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75 gallon low tech journal

10K views 47 replies 12 participants last post by  MtAnimals 
#1 ·
Hey all! Figured I’d start a journal on this 75 gallon that was just set up yesterday. The filter is a SunSun HW-3000 and the light is a Beamswork DA FSPEC. My Seneye is measuring par 38-42 @ 20”. The idea for this tank is to have a big open space and lots of plants on the right hand side.

The substrate is #20 pool filter sand and I’m very happy with the size, color, and consistency. To the right it is dirted with Miracle-Gro performance organics ground soil. I sifted out the sticks and placed it at a depth of about 1” then capped with about 1.5” of PFS. The left is just PFS and placed at just over 1”. Only took one 50 lb bag of PFS to get that coverage. The “wall” is simply black lava rock.

For plants I was going to do mostly crypts and swords on the right, maybe with some undemanding stems like some temple compacta or the like. I want to do some less common swords and crypts but nothing too wild. We will see how that works out lol. On the left I wanted to maybe stack some small pieces of driftwood and attach buce and/or anubias, and that’s it. Leave a lot of open swimming space and rely on the plants for the fish to be able to hide.

Questions, comments, concerns, or criticism...it’s all welcome!




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#2 ·
First plants are in! One echinodorus red rubin and a couple pots of crypt wedntii green split up. For the back right corner I was thinking of a red tiger lotus. For the background on the left hand side I was thinking of using some low wood and gluing on some anubias barteri broad leaf. Saw some huge ones at the LFS, must have been 14-18” tall with massive leaves, but they were $20 each. So I’m hesitant.




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#3 ·
Update:

Been experimenting with some cleaning ammonia my wife bought. It's cheap stuff, no added nastiness to it, just ammonia and water...but given the cheapness, it's WEAK. It took an entire cup to get my 75 gallon to read 1 ppm of ammonia. I haven't added any seeded media to the filter (yet), mainly out of laziness of not wanting to open two canisters. I'll take an ammonia reading tomorrow as well, and see if it drops at all. 1 ppm is pretty mild to start off with, imo.

Will be doing a plant order tomorrow (hooray pay day), thinking of a tall crypt center middle, more echinodorus, some shorter crypts for midground and...not sure yet for foreground. Maybe some marsilea hirsuta? I'm open to any advice or suggestions, though. Oh, also definitely going to do a tiger lotus in this tank, that's a must. lol

No pictures for this update as nothing has really changed except the crypt wendtii doing the predictable melting, mostly limited to the larger, clearly grown emersed leaves. Also the soil seems to be leeching some tannins, doesn't bother me none. It'll eventually go away with water changes anyway.

Oh, final thought. The SunSun HW-3000 is performing pretty well so far. The surface skimmer is working like a charm, the flow is nice throughout the whole tank, nothing blowing around, but no dead spots that I can see either. And the filter has quieted down some after a few days of use. Hoping this filter is a keeper, we shall see!
 
#4 ·
Ordered more plants tonight. Fingers crossed they all arrive healthy. The Monte Carlo is for another tank, but everything else is going into this 75. Only one I’m unsure about is the tiger lotus, should it be placed in the back or midground?



I also have another dilemma. The filter came with clips that I’d like to use for the input and output, however they’re just not wide enough for the trim. Any ideas? Would it be kosher to trim down the lip? If so, what would be the best way to go about it?



The dirt is leeching a decent amount of tannins into the water but the clarity is already improving.
Ammonia indicator seems to have lightened up a shade. I’m going to test again tomorrow, and if it’s lighter, see if nitrites have started popping up. It’s pretty early I think to see decent bacterial activity but you never know. [emoji2373]


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#5 ·
Today’s update:

Two days ago I measured 0 ammonia and .5 ppm nitrite. Cool! Cycle is coming along. Today, 0 and 0. Awesome! I’m going to perform a water change tonight and add ammonia, then test the levels again tomorrow night.

Plants also arrived today so I’m stoked!

Some things had to change because the vendor said that a few of the plants I ordered weren’t up to standards for them, and then one of the plants I asked for as a replacement was out of stock.

The current plant list is as follows:
Echinodorus red rubin, hadi red pearl, ozelot, schluerteri, and xinguensis in the front; hygrophila corymbosa compact, nymphaea tiger lotus, crypt wendtii green, crypt pontederiifolia, and anubias heterophylla. I am still brainstorming what to attach the anubias to. I haven’t decided on wood or stone.

Also, added a handful of snails to start colonizing and clean up some melt. The tank should be ready for fish very soon!

Here’s an update picture from today. Soil is still leaching some tannins, oh well.





