dekstr's 55g - April 11

Main Details:

Aquarium dimensions (outer): 48" x 12" x 20"
Filtration: Eheim 2215
Heater: 200w Eheim Jager
Substrate: Flourite Black, sandblasting sand, peat moss, Eco-Complete
Lighting: 2x 55w PC 5000k from AHsupply.com, 2x 28w T5 6700k fluorescent by Coralife
Total lighting: 166w
Note: The lighting kit from ahsupply has not arrived yet. Just checked status on-line, cleared customs this afternoon in Montreal, should be heading to Toronto already. Expecting arrival soon.

Water chemistry (approximate)
pH: 6.5-7.0
KH: 4
GH: 4
CO2: 3x 2litre DIY CO2 bottles hooked up to ladder. Note: Right now it's only 1x bottle, need to get more bottles.
Temperature: 76 degrees farenheit
Fertilizer: Dry dosing, trace elements once every two weeks, macro-nutrients as needed

Fauna: Carnegiella strigata, Corydoras panda, Corydoras pygmaeus, Hemigrammus bleheri, Neocaridina denticulata sinensis , var. red, Otocinclus sp.

Flora: Blyxa japonica, Echinodorus tenellus v. 'Tenellus', Eleocharis acicularis, Glosstigma elatinoides, Hygrophila corymbosa, Hygrophila polysperma, Hygrophila polysperma 'Rosanervig', Microsorum pteropus, Lilaeopsis brasiliensis, Sagittaria subulata, Salvinia cucullata, Spirodela polyrhiza, Vesicularia dubyana

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55g and stand in the basement. This picture is a few weeks old. As you can see, the stand has not been painted yet. The final finish is flat black (keep scrolling to look at finished stand colour).
http://img264.imageshack.us/img264/3917/87327891vp3.jpg

Last picture of 20g: My first planted tank. Torn down for now, maybe more good things to come for this 20g. :hihi:
http://img340.imageshack.us/img340/7233/67827429ro6.jpg

Getting some equipment ready for upgrade.
http://img513.imageshack.us/img513/8199/71020157de5.jpg

$10 for 10g--temporary holding tank. Already dreaming about new 10g planted tank in the future. :wink: Hint of things to come.
http://img187.imageshack.us/img187/7117/28621179ko5.jpg

Pictures of 20g and 10g. I had to take about ten trips between the tanks while netting the fish and shrimp.
http://img503.imageshack.us/img503/6673/44646837sf3.jpg
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Five hours later. Just finished setting up! Finally done! Very murky water. I should've taken more pictures during the set-up. But the place was a mess so I didn't bother to.
http://img513.imageshack.us/img513/2199/77112371ql9.jpg

A few hours later, after intense filtration with 2x aquaclear 70 HOB, 1x eheim 2215. 56w coralife lights are on. AC70 on the right side is original filter--cycling purposes. Left AC70 is stuffed with all filter floss--polishing the dusty water. All of them have DIY sponges in the intake to protect the shrimp.
http://img260.imageshack.us/img260/1048/88508823si3.jpg
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A late night-time. Tannins are leaking from new manzanita pieces (didn't care to soak ahead of time).
http://img210.imageshack.us/img210/3778/42631350hs2.jpg

The next night, camera set to high exposure. Moonlights are on in pitch darkness--15 second photo exposure.
http://img212.imageshack.us/img212/6919/87382403nc2.jpg

10 second photo exposure.
http://img513.imageshack.us/img513/8307/30177712oo6.jpg

5 second photo exposure.
http://img187.imageshack.us/img187/1262/99522991km6.jpg

Regular exposure. Or is it 2.5 seconds? Don't remember
http://img468.imageshack.us/img468/8867/13489404by3.jpg

Right now when you look close-up, it's kind of messy with dust and waste everywhere. I'll take macro shots very soon.

dekstr said:

Wow toshi your tank is incredible.

May I ask what plants you used? I really like the foreground plants especially.

Click to expand...

Thanks! I marked down the plants for you on the following image :

Quick update:

Did some minor changes.

- moved AC HOBs to the back, moved all electrical wires to the back--everything looks cleaner now
- adjusted the eheim spraybar, added powerhead, planted some dwarf hairgrass

- I went to another LFS yesterday--called Finactics, freshwater fish-only store, tons of nice cichlids, pristine clear water, nice collection of rarer cories, small fish, well-stocked, very healthy fish, the owner knows his stuff and overall nice guy, and can import rarer fish. He said lots of people from out-of-town visit on weekends to trade in their cichlids.
- got 8 more rummynose tetras and 6 panda cories.
- got free stress coat bottle from Big Als for some reason--never used it before. I used it in the holding tank while acclimating the fish. It really drugged up the fish--they were pretty unreactive to nets and vibrations. So I guess it was really useful to keep them from stressing out too much during the acclimation process.


