55 Gallon Planted tank - self built stand/canopy

[2in10]

Gorgeous stand

[Hilde]

I can't find any mention of your light. What is it?

[BS87]

I was able to quiet my Aquaclear down by pulling out the actual impeller shaft, and coating that with vaseline. I also put vaseline around the edges of the lid, where it mad contact with the body, as that rattled a ton. This helped, but my filter didn't *really* quiet down until it had been running for about a month. It's dead silent now.

[Thark]

There's my new stand as of a month or so ago. I've changed the aquascape up a bit since then. Mostly I just flipped the driftwood.

I have 2x 54 watt bulbs from AH supply in as my light source. I forget exactly what bulbs though. The plants all grow great. I simplified things a bit and got rid of a few. I now just have the DHG, Anacharis, and Java Fern as the main plants. I still have the 3 types of moss growing on the driftwood, and the Melon plant and Tiger Lotus as accent plants on the sides.

I'm happy with almost everything about it now. BS87 I read those comments about vaseline too, and I tried a lot of what you did. However it just didn't work for me. I'm not sure why. In the end moving it to the living room was what I needed to do. Either I'm less picky about the noise there or it has also died down a bit with time, but out there it doesn't bother me.

The only thing that bothers me is some string algae in the tank. It's nearly spotless inside except for that stuff. I could pick it out twice a week and it feels like I"m going nowhere. Twice I've tried 3-5 day blackouts, but it was only the plants that suffered. I picked out a big clump of it and added it to a bowl of water heavily mixed with Flourish Excel to see if that helped, but it doesn't seem to be killing it either. When I did the rescape on Friday I picked out as much as I could. However what's really infested is the moss and DHG. I can't pull it off of either without uprooting or removing the plant too.

[Thark]

I've noticed that I'm getting some Blue rilis now. Some are neon blue like the Blue Jelly, and others have the typical Rili pattern with blue instead of clear middles. I've had two deaths. Both were full size females that seemed healthy. They were separated by like a month with no other deaths, so I think it was either just old age or stress.

Speaking of stress, my AC has been broken all year. I can tell that they're not nearly as happy with me. As the temperatures rose, all of the berries/saddles disappeared. But oddly, the fry didn't. I haven't seen a saddle in my tank for what seems like 2 months, but there's still babies in there that can't be over 2 weeks old.

They're still active and fun to watch, just not breeding. My new AC goes in Tuesday, so they should find relief soon.

I know it seems contrary to most tanks, but I don't have any desire to have a background. I think it looks nice open and airy. I've tried to keep the cords contained, and I think it looks fine. Either way, it's what I like so I'll be keeping it for a while.

[Thark]

For anyone following along, this tank is still doing well. It's been running a week shy of a year now.

Over the summer the Rili stopped breeding. Once I got my AC in they started back up. In September I added some OEBT to the tank and switched from tap to RO water. I can't say I noticed any change really.

Currently there's about 10 pregnant mamas, and about 15 more saddles wandering about. I only ever see 3 tigers at a time, but they're always pregnant too. I just saw the first babies last night (or I assume they were tiger babies, as they had no color but orange eyes).

The plants are doing well. I started with a whole lot, but over time removed the ones that weren't doing so great. I kept the 2 types of moss and added some fissidens. I got rid of the Hornwort and Anacharis. I do a 10% water change weekly and although the string algae still comes and goes a bit, it's very minor compared to where it was, and isn't really noticeable.

Over the summer I stopped updating when I started building 4 new tanks. I liked this one so much I filled them up with all kinds of other shrimp. It's another self built stand that houses 4 15-gallon tanks and they are all visible from 3 sides. All of the wires and framework is hidden for a very clean and natural look.