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#6 ·
Ammonia and nitrite both hit 0, with 15ish ppm of nitrate. So I added a couple of guppies to get some activity in the tank. They’re so strange, in the 10 they constantly sparred, in the 75 they’re sticking together. Probably initial fear of a new tank. I think it’s funny to have this big tank with only two guppies, but their presence should feed the bacteria at least a little bit. Time to consider the permanent residents.

The plants are converting beautifully for the most part. The crypt has significant melt as well as the tiger lotus. I’m not so concerned with the crypts but the lotus concerns me. The lotus came in as bare plants rather than attached to bulbs, so I’m thinking I buried them a little too deep. I repositioned them a bit shallower and I could see tiny growths that look like new leaves. Hopefully they’re like crypts where the old growth melts but they recover well, if not I’ll try sprouting a bulb or two.



Also took a shot of a couple snails just because.



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#7 ·
I had a black lava rock outside and decided to clean it and use it. It hasn’t been in contact with any sort of poison, just dirt, so I’m confident it will be safe. I turned it into “Anubias Rock” with the heterophylla and some minima I had floating in my QT tank. Maybe down the line I’ll add some buce?

Other than that, the tank has been progressing. More emergent growth has melted and getting the predictable diatom bloom, but everything seems to be going well.





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#8 ·
Quick update: everything is progressing smoothly. Had a pretty significant diatom outbreak, as to be expected, but it’s already going away rather rapidly. I would really like to begin stocking the tank, I was thinking of starting with 3 SAE and a group of praecox rainbows, maybe 10. I figured the SAE’s aren’t above eating from the substrate, they may help keep any stray algae in check, but they’re also as easy to feed as any other fish. Who knows?

Here’s a pic with the diatoms:


The tank today:


The picture with the diatoms was taken Wednesday, they’re really disappearing quickly.


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#10 ·
Thank you! I'm surprised with how quickly the diatoms have been disappearing. There's a club meeting on the 20th at a great LFS, hoping to get some decent livestock to finally add to this tank. Still undecided but I was thinking of starting off with a good school of praecox rainbows and 3 SAE's, then going from there. But I'm also tempted to do a "predator" tank with a sizeable school of exodon paradoxus. Also may bump it up to 80-82 degrees, the plant selections can handle it, and do a warm water tank with say angels and these gigantic blue rams the LFS stocks (they call them Holland rams, easily 2.5x bigger than normal GBR's). But who knows? Only time will tell. lol

There are small patches of cyano bacteria, relatively normal for a new tank before the bacteria colony establishes in the substrate. They're just tiny little spots and don't seem to be spreading, so I'm keeping a very close eye on it. Might pick up some Chemiclean just in case.
 
#11 ·
I trimmed that lip off on my 40B in a couple of spots for adding a filter at the time.
Razor blade knife works well. It is harder to cut length wise easily so I cut into the trim at both ends of where I wanted the cut. Then I went length wise along the trim piece in between the two cuts (if that makes sense). The length wise cut I didnt cut all the way thru on first go, just did several passes then bent it down and it snapped right off. Cleaned up the edge with the knife.
 
#12 ·
I trimmed that lip off on my 40B in a couple of spots for adding a filter at the time.

Razor blade knife works well. It is harder to cut length wise easily so I cut into the trim at both ends of where I wanted the cut. Then I went length wise along the trim piece in between the two cuts (if that makes sense). The length wise cut I didnt cut all the way thru on first go, just did several passes then bent it down and it snapped right off. Cleaned up the edge with the knife.


I’ll definitely consider that. It’s the exact method I kind of had in mind but I don’t want to make any permanent modifications until I’m 100% settled on configuration.

Today’s post WC update:

Not much has changed, the tank is basically on auto pilot until things grow in thicker. I did do a relatively heavy trim to remove a lot of emersed growth that was no longer necessary or melting. Keeping dissolved organics lower is a priority right now to keep algae at bay, and so far so good with that. The diatoms are pretty much non-existent right now, which I’m thankful for.

It seems the ozelot swords never adapted and have completely died off. Such is life, will be looking for something to replace them at the LFS on the 20th.

I do a weekly 50% water change and add a small amount of macros and micros only once a week, as well as some GH booster. It seems to be keeping the anubias and hygro happy, everything else is getting all it needs from the dirt.




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#13 ·
So, to update, just added the tank’s first permanent residents!

10 praecox rainbows and 3 SAE’s.

They’ve all been in the tank only 24 hours, but even in this short amount of time they’re doing well. The rainbows came out of hiding within 15 minutes of being added, very flashy fish!

They’re all babies, rainbows only being an inch or a little less, but their colors are nice. My smallest SAE is about an inch too, the biggest is about 2-2.5 inches.

