Jeffrey's "Big Boy"---120g Planted: Updated 8-17-2010 w/ pictures

[jmhart]

Doing these jouranls is incredibly beneificial. I hardly notice how much the angels grow until I look back at pictures from a month ago. I'll have to get some more close ups. They are really filling out nicely.

I've been saying all along that I'm going to get rid of 6 of them. It'll be hard to let them go, but I think it'll be for the best. As they start to pair off, 13 in a 120g will start to be problematic.

[macclellan]

Those Angels are sweet and the tank is looking great. Did I send you that A. ulvaceus? I sold it someone and forget who. At any rate, it was way too big for my 75g, but I do miss it. I don't like A. crispus though. Too leggy. Do sell me a baby of that Nymphae when you get one; that's a neat morph. Oh, and I think you won't be able to keep all 13 angels, unfortunately. When mine got a bit bigger than yours are now (8 in a 75g), I started seeing too much aggression. I sold half of them and things are fine now. I'd guestimate that you'll have to go down to about 8 soon, and probably not more than 3 pairs ultimately.

[lauraleellbp]

If I had the tankspace for them I'd be sorely tempted to take them off your hands... those are some gorgeous fish.

[jmhart]

Originally Posted by macclellan

Those Angels are sweet and the tank is looking great. Did I send you that A. ulvaceus? I sold it someone and forget who. At any rate, it was way too big for my 75g, but I do miss it. I don't like A. crispus though. Too leggy. Do sell me a baby of that Nymphae when you get one; that's a neat morph. Oh, and I think you won't be able to keep all 13 angels, unfortunately. When mine got a bit bigger than yours are now (8 in a 75g), I started seeing too much aggression. I sold half of them and things are fine now. I'd guestimate that you'll have to go down to about 8 soon, and probably not more than 3 pairs ultimately.

Yeah, all my Aponogetons came from you...and yes, the crispus was ultimately too much for me. I don't remember if you sent me 3, or if it divided, either way, I ended up passing all 3 on...one to Over_Stocked and the other two to people I forget. It's in his 75g now...kind of neat to follow a plant around.

The Ulvaceus is incredible. If I ignore it for than about a week it sends up a flower. Not really a problem except the flower stalk grows like 12" a day.

We've got a big club auction on Sept 19. If the angels (6 of them, not all of them) aren't gone by then, I'll probably put them in the auction.

[macclellan]

Yeah, I thought I sent the ulvaceus to you but wasn't sure. Yes, the flower stalks grow insanely fast.

Those crispus would be nice in a 36" tall tank. I got them from sweetaquatics.com by the way. There are other hybrids/varieties that don't get nearly as tall and are worth giving a shot, such as the Walmart bulbs - those always stayed small for me.

[albirdy]

which of the two kinds of angels do you like best?

[jmhart]

Originally Posted by albirdy

which of the two kinds of angels do you like best?

They are all actually the same. They are Pinoy x Wild Scalare....the blue just shows up in some more than others.

[kwheeler91]

i agree with the lutea and i think the second crypt might be C. wendti 'tropica'

[jmhart]

Originally Posted by kwheeler91

i agree with the lutea and i think the second crypt might be C. wendti 'tropica'

Thanks. Lutea is dead on, and wendti 'tropica' could be it. If that's it, then somebody shipped it as a bonus or accidentally. I ordered some wendtii 'green' and that's definitely not it.

[born2lovefish]

Nice setup! Makes me miss breeding my part wild silver angelfish.

[tomfromstlouis]

How about an update? This is a terrific tank in so many ways I'd like to see how it has continued to evolve. My guess is that the ulvaceous has gone dormant - I could never keep one going longer than maybe a year - but I'll bet the remaining angels continue to steal the show. Let's see how big they've gotten!

[CAM6467]

^^^ I second that motion!!

[jmhart]

Update, huh?

Well, it's not very exciting.




That's a quick crappy cell phone pic. I'll get some better ones up maybe this weekend. I just did an annual cleaning (ahem, yes, annual ), so the water is very cloudy. It's not cloudy normally.

Life took a great turn since my last update. I got a new job in November of 2010, my wife got pregnant in December 2010, and we had a daughter in September of 2011. And, on top of ALL of that, my wife and I built (ourselves) a 700g garden pond in our backyard. So all of my tanks took a major backseat.

The plumbing on this tank has never been quite right. My CO2 injection never worked like I wanted it to (the Mag 7 was just too power and pushed co2 bubbles into the tank before they were ready) and the plumbing has been a headache to prime. Point is, I moth balled the Mag 7 which meant turning off co2 injection and auto dosing. The picture you see is what that does to a tank like this 18 months later. Surprisingly, I only lost the lilaeopsis (which was probably never going to do well in this tank anyway).

The upside is that the java fern has done great, my anubias have grown monsterous, and all the fish are pretty happy.

My daughter is now 15 months old, on a regular schedule, and becoming much more self sufficient so that leaves more time for things like aquariums (plus its too cold to put love into my pond.

In the coming months (hopefully more like weeks) I'll be putting some work into this tank. First I'm going to add some C. parva in the front. After that, time permitting, I'm going to redo the plumbing a bit. I want to keep all the function but add in a few key learnings after using it for a few years. Namely, I need things to be much more accessible with fewer twists and turns. I will also be removing the Mag 7 and just running the Eheims.

All of the fish have done really well. The angels are pretty stunning in person. I'm a little sad I didn't have room for a 6 foot tank, cause it seems like they just get up to speed in formation right as they hit the 4 ft mark and have to turn around.

In addition to that, expect an update on my ADA-60P sooner than later as well.

[STS_1OO]

Looking forward to this! Its funny how needle leaf java fern (if not all types of JF) work...the more you concentrate on making them lush and full, the worse they do. The moment you stop caring for them, BOOM...beautiful lol.

Wish more things in life were like that LOL :P

[ikuzo]

please post a pic when the water is clear later
that huge bunch of fern is amazing