Your stand and canopy are amazing is it a piece of furniture or a aquarium stand ? I also like to try a variety of plants and see what works. Good job.
Thank you very much. Now if I can get the inside of the tank to look as good as the stand and canopy I will be a happy guy. I looked for a long time before I found a stand that would look like a piece of furniture since it is the first thing someone sees when they walk in my front door. I was about to have a custom made stand built until I came across this one and it just happen to have the exact same finish as the rest of my furniture in my living room. I don't have the cabinet making skills like fellow TPT member northey87 has. His stand and canopy have to be one of the nicest looking I have ever seen and can't wait to see it in when it's all finished.
We actually have a lot of mission type furniture, and I just know that would look great in our living room. Let me give you my address so that you can bring it to me. :biggrin: It really is a fine piece of furniture, regardless if it is custom built or not. Now you have me looking up northey87. I am almost tempted to just shut the computer and go to work early so I don't get more envious.
There is actually 2 doors on the front part of the canopy that open up and I usually reach around the back of the canopy to feed and dose. There is just enough room to get my arm back there.However it can be a pain during weekly w/c but that is the price you have to pay if you want a canopy. The candles and pictures are my wifes doing.
Are you using any other heat source than the Hydor hyrokable with Hydor hydroset? I have, but haven't yet put into service, the hyrokable with hydroset, and a Hydor ETH for a new tank setup. I'm just wondering if perhaps I don't need the ETH? I've wondered if using both is redundant, and if it might make temperature adjustment more of a challenge, as the hydroset uses a temperature probe in the water column.
Are you using any other heat source than the Hydor hyrokable with Hydor hydroset? I have, but haven't yet put into service, the hyrokable with hydroset, and a Hydor ETH for a new tank setup. I'm just wondering if perhaps I don't need the ETH? I've wondered if using both is redundant, and if it might make temperature adjustment more of a challenge, as the hydroset uses a temperature probe in the water column.
I haven't checked on this thread for awhile so sorry for the delayed response. The Eheim 2126 has a heater in it but never turns on except after a water change. The hyrdokable keeps my temp. around 80F but I believe that the CF lights inside the canopy also play a role in the temp. of the tank. In the middle of summer my tank can reach 82-84 without the hyrokable even turning on. I can't say for sure for your setup if you need the ETH in conjuction with the hydrokable but it can't hurt to have for backup just in case something happens to your hydrokable. Thanks for all your compliments and if I can ever figure how to take better pictures with my fancy new camera I will update this thread as I have added a few plants and have narrowed the species of plants down to the few that seem to thrive in my conditions. About 2 months ago I added 45 rummynose as I was down to 5 left from my original school of 30 that I have had for over two years.
Well after having this tank setup for well over 3 1/2 years I'm sad to say I have to tear it down. And not for good might I add but I have been wanting to put my wet/dry sump back on this tank and need 3" between the tank and wall to put the overflow box and only have 2 1/2" right now. So needless to say I have to break this down and take everything out for 1".
It felt like Christmas today as I finally received the new equipment for this tank. Today I got my Tek 4x54 light fixture with 1 Geismann Midday, 1 Geismann Aquaflora, 1 ATI blue special, and 1 ATI purple plus. I also got a new Eshopps overflow box as the old one I have is pushing 10 years old and needs about 4 1/2" between the wall and tank. The pump I got is a Mag Drive 7 with fractioning impeller that I plan on running through my Aqua medic 1000 reactor using the dual venturi method. I also got a hydor koralia evolution water pump to help with the flow as the old maxi jets I have in the tank now are about on there last leg being they are over 5 years old and I definitley got my moneys worth out of them. I will try to post some pictures of the process of the rescaping of this tank and I'm very curious myself as to how this CO2 diffusion method that I will be trying will work out. I have tried many different pumps with different flow rates on my reactor and always had false gas in the top of the reactor by the end of the day and got real tired of always having to bleed this false gas off. I'm hoping this new pump with the venturi method will solve this and the worst case senario will be I ditch the reactor all together and just run it through the needle wheel although I want to avoid the micro bubbles in the tank.
I will be using some lava rocks in this new scape along with the drfitwood that is in the tank now. I will be using all the plants that are in the tank now and more than likely will be trying to acquire a large amount of fissidens and a few others than have yet to be determind. I would like to find a foreground plant that my roselines don't eventually take a liking to. I have elatine triandra in the tank now and about the time it starts to fill in they rip it up and I have to replant it every week. I have tried just about every foreground plant there is and the only one that they didn't seem to bother was marsiela minuta but that stuff became such a weed that I got rid of it. Right now I'm going to keep the e. trianda and might also use some lilaeopsis along with it and hope the roselines leave it alone long enough for it to take root.
Nothing like starting a tank over that has been doing great and has been stable for 3+ years for 1" but I'm kind of excited for a new start. So here goes nothing and I will try to keep this updated more than once every year.
Let the cussing begin. I started the massive chore of tearing this tank down last night and just like Murphy's law nothing was going right. The bulkhead fitting for the overflow box I ordered was defective and wasn't allowing the nut to screw on all the way. So I have a new one that should be here tom. so I can finish. The fish were all put in my 20 gal. quarantine tank and my power was shut off this morning by the power company to put in new transformers and I come home for lunch to find 16 of my rummynose dead. If it wasn't for bad luck I would have no luck at all. I'm hoping to finish everything by this weekend and will post some pics of the progress. Things like this is what makes people quit the hobby but it's not the first time I have bad things happen and I can almost guarantee that it won't be the last. I hope this is worth all the headache that it has/will be but I'm trying to stay positive.
Here is some pictures of the progress so far. I was hoping to plant it today but it was my daughters 1st Birthday party so it will get planted and flooded tomorrow. Sorry for the dirty glass in the tank photos but by the time I got done doing the hardscape I was exhausted.
