joycould

When you start looking for plants the best place I have found is off this forum. You will be sure to get aquatic plants and not some plant the pet store is saying is aquatic. Make yourself up a list and keep your eyes open, a lot of times you will find extras in the box too one little sprig of something can turn into a very nice plant.

 

---

To avoid seeing this ad in our forum please register at AquaticPlantCentral.com

By joining our free community you will have access to post topics, respond to polls, upload content and access many other special features.

xandert

C.Anderson

This is what I was thinking too. I'm going to try to do this right and get my driftwood set first (gonna take freakin weeks...the piece I have I've already been soaking for 2wks and it's STILL leaching brown like mad), then plan out the tank...then order my plants here lol. This weekend though is dedicated to getting the big 300 gal tank up and running cleanly and without issue.

Speaking of setting up the 300gal...one crappy thing I realized is that the guy that built the stand for it (same guy selling it) is 6'7" tall. When I went and looked at it in his house...it was sitting in a recessed seating area and I was looking from behind at what seemed a normal height to it. It didn't dawn on me that that was the back! The stand is 4' tall all by itself. I'm 5'7 lol. Before I can set this thing up...I'm going to have to cut the stand down =/. One more step.../sigh!

Oh well, this is what we call 'fun' eh?

Cris

Tex Gal

Do you mean not here? I have found that this is the BEST place to buy plants. The people know what they are. The plants are always killer healthy. They usually give you more than they said. They will sometimes throw in extras. If you're starting you can buy the plant packages people sell. The shipping is so cheap compared to the online stores who won't do it except overnight or they won't guarantee them. Just my 2 cents...

jmontee

C,

If you have a large stock pot you can boil the wood for a couple of hours, change it once after one hour, and it will get rid of 99 percent of the tannins that darken the water. The other advantage is that it will kill any bacteria, fungus or any other stragglers that might be on it. I did this with all three peices in my tank and they didn't get any slime at all or leach anything into the water.

C.Anderson

Actually I hadn't thought of that. Thanks a ton. For the new/accent pieces I think that will work great. For my centerpiece...it isn't happening =/. It's just too large. However...my water heater's set pretty hot, and after reading your post I went in and switched the cold water out for near scalding hot lol. Immediately the wood started leaching brown (it had gotten where it would take all day to turn brown). This makes me shudder to think of just how long it would have taken to even get to that point with cold water lol.

Damn Mopani!

Cris

jmontee

Your welcome, glad I could help.

C.Anderson

Wow.

Now that was some work.

The 300gal tank is up. I need to go to Home Depot in the morning to pickup the bricks etc that I'm going to use for filling in the substrate. Once I get back and get everything in...it's water time. I'm going to go ahead and run the thing with 2 Rena XP3's and a Fluval FX5. I don't think you can really have too much filtering to be honest. I'll fill the Rena's with biomax and use the FX5 for a week or two with carbon to clarify the water (I just KNOW that freakin driftwood won't be leached by then!). Once that's done, it'll be full of biomax too.

We also decided not to cut down the stand for now. I'm more interested in getting the thing up and running and at least decorated by Sunday. What I will do is re-sheath the outside with a nice attractive plywood, and stain it silver/grey to match the rest of the house. I think that will keep it from sticking out like a sore thumb as it does now lol. I also think I'm going to rework the center cavity on the front to fit a 20 gal guppy tank.

Here's a few pictures:

Here's the front. It absolutely does NOT match a single piece of furniture in my house lol.


And a shot of the back. This thing is framed like mad. Everything boxed, squared, and braced. The previous owner had it against a wall so I'll need to finish the back as well over this next week.


Anyhow...thought I'd keep you guys updated on what's going on so you can see the use I put all your great advice to!

Cris

BryceM

I thought my tank was big. Enjoy! You know, if the aquairum thing doesn't work out you can always use it as an indoor pool.

Tex Gal

WOW that is one honkin' tank! Can't believe you're gonna set it up before you've got the stand how you want it. That means you'll have to take it down!!! WOW!

 

To avoid seeing this ad in our forum please register at AquaticPlantCentral.com By joining our free community you will have access to post topics, respond to polls, upload content and access many other special features.