Noah's 40B Rainbow Garden

[jhays79]

Been following this thread for awhile now, excited to see it coming together!

[Adamson]

Yeah you need to put this tank together man!

Couple quick questions, what did you make your light holders out of? I am looking for an efficient way of hanging my light above my 125 without putting holes in my apartment ceiling.

And what type of wood is that piece you have?

[Noahma]

Originally Posted by jhays79

Been following this thread for awhile now, excited to see it coming together!

Thanks, its been fun so far. but the fun is about to begin lol

Originally Posted by Adamson

Yeah you need to put this tank together man!

Couple quick questions, what did you make your light holders out of? I am looking for an efficient way of hanging my light above my 125 without putting wholes in my apartment ceiling.

And what type of wood is that piece you have?

The light bars are made of 1/2" electrical conduit. I suck at bending bars so I went ahead and purchased the 90*bend, and some couplers to piece it together. then I sprayed it with a semi-gloss black paint. It looks nice!

[Noahma]

We are all up and running. The swap went without a hitch. I had about 75,000 endlers in the tank, and with my wife being home while I was tearing down the 36g, she made me make sure I had EVERY one of the little baby endlers packed and ready to go to the LFS. Man what a pain in the rear lol those little guys are smart!!

There is some shade on the back stems, hopefully not enough to cause growth problems, if it ends up that way. I will get another smaller light just to hit the stems. I have the light hanging in a way that it is angled back to the back of the tank, so there is very little light spillage and hopefully it will cause the stems as they are growing to tip the crowns towards the front of the tank. Well... On with the pics. The plants in there are not the only plants, I still plan on getting a few more to fill out my mid ground and then a carpet of some kind for the front. I might do hair grass, or possibly micro swords. not sure yet.

I no longer have the Iphone, so the pictures are actually better lol They were all taken on my new Lumia 920 (windows phone)

half way there (rainbows and a couple very old holdovers are safe in a 10g for now)





Trash!! by the time I pulled all the plants, I had (2)gallon zip lock bags of stems, stem pieces, crap from the tank lol


on the way to the LFS with the thousands of endlers


Setup begins,





Grabbed some Crypt. Parva while I was at the LFS, this was one of my planned plants.


Various crypts hugging the wood




TADA!!!!!






Now that it is setup, I am going to blast it with co2, fertilize the heck out of it then get the sucker cycled. I have some quick cycle from dr.tims that I have heard good things about. Hopefully the combo of it and a cocktail shrimp will get the cycle going in good speed. Once that is all up and going, I save for the M.Nigrans or M.Pygmea and contact my source, I will add another male/Female M.Herbertaxelrodi and look for a good bottom fish, and another sall fish (possibly a fairly large group of clown killi's) Not sure yet, any suggestions?

[BruceF]

Looks good Noah, should fill in nicely. I have some eleocharis 'belem' if you want to grow some.

[XCW-500]

Looks good man. I have had a few Rainbow tanks in the past and they are great fish, and as my new setup gets going they will also be my main inhabitants. Looking forward to watching your progress.

[Noahma]

Originally Posted by BruceF

Looks good Noah, should fill in nicely. I have some eleocharis 'belem' if you want to grow some.

hmm.. I might take you up on your offer. I might try Lilaeopsis brasiliensis first and see if I can keep it low. If not I would certainly love to give it a go.

Originally Posted by XCW-500

Looks good man. I have had a few Rainbow tanks in the past and they are great fish, and as my new setup gets going they will also be my main inhabitants. Looking forward to watching your progress.

Thanks. I cannot wait to get the rainbows moved from the holding tank into this new one. they look so pitiful in there. Next is saving for the M.pygmea or M.Nigrans. and then getting a source lol

[BruceF]

I have the lilaeopsis also. In fact I have them growing together if you want that even.

[Noahma]

Originally Posted by BruceF

I have the lilaeopsis also. In fact I have them growing together if you want that even.

LOL ill get back to you. I have to wait until next month (blew all my jan. and feb. fish budget already)


I was playing around with the excellent low light photography of my windows phone and took this shot with the moon lights on. Thought it looked kind of cool.

[Noahma]

And here we are again after two weeks running.
plants are picking up steam now as the root systems take hold and the fertilizer issues I had get worked out. I hope to get the 'cuba's crowns to at least turn light red, but we will see. Once the stellatus takes off after its first trim I will ove the group just to the right of the suba, and shift the other plant to the right. I added a red flame sword in the far left, I have no idea how big it can or will get, but it will stay with me for a bit lol.

Here is a quick pic I took just a few min. ago.

[Curt_914]

Looks good noah. Wish i had gumpsion to work on my tanks. The sowrd will get big just an fyi. Though it will take a couple months.

[madness]

Man that rim ended up being a complete pain in the butt.

You should have taken your money back when you saw the cracks. Sorry about that.

Glad to see that the tank is up and running though.

What did you eventually use for the bio media in the filter?

[Noahma]

Originally Posted by madness

Man that rim ended up being a complete pain in the butt.

You should have taken your money back when you saw the cracks. Sorry about that.

Glad to see that the tank is up and running though.

What did you eventually use for the bio media in the filter?

LOL not a problem man, it was a great learning experience and it was well worth the time and effort to do.

I ended up using pot scrubbers and normal filter pads in there. The tank is still cycling because of a problem I created when I gave the 36g to my brother who then set it up right away lol. so I was without seeded filter media.

things seem to be progressing well. I lowered the light a little tonight to see if I can pull a bit of color out of my plants, we will see how it ends up.

[Noahma]

Rainbows are now in tank, Things cycled fine and dandy. I will post some pics once they are settled in. so far they seem to be having fun exploring there new home.

[HD Blazingwolf]

nice read through!! good looking tank!!! i really like the driftwood layout!