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120 Gallon ADA "like", ditched, Dutch style new pics 137

503K views 2K replies 327 participants last post by  jccaclimber 
#1 · (Edited)
Well, I just did not like the general feel of the ADA like minimalist display prior, so I tore the entire thing down.

Here, I wanted to add lots of color, contrast, display the nice Manzy wood I have, make it a lot of stem plant and pruning type of tank(yes, work:icon_roll), but somewhat manageable still.

I have enough plants to fill it, but I'll remove some plants on the sides(Erios and Compact the Crypt parva down some, I have a few small divider pieces of Manzy wood I'll add this week to make a better dividing line for some of the groups.

I'll change the groups of plants around till I'm happy(often a long process), to achieve the best contrast based more on Dutch rules, rather than ADA aesthetics. Right now it's fairly simple red green red green layout, and less textured contrast. Most of these species are easy to sell also, so they are good "crop plants", 500 or more of the fire cherry shrimp makes it a good shrimp factory.

I have an ADA style tank and my 180 is somewhat loosely based on ADA style, A reef and a Rift cichlid tank. I want a nice style and method for each tank that is different, not all planted tanks with one style.

Tank is not that old after complete tear down, maybe 4 weeks or less.









 
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#300 ·
Besides the plants looking AWESOME as always, your RCS are super red also.

Mine seem to breed small and stay small... They have gotten allot more color since I moved them into my 75. I am hoping that their size changes also.

I hope that changing/increasing the lighting doesn't spook them too much...
 
#301 ·
I'm going to be honest and say that this is one of my favorite tanks I have seen on this Forum. I like how you stated that some things in this tank aren't perfect, but you're not here to enter a contest or present it to anybody but you, and that's awesome. Every tank does not have to follow every rule.

I love the fish and shrimp selections, great positioning with the plants. I like that you've taken sections between branches and put certain plants there. Just a fantastic tank to look at overall. Definitely following this thread!
 
#302 ·
Rules are good till you want to break em.

Many folks like diversity and color in aquariums, but the challenge and the good points with the Dutch style is that it is very good at satisfying them both, the nature style does not seek that nearly to the same degree.
But..this is not really dutch style either, so rules are broke on both sides.
 
#305 ·
I absolutely knew it was a bad idea to come back to this website after I just quit the hobby. Subbed. =(
 
#309 ·
It's still all over the place, more so than typical US English speaking forums.
This may be due to measure errors. Some have 50 ppm. Some much less.

Most use T8 lighting, not T5 and MH's etc...........so the intensity of lighting is much less than many USA users.

Somehow they "eek" by:hihi:

I use T5's, but I use wide spacing and only a few and they are suspended fairly high above. Light meter readings have been around 30-60 umols.
No surprises there. This tank sits about 50 umols.

Water quality is based on the old outdated concept of purer water = is best.
So any P, N, Fe etc= bad and point's deduction. So many would do a couple of massive water changes before the judges came over. This is cheating is a way, but those are the rules from way back.

They really do not have many fish in most tanks I've seen.........
Good plant growth = good O2, they are independent however(CO2 and O2).
But...........I have no issues at 45-50ppm and Gold nuggets and Double trunk elephant noses are FAR FAR more CO2 sensitive than Tetras and the typical Nature style fish including Discus and Altums.

Many fish stop eating if the CO2 is too high/O2 too low.
Mine are pigs. If they are not eating right, I know something is up right away.
 
#311 ·
You never fully quit this hobby. Like any addiction, one small dose of even seeing a nice tank will get you right back into it.
 
#313 ·
Those are not holes. I leave space on purpose.

It also provides for "overflow growth" which I can use to fill in and make a section more dense, and to sell in the swap section etc. It provides some order and room. Every square inch need not be plants and covered. But a new red plant with nice color and form, growth habit, is always welcomed to try:)
 
#317 ·
LOL.. i just ripped my eye sockets out.. i can't believe im seeing all these red plants!!!!

if i buy a red plant today. three days later its shoots come out red and then turn green and then all new shoots turn green. WHY? frustration level creeping. ahh sadness ill get there eventually
Tom i like this tank very very much. the downoi is the kicker for me. i like how youv'e run it at an angle
 
#320 ·
I take the runts and side shoots and plant them in the front area, this provides nice growing conditions for the Downoi and other stem plants, the mother plants are about the size of a racquetball.

I think there's this automated thing that believes we can just use parameters and such, and we all should have the same results.

Well, tap water, cleaning filters, the type of filters, consistency, 1001 shrimp picking and cleaning...........a nice wide T5 light that's 20" wide and have very nice spread..... but I'm maintaining and gardening this tank vs neglecting it.........

All these things add up.

The 120 gal before I had issues with. It did okay, but there was alaways some CO2 issue with the built in overflow.... So I started over and redid things.

I've changed Nothing really, just that SOB overflow screwed my CO2 to Hades. Ferts/light/sediment, all the same, but a massive difference in the end result. The CPR prefilter was 10X better choice for the tank.
Just a minor issue with CO2 makes all the difference.

I nag all the time about this, but when you can carefully measure the light and adjust it to within 1-2 umol and the ferts/sediment are the same, tap water and care all, the same, you really end up with only one variable.

And if you target that before you add fish/shrimp etc and use the plants as a good indicator....then you have the turkey cooked good.
 
