[Sdavis1982]

I thought i would start to log my progress. I know my tank is a mess and for the most part i enjoy that.

I dont know if i would say my tank is high flow but it has a very strong flow. Im trying and learning what plants can handle that. Alot of plants just end up in little bits.

I run a roughly 18gal sump with a harbor freight fountain pump rated at 620gph. Its plumbed 1" including a homemade spraybar. I use lava rock in my sump. I have been playing around with using and not using a filter pad.

For fish i have 7 tigerbarbs, 6 otos, 2 cae, 2 flower shrimp, 3 amano(sp?) shrimp, and an unknow amount of platies...they breed faster than the tigerbarbs can eat them.

For plants i am not sure what i have. Hoping with this i can keep a list as i find out and add names of new ones as i get them. As i post pics feel free to call out plants as you notice them.

I do run CO2. I use my spray bar as a reactor of sorts. 20 oz paintball with reg. I also do ei.

On one side of my tank i run a normal hood light with a plant bulb. on the other half i run a diy led light. It uses 3 10w leds. 2 are whiye 6500k and one is blue. They are pushed at close to 1.5amps if i remember right.

My over all tank...

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[Sdavis1982]

This is my light fixture. Its w b w for color. i find that this much blue makes my vals constantly bloom which im not sure is health for them. I have found this to be true with other plants as well.

The leds are mounted to heatsinks with fans. Temp of heatsink where led mounts in the summer time is roughly 120* f or below. basement in winter time is 60* f or so and led temp drops to 106* f. Feel free to ask any questions about my lights that u might have.

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[devilduck]

That's a great diy style tank!

 

[Sdavis1982]

Thank you very much.

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[Sdavis1982]

I had some time to work on my tank today. I have never tried mosses before and thought why not. Knowing i was taking a risk with the weather and time of year i got some in a raok. No fault of the sender it showed up in a frozen ball. So i tossed it in the tank and a week or so later i have new growth. Amazing . Not great with a camera but here is a shot.

I decided i would try to sandwich some between my pvc and plastic mesh. This is what it looked like.

We will see how it fills in.
I took alot of my vals out...they wont root in my gravel...partly might be the scuds eating roots but got tired of finding them floating.

I do struggle with what i think is bba and green spot. looking for ways to combat them.

Here are some more random pics...

Last one is sun coming in basement windows before my lights came on.
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[karce87]

I would say the algae is the result of the light from the window and you do not have a lot of plants to take up all the light. So algae blooms

 

[Sdavis1982]

I assume you are right about light being part of it. This tank is less than a year old so in time it will fill in. I have lost alot of plants i have tried because of the flow in my tank. It tends to shred plants.

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[Sdavis1982]

I took some more moss today and tried to tie it to a small drift wood to see what it would do.

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[LB79]

That tank wants jungle vallisneria. A whole lot of it, too.

 

[Sdavis1982]

They just end up in a big ball on top never get them to root in the gravel.

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[Sdavis1982]

I thought I would do a little update on my tank. I think it's been over a year since I posted on here.

The biggest thing for me was figuring out that my flow was too high for most plants. It did not take long to shred them or constantly fight keeping them in place.

I'm easily pushing 700 gph if not more. The fish love the flow. I have spent a year playing with my home made sump. It works great but there are things I would change.

For my light I am running one basic 18" single daylight bulb and my homemade led. The led has three 10w leds with heat sink and fan. I have a temp reader to keep an eye for testing. Cheap fans I started out with had problems and one got replaced with much hight quality fan other two I still had replacements that were equal to what was there. I am running two white and one blue. When I build a second one I would use all white. Overall very happy with the parts I got off [Ebay Link Removed] Wish I would have been more daring and started out with 4 or 6 leds.

I keep the temperature around 80* F.
The head of the tank is my female convict. She is constantly moving around the tank.

Two of these snails,

,
Plus 3 otos and a BN pleco round off my cleaning crew.

I think i have lost count of my cory cats. Maybe 6 silver and 4 peppered. Would love to add some green ones.

I really only see alge on one out put tube and a little on the drain tube.

Any questions feel free to ask.

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