After seeing @Greggz and his great water change post, I decided to document a bit of mine today. Not nearly as detailed or elegant as his, but it was a good cleaning and trim this morning.

Also, having a second CO2 tank is wonderful. This main 10lb ran out yesterday, so simply swapped to the backup 10lb this morning. Now I have time to go grab a refill, no rushing!



Pulled up most of the background plants today. Needed a good trim and cleaning. Lots of stems growing these days!



Then the drain and refill





And here is the trash bucket on the pink step stool!



Then the final product. Still pretty pleased!

Those stems are looking great. Nice thick root system when out of the tank.

I also see you are doing LARGE water changes. IMO, both plants and fish love it.

And tank is really looking great and getting better and better.

But you should consider upping your step stool game!!

Really like that Helanthium tenellum carpet you've got going....makes a great border and the tank looks great!

Hmmm, I see you and @Greggz obtained your cutting tray from the same source. Surprised your both still married, LOL
Chuckle aside, tank is looking great! Have a feeling most don't realize how much work goes into maintaining a healthy tank - let alone a healthy tank full of stem plants

Looking great!

What are your dosing numbers like? What substrate are you using again?

Haha made me laugh! This pan is actually probably older than I am. It was my moms pan, and she left it here a few years ago. Works perfect for this job. Funny thing is I remember making cookies on it when I was young!

Thanks! Dosing has not really changed since February. I don't have the sheet right now, but I'll look for it and post. The substrate is still BDBS, and I am loving it. I do dread needing to uproot the helenthium tenellum though... it is getting super thick...



Also, something strange I have been paying attention to the past few months or more. My hygrophila pinnatifida simply will not grow up, as in vertical. It is also extremely slow growing. It must be at least 4 or more months old at this point.

What is strange is I remember having this plant back a few years when I had the 55, and it grew absolutely massive! Not sure what is going on, or if anyone had any thoughts. Biggest difference would be T5HO vs the two LED beamswork fixtures. Around 100 PAR or so hitting then.

Over the weekend I finally got to something that I have been wanting to do since last year; remove the SunSun filter and pre filter canister, and replace it with a Fluval 407. The SunSun setup is what has been powering the DIY cerges reactor this whole time- since the tank was the 55 gallon. Last year some of you may recall I grabbed my first Fluval 407 to see how it would work out. I really enjoyed this filter the past year; quiet, reliable, and super easy to service. I like that the mechanical filtration can easily come out- actually everything is super easy to remove!

Replacing everything went really smooth. Most of the bio media fit right from the SunSun to the 407. The top of the SunSun did have purigen in it, so that is now pulled out. Not sure if it was really doing anything for me anyways (lots of discussion about that earlier in the journal). The CO2 reactor is performing great as well. I honestly did not touch the flow meter- settings are exactly the same. pH drop has been nearly identical, after the swap, so pretty pleased with that. I have things set that one CO2 tank is powering both my 75 and 40 gallon tanks. The Dwyer flow meters control the amount of CO2, and I use my pH controller basically as a pH meter, and a fail safe for when my CO2 tank runs out and my cheap regulator give me EOTD.

I also removed the SunSun from my 40 breeder and threw a 307 on that tank. I would have liked the 407 just for the size, but the flow, even throttled back, would have been just too much. I need to throttle down the 307 as it is!





Tank health overall has been great. New batch of Micros the other day, but same recipe as before. Macro still unchanged and frontloading. Now that it is winter time, I may play around with Macros a bit as I still get the annoying GDA by the end of the week. I think part of that may also be the organic buildup from 13 larger rainbows, among other fish!

Maintenance each week is more than just the water change. I try to always do a vacuum of the carpet- it is amazing how much gunk and funk it hold in just one week. Also around the crypts and the barclaya- tons of gunk flowing out when syphoning.

For lighting I have all the same bulbs running, but just swapped positioning on two of them so on ramp up and ramp down, the actinic is balanced out by the 3000K, vs. those bulbs overpowering flora bulbs. Little things, but make the tank nicer for me when sitting by it all day in my office.



Not much else to report right now, so here are some photos to enjoy!









Most of the bows here

This post is timely. Recently found out they are no longer making the Rena Filstar's that I use, and parts/seals are already getting scarce.

So I have been doing some research on filters and planning ahead. Going to have to take a closer look at the Fluval's now.

And the tank is looking great! And the Bows too!

After the one year trial with the 407, and lots of research, I decided it was the best choice for my application.

I looked I to an FX4 or 6, but just was not thrilled with its overall design for being used in my cabinet. I, like you and many others, take the filters out often for full service. These one are really easy to manage moving in and out as well as opening up. Priming has been super easy as well.

Overall a solid filter. Keep an eye out for sales/ deals. They typically run 200, but i did a 'black friday' online order and pickup from a big box store, and got them for about 150 each. The savings in nice when looking at 2-3 filters!

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May I ask why y'all don't use eheims? Not that there's anything wrong with Fluval, just wondering if there was something I didn't know. Been out of fw for a bit.

I honestly don't have a good answer for that. When I saw the redesign and reviews of the 07 series, I really liked what I saw. After a year of running one of them, I was sold, and grabbed two more.

Never really looked deep into eheim, guess marketing partially got me on the fluval train, ha!

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Oh ok, I'm in the market for a new filter and if fluval had something new I wanted to know lol. Thanks, tank looks great by the way.

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Hey forgot to add that when you run the 3000k with the Actinic must be quite a cool vibe.

When I run my Powerveg 660 and Giesemann Super Purple it's my favorite time of the day. The Bows look crazy colorful.

That is my warm-up for the day, with an added flora bulb. Love the look of it.

Cool down at the end of the day is the 660 and another flora bulb, which is a pretty relaxing look as well.

These combos keep a pretty consistent look through the day. Ill try to grab my warm up combo if I can catch it!

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I use them exclusively. I like that they are dead silent, they come with the quick connect valves in-line (so you can have them anywhere), they are very trustworthy, last a long time, they are super simple and parts are easy to find.

Only 2 downsides I see are 1) flow is far less than ideal, they are incredibly weak and 2) The bright green tubing and intake / output are very sore on the eyes.

@Grobbins48 what size cerges are you using? Any issues with bubbles escaping? It's a toss up what reactor setup I want to go with

Also, now you have me looking at the Fluval line up of filters lol