AheartlessFish

Hey guys havent been on this forum in awhile. Just wanted to share some pics of my recent tank. feel free to suggest any changes to it. I dont claim to be an expert and ill be glad to hear some constructive criticism

Tank mods:
100 gallon long (72"), 2 fluval 404s, t5ho lighting (468 watts with 12 blue moons at night, x6 6000k and x6 pink bulbs...i plan to change the pink bulbs to 6700k) 10 hours a day, co2 injected (just bought a kh test kit so not sure what the ppm is right now but its about 3-4 bps diffused via output hose with gravel tube attached) on a timer to turn off at night, flourite gravel, turbo twist x6 UVS, a whisper air pump (just for o2 exchange)

Current Dosing schedule Index method: (just started today seeing how it plays out)
1 tsp KNO3,
1/2 tsp kh2po4, k2so4, csm+b,
1/4 tsp cacl2, mgso4
Dosages done on M W F and Su* when 50-70% wc is done
I know im suppose to dose csm+b and kh2po4 on different days but i have a bad way of keeping record which day i did them on.
Usually i only dose Kno3, kh2po4, and Csm+b but im trying something new since i have all the chemicals anyway

Fish: Checkerboard pigion discus, 18 tiger barbs, 1 glass catfish, about 10 aus rainbows, a few corys, 5 blood fin tets, 6 rasbora hets, 2 clown loaches, sail fin pleco (hes gona go once i catch him since hes not doing a good job at eating any algae :P)

Driftwood stacked in the middle, plants are mainly wisteria, and others too lazy to list/dont know technical names for them :P

Heres what tank looked like empty:


Then a few days later:


Then had problems with green water for 3 weeks then added the UV and it was amazing.
(im assuming the tank didnt cycle all the way and i had added tons of fish even though my filters came off of a 55 gallon planted tank that cracked, i just moved everything over)

Before UV




2 days after i added the UV (took 2 days, some people say within hours but i guess that depends on your filter)




Ill get more pictures up soon.

Zapins

The contrast between photo 1 and photo 5 is amazing. It really shows what plants bring to a tank. Great job! I like the way the wood hides the filter equipment, it reminds me of a reef aquarium.

AheartlessFish

Thanks a lot the gravel was moved from a 55 to a 100 gallon so i was very light on it. Where the wood sits theres barely any gravel under it. I managed to grab some from my friend and his was a mixture of small pebbles and flourite. The gravel was a white color dominated mix so i just placed it right in the middle. I plan to keep it clean without any plants in it to make the aquascape look.

I also took out all the wood and rescaped it to make under caves for the schools to swim through...so far the discus is taking favor in the cave and hes in front instead of behind the wood now

Heres an updated picture:


Heres some of the fishes:

DonaldmBoyer

Nice! I personally think that tiger barbs are under used and under appreciated fish that get a bad rap. If you keep them in groups like you should, they are really nice and very pretty tankmates!

What happened to the discus?? Oh! Nevermind! You and I posted about the same time! I'm sure he appreciates his new home.

How do you like the serpaes?

AheartlessFish

Tiger barbs were always one of my favorites, they are great schooling fish and always stick together, the only downside about them is they tend to get a little ugly as they get bigger developing greens and more blacks. Regardless a very great fish.

the Red Minors (or serpaes) are considered one of my favorites as well! Reason being these guys are the first tropical egg scatterers that i managed to get babies from! i have 2 babies that are currently in a 5 gallon with just java moss and cherry shrimps/snails. I notice as they thrive they tend to get white outlinings on their tips. Superb schooling fish and when they're in heat they get great coloring

jart

Lol can anyone else see the monster? The fish are just in the perfect spot

I really like your choice of fish... those rainbows will color up once they age a bit more. Tank looks really nice and green... should fill in really nicely. Those serpaes are really red!

Keep in mind that in a long tank like this, water movement is key... you may need to add a powerhead or two in the future.

AheartlessFish

Thanks for commenting jart! I was thinking the same thing as well but i read up alot about aquarium planted tanks and how there shouldnt be any movement that way co2 isnt depleted immaturely and also that plants dont like movement?

I have two powerheads ready im just contemplating if i should hook them up or not You cant see it in the picture but in the picture where you copied and pasted, if u look at the top right of where the wood seems to cave down a bit thats where i have one of the fluval nozzles pushing. It creates surface agitation but at the left and right end is where usually micro bubbles build up. I have a surface skimmer hooked up to one of the fluval intakes and that seems to do a decent job of sucking up the surface oils. Its right behind the wood to stay hidden but if i had a better choice id put it at one of the ends of the fish tank.

Ill try to get close up pictures of the plants and fish soon. Plants are doing good and are growing but the older ones are starting to either die off or brown up. I dont know what to do about that...seems like the top grows well but the bottom layers end up wilting a bit in color.

fishyjoe24

you have no problem with the tiger barbs nipping the fins of the discus?

AheartlessFish

the only nipped fins i ever have is ON the tigerbarbs...they arnt serious nips just for some reason they have nipped fins...i think aussie rainbows are more aggressive than the tigerbarbs. Discus is flawless no one ever bothers him. in a school of 18-20 they never bother any other fish. my clown loaches love to swim with them although recently i havent seen them, i think they figured that the barbs were not loaches and stopped schooling with them.

I also forgot to mention Jart, the reason why i have the rainbows is because i saw bigger ones with spectacular color and they happen to be on sale for 99 cents each ^^! I think i ended up purchasing about 12-14 of them...Im not sure if they are the same species as the more colorful ones since i know there are many of them, but the larger ones are starting to develop some blues and reds...im excited to see what they'll turn into

jart

You should check out the sticky in the lighting forum on plantedtank but I suspect you have quite a lot of light there; perhaps too much.

Remember that light will drive the demand for all nutrients, especially carbon. In the high light aquarium, you must remain diligent to make sure that you provide enough carbon. In doing so, we have to keep a close eye on the critters to make sure that we are not distressing them. In this scenario (where we are trying to maximize the CO2) a bit of surface agitation is beneficial. I don't completely understand the theory behind this, so feel free to research it for yourself, but I believe that creating surface ripple will help with oxygen exchange... thus helping the fish. In your case, sure you might cause the offgassing of a bit of CO2, but you have the luxury of simply upping your bubble rate a bit to counteract the loss.

HTH. And I hope I didn't imply that you didn't know any or all of the above.

Good luck! Keep posting pics.