Man I hurt for you and really admire your determination. I was just wondering if you are planning to use mineralized top soil as a substrate this time? I'm planning to switch over to MTS as soon as I can find the time to take down and rebuild my tank as well.
Were did you find those wonderful pieces of mopani wood? I really covet the piece on the left!
Best of luck to you with your hard work and condolences on the fummynose.
Man I hurt for you and really admire your determination. I was just wondering if you are planning to use mineralized top soil as a substrate this time? I'm planning to switch over to MTS as soon as I can find the time to take down and rebuild my tank as well.
Were did you find those wonderful pieces of mopani wood? I really covet the piece on the left!
Best of luck to you with your hard work and condolences on the fummynose.
I'm not using MTS in this tank. The substrate is flourite and flourite black sand. I already had flourite in the tank but added a few more bags to get the slope in the back. I have some smaller lava rock under the base of the substrate that has been in there since I set this tank up several years ago. I have several different types of root tabs so should be good to go for a few months. I lost all of my two favorite plants while redoing this tank. All my elatine triandra and bylxa aubertii melted away to mush while in the holding tank. I also forgot to cover up the 5 gal bucket of anubias nana barteri that I was going to RAOK on here but all the leaves dried up and the by the next day when I noticed it was too late. I have some more plants to purchase and plant then I will post some pictures. The tank is still a little cloudy but I really am liking the new layout. Now just to finish planting and wait for it to grow in.
Trying something new with the co2 diffusion on this tank for awhile. I was running a mag-drive 7 with fractioning impeller through my aqua medic 1000 reactor and using a dual venturi method but was losing a lot of flow from the reactor and it was causing an air pocket in the top of the u-tube for the overflow box. So i bypassed the reactor completely and put the co2 into the venturi of the pump and feeding it directly from the sump into the aquarium. The amount of flow that was lost to the reactor was amazing. The flow through the overflow box is like a night and day difference to before. The only thing that will take some getting used to is the millions of bubbles in the tank. The one good thing about misting the co2 is I can see exactly where the co2 is distributed throughout the tank and the flow is pushing the bubbles to every corner of the tank.
I'm going to leave it this way for awhile and see how it goes and if the bubbles still bug me then I will purchase another pump to feed the reactor and use the mag drive for the return pump. I'm not sure on what pump would be a good choice to run through the reactor as I have tried several different pumps and none of them I have tried so far could keep the false gas from building at the top of the reactor except for this mag drive.
I should have the rest of the plants I need by the end of this week. I have some e. belem, ludwigia sp. red, elatine triandra, rotala mexicana goias, rotala magenta, and anubias coffeefolia to plant and I think that will be it for plants. I will need to be purchasing some more rummynose as I lost 17 rummynose during this rescape and I will also be getting some cories either gold laser or adolfo's.
Thank you. There is quite a few crypt green gecko and mi oya in the back on the right side but they melted to nothing but roots when I did this rescape. These crypts were 8"-10" when I took them out before redoing this and within 1 day of putting them back in the tank there was barely a leaf on the plants. After a week I have several new leaves coming up from them. Crypts don't like being moved and they have a way of telling you by melting to mush.
Thank you. I'm having a hard time keeping the e. belem rooted. My roselines did this before when I had dhg and they did the same thing when I had Hygrophilia 'Araguaia'. The grab on to the plant and yank on it until they pull it out of the substrate. The don't mess with the Elatine triandra but everyday I have to replant strands of dhg and it's starting to get annoying. I even thought about putting a piece of plexiglass over the area were the dhg is but don't want a fish to get stuck or hurt. Does anyone else have any suggestions to get this plants roots established enough that I won't have to worry about them pulling it up. If they keep it up I may have to get rid of the dhg and try something else in it's place because I don't think I will be getting rid of the roselines as they are one of my favortie fish. Maybe a lilaeopsis sp. could be an option in the place of the dhg belem.
Its been a little over a month since initial planting and everything is growing really good except for the rotala magenta. It got really stunted in the process of me trying to get the co2 dialed in a trying a couple different diffusion methods, not one that I'm settled on yet. The new growth has looked a little better but will probably get rid of this for some other red plant. I would like to put Ludwigia var. Patanal in it's place or rotala macrandra. The elatine triandra is a weed in every sense of the word. I have trimmed it a couple of times and you can't even tell 3-4 days later. I planted some Hygrophilia sp. 'Araguaia' and hoping this time my roselines leave it alone long enough to take root. I planted more than I needed in case they started ripping it out. They finally have left the dhg belem alone but I haven't seen much growth from it. It has put out some more runners but it is slow growing from my experience thus far. I will be putting 40 more rummynose in the next few months and will try to get my school back to the numbers they were before. Now for some more amateur pictures. One of these days I will learn to use this camera and take some better pictures.
My favorite plant. Heres hoping my fish leave it alone.
Well I have came to the conclusion that I can't grow rotala macrandra. I have added it twice and both times it just starts to melt away. I don't know what I'm doing wrong or if it just doesn't like my water. All the other plants are doing great and growing like the weeds they are. I ordered 50 rummynose from my LFS and they came in today and by the time I got there to pick them up 20 were dead. Against my better judgement I took home the 30 that were left and during the 2 hours I was drip acclimating them another 14 died and here we are 4 hours after adding them to the tank and 2 are all thats still alive. This must have been a bad batch and will be going back tomorrow to get my money back or have him order me some more. Hopefully the next batch comes in looking better. I have been checking some other sources and may end up ordering some online. Still trying to decide what plant to put in place of the rotala macrandra. Really wanting a redish colored plant and I'm debating between Ludwigia sp. Patanal, Pogostemon stellatus, or Ludwigia sp. red.
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