[wetbizquit]

here is a photo journal of my 80 gal start up, it will be moderate to heavily planted.... not sure if this is the right section to post this.....

i purchased the tank off of a local listings website, got a canopy, stand, tank, giant driftwood, filter, heater and some chemicals all for 200$ great deal if i dont say so myself



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setup:
using rena xp3 canister filter, have a canister heater atatched to the output water, very nice i might add
lighting: i have the coralife large light under the canopy running 4 smaller two side bulbs, 65w 6700 daylight, one bulb has gone out, but i keep it on about 12 hours a day so far ( i know its not the best for algea with high ammonia at first but it has been actually fine so far)
substrate: used playland sand (90lbs) after washing it thoroughly
scenery: few pieces of driftwood, rocks gathered from far up a canyon river near by, black gravel, and river stones all were tested for chemicals before added to the tank, and boiled for a few hours to wash out any tangents...
fish: 2 small bushnose plecos, about 20 feeder goldfish


my tank has been cylcling for 3 weeks, i did not go the fishless route, sorry you fish lovers, i know its sad but i have used feederfish, had one group of about 28 smaller feeder goldfish since their dirty, i over fed them quite a lot and they all died within two weeks, now its my second batch of feeder fish, and only 3 of them have died, the rest left seem healthy and happy and imune to the tank, no fish have died in the last few days



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so now i have added plants, i planted quite a few, i would say about 7 different species and about 15 plants in all together reside in the tank



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my readings after three weeks of cycling with fish and over feeding the tank are:

ph 7.6
ammonia 0.23ppm
nitrite 0
nitrate 10ppm

in the last three weeks i have done 5 water tests they have all been about the same there was a small spike of nitrate but now its lowering, ammonia seems to be dying down a bit, but too slowly


my questions are:

my birthday is on thursday ( 5 days away ) and my girlfriend is planning on taking me to buy my fish, i am planning on some south african chiclids since i will have plants i want some blue german rams, maybe a variety of rams, and some peacocks, but i want my ammonia to be at 0 when i purchase them, im thinking of doing a 35% water change today, adding about 8 gal of my friends established tank water, and dumping almost all my feeder fish, and feeding them lightly until thurs, do you think this will dramatically drop the ammonia?

so far i have only done one water change, my syphon i ordered off amazon took forever!!

my other question is for the planted geeks on here, please help since i have only had 3 tanks before, i attempted a 20 gal planted which ended brutally after i attempted a diy co2 system and algea exploded
i have a lot of plants now, and i plan on buying a co2 canister cystem since my diy last time was horrible i rather spend the money on better results and not ruin my tank, i have put too much time into this already to lose it to algea..... so my question is, i dont have substrate with nutrients, just sand in the bottom of the tank, play sand for children, i figure there has been so much fish crap and food on the bottom it has some nutrients, im using the general flourish liquid ferts once a week but is this all enough with co2 added to have a flourished tank??

thanks for all your help and please provide comments, it is much appreciated!!

stay tuned for more pics soon!!

 

[wetbizquit]

also what kits do you reccomend for a co2 setup, im going for low price but decent quality

 

[Noahma]

I would wait for the tank to be well established before doing any of the South American Chichlids such as rams. They are very sensitive. Tank water will not help you cycle the tank, if you can, get some of his filter media / gravel, a decoration something that has the beneficial bacteria on it. the plants will help with the cycle being able to process the ammonia for themselves. Some of us plant so thick from the start that we have silent cycles, no visible ammonia spikes. I would wait a few more months before doing the rams or Apisto's though. You can start stocking with your dither fish though. IE maybe some Neon Tetras, Cardinal tetras ect. although, you need to be sure the cycle is complete first.

 

[wetbizquit]

i plan on waiting, i currently only have around 9 goldfish in the tank left, to speed up the cycle do you reccomend more frequent water changes then once a week? im using the previous owners filter media so i figure it shouldnt take longer then 6 weeks to cycle, its already been almost 4, just trying to speed it up faster, guess by this thurs i will just have to focus on setting up the aquascaping with plants and a co2 system before i add my south africans....

