36 Gallon Bowfront In It's Genesis

[Brian_Cali77]

Sounds good... Can't wait to see how it comes all together. BTW, don't forget to boil rocks and dw you gather from nature, you don't want to introduce anything nasty to your tank. You should also test your co2 equipment because i don't think their return policy and warranty is that long (despite the positive reviews)--especially since you might not get the tank all setup for quite sometime.

[emilmiot]

Okay. Well after many months and a lot of idle time I was able to make some progress. I moved my smaller 20 gallon tank upstairs into the bedroom to make room for the new one. I spent the last few weeks finishing my stand for my new aquarium so I'm posting some photos of that. Next steps are to prep my dirt and black diamond blasting sand.
Still need to finalize what I'm doing for plants but I think I'm going to get them from "A World of Fish" up near the Twin Cities here in Minnesota. I was up there last fall and they seemed to have a good assortment of plants in excellent shape.

[emilmiot]

Here's a shot of the stand as I'm gluing it together in my workshop. Lots of clamps in action. The stand is made out of oak plywood with solid oak trim around it.

[emilmiot]

This is a shot of the stand when it's pretty much done in my shop. On the left side I put a small shelf to hold food, test equipment etc. Below that books. On the right side I had to leave a little more room for the CO2 tank.

[emilmiot]

This is the stand in it's final resting place. Hoping to get the substrate and plants inside in a couple of weeks.

[moneymark]

niiice

[emilmiot]

After a bit of research here's what I'm thinking of for plants and I'm wondering if people have any general comments on the combination?
Background middle: Rotala Indica (bunch)
Background/Sides: Vallisneria americana x biwaensis (10 per side)
Mid-Back: Aponogeton crispus (1)
Mid-Front: Cryptocoryne Wendtii, Red (3)

What do people think?
Thanks,

[emilmiot]

Last weekend I finally had everything I needed to get the tank planted and filled with water.

First layer is MGOPM topped with a bit of planting medium I got at my local pet store and then the capped with black diamond blasting sand.

I ended up going a bit more high tech than I originally planned. My area has pretty hard water. Out of the tap the PH is 8, GH is 17 and KH is 14. After some research I ended up purchasing an RO unit and mixing RO water with my tap water at a 3:1 ratio. I'm using 1/8 tsp of Florin Delta GH+ per 5 gallons. Final water in the tank is PH 7.5 GH 7 and KH 5.

CO2 is up and running.

Plants are in....
Valisneria along the sides.
Rotala rotundifolia at the back in the middle.
Cryptocoryne parva along the front.
Apongeton spiralis back left.
Cryptocorne wendtii red in the middle.

Some driftwood from the north shore of lake superior.

One very lonely glass cat hiding. The plan is to get a school of glass cats in here after life stabilizes a tad.

Picture below is from one week after planting. The Rotala is shooting out roots from all over the place. I'm not too familiar with this plant but that seems promising.