- added some sand to the front of the tank, now the tank looks really deep.
- bought filter carbon--the tank was way too yellow / brown from the tannins--now it's a lot clearer

Drip-acclimating the fish:
http://img505.imageshack.us/img505/3678/44231830qk0.jpg
http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/9259/12687944bi6.jpg

The only decent pictures I got out of like 10 shots. I'll take better ones when there's no external light source to reflect off the front glass.
http://img145.imageshack.us/img145/1300/36244865de4.jpg
http://img144.imageshack.us/img144/5642/95047812nm5.jpg

Still waiting for the 2x 55w lighting kit from ahsupply...:icon_mad:

Quick update:

Started planting right side with new plants. Recently, I've been liking grass type plants a lot. So I got a lot of grass plants!

Don't remember exactly: Hairgrass, a couple species of vals, and a stem plant (don't remember name).

Also got 6 pygmy cories.

http://img170.imageshack.us/img170/7514/54258674ne6.jpg
http://img338.imageshack.us/img338/2549/46878795qo7.jpg
http://img120.imageshack.us/img120/243/16618259mp4.jpg
http://img187.imageshack.us/img187/3071/45344909il2.jpg
http://img120.imageshack.us/img120/594/36576386uq8.jpg
http://img187.imageshack.us/img187/674/76603493ca8.jpg
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http://img338.imageshack.us/img338/4937/66143534wt7.jpg
http://img170.imageshack.us/img170/8202/80239337zz8.jpg
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http://img120.imageshack.us/img120/4245/11xn9.jpg
http://img187.imageshack.us/img187/1588/12wz0.jpg

New Year's First Update!!!



Let's see... added blyxa japonica, blyxa aubertii, anarcharis (might be egeria najas instead though), cabomba furcata, hygrophila polysperma (the old ones were 'ceylon'), giant hairgrass, more java fern, Ammania gracilis, cardamine (floating), Echinodorus palaefolius var. latifolius, Hygrophyla corymbosa var. salicifolia, Nomaphila stricta, rotala rotundifolia, Rotala sp. mini and that's it I think.

New fauna list:
- 7 amano shrimp (3 died)
- 14 or so red cherry shrimp (some might have died or got eaten, no baby shrimp so far even after no longer berried females...)
- 18 rummynose tetras
- 19 pygmy corydoras
- 6 panda corydoras
- 6 bronze corydoras
- 6 botia kubotai
- 6 pearl gouramis (4 adult sized, 2 2-3")

Always open to comments / suggestions.

Edit: Fish are hiding because I turned on lights during night-time.

Wow it's almost been 2 months since my last 55 gallon update.

Well I'm battling staghorn algae at the moment. Just cutting out the affected leaves and keeping water clean w/ weekly 50% WCs. I also cut back on feeding.

As for plants, I moved some around, and added more fast growing stems on the left side.

There seems to be a lot of fish, but I haven't had any deaths so far.
And fish are very healthy. However, one of the emperor tetras has a really badly damaged right pectoral fin, I don't know how it got injured like that. Otherwise, it is behaving normally. The bronze cories have grown quite a bit, when I first got them in December, they were the size of panda cories, now they are bigger than them. I also got 3 albino bristlenose plecos. WOW they are very good algae eaters. Much more powerful than the little otos. They are 2-3 inches long. My pearl gouarmies are the kings of tank but are very peaceful. Overall very peaceful tank inhabitants.

I bought a perfect condition, 2-3 month old Eheim 2215 for $60. I might add it to increase the water flow and filtration. No CO2 cylinder still, no money.

Enjoy!

Here's another update. I added more driftwood, pretty happy w/ the effect is made. The entire tank looks a lot cooler IMO. Slowly building the hardscape from right to left..!

And you can see my reflection on the left lol..

Sorry about the glare!




K gotta go to school now.

Update! I did a complete tank tear down a week or so ago. Too much BBA and staghorn, decided to clean out everything.

After reading up on lots on Tom Barr's site, decided to do a couple of things:
With no co2 cylinder yet, I couldn't crank up the co2. So for now I will have to compromise with reduced lighting at 2wpg. Bought a 500mL bottle of Excel and started double dosing. So far day 7, no ill effects on shrimp, but only some BBA is turning red. Prune affected parts like crazy. Increased waterflow! Fish seems to like it, particularly cories and loaches. Dose as per EI but w/o KNO3 for now.

The filter was super dirty...clogged the laundry sink with mulm.
Got a new powerhead, the maxijet 400 and I really like it! First brand new equipment I have gotten in a while.


Here are some pre-tank teardown pictures of my old scape:





Wow no wonder I had algae problems! The plants were so densely grown in after not pruning or replanting for months! I got like 20 stems of blyxa japonica out of the original 3-4 stems. 1 small pot of pygmy chain sword and dwarf saggitaria took over half the tank! Other plants suffered with less light and tons of mulm build up wasn't good. Cleared up lots of debris and now the tank looks much better. Less densely planted but each plant has more room.