Insofar as the plants go, most are doing well. The ozelot swords melted all the way down and never recovered, and one crypt pontederiifolia did the same. The other two are doing well and throwing new growth. I’ve noticed that even the first of the new submerged growth on these plants get a bit of melt to them, but the 2nd, 3rd, and beyond leaves that the plants are growing look almost perfect.

The tiger lotus melted all the way as well, but one of them is slowly but surely bouncing back. I’m hoping if it just goes unmolested and gets good established roots, it’ll work.

The weekly 50% water changes and low amount of water column dosing seems to be working well both for the plants and keeping algae at bay. With this routine the fish should be really happy.

I’m waiting for the echinodorus xinguensis to start throwing runners, the hygrophila compact is doing really, really well.

I replaced the ozelot swords with some crypt balansae, I just loved the hammered, tall leaves. Hopefully they fare much better than the swords they replaced!

Enjoy the pictures lol. The rainbows are incredibly hard to photograph.

The tank also currently has an 8 hour photoperiod. Once growth really becomes established I’m hoping I can end up at 10 hours for maximum viewing.




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#15 ·
Sorry to hear that, difficulties in adapting. Hope the other 2 chomp any algae out.

Your tanks seems ready to burst in growth, but it will be full once the plants get big, especially those Echinodorus.

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#16 ·
Yeah, the other two seem fine. It's not a coincidence it was the smallest one, probably the smallest SAE I've seen.

I'm hoping it does burst! I'm not used to non-co2 injected tanks anymore, but these plants all seem to do really well once their roots establish in the soil. Fingers crossed the tank transforms over the course of a few months or so.
 
#17 · (Edited)
Quick update today: received more of the 75’s inhabitants in the mail today! It was my first time ever purchasing fish online and having them delivered and I am very pleased with how it went. Ordered Sunday, shipped yesterday, delivered today, all in great shape!

I got four pearl gouramis and they threw in a free leopard danio...the danio choice is interesting lol but the fish all seem to be in great shape!

This picture was taken just 10 minutes after putting them in the QT tank and they already look great, color wise. I can’t wait to see how they are long term.




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#21 ·
Your tank looks like it is shaping up nicely! I am a little behind you with a new 75-gallon, low-tech tank. I am still fishless cycling. Mind if I follow along? I like your Gouramis. I plan to stock blue gouramis and leopard danios at some point, so our tanks have some common ground.
 
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#24 ·
Quick update: I purchased a new Fluval 3.0 for this tank. I wanted more control and a warmer color temperature. Overall the plants were doing pretty well under the Beamswork, so I still consider it a good option for those on a budget, but I do like the look of the Fluval better.

I broke out the Seneye to set the lighting level, and settled at 80%. This was giving me about 50-55 PAR reliably at the substrate. Honestly I’m surprised the PAR isn’t as high on the longer model. At 100% I measured 65-70 PAR at the substrate, about 19-20”. This is definitely good light! And the spread on the taller tank is a lot more uniform, as PAR didn’t change much front to back at the substrate. I’m impressed with that. However on my 40 breeder, the last I measured the 3.0 it was giving me 114 PAR but that’s also at 14.5”.

I’ll have to break out the tape measure and do a more apples to apples comparison with distance.

I’m not comfortable going over the 50-55 PAR without co2, and this may still be slightly too much, but we will see.

The pearl gouramis are doing well in the 75 now, I felt comfortable adding them a bit early because they came in perfect health and the 10 gallon was too cramped. I did prophylactically treat them and fed them a full round of New Life Spectrum Hex Shield, so I’m confident in their condition.

Here’s a full tank shot for the journal. This is with the Fluval 3.0.




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#25 ·
I love the way this tank is looking. Very good use of negative space. Like a zen garden. I have the fluval 3.0 running on the kindergarten class. Are you running it at 80% to avoid algae? Is their another reason to do this? Can you explain more? I'm running mine at 100% I believe or whatever the default setting is. I actually want some algae in the tank and so far so good.
 
#27 ·
Yes, I have settings turned down to avoid algae issues. Your kindergarten tank looks awesome! The Fluval 3.0 is definitely a strong light, and 100% without co2 and lots of growth will definitely give you algae. The 80% setting gave me the maximum amount of PAR I was willing to deal with without co2, however I felt like the warm white in person was too high, so I’ve adjusted it. Lowered the warm white setting, slightly increased pure white, and set cool white and red to max. The color rendition in person improved, but I haven’t measured the PAR yet of the current setting. I’d be willing to bet it’s about the same.

keep an eye on those SAE's,I just had to pull some from my low tech 75,no algae,and they began eating plants.fortunatly it was just elodea,but still.I just started mine about 3 weeks or so ago.I have a journal for it.

