Tom's 180 wood scaping

[plantbrain]

Well, the tank's progression is starting.

This is a 180 Gallon Starfire rimless 3/4" thick tank, 72x24x24,
Stand is solid oak, 24" tall.
Filtration: schedule 80 bulk heads(1" ) in/out the bottom with double gaskets on each side of the glass, thus no overflow nor no tubings going in/out of the top of the tank.
Parallel schematic for the Ocean Clear canister filters, the line is split into two 3/4" pipes that each go to separate OC filter.
One is a 18w UC+ 25 micron peleted filter.
The other is Bio and chem filter.
They run two lines, with one going to a CO2 in line needle wheel and the other going through a 300W in line heater.

The pump is an Iwaki RTL 40, runs about 800gph at high pressure through this system. Each OC has a pressure gauge to know when to back flush.

I set this up to do a back flushing whenever I do a water change which is weekly, so these will stay pretty clean, servicing OC filters is pretty easy vs a large Ehiem or a Fluval and they are much easier to deal with under a 24" high stand. All I do is use a valve to backflush and another to refill via garden hose. Easy as moving the hose from the yard, to the bathroom.
Takes about 20 minutes total to do a 60% water change using a 3/4" hose.
During which I trim and clean glass and add ferts etc back.

The two separate lines converge into a single 1" line to the return.

Light is a Coralife aqualight Pro hood, 3x150 W HQI lights, I have 2 types, an ADA 8000K and a 10,000K coralife for the HQI bulbs, and I also have a 6700K for the 4x96W powercompacts, still looking for a nice PC 96w bulb.

The unit is suspended via furrels wire suspension and a custom made 3/4 steel pipe which I bent. This gives me 1" to 25" of suspension height, as well as 2 w/gal with PC's only, or I can run the HQI's in a wide variety of timings as well.

The spread is 15" of light over a 24" depth front to back, so there's good spread with this hood vs all the others made for a 24" wide tank.
The height of the fixture is a mere 2.75" thinner than any other.

Sediment is mulm+ ADA AS. The tank will dry started since there will be a fair amount of HC.

CO2 is via a 10 lb tank, Victor medalist regulator, Clippard solenoid, AC needle valve(2 of them), Venturi mazzei needle wheel hybrid. Yes, it works like wildfire

Wood is the main theme here. I seek a different main theme of scaping materials, colors, fish and regional biotope.

The wood is nice and turns black when submersed.
Rather than adding attached weeds to it and hiding this pretty piece of wood, I opted to allow it to be seen. I decided on brigther colored plants and lower growing trimming styles.

Fish load:

200 Cardinals
30 Marbled Hatchets
30 Nannostomus espei
5 Apisto ags (red)
5 Apisto borelli (Blue)
5 Apisto Veijta (yellow)

cleaner crew:
150 Amano shrimp
Cherry shrimp

Pleco list:
5 Sturisoma
5 Gold Nugget
4 Mango
5 Gold spot
4 Scribbled

All of these species interact well together.
They also school in their prospective species groups in well defined packs.

Plants:
HC mostly(around entire tank,).
Some moss, most likely Fissedens or Xmas(to hide out/intakes)
Erio setaceum (on right side near back of wood branches)
Rotala wallichii (rear off center)
L pantanal (rear left)
Crypt blassii "rosanervig"(dark shaded corner on far left)
Tonia(either manuns or belem) (front/middle ground, cut low)
P. dowoni (like tonia, near front, darker spots)
E stellata*(maybe) (rear middle, with Rwallichii)
Limnophila aquatica*(maybe) (rear middle left)
Crypt lucens or gecko*(maybe) (fill in on back side)
I have some nice R pusillia I recently got I like as well.


That's pretty much it.
I may add some Bolbitus or narrow Java, but only to fill where nothing else might grow.

Plecos have more holes than you can tell here, I drilled out some of the cores of the branches so they can hide. There are a number of hollows.

Tank without soil or light rails:


And


Tank with soil and light rails:


Regards,
Tom Barr

[CmLaracy]

looks great!! get 'er planted and filled up, then we're in business!!!

One of the best woodscapes I've seen, more than Amano worthy!!

[Crystalview]

Love the wood.

[roybot73]

I have a feeling that this is going to be absolutely mind blowing...

[Green Leaf Aquariums]

That is some amazing looking wood pile you have. Can we get some under the hood shots? The filter set up sounds rock solid.

[sNApple]

where does one buy a nice tank like that? nice woodscape too

[plantbrain]

Tank was custom made.
The wood was collected north of here, up near the Eel River. There's more, it's just you need a 4wd and be strong enough to hack off and haul it away.

I have more I'll be adding to my 60 Gallon cube as well.
It'll be polar opposite really, darker plants, epiphytic attachment, white sand bottom etc.

Same wood type though.

I might use a relatively unknown plant for for the foreground for the 180 gall though and not use the HC at all.
But it's not bright enough colored for me really.

Amano made a comment in the past about rocks, I decided to see if I could make a statement using only wood alone.

The other 120 Gal will be a stone based tank.

Most of the others: wood.

Regards,
Tom Barr

[sick lid]

*eyes glazed* Oohhhhhhhhh.......

[frozenbarb]

Crazy wood you got there, I saw it at Fishforum.net too.

Pretty cool a scape tank that is actually in your HOUSE

[loachlady5]

Originally Posted by CmLaracy

l...One of the best woodscapes I've seen, more than Amano worthy!!

Definitely! That's exactly what I was going to say.

[EdTheEdge]

Subscribed

[dekstr]

Subscribed! The wood scape is incredible.

[colinthebassist]

Hey Tom, would you be able to post some more detailed pics of your lighting setup? I'd like to use some conduit to hang my lights from, similar to what some other people here on the boards have done. Thanks. BTW I love the wood you got for this tank.

[ikuzo]

Originally Posted by plantbrain

I might use a relatively unknown plant for for the foreground for the 180 gall though and not use the HC at all.
But it's not bright enough colored for me really.

what plant are we talking about? marsilea?

Originally Posted by plantbrain

Amano made a comment in the past about rocks, I decided to see if I could make a statement using only wood alone.

Tom, with this baby you make a really a strong statement

[jaidexl]

Holy driftwood, plantman!

I'd almost be inclined to minimally plant that thing and create a biotope, but I know that's a tuffy to resist for the plantbrain