James' Aqueon Evolve 8G - Start Date: 2/24/12 -

[jamesyu]

[Day 28]

Here are some pictures of the Modifications, lights make the tank look a bit more bluish, but that was what I was going for. Nice mix of lighting.

Bulbs I bought before modification:


How the bulbs look against the 6400k (10000k)




How the light is affecting the colors in the aquarium, fish are more pronounced now


Color differences


Top down shot



Misc Images:

[n8_crizzle]

I definitely like the lighting change...I have one 10k and 6.5k in my light, I love the blue that it puts in the tank. your take is looking great.

[jamesyu]

Originally Posted by n8_crizzle

I definitely like the lighting change...I have one 10k and 6.5k in my light, I love the blue that it puts in the tank. your take is looking great.

Hey, thanks for the comment. I'm really happy that it turned out the way it did. The light change was a good idea, just sad I had to sacrifice the original light.

Sent from my PG86100 using Tapatalk

[Miles03]

Looking good, that's some crazy growth...Any updates

[jamesyu]

[Day 31]
New Image Updates today -- mostly to test out my new camera.

Here's the Stats for the picture:
F-stop f/2
Exposure Time: 1/125 - 1/120
ISO: 400

White Balance: 1/2 was Tungsten (forgot the swap to Florescent) Other half was Florescent High

White Balance Tungsten:









White Balance Florescent:






















Just Images from the camera -- Gallery is here:
http://postimage.org/gallery/12s7gyfo/448df446/

Growth is going crazy today.

[Hibiscus042]

Hey there,

Saw your journal when searching for fellow Aqueon Evolve 8 users. I'm trying to do a similar planted tank but I'm having a hell of a time with the filter output disrupting everything from plants to substrate. I notice you have nice water cover with floating plants but from what I can tell even on the lowest setting my output is pushing them all into the corner. Did you modify the flow in any way or did I just get an exceptionally strong output?

[jamesyu]

The flow of the pump is pointed towards the glass and up. I then lowered the flow to about 70% of max rate. I don't see any issues with my flow at all. I have floaters which deflect most of the water movement when it gets to the front of the tank. I also wanted to add, it helps to have moss attach to the trees, it actually helps them stay put =)

Originally Posted by Hibiscus042

Hey there,

Saw your journal when searching for fellow Aqueon Evolve 8 users. I'm trying to do a similar planted tank but I'm having a hell of a time with the filter output disrupting everything from plants to substrate. I notice you have nice water cover with floating plants but from what I can tell even on the lowest setting my output is pushing them all into the corner. Did you modify the flow in any way or did I just get an exceptionally strong output?

Sent from my PG86100 using Tapatalk

[jamesyu]

[Day 38]
Came to work today and found 1 Oto dead, not eaten or broken up, so I suspect he died last night in the office. Most likely through starvation. The other 2 oto's were happy and eating, they ate well too stomachs so full -- must be great with algae lying around.

over the weekend though my dwarf sagg began to grow and is invading the space with my Staurogyne Repens, and so was my chain swords in the back. I also got another bloom of frog bits that I need to get rid of so i'll probably be ROAKing them.



Frog Bits:


You can see the invasion from the left and the back:

[acitydweller]

Looks like you will be needing a larger tank soon

great work on your evolve!

[Jeromeit]

looks like the plants i sent ya are doing well!

[jamesyu]

Originally Posted by Jeromeit

looks like the plants i sent ya are doing well!

Yeah, they took off pretty well -- they are growing taller now, I need to mow them down and toss the problem leaves away. know of a good way to just chop them up or it won't matter? If I do chop them up will they be that damaged or will the ones that are rooted be sufficient in keeping the whole plant alive?

I've never done carpets so i'm a bit afraid =)

[Jeromeit]

dont be afraid just chop away =]

[xenxes]

Those floaters are dwarf water lettuce, I think you said the frogbits I sent melted :/

I have tons of ludwigia repens, and currently propagating some limnophila aromatica and ludwigia glandulosa if you ever want a few color stems in the back.

If you ever get sick of fish you should convert to shrimp, less upkeep and higher survival rate, I only have 4 CPDs in my 9g now, none in the 6 or 5g, a little too unstable.

[jamesyu]

New news, no more aqueon, moved it over to an eheim 10 gallon aquastyle.

I'm going to get rid of some rotala today since most of them melted, going to buy a new set to put into the tank. Also going to get some more plants to fully plant out the aquarium.

Going to re-arrange some things today, hopefully I won't make a mess, been a while since i updated this.

here's the current picture:


Will have follow ups once I get more greenage into the aquarium. Buying some today since i'm re-filling my co2 cannister and getting some more tubing to split the lines off.

[Note for journal] Betta died, huge spike in either ammonia or nitrites. Water kind of stinks and I had a 20% water change last night

[jamesyu]

New Entry -- Water appears to be good in the 6gal aquarium. 0 ammonia /0 nitrites/ 0 nitrates from the water test.

I think there might be some false positives in the 10 gallon though. Because ammonia read off the charts, went from yellow, to green, to extremely dark blue from the FW master test kit from API -- on the 6 gallon was yellow as the sun.

As far as the 10 gallon, ammonia is off the charts, nitrites are about .5ppm and nitrates are untested. though new inhabitants survived the day (I figured with that high of ammonia, dropping them in would have been fatal, but tested and no issues so far. Added some more bacteria booster (easy life/easy start) and added some further water conditioning to help for the time being. No changes in behavior.

In the 6 gallon, had 3 badis badis die and my split fin betta die =/. Those are hard to kill.... not sure what happened but tests didn't tell me squat. Got a fem and male feather fin/thread fin rainbow in the 6 gallon as a pair. Looking to add maybe 2-3 more fish in that tank including pygmy cories to clean up the fallen food.

10 gallon now houses, 3 nerite snails (variety), 1 yellow honey gourami, 6 ember tetras
6 gallon now houses, 2 feather fin paired (hopefully to easily breed), 2 nerite snails

looking to put 1 MTS in each aquarium and wait for them to run rampant
looking to also put maybe 2-3 cories in each tank in the future (after it further establishes) to eat up all the left over food. Right now I'm feeding every 2 days to keep it light.

Plants are starting to take off. I'm having 2 more fluval lights to come in so I'll need to make more modifications and more sacrifices with the lamps.

10 Gallon will house 3 fluval perch lights 13watt in this fashion 10,000k - 6,700k - 10,000k

6 Gallon will house 2 fluval perch lights (replacing the current LED lights that are on the aquastyle now) 10,000k and 6,700k stock light.

Need to also find an alternative to the filter because to be honest, I hate internal filters and I think it's a big fault of fluval to use an internal filter.

Anyone got any ideas on what type of filter I can upgrade to with these aquariums? I would like a HOB, but will be sufficient and won't take too much room since the perch lights will be there. I'm thinking aquaclear, but not sure if that's a great idea.