 

[roadmaster]

Realize you already have the feeder fish in the tank, so I would perform twice weekly water change of 50 percent until ammonia and nitrite levels read zero for three or four consecutive days.
Agree with other's about not adding any more fishes until the tank has matured for a couple months.
This will give you time to get the tank further planted and make adjustment's with respect to CO2 application.
Would consider in the future, that live feeder goldfish are very good way to introduce parasites or bacterial pathogens to your tank.
These fishes are often kept in poor condition's which lead to stress ,which leads to sick fish.
Only takes one sick feeder fish to possibly infect whole tank of feeder's, and then this could be passed on to your tank.Is also why they are poor diet for larger fishes.
If you are raising your own feeder fish, then perhaps there is not too much concern but store bought feeder's often create more trouble than they are worth with respect to fishes/tanks health.
If previous owner's filter material was kept wet while you set up the new tank ,then perhaps enough good bacteria survived to shorten the time needed to establish bacterial colony, but your recent ammonia level posted,, suggest's to me that less feeding and larger water changes may be on order for a week or two .

 

[bpb]

Agree on waiting with rams. You could try them on a fresh cycle, but expect to lose your first several. I would work my way up to them. Start with the toughest fish first, then slowly work your way to the sensitive ones over a couple months. If you go with pressurized co2, you will need to dose the water with ferts and use root tabs for your rooted plants. Play sand will anchor then but has zero cec and tends to compact, leaving nutrients floating. Just my thoughts.

Awesome hard scape by the way. You got a steal on that set up.

 

[wetbizquit]

Thanks for your input guys its much appreciated, one more question I have read many things aboutliquid beneficial bacteria and seems like only a select few work if any, will those do harm to the plants?

 

[roadmaster]

Mileage does seem to vary with some of these product's.
Could be,, that some are little more than dead organic's, that would maybe help bacterial growth by giving the bacteria something to feed on?
I should think the nine goldfish in 80 gal would provide substantial organic waste, and would not spend my money on product un-needed?
Would feed fish sparingly,and perform water changes if test's indicate the ammonia or nitrite level's pose the need.
Lot's more plant's would also help with ammonia for plant's can use it up fairly quickly.IMHO

 

[wetbizquit]

k so its been a few days, here is an update

planted tank as of last week, not many plants, dirty goldfish (found new home for goldfish)



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and here it is as of tonight....




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so i here is the update, added co2





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tweaked the diffuser, got rid of the bumble counter, put on a fluval ceramic diffuser, its made to only treat 20 gal how it comes out of the box, so i got a different constant diffuser....the aquarium enthusiast at the "Aquarium" here locally in utah reccomended it, he has the same simple yeast contraption on his 50 gal, says it fills it quite nicely.... i would have gone pressurized but dont have the cash flow with a baby on the way..... on my next tank i will....




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and here is a sneak peak at the new additions....




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[jl209]

I was confused when you described your lighting setup. Are you running 2x65w PC or 4x65w pc ? If you have a 4 bulb fixture going you need to dose daily. N p k and micros on alternating days. Even with a 2 bulb fixture you should be dosing regularly. You should look into dry ferts they are like 40x cheaper than liquid and just as easy to dose. 20 or 30 bucks would buy you enough ferts for a couple years. Google dry aquarium fertilizers. Also do a search on this site for estimative index dosing. I would also recommend a c02 drop checker to get an idea of where you levels are at those are less than 10 bucks as well. Sweet driftwood btw.

 

[wetbizquit]

I was confused when you described your lighting setup. Are you running 2x65w PC or 4x65w pc ? If you have a 4 bulb fixture going you need to dose daily. N p k and micros on alternating days. Even with a 2 bulb fixture you should be dosing regularly. You should look into dry ferts they are like 40x cheaper than liquid and just as easy to dose. 20 or 30 bucks would buy you enough ferts for a couple years. Google dry aquarium fertilizers. Also do a search on this site for estimative index dosing. I would also recommend a c02 drop checker to get an idea of where you levels are at those are less than 10 bucks as well. Sweet driftwood btw.

thanks for your input, i am running 4x65w but one bulb is out, so im running on approx 2.5 wpg until i order the other bulb.... and i have a buble counter, but i just decided not to use it since its built for a 20 gal.... but im relatively new to co2 so im looking into what i should do....

also speaking of which im assuming due to not enough nutrients, maybe too much light, i have a type of algea growing.... looks like its just started, can anyone tell me what type this is, and what to do to resolve it?



