Someoldguy's pile of rocks

So here’s what I’ve got to work with :

Aqueon 45 gallon tank w/ glass cover

Finnex Planted Plus 36” ( from old 65 )

Eggcrate light diffuser cut to fit inside tank bottom

Lots of lava rock (think 150 lbs . or so)

Eheim 2215 (from my old 65 , thing’s been running near 15 years , must be broken in by now)

Black ½” acrylic pipe for inlet /spraybar

½” pvc & fittings for substrate filter pickup

150 watt Jaeger heater ( probably won’t use immediately)

Maybe a UV sterilizer down the road .

fiberglass screen / craft mesh

Probably black sign vinyl to cover back and sides .

Substrate ….. haven’t decided . Either Black Diamond 20/40 over Eco-complete ; or the fine gravel I had in the 65 . Both will work ,and I’ve got both around , so guess it just depends on how I feel when I’m putting the thing together. Whatever I use , there’ll be lava bits and/or pea gravel for backfill behind the rockwork .

No CO2 , low light EI twice monthly after 20% or so water changes . I want this thing to be low tech/maintenance , and to run for several years once it becomes stable ( say 5 or so ) without any heroics on my part . This fert/water change scheme works pretty good for my other tanks so might as well carry it over to here .

Plants : I’ve got a few different Buces , some Anubias , one or 2 or 3 types of crypts , hornwort , lots of small java fern , java moss ,other mosses , frogbit , riccia , bolbitis , vallisineria . All this has been accumulated over the last 9 months to a year or so from fish club auctions , forum members ( you know who you are , many thanks , again) local shops , and Petco/Petsmart tube/tissue cultures . So I’ve got lots of low light plants . Nothing bleeding edge exotic or real demanding , which is fine .

Livestock : Really haven’t decided yet . Won’t be putting livestock in for a while , maybe 4-6 weeks after setup . I’ve got a couple of different lampeyes , some Furcata rainbows , and some other stuff that might work well . I plan on having 1 or 2 species only , plus some small corys ( hastatus , habrosus , pygmaeus) , and CRS .
Not a particularly high bioload , and stuff that will self propagate , if possible .


Changing the stand a bit now to adapt it to the narrower tank . Should have some pix right after Christmas .

As mentioned previously , I’m using James Findlay’s ‘Altitude as an inspiration for this thing . Findlay’s original build was in a tank roughly the same size as my old 65 .
36x18x24deep . Right now I’m dealing with a somewhat shallower container front to back . 6” less to be exact . 18” down to 12” . So slopes are going to be somewhat steeper and I’ll have to be careful to make sure all the parts are stable even though there’ll be some black silicone to help things out .
Playing around with sticks and stones , here’s what I’ve come up with ……








Probably go for the last one . Either way the wood needs to get a coat of penetrating epoxy .The root been weathering for probably many years and was starting to get a bit spongy when I got it . Wouldn’t last too long if I just dumped it into the tank.

One of my goals on this is to have the absolute minimum amount of plumbing visible . I’ve seen too many really nice tanks that are littered up with nice green Eheim pipes , heater , circulators , drop checkers , diffusers , and the like . There’ll only be inlet and outlet/spray bars , all of black acrylic , plus a piece for the spray bar/outlet pipe transition made from ½” cpvc fittings and painted black . Both the inlet and outlet are in the far left rear of the tank where the rockwork will conceal as much as possible .

The filter inlet will draw from beneath the substrate and behind the rocks .
I’m just counting on the filter for biological filtration of the water column. I’ve got a siphon hose for visible junk .

The substrate part of the inlet assembly consists of a 90 degree tee fitting with a mounting flange that’ll give the vertical pipe a bit of support . Probably I should have used a flanged 90 ell , but originally had planned a somewhat different layout that would have picked up water from both ends . Anyway , one end of the tee was cut back and blocked with some JB Weld . So now it’s an ell .




The horizontal run has been drilled 7/32 on about 1½" spacing . There’s 3 rows of holes spaced very roughly equally around the circumference of the pipe . A pipe cap corks up the far end and forces flow through the smaller holes . There’s way more holes than I need ( working out the math , I only need 5 to equal the area of the inside diameter of the pipe), but some will get blocked by gravel when I set it up .




The vertical pipe had to be drilled out to fit the filter’s inlet pipe, which is ½” . I drilled it a bit bigger ( 17/32 ) to allow easy removal from the substrate section , if necessary . The visible part gets painted black .




The spraybar is the same ½” black tubing as the other 2 pipes . It’ll be drilled with a 7/64 drill , 9 holes . I have no idea where the original 2215 spraybar went , so I extrapolated the drill size , and number of holes from a 2213 bar , which is #43 or so. Seeing as the 2215 theoretically flows 163 gph vs. the 2213’s 116 , or 1.4 x the smaller filter ; I needed to increase the area of the spraybar holes by that amount.A bit of math and some research yielded a 7/64 drill bit as being 1.4 or so bigger in area than a #43.

