[Aheartlessfish]

40 gallon breeder tank

175w 6500k metal halide 8 hr photo p.
Flourite black gravel
Pressurized co2: 4-6bps
Index method Dry ferts: KNO3, K2so4, Kh2po4, Mgso4, Cacl2, Csm+b, Flourish Iron
Temp: 80

Fish: 20 red minors, 7 Cardinals, 6 Colombian Tetras, 1 Checkerboard Blood pigeon discus, 3 SAE's, 1 Assassin Snail, 2 albino cories, 2 black peppered cories, 1 zebra angel, a pair of red platys, about 6 ottos

The fish is only temporary, eventually im just going to move them all and just keep the cardinals.

Decor: 3 crosses, 2 covered in javamoss

Plants: (ill list what i know)
Staurogyne repens
Limnophilia aromatica
Limno sp. ‘Guinea’
Heteranthera zosterfolia
Ludwigia repens arcuata

These i dont know the scientific names:
Ludwigia green
Ludwigia Narrow
Ludwigia reds
Rotala (green and gets tannish/reddish tops when thriving)
Glossotigma
Elatine Triandra
Tiger Lotus (green/brown version)

Any suggestions would be great. So far im not getting any algae at all. Tank has been up for a month now. The plants have been in there for a week so the tank still looks empty. Once the plants start growing i will attempt to make more of a aquascape out of it. The small box on the left is just some HC im trying to keep alive...i have no luck with this plant.

 

[LB79]

Just keep up those water changes and you'll have no problems. Great looking tank!

 

[Aheartlessfish]

Thanks LB

Dosing every other day of:
1/4 tsp Kno3
1/8 tsp K2so4
1/8 tsp kh2po4

And every off day:
1/8 csm+b
5ml Flourish iron

Im getting a readings of the following:

Nitrates: 60-80ppms
Phosphates: 5 ppm (dark blue color)
Ph: 6.2-6.4
Kh: 6 degrees
Gh: 7 degrees
(all testings according to API drops)

It says co2 = high and detrimental to fish but so far only fish i ever lost were ottos due to poor quality fish from local petsmart ^^ (there ottos seem to die quiet often even in stores)

I rarely see any pearling action. Glosso seems to be growing fast and straight up. Noticed that most of my stem plants are losing its older leaves at the bottom but still growing at the top.

No signs of algae.

Only hypothesis is that the Metal Halide 175 watt mogul lighting is not strong enough?? I literally have it about 3-4" from surface of the water. (getting 4.3 wpg...but im pretty sure it has something to do with par levels and how much it covers the tank)

The only dark spots are at the upper left and right corners but that shouldnt be detrimental to anything. Plants are growing towards the light anyways.

Any comments would be greatly appreciated

 

[GMYukonon24s]

Nice plants you have growing there.

 

[Aheartlessfish]

Thanks Gmyukon!

05-06-12. Elatine Triandra is taking off, i shifted them to the front more...glossotigma is growing straight up. Gona prune them during next water change. Cant decide if i wana do elatine or glosso carpet...mostlikely elatine since they seem to be easy to take care of and fill in alot better. Glosso i might take out and start an emersed culture of it just for fun...maybe buy a frog or something ^^. I got a few trims off of my L Aromaticas. They went into a nano fluval chi. As for growth wise the best growth seems to be the cambomba...other than that i think i had better growth rates with t5ho bulbs than this metal halide. Only thing i like about it is the fact that my water glistens.

 

[jreich]

thats a lot of llight focused in one spot.
looks good so far, but it has only bin a month, you may want to consider changing your lighting further down the road if you start running to lots of alge problems.
i'm personally running 2 dual bulb t5no fixtures pushing 72wpg over my 40b, and my light is spread ot a lot more than yours. lights are less important than co2 and ferts.

 

[Aheartlessfish]

I thought that too but its really not that bright...

i get better lighting coming from the t5ho bulbs...right now this is the only light fixture i have for this tank until i can get a 36" t5ho light fixture (i have a 72").

But lets see what happens down the road

 

[Assassynation]

Nice start! If you don't mind me asking, what do the 3 crosses represent?

 

[Aheartlessfish]

I just decided to make crosses one day to express my faith in Christ. I figured if im passionate about fishies i can put my faith into it as well.
The one without javamoss symbolizes Jesus's Cross and how he was innocent. The other two covered in Javamoss symbolizes the 2 sinners that died next to him.

^^ hope no one is offended. If so o well

 

[BS87]

Not my thing, but it is nice when someone can combine two passions.

Hope no one here gives you any grief for it.

Nice tank!

 

[Aheartlessfish]

haa!!! its okay ill just ignore the greifers ^^ ive seen tanks with Dragons and Buddhas in it...ill just respect their nice looking tanks .

This tank looks messy right now, Plan on shifting to the tall plants on one corner of the tank then carpet the rest. Need to grow a nice amount of Elatine Triandra before that happens tho :O

 

[jreich]

t5ho should work nice, but will be hard to get good spread, unless u raise it up a bit.
keep up the good work, looks good so far

 

[Aheartlessfish]

good spread with t5? what do you mean by good spread?

 

[jreich]

good spread with t5? what do you mean by good spread?

it will be hard to get 1 fixture to cover the entire surface area of the bottom of the tank let alone the water colum with 1 fixture.
the light basically comes out of the fixture like this; _/__\_ all the plants to the left and right of /, and \ will be looking for light unless you raise the fxture up to spread it out a little better.

 

[limeslide]

Awesome!

 

[Aheartlessfish]

oh yea haha i got that part i can raise the current light fixture up more but it makes the tank look dark...also the extra light will be all over the room ^^...its this low because it beams all into the tank. Its alright, for now this shall suffice.