Good to know! So far they haven’t damaged any plants but it’ll not be fun if they do. Little torpedoes in a four foot tank wouldn’t be fun to catch lol. I had to rehome a bristlenose I had a while back in my 40 breeder because he was demolishing plants, just rasping on and eating all of them. And he was getting food nightly between wafers, zucchini, and seaweed. Damn fish was never satiated.


Update: New arrivals came in the mail today! I can’t wait to add them after quarantine. A pair of empire gudgeons!





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#28 ·
Today’s update: The fish all seem to be healthy and happy. The rainbows really look good in the mornings and they’re starting to put on some size, which is bringing more of their blue out. They’re still mostly silver but when the light hits them you can see a lot of blue. The pearl gouramis I’ve noticed are a bit flighty but they’re getting settled nicely. They used to jet away and hide when the kids play in the living room now they just go up to the surface or don’t even react at all. They’re all happy to beg for food. The SAE’s are growing, I’ve only lost that one. I’m thinking about replacing it because the bigger one tends to chase the smaller one sometimes and I think it would be good to split the attention. The empire gudgeons are still in quarantine but they’re doing well, hanging out peacefully by themselves. I started the 3 day routine of medicated food today and they’re eating it. They tend to come out to eat it off the substrate once I walk away from the tank, I get the feeling they’ll do well once they’re in a tank with dithers. I do have six more praecox rainbows on the way, Gary Lange Pagai line bred, so I’m stoked to see how they are.

I’m thinking about adding a group of parkinsoni rainbows, but I’m still undecided. Any thoughts?

The plants are doing well overall. The hadi red pearl sword is my favorite right now but I’m also really excited to see the xinguensis swords are starting to send runners! I’ve noticed that the first of the submerged growth is melting away but the growth after it is looking great. Just part of the acclimation process.

I’m dosing the tank weekly, 10 ppm KNO3, 1.2 ppm KH2PO4, adding NilocG GH booster to ensure the anubias have what they need and for the sulfur. The dGH is about 7-8, dKH 4, temp about 77.5 Fahrenheit, 150 TDS, with a weekly 50% water change.

Enjoy some bad pictures. They’re much harder to photograph than the calmer South American fish in my 40 lol.




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#30 ·
Thank you! The goal was to have some that are "different" but still show good color and are capable of being grown without co2 and constant dosing of the water column. I think it's realistic to do weekly water changes and add fertilizers only once a week. Most of the plants are taking advantage of the dirt as well, which is virtually no maintenance once it's up and established.

Yeah, these fish like to move around a lot lol. Even the pearl gouramis are fairly active, and I'm happy that they're ignoring the rainbows, but there is a clear pecking order among themselves. But with four gouramis splitting all of the attention, things are still pretty peaceful. I find myself staring at this tank more than my heavily planted, well-stocked 40 breeder.
 
#31 ·
Here’s a few pictures I snapped when I got home.

I’m frustrated with my iPhone because it doesn’t take great pictures imo, they just don’t look “true to form.” It is a 7 plus, however...will probably upgrade soon. Really eyeing the Pixel 4 XL.

Anyways, here’s the photos!

I’m loving the playful behavior of the rainbows but the gudgeons are quickly becoming an all time favorite. The pearl gouramis, while beautiful, still remain slightly on the skittish side. It makes observation and pictures sometimes annoying.




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#32 ·
I've been a bit under the weather, so haven't taken any pictures. Thankfully the Python makes it so easy to do water changes that even with no energy and being sick, it's totally doable to get maintenance done.

I wound up going with the Pixel 4 XL, but it won't be here until Wednesday...hoping it will take some better pictures and videos, especially for the journals.

Rainbowfish fever is alive and well - I ordered 6 M. parkinsoni. Also have 5 panda garras coming in for this tank, then I suspect stocking will be done. The plants are all growing very well, the xingu swords are sending runners like crazy now. I'm hoping in about another month's time, I can permanently remove the hygro stems since they were only used for temporary filler/nutrient sponges. Maybe I'll place a few in the high tech tank to see how they look in a high energy tank.

Will update as the fish come in! Also, expect a few pictures once the new fancy phone arrives.
 
#36 ·
Water change last night, a day late because I spent the day helping the mother in law move.

All the fish are doing well, I'm becoming a big believer in New Life Spectrum food.

I did a big trim of the hygro, the bottom leaves were getting pretty tattered. Pruned back the red Rubin sword a bit. The anubias heterophylla is struggling and melting a bit, hopefully part of a much slower transition period given how slow these plants grow. Overall very happy with this tank still.


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