from. I also have been filling the tank to within an inch of the top and keeping the covers on all the time. Tim runs open tops on alot of tanks for better circulation but recommend to me to drop the level to 2 inch from the top and keep the to top covers open a bit instead of completely covered.This explains the dead fish and layer on the surface even with 2 changes a week.
I don't know what size of powerhead to buy for a 75 without laying the plants on there sides but I have a aquaclear 201, rated 10-20 gallons and turned it on high aiming the deflector down toward the spots where I always get the algea build up on the gravel. I am thinking to run the 201 near the fluval output and aim it up to distrub the top .Then putting a 302 or 402 near the bottom shooting water across the bottom front and that would put the water near the intake on the far side.
Any ideas?

Anybody running powerheads on there 75 or bigger, what size is decent?

[turbosaurus]

I have a big powerhead on my 180, runs 290gph. The secret to mine is to bounce the water flow off the glass. Like shooting pool.

The powerhead is at the back left of the tank almost at the corner, fastened to the back wall, the powerhead itself is mostly hidden by a large sword. The water flows toward the front left corner high up on the glass. The water flow hits on the left side, just back of the front corner, slightly toward the top. Once the water hits, the only where for it to go is around the front of the tank. At the right side back I have my filter outflow pointed toward the left side back. I causes a nice circulation through the tank. The only problem is the detritus tends to collect up front in the foreground plants. It does make it easier to clean it out tho...

[esarkipato]

I dunno what size might be appropriate, but I just ran across this sale yesterday:

Rio Plus Power Heads by Taam- Save up to 605

some pretty good deals!

Good luck getting that slime down. YOur best best would be to remove what's already grown there, and increase circulation. MAny folks actually try "black-out' conditions for several days. The plants survive, but the algae does not!