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[jl209]

Your link didnt load right. I can already tell you that the algae is related to your lack of nutrients. Even with 3 bulbs running your are pushing close to high light. With 4 bulbs you are difinetly a high light tank. You need lots of c02 and ferts in a tank with that much light or your plants will struggle and algae will thrive. Try estimative index dosing and bump up your c02 you wont be sorry.

 

[wetbizquit]

ok thanks for your help, i was pretty sure it was mostly lack of nutrients, co2 was just installed on the 29th, and i havent been dosing that much, only once a week, obviously the guy at the lfs didnt know much.... where can i find the estimative index dosing?

 

[wetbizquit]

thank you for the input, its still a work in progress, had a small party last night with some close friends, and it was the centerpiece of the evening, everyong kept commenting on my hard work and how it accents my condo gotta love when you feel like you have achieved something like this you slave hours over..... plants are already starting to bloom, i have stems coming out of my java ferns, and this small plant, not sure of the name, its in a potted container, which brings me to my question, is it best to take plants out of their potts, or let them sit in there for a while under the substrate to use beneficial nutrients....



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[roadmaster]

Would remove all plant's from pot's and push roots down into substrate with exception of anubias and java fern which can be attached to wood or rocks with thread,fishing line,or super glue.
Might consider purchasing a macro-micronutrient mix from somewhere such as Aquariumfertilizer.com and plant's will thank you.

 

[wetbizquit]

Would remove all plant's from pot's and push roots down into substrate with exception of anubias and java fern which can be attached to wood or rocks with thread,fishing line,or super glue.
Might consider purchasing a macro-micronutrient mix from somewhere such as Aquariumfertilizer.com and plant's will thank you.

thank you for your feedback i'll be attatching them to my driftwood here pretty soon, once i invest in more forground plants.... i might have to invest in some fert mix, im looking into dry ferts as well

UPDATE

so i only have one small container running diy co2 which is pathetic and pretty much worthless for an 80 gal tank... but look at this growth in only about two weeks!!

before:



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after:



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no plants were added except for two floating moss balls, which you can see one in the after pic...

i decided to add two more yeast 2ltr bottles to the mix, just to help maintain until i can afford pressurized which will most likely be next year, i also took out another of my 67k 65 watt bulbs so now im only running 1.6 wpg so should help with my algea....



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i hooked up up to a t valve and planned on runnning them into my intake on my cannister filter (xp3) but i cant get the hose to fit, so i figured just to attach an airstone under the filter, i quickly realized the pressure was much greater then my other small cannister who produces awesome tiny tiny bubbles, so they just force big bubbles through the airstone, i tried another t valve with two airstones in the tank on the end directly from the t valve and got only one airstone with all the pressure creating big bubbles.... so im make shifting a bubble ladder, which i superglued, waiting a full 18 hours for it to cure before i stick it in the tank....

here is one of my lil guys (forgot the species) enjoying some blood worms



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enjoy, input appreciated, more updates soon!!

 

[wetbizquit]

So I hooked up two 2ltrs (pic above) to a plastic ladder that came with a yeast co2 kit, but the bubbles are huge bubbles that climb half the ladder then just go up to the surface , I'm assuming I could order a glass diffused for as much pressure coming out of the bottles

 

[radioman]

I personally think those ladders are ugly and I used a glass diffuser with 1 bps with no problem.

 

[wetbizquit]

nice, is ebay the cheapest source, or did you use a lfs? maybe online link to a good store?

 

[wetbizquit]

thought i'd share a few pics of my algea, any identification?? i think its just new tank algea, but i noticed as i reduced my lighting to around 1 wpg it died down.....



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here it is building up on my floating moss ball



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i thought moss balls prevented algea? ha

and here are the size of my bubbles on my co2 ladder, too big i believe all their good for is to disrupt the surface of my water, so i ordered limewood stones hopefully those will work with two 2 ltrs hooked up to t valve, reg airstones it was too much pressure for and they would just bleed out large bubbles



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