65 gallon low tech FL inspired

[jaidexl]

Originally Posted by NicoleRC

I loooooooove this tank! Do you have a hard time keeping the two substrates separate and keeping the sand side looking clean? If it isn't as big of as a hassile as I think it has potential to be, I might do something similar in my 90g I'm setting up.

Thanks!

The two subs aren't that hard to manage, depends on your tank though. If you have a lot of bottom dwellers, then you'll get more mixing, isn't bad though and can be dealt with using a small tea strainer. I like to let them mix alittle anyway. In this tank's old scape, I was separating them with rocks, and the SMS was held at a higher level by the rocks to form a cliff. Some collapse happened between and over the rocks and that was a little more to deal with than just meeting the two subs together like I have here. The slope doesn't seem to have much of an effect (about 5" in the back left), just snails and cories moving it around over time. I also have the current cranking in the direction to push the SMS back to the left, SMS is lighter than sand so it seems to help, opposite flow would just assist a collapse in the slope and make the sand bed grow shorter by the day. That's important to keep in mind before you start your hardscape.

[jaidexl]

God forbid I mention the elusive otos, now I found one dead this week.

I hope they're not passing something from the cories around.

[Tex Gal]

I like your tank. Your angel is very pretty. Too bad he can't be nice.

I'm wondering if your tank will be able to handle all the SAE's once they are fully grown. They get pretty big. I had 3 in my 125g and two of them managed to keep one smaller. I think they may have bullied him. I always made sure to add algae wafers at night so they would get plenty to eat. They would never let any frilly plant grow. They'd gnaw it down to the stems.

[jaidexl]

Thanks Tex Gal

They're for a 110 sitting in the garage, we're in the middle of moving but I hope to have it fully set up by sometime next month. They're pretty much finished with the Potamogeton pectinatus I added and will probably go back to the Fissidens soon, I gotta find more of that pectinatus. I keep a cucumber chunk, watermelon or zucchini etc in the tank once a week (few days at a time) for them and the otos. There's still a lot of algae growing in the tank from it's disaster ending as the 'flooded forest', too.

My problem now is it's taking so long to get the 110 set up, and the move date was unexpected and set far off. The tank should have been finished months ago, now different sparks are going off in my head on how to set it up and I hope the SAEs don't pose a problem, they do hinder the options.

[jaidexl]

Oh yeah, I was worried the adult would bully the smaller ones, he's had anger issues in the past probably due to me sticking him alone species wise. But I haven't seen any aggression at all from him yet, he actually seems a little normal if that's possible. The smaller ones go up to him and do the little side dance and he seems to enjoy the social contact, but doesn't really hang out with them yet. He hasn't seen an other SAE since he was their size (1.5") 4 or 5 years ago. They eat together and everything's cool. I'll have to keep an eye on him, it all really comes down to food availability at feeding time with him, whether or not he has a spearing tantrum. My theory is more in the school, the better, so hopefully I won't have too much bullying, we'll see.

[Tex Gal]

I'll keep my fingers crossed for you. My SAE's favorite food was cucumbers. I would put a couple circles in every 2 or 3 days. They would eat the middle first and then the outside.

I did really like them. They were so pretty. I just got tired of them eating any thin fragile leaved plant I put in the tank.

[jaidexl]

Well, she's in the new house, what a day. Just waiting on the RO at this point.

I brought the Angelfish over in a bucket. Drained the tank to about 5 inches, loaded it into a pickup with the help of a friend and drove it 25 minutes down a bumpy highway. I guess for the fish it was like being stuck in a puddle on a stormy day. Everyone is fine though, one stick fell over.

[lauraleellbp]

Nice work.

I HATE moving. Have I mentioned I HATE moving?

Is the Apisto Terror going back into any of these tanks, or has he been rehomed? LOL I think it's hilarious he even started bullying Spike...

[jaidexl]

Yeah, that little monster's staying in the 30gl, the tetras are smart enough to stay at a distance, but hate to say it, he's faster than they are!

[malaybiswas]

Your tank is beautiful. How do you keep the sand clean? Or did you not reach that stage yet? I always find white sand eventually getting greenish from algae.

[jaidexl]

Thanks!

My sand gets a little brown over time, I just stir it up, or in this tank I actually never put enough in to begin with, so I just add some more. In that last pic it's all blasted up from me pouring water back in, you can kind of see how brown it was near the rear. Especially after driving the tank around, the entire bottom level is pretty dusted up..

[hydrophyte]

glad to hear that your move went well. the tank looks just like what i remember form before.

i have white sand in several tanks and also observe it slowly staining brown over time--what is that? is it some kind of algae? however, i have also found that there has been space for several new additions of sand. at some point i'll have to try to remove some and clean it again.

[jaidexl]

I think it's brown diatoms, supposedly they enjoy silicates in the sand and on glass. I think it helps that I don't fill the sand areas up past the bottom rim. I have an entire tank filled with 2.5" of sand and it gets pretty nasty with all the mulm buildup and bacterial activity going on underneath it.

I'm still waiting for about 10 more gallons of RO to finish this one off for the night.

[jaidexl]

Bouncing back after the move, first cleaning since. Just pruned and replanted some of the Ludwigia stems and hope to have double mass there in comparison to the last clean FTS. Also moved the J. repens, which was next to the Ludwigia, forward to fill in the gaps under the driftwood. Can't see it yet, it takes time for things to fill in here, very tempted to start dosing CO2 again but resisting.

Check out the Hygro bomber that unexpectedly popped up, must have thought it was a piece of 'Roraima' when it was small. I'm probably going to leave it alone and propagate it for the 110gl I'm setting up.



Erio type 2 seems to be reacting badly to the Excel dosing I restarted this week. Just started turning more brown in the last 2 days. It's one of the fastest growing plants in the tank, but the lower sections are fickle like struggling star grass when it comes to discoloring.

Looks like 'Roraima' isn't going to last forever in these conditions, I was really hoping it would be a good low tech plant. Guess not in this tank. I have some kind of local Micranthemum plugged in to see how it works out as a foreground (prefer to stay "grassy", currently looking for some Eleocharis Japan), looks like it's turning into "2 leaved Amano pearl weed"...

Emergent


Day 1 submersed


Day 3

[jaidexl]

The new view from my La-Z-Boy...