#327 ·
HMM.. i have geisseman powerchrome and geisseman whatever it is aquaflora i think as well. so far im not too happy either.. bright yes. but the coloring isn't what i'd look for. very... yellow
anyways lemme know how the starcoats go. they were 2nd on the list for me to try

mist is unnatractive for sue but is there a benefit to having the mist? or is it better to have 100% dissolution?

also if the dry, and overflow sections are sealed how does air get sucked down into the dry section? i feel like i may have missed somethign there. i know the overflow frm cpr has a vent tube but the overflow is sealed?
 
#328 ·
Air comes in from the start of the overflow, bubbles etc plus your surface of the tank and sump is clean and less barrier to diffusion of O2, which is rather unsoluble by comparison to CO2.

Overflow has a lid on the back of it. The drop is also only about 2" or less typically, not much and then it heads to the sump, and the return fires the CO2 back in.

Mist adds CO2 gas directly to the leaves, this may, and I make a point that it's only a theory............that allows the CO2 to enter and diffuse into the leaves faster than if it's in the liquid form.

We can breath liquid O2 in water also............but...........the energy and muscles required are too hard for ambient air O2 levels to get enough. the basic theory hinges on this one basic issue: gases diffuse faster than liquids across barriers.

the other argument is that the fish are subjected to less CO2 in the water, but perhaps the bubbles mess with them /their gills etc, but I've not seen any issues/signs of this.

Basically it's an entire debate that is very difficult to test experimentally.
How does one measure gas in solution that's not dissolved vs the same treatment and concentration available to the plants with dissolved CO2?
There is no way to label and track CO2 from gas to liquid and back etc.

All we can see are the indirect effects on the plants.
 
#329 ·


Some top view of the rear:


you can see two different growth colors of R macrandra, one orange and another red. Same plant, same tank, but different coloration.
One was trimmed recently and the other was not, I'll let you guess which is which.

Sorry for the ripples, my tank has those without the hair dryer trick.

Gloss at 35 Days post trim, a real dense mat.



I am NOT liking the Fissidens. I was thinking of making several round wood pieces to act like stones and round moss balls.

Another option is to spread the Erio out more in that section.
I could also add dwarf clover which I have a little bit of sitting here.
I need a better contrast leaf wise against the Erio and the UG though, whatever it is, needs to be short and not HC etc.

Shrimp attacked the Erio setaceum. I'll remove it and add it to another tank tomorrow night. R wallichii also was attacked a fair amount, but they have left it alone the last 2 weeks.
Some fine needle plants do not mind(Hydrothrix seems to enjoy it).....others do. Obviously shrimp no#, type and density matter, as well as feedings, I feed them a lot, but there are a lot of shrimp. Every pic has many, I did not wait or feed them to coax them out! There are just that many in the tank.

I think I might try the larger patch of Erios and expand the UG perhaps a bit.
Fissidens might go on a few of the wood branches.

Mermaid weed has colored up and is looking decent in the rear, Hydrothrix continues to a weed that needs trimmed often, same with P stellata.

Measured the light again and reduced the height of the fixture from 16 to 12" above the water .
60umol along the bottom.
Added all bulbs: 120 umol.

I ran 120 umol for a couple of weeks for 8 hours per day.
I ended up with a lot more glass algae whereas I had none prior. Plants grew faster, some colored up better in areas that had shaded lower light/overshadowed prior. Seem mostly a function of evenness of the lighting, rather than intensity, but intensity still plays a role beyond a threshold of good growth. How much is hard to quantify and different bulb spectra also plays a role if not a more/large role for this. I think this much light(120umol) is asking for more work. I can keep the tank clean etc, and trim, but I'd prefer not to clean the glass much if at all.
At 60umol, I still get very nice overall growth that plenty for most any scaping project.

I'll see how the new bulbs GE respond to the algae and the changes in PAR
Top levels in the tank at full lighting was 250umol, or about where Troels/Ole's article in tropic set their upping limit for light and CO2.
CO2 is about 50ppm in this tank. Fish eat very aggressively as well as shrimp and so called CO2 sensitive species(some plecos and elephant noses).\

My old 90 Gal tank from 15 years ago had about this same high light PAR range using 350 Watts of metal halide about 12" above the water. Roughly 400umol at the center at the water's surface and about 60-70umol at the bottom over most of the sediment. This is an estimate since the tank is not running any longer, but I took some measures from an old set up that uses the same Hamilton fixtures on a 90 Gal tank/same bulbs(Iwasaki 6500K).

Those big ugly globes.........they were the best thing back then though.
 
#331 ·
I'm leaving it be for a bit and let it grow out and fluff up a bit.
It was stunted when I got it.........so it was hurting........but sends side shoots out fast.

Those are red, but I have some orange color popping up, but also red at the same time in the older plant that was not trimmed.

Could be variety differences since they are from 2 different sources.
 
#336 ·
i definitely agree. the fissidens look rockin. but it is your tank. i can see why you wouldn't like them, but their contrast in color and flowy shape make sthem really stand out in this tank

as for the mist. my otos and pleco seem to not like it as much. before i used a reactor and to downsize i went with inline diffuser. im runnig very close to the same ppm c02 with calibrated kh bottles. also so according to hach c02 test kit. the bubbles get stuck under the flaps that force water over their gills and they freak out occaisionally. my ottos do a circular pattern on the glass then fall off when the bubbles build up. if i increase flow i nthe tank to 31x turnover it helps make the bubbles smaller and they don't seem affected much. the pleco gets just plain stupid
i haven't noticed a huge difference other than on bigger leafed plants c02 bubbles will form under the leaf. and lower down in the tank where plants would previously not pearl i see a few 02 bubbles sticking to the top of leaves.
no noticable increase in growth or color
bba also seems harder to manage this way versus more dissolution
 
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