The spraybar connects to the discharge tube via 2 ½” cpvc spigot and slip elbows joined by a small bit of cpvc pipe , and painted black . The 3 pieces are just pressed together , not glued , so I’ve got a bit of play to align stuff right . The spigot ends have been opened up a bit with a Dremel to allow the spraybar and outlet pipe to press fit into the fittings.




Seeing as I’m using light grid to distribute loads from the stones , and pulling filter water from under and behind the rockwork , I’m considering cutting reliefs into the bottom of the grid to enable flow between the cells , and then capping the grid with some fiberglass window screen . I’d used this on my 65 and it worked pretty well . When I broke the tank down , the sub screen area was pretty clear of mulm , but had lots of roots in it .






Any thoughts on using something like this in my current build?

I’ve always found the suction cup spray bar hangers to be less than satisfactory . They’re OK for a few years , then the plastic cup loses suction and the thing comes loose . Nothing on TV last night so figured I’d solve that problem for this tank , at least .
Some playing around in Inventor and came up with this :




Some scrap ½” acrylic and a half hour or so in my workshop and it became real :




Fastened to the rim of the tank with a 4-40 x ¼ stainless flathead machine screw :



Another annoyance solved ...

Nice rainy day , could either wash the floors or play around with stacking rocks .

I decided not to notch out the grid and cover it with screen . Figured if there was enough coarse subbase I wouldn’t need to worry over compaction of the gravel behind the rock walls . So I trimmed back the grid to where it’s just under the rock walls ; and began to stack stone.




Put some pea gravel behind the stones as the walls grew . Up to the top of second course on the left and within 2” or so of the top on the right .




Was able to get pretty much all save 3 stones on the top left to stay in place via gravity , no silicone or hot glue needed . Was a little shaky as to the silicone stones staying in place long term so figured a bit of glue wouldn’t hurt anything .




Maybe tomorrow night I’ll try a test fill ….

Planted !



Spent a couple of hours Friday getting everything in place . The wood’s held down on the ends by the weight of the gravel , and is zip tied to a piece of tile that’s been cut to around 3x12 and had 2 holes drilled for the zip tie to go through . Its’ planted with rose moss ( tied on ) some tiny Anubias , probably nana that broke off some bigger piece along the line , some Buce’s ( one’s ‘Brownie blue’ and one is just some sorta ‘Brownie’) , plus some little bits of Java Fern. All glued on with Locktite 380.

The remainder of the tank has the following :

Crypt. lutea
Crypt. wendti ‘red’ ,both bigger plants and some tissue cultures that I fit in wherever I thought one would grow into .
Anubias nana and nana ’petite’
There’s a couple of bits of Monte Carlo wedged here and there . Don’t think it’ll do well , but there’s no harm in trying , plus it was free.
2 types of Java Fern ; the small type that I’ve had for years , plus a different narrow leaf one I got from a member in a bag of trimmings .Plus a small piece of Bolbitis , just because it was floating around a different tank. Probably from the same trimmings.
Hornwort floating around to keep a check on excess ferts and to cut back on light a bit until things start going .
A bit of Frogbit and riccia , for the same reason .

There are a half a dozen Osmocote caps located near the biggest Crypts. , plus I’ll be starting liquid ferts (KNO3 , K2HPO4 , Microplex ; mixed to provide a 1ml./gallon portion of each as per the RotalaButterfly calculator)next week , and bi-weekly after water changes (every 2 weeks 20% or so).
Been using this for a while now in most of my tanks and it works pretty well .

Filter (2215) has been charged up with precycled media so things should get stable pretty fast . Plus the gravel is from the previous 65 and wasn’t washed out really well so a lot of mulm was brought over that’ll help things along some . The tank water was run through my diatom filter for a few hours after planting . Still ended up with what appears to be a bacterial bloom this morning .

I ‘m not too thrilled as to the amount of flow coming out of the 2215 . Full open the hornwort is spinning around like it’s in a washing machine . Got it throttled back some now , but might switch out to a 2213 in a couple of days .

Light cycle ( Finnex Planted Plus) is 10 hours right now . I’ll see how it goes from there .

Won’t be adding any livestock for a few weeks to allow for any changes in planting .
Probably some shrimp first , and fish a week or 2 later . Some small cories and a dozen or 2 of something else small .

Now just waiting for algae , diatoms , and crypt melt .

KayakJimW said:

Lookin' good. I like all the red, and especially like the crypts in the back that peek over the rocks. That will be so cool once it establishes and grows in. All the javas, anubias, and buces are well placed too.

