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8 foot 600 gallon low tech planted tank

152K views 380 replies 156 participants last post by  Siddhartha Saive 
#1 ·
hey guyz:)
my 8 foot tank was setup about 3 months ago.decided to turn it into a fully planted tank and planted it recently:D

Tank
8' L x 3' W x 3.5' H
19mm toughened glass
about 300 kgs of sand ( construction+ river sand)
95 kgs of rocks
18 kg driftwood
2 wavemakers- 5000 lit/hr each
Stand- 335 kg iron stand over which wood work was done
Lights- Aquazonic T5HO 4foot- 54W x 4 and 3foot- 40W x 4
no CO2. no fert dosing yet

Filtration- modified overflow type with sump.its not the traditional overflow with only surface skimming. i added a baffle around the overflow( the height of the inner and outer one at the surface is the same) so that most of the water(>80%) gets sucked in from the bottom of the tank and only about 20% overflows from the surface of the tank.i wasnt sure about this when i planned it at the start, but works wonderfully:D no more fish poo and left over food at the bottom. all of the waste gets pushed to the corner (wavemakers help too) and gets sucked into the filtration.i planned this coz my tank is 3.5 foot high and i wanted low maintenance

Sump
6' x 2' x 15"
4 chambers- 2 filled with filter media and one planted refugium(with 45W CFL) and one for the return pump 7500 lit/hr
filled with RO water.
had only anubias and ferns on the driftwood for a month. planted all the other plants in the substrate a week ago









My tank on the first day of filling water


Flora:
Anubias nana
Java fern- narrow leaf, needle leaf, windelow
Cryptocoryne wendtii green, spiralis green, spiralis red, blassii
Echinodorus amazonicus, ozelot, rubin
Lagenandra meeboldi green
Nymphaea ? red and green water lillies not sure bout the names
Java moss
Salvinia minima (floating)
thinking if i should add a background of Vallisneria gigantea all along the back?

Fauna:
300+ cardinal tetra
14 clown loaches
some rainbows, bengal danios ( may remove these 2)
about 30 of - spotted butterfly loaches, yoyo loaches, tiger loaches, zebra loaches, zipper loach
plecos and catfish- one each of L200 green phantom, bristle nose, spotted veiltail, 2 types whiptail catfish
one red tailed black shark
60 Garra rufa
yet to decide on more fish to be added


Opinions / Suggestions please:)
 
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#108 ·
Added discus to the tank today [emoji1]
21 blue diamonds. Around 2.5 inch big.
May reduce the number once they grow
Watch "Adding discus to the tank" on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_nrt_g1_Vk&feature=youtube_gdata_player


Have removed 40 Garra, 6 zebra loaches and 3 rainbows from the tank.
May remove more rainbows and loaches if I manage to catch them [emoji55]
 
#109 ·
Added discus to the tank today [emoji1]
21 blue diamonds. Around 2.5 inch big.
May reduce the number once they grow
Now with having Discus in your community tank, I thought they needed warmer temps (84℉ ) to be able to survive? Which would bake most other tropical community fish. Which is why I was thinking adding them to my future setup would not work.
 
#111 ·
Is that discus in general or this particular species of discus?
 
#112 ·
you will hear quite a bit of debate after I post this, that is because most discus keepers who keep discus only tanks, keep their temps up over 82 for growing out/breeding/making of supreme judge worthy discus. but for a community tank, 79-80 will do fine. even if you bump it to 81 or 82, most community fish will handle that just fine also. Discus are smart enough to go toward the top where the light hits the water and the temp might be a slight 1 or 2 degree higher and the fish in there that like lower temps will stay at the bottom where the temps are cooler.
 
#113 ·
Yeah when researching using them I did see tons of debating about it! However wasn't sure about the community fish handling a touch higher temps, just would have to be a gradual change to make them okay with it would be my guess before adding any discus. But also getting 1 discus for under $60 is a bit rich for my fish blood!
 
#114 ·
there is so much debate about discus, the thing is in the wild the discus deal with whatever temperature the weather dictates so really they can handle quite a large margin of temperatures, I think the 84 range is just the "ideal" range. that being said, the best sandwich I have ever ate in my life was not made with a single "ideal" ingredient. know what I mean??
 
#115 ·
Yea plenty of debate on the topic. Discus do prefer the temperature a little on the higher side but the commercial bred discus coming out these days are pretty hardy, unlike the wild ones.

I do not have any heaters in my tank btw. It's pretty warm here in India and with such a large volume of water the temperature doesn't vary too much I guess. Small tanks need heaters over here too though. The lowest temperature in my tank was 82 F and the highest was about 88 F till now
 
#121 ·
I was inspired to switch from a marine tank to a planted tank by thoughts of a large school of cardinals and thus, seeing your tank is wonderful. Very nice!

