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New World 90gal Low Tech- a Pictoral Journey! 11/11- planned teardown!

132K views 1K replies 115 participants last post by  Karackle 
#1 · (Edited)
Well, the time has FINALLY come, I start the final setup tonight, and hope to start planting by this weekend. I started working on this tank back in January, believe it or not- and it has become quite a project! This is going to be a VERY abbreviated pictoral journal- if you want to read through the whole thing, see the link in my Sig. There will be lots of posts at first to bring it all up to speed...

I started this with a $500 budget, and so Tank #1 was a major fixer-upper:







After some time, lots of elbow grease (involving vinegar, CLR and acetone), removing the background and refinishing the canopy and stand, I ended up with this:





Which I then promptly sold!!! Honestly, I only broke even on the deal, but I learned so much reasearching in the meantime that I was able to replace what I had with better equipment for about the same money.
 
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#499 ·
I love my cardinals! Their blue color just glows in the tank!

Good that you're waiting on the cardinals. No reason to rush. You'll enjoy them just that much more when you get to have that "new fish" excitement when you do get them.
 
#500 ·
Tues 8/20/08

Just a quick update.

Plecos have all adjusted well to the QT tank. I totally keep forgetting to get some pics, but they're very lovely. :biggrin: I plan on moving them over to the 90gal late next week, so I'll start doing water changes with water from the main tank on Tuesday.

Yesterday Hurricane Fay went through. The eye passed over our house between 6-7am. Hubby's laptop got fried and lots of flooding and downed tree branches and a few trees (didn't loose any at our house) but that's it for our area. She strengthened after passing over us though and is now slamming up the East coast.

My GBRs of course spawned yesterday afternoon. One of the blue females this time.

Sword stalk is putting out new kleiner bar leaves, so I'll have at least 2 and I think 3 new plantlets soon. :biggrin:

I need to spend some time in there planting all the new Bacopa that's floating since it came in last week before we leave for CA tomorrow... the Rams won't be happy, but oh well! LOL
 
#501 ·
What? No pictures?! I think Ken needs to get you for this! :icon_lol:

Sorry to hear about Fay and your hubby's laptop, but thank goodness your property didn't seem to suffer much.

Now bring on those pictures! Not even a hurricane can excuse you!
 
#504 ·
All 3 Plecos are beautiful! They'll be such a nice addition to your tank! :) Glad they're doing well and will be introduced to their new home soon! :)
 
#505 ·
So I just got finished with a pretty major Rescape, and also acclimated and added the Gold nugget plecos into the 90gal.





Checking out one of the newcomers:


Looks like these 2 are gearing up to spawn already




Newest Kleiner bar swordets


E. africanus and E. angustifolius 'vesuvius'


New left side of tank


New right side of tank


FTSs



 
#513 ·
Wow nice plecos.
Love the hardscape on the tank too.
 
#514 ·
Quick update,

At least one of the new plecos has been munching on my kleiner bar. :icon_frow I've started throwing some Hikari catfish wafers in the tank at lights out, and that does seem to have slowed it down some, though the jury is still out...

I also made it up to Boardroom today and picked up 35 Cardinal tetras. They're acclimating in a bucket right now, and will soon go into my 29gal QT tank for a minimum of 2 weeks... before COMPLETING the stocking of my 90gal!!! :biggrin:

After that, I start the process of converting my 29gal into an Asian-themed tank, and then the 46gal will go planted... and I'm also thinking of setting back up my 10gal RCS colony at work... :biggrin:
 
#516 ·
Those came from RMC here on the forum, and are definitely the healthiest and have the best color that I've ever seen! I'm really happy with them (just hope I can convice them to stay away from my sword...)

I saw some more today at my LFS, and these look soooo much nicer! :biggrin:
 
#517 ·
The Cardinals colored up nicely soon after being moved into the new tank, and even gobbled up some frozen Cyclop-eeze in the QT tank. There are a few that I'll need to keep an eye on- one has a very large cyst-looking thing above his tail and coloration is very off. I've debated euthanizing him right off the bat, but decided I'm going to just wait and see. I took all of the substrate out of the QT tank in preparation for the Cardinals; based on past experience I'm pretty much expecting some ich and/or fungus to rear its ugly head...

Surprise, surprise, the male GBR and one of his females are "flirting" in the 90gal. I'm positive it's all the frozen foods I feed.

The jumbo female Amano's eggs hatched today, and she was surrounded by a cloud of Pristella tetras chowing down on the Zoes as she expelled them from her swimmerettes.

The Pristellas all have HUGE bellies! I just noticed how large some of them have gotten; a few of the Pristellas are now just as big as the GBRs!
 
#518 ·
And here's some pics:

New Cardinals in QT




Chewed-up sword


Ths Prime Suspects



Latest FTS. I'm thinking of trying L. 'cuba' again, this time in the background between the driftwood and the sword (the last ones didn't make it, between nutrient deficiency and my leaving the lights off over the Labor Day weekend...)


Schooling Pristellas (blurry b/c they just won't hold still for anything, LOL)





Clown pleco



Amano Junction



Newest swordlets



And last but not least, GBRs

The 2 blue females



Both blue females with the male



And the latest "happy couple"

 
#523 ·
Looking great, can't believe how big the pristella's got! Those cardinals are looking nice and brightly colored too, can't wait to see them in the tank! :)
 
#524 ·
It all depends on your stock. These were captive-bred, and I'm reasonably sure they were even captive-bred in Tampa, which would put them raised in water pretty similar to mine.

If they were wild-caught stock, I'd probably have to keep them in RO water, or have acclimated them very, very slowly (over several weeks at least) to my water.

If you get stock from Asia, these tend to be injected with hormones (to make them color up early and allow the distributors to sell them at an earlier age)- this really weakens the fish and usually shortens their lifespans.
 
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