If I may offer one point of critique? I really like the valley you've created with your hardscape. However, having the larger crypts planted in front obscures it. I believe if that area of foreground (right of center) was more open, it would give your aquascape a lot more depth. Basically just by pushing those few crypts back and to the left or right just inches would reveal a path down through the valley. Just a thought, it looks great either way and will look even better once everything settles in and takes off. Cool tank.

Click to expand...

Thanks ! Your suggestion re: opening up the center by moving the bigger crypts to the sides and back is well taken . It's probably what I would have done if I was working with my old 65 as was planned . The extra depth front to back would have easily enabled me to create an open area , sort of like a flood plain ,unplanted , filled with something like Colorado Sand , funnelling back to the space between the rock faces , with the tree root snaking across it from left to right . Just couldn't make it work to my liking in the 45 , though . So I went for a planting that I hope will eventually give me a wall of green in the background . There's smaller Lutea plus a couple of tissue culture Wendti in the back and climbing the rock walls to the left and right . Not a whole lot of substrate depth in these areas , so I went with smaller plants in the hope they'd shoot out roots advantageously as they grew . Don't know if this will work or not . Find out if they take in a few weeks , I guess . If they don't , I'll plant a wall ( or as much of a wall as I have plants for ) of Vallisineria in their place .

Found a nice fungal growth on the tree root today . Just what the world needs ..… but it’ll go away on its’ own . Just interesting that it occurred on a piece of wood that was treated with penetrating epoxy . Second time I’ve seen this on epoxied wood , figured the plastic resin would not be conducive to fungal growth . But apparently that's not the case .



Just for laughs I did ammonia/nitrate/nitrite tests today . A couple of days back I had an ammonia spike and it’s been slowly going down since . The prescence of a nitrate reading in addition to the other 2 was a bit surprising ; but I think it’s just a combination of using cycled media , plus used substrate with lots of organics (mulm) .



Thinking about sticking a heater in the tank temporarily to keep temps. up a bit , 75 or so , as it’s supposed to get pretty chilly here . Usually I don’t run heaters , too many tanks , plus the stuff I keep will tolerate temps in the high 60’s no problem so long as the temperature change is gradual .

Some small additions to the tank :
Added some more bolbitis to the back center , replacing a few tissue cultured wendti which melted back into nothingness .



Some more Java Fern went into the back center right and along the right and left sides ; again to replace vaporized crypts and a few strings of Monte Carlo that went someplace .






Couple more Buces on the root and back left lava wall .






Most of the larger crypts are showing new growth . As are a few of the Anubias that melted . Think maybe they had some sort of transplant shock that caused them to drop leaves .



Still squashing snails .
The floaters in the tank are doing real well so far . Frogbit’s developing long roots , riccia’s becoming a nice pillow , and the hornwort has decided to spend its’ time trying to fill up the tank .
The substrate filter pickup is working pretty well , though there’s the expected mulm buildup starting . I’ll let it build up for a few weeks and then start siphoning what I feel is excessive during the bi-weekly water changes . A bit ( or maybe more than a bit) here and there won’t hurt anything .
Ran the diatom filter for a couple of hours after adding stuff to clear all the floating organics out of the water . Amazing how clear it gets the water .
Waited to begin ferts. until the cycle completed , so began yesterday . Adding 30 ml of each :
K2HPO4 mixed in a solution of 1.75g/250ml of water
KNO3 in a solution of 15.5g/250ml of water
Microplex (for traces ) in a solution of 4.25g/250ml of water
Chelated iron in a solution of 3.4g/250 ml of water
Used a cheapo Harbor Freight scale to do the measuring.
Proportions are from here : Rotala Butterfly | Planted Aquarium Nutrient Dosing Calculator calculated assuming low light EI , 10ml dosage/10 gallons ( or 1ml/gallon of tank water)
Using a plastic graduated cylinder and making a solution for 1ml/gallon makes dosing pretty much brainless . Fill the cylinder to the level of your tank’s volume and dump ……. done.
Been using this for a while now in 16 other low light/tech tanks and it seems to be working OK . No problems save for 1 20long that gets BGA occasionally . But that tank is pretty heavily stocked .
I’m using a 30 ml. dosage to compensate for the amount of water volume displaced by the hardscape . Probably getting too concerned over this , but better too little than too much at this point.
I’m thinking of introducing 8 or 10 RCS into the tank , possibly next weekend , if everything stays stable . The only concern I’ve got is this crevasse that was filled with substrate , but pretty much opened up thanks to gravity . I’d like to fill it up , my thought being that if something can to get into a tight area ,get trapped , and die ,
it will . Any ideas as to possible fillers?



And the obligatory full tank shot .