murdocmason

Well I've been a member on here for a while now and have never posted a journal of my tank anyways here we go.

Tank size 75 gallon Aqueon
300 watt heater
Lights= 4x54 watt T5HO 10 hrs on
Filtration= Cascade 1000 setup as spray bar across the back I believe 295 GPH
2 powerheads for water movement 1 Koralia and another is a brand i cant read
Inert sandblasting sand w/root tabs
Pressurized Co2 @ 2.8 BPS per sec through a glass diffuser under a powerhead intake
50% waterchange weekly on sunday with 80% RO and 20% tap for micro minerals
Ph=6.5-6.8
Temp=78-80F
No3= 25-35 ppm
Co2 is about 30 ppm as I understand. The drop checker is light green so I would presume its close to good

Feed= spirulina and tubiflex worms

Flora=
Cryptocoryne undulata
Taxiphyllum barbieri
Lemna minor
Nesaea sp. 'Red Leaved'
Hygrophila corymbosa 'angustifolia'
Hygrophilia Kompacta
and a few others I cant find the names to

Fauna=
2 Tiretrack eels
3 Clown Loaches
3 neon tetra
7 cardinal tetra saved from a friends failing tank
10 rummynose tetra
2 bushey nose plecos
5 albino cats
1 Freshwater Flounder about the size of a dollar bill
and a few misc fish small like hastatas cats and otos

Fert schedule= was PPS pro - CSM but it's currently in the process of shifting over to EI dosing schedule starting 5/2/11
micro nutes= flourish comp

Tank has been running for about 1.5 yrs maybe a little longer.The hardscape is a few larger sized Quartz rocks and a few willow branches to soak up excess nutes since Im doing EI fert regime anyways as I think of more to write and upgrade I'll update as needed thx for looking feel free to comment or suggest things

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murdocmason

meant to add this photo too its the far left side

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slimbolen99

Looks great. I like how the lines of the plantings vary. Looking forward to updates.

Brian

murdocmason

So it looks like i have a case of BBA breaking out but luckily, I'm doing a W/C today so I should be able to get in there and trim alot of it off and hopefully with switching over to the EI ferts regime it should give the plants a boost that they need to beat the algae. Also the wood in the tank started to develop some fungal growth so I took it out.

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murdocmason

Alright well I did a W/C and cleaned up a bit and kinda moved a little bit of stuff to generate a focal point since I just got through reading about the golden ratio rule anyways hopefully when stuff starts to grow in it will be easier to manage a focal point and keep it clean. also I moved my CO2 output to under the filter intake and hopefully it dissolves it more efficiently rather then clouding my tank with tiny bubbles. cant wait to start EI dosing

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murdocmason

Ok well today was the first day of dosing EI and although I understand the regime fully I still am lost as to one thing, what kind of water are they using to do their weekly W/C? I am using R/O water as you all know and am a little concerned about the GH and kH of it. The fish don't seem to be distressed at all and still seem lively so anyways what my problem is , is that when I used PPS schedule it had me dosing MgSo4 and with EI it doesn't so yea if anyone has any insight to this please feel free to chime in what should I do about my water hardness. also I'm in the process of locating a Gh and kH testing kit locally

niko

I can't help you with advice about your hardness. All I know is that Tom sells or advocates for something called "GH booster" if I'm not mistaken. I guess it will fit your need.

I want to turn your attention to someting you should know. EI may take care of your BBA. Plants will most likely grow like crazy. But as soon as you start slacking off with the weekly water changes the problems will most likely be back. That's because EI keeps the tank in an imperfect, undeveloped state for a long time. The tank is not well established. You are the one that keeps it clean + overfed with your intervention. You can even disconnect your filter and the tank will most likely be fine if you keep up with ferts + changing water. That is how much work you are doing.

People do different things to prepare an EI tank for a few weeks of no-maintenance when they go on a vacation for example. And they also do work after they are back - to bring the tank to a good state again. A properly established tank does not need all that extra work.

Eventually the tank finds its way and establishes itself. At this point it becomes easy to maintain and you don't have to change water so often and so much. But you could have accomplished the same thing with much less effort.

--Nikolay

jmanofthesouth

Tank looks Great!!!

I have somewhat of the same setup and I constantly had alage outbreaks until I cut the lights to 8 hours a day and cut back on the EI dosing from a 65 gallon to a 40 gallon.

And I couldn't get the Red Nesea to grow (I believe TexGal told me that it is usually grown emersed).

Tex Gal

I like your tank. It's a little different. Kind of looks like a slice out of the river. Nice!

(Yeah! Nesaea red doesn't work submerged! )

bratyboy2

Love your tank! Pmed yah too

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