Mine is 150g and I was thinking of 30 cardinals versus your ~300, but with time, maybe I can have a few more, perhaps 50. This is because I very much want the beautiful schooling action of many small fish.

One question, did you cycle the tank before adding fish? I have one convict in my tank whose job is the cycle it. Otherwise, there's nothing but sand at present though I hope to go shopping for other hardscape materials soon (hardscape - I love this term) before turning my attention to the plants. Speaking of plants, how are they doing? I wonder because I too want to dispense with CO2 and the attendant maintenance due to plant high growth.

Finally, allow me to echo the many who appreciate your beautiful accomplishment. I, personally, especially appreciated the photos of the iron base, and the area of your home in which you placed the tank because it give me a feel for the overall beauty. Well done!
 
#122 ·
Thx for the compliment [emoji4]

I had some 40 fish in the tank for 2 months before adding the cardinals.

You don't need CO2. You have many plants to choose from which don't need CO2. Just add macro and micro ferts and the plants will do good. Get DYI dry ferts and make a solution out of them. Cheapest and best.

Anubias and ferns do great in my tank. Crypts and vals do good but grow slower. The plant mass has more than doubled since 6 months.

Adding CO2 increases maintenance a lot too [emoji1] not just the cost.

Just be careful with the algae issues because of lighting. Less is always better than more.
 
#123 ·
Where do you get your fish from? I used to have an aquarium back in the early 90s, and the only fish shop was in Barkatpura. All they had was mollies, goldfish and angelfish. For fish food they only had shrimp pellets and tubifex.

I'm also guessing you don't need dechlorinators or anything like Prime to remove harmful metals with the water you get in Hyd? I never heard of those until I moved to the US.
 
#124 ·
Hey
The hobby has picked up a lot in India in the past few years. You can get anything you want these days. Any fish or dry goods.
I get fish mostly from whole sale dealers in kolkata or Mumbai.

The water supply does have chlorine in it. So people do use dechlorinator.
I use only RO water in my tank though. So no worries for me
 
#136 ·
Thx
[emoji4]

I pay the lfs guys for 50% water change (RO water) and any necessary maintenance once a month . One guy has to climb inside the tank to clean the glass and any adjustments inside the tank. Part of the filter sponges are cleaned.
The daily maintenance needed is very minimal. That's how I wanted it when I planned for this tank.
It should be easy for my parents to take care of it even if I'm away from home



That tank is simply amazing

Thank you [emoji4]




Sid - Love this tank a ton! So did you remove any fish when you added your discus?
Thanks [emoji4]
Removed 50 fish. Mostly garra rufa. A few loaches and rainbows
 
#135 ·
Sid - Love this tank a ton! So did you remove any fish when you added your discus?
 
#143 ·
Thanks [emoji4]
This is quite impressive, I like your scape.

do your run a QT? seems like you don't. I wonder if you don't how do you feel when adding new fish, obviously you spent a lot of $$$ and would hate to see an outbreak in your tank.

Surprised no one has asked this.
Thank you [emoji4]
I do have a spare old 50 gallon tank that I thought to use for quarantine, but I was busy or just lazy.
I'm a doctor and I don't believe in unnecessary or over medication. I try to provide good conditions for the fish.. And most of the fish will survive.. Atleast the strongest ones with good immunity which will be carried on to fight the same in the future.

There was an ich infection once in some tetra which resolved spontaneously in a few days. Lost only a few, like 3 or 4 tetra then. Out of 300. So no worries.


Are u facing algae problems yet ? And what flora do you have ?? Any fertilizers being added??
I have a good plant mass to utilize most of the light and nutrients. There is only Brown algae/diatoms in my tank. It appears if I leave the lights on for too long for a few days and recedes readily when I reduce the photoperiod in 2 or 3 days. Having many algae eaters helps too.
But the most important thing is high plant mass and just enough light. Less light is always better than more.. unless you pump in CO2 so the plants can utilize more.




good job on the discus, I have been rooting for discus since day one of this post. those blues will be stunning if you can keep from stunting them in a planted tank while growing out.
Haha thanks [emoji16] you too helped in choosing them I suppose.
I'm hoping they'll turn out good. There's plenty of space to move around and lots of food. They are growing pretty fast [emoji4]

There's no CO 2 and my fert dosing is very less. So not many things to stress them.
 
#139 ·
This is quite impressive, I like your scape.

do your run a QT? seems like you don't. I wonder if you don't how do you feel when adding new fish, obviously you spent a lot of $$$ and would hate to see an outbreak in your tank.

Surprised no one has asked this.
 
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