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Gomer · 04-01-2005, 10:42 PM

it is late..I am tired and sweaty....but I thought I'd share. It sure is tough to both breakdown and startup a tank in the same day LOL

In the tradition of good journals, lets start from the beginning:

First comes the tank. This is a 3/8" Cast Cell Acrylic tank custom made. The stand too is custom made and is made of mahagony. Both were made by www.socalcreations.com The tank ran $260 and the stand (with nifty hinging and dual shelves) ran $480. Delivery was a tiny $30 right to my door.
alt image http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/g...lCreations.jpg

First goes the Power Sand Special. It was quite odd when I poured it out. It looks black and dirty and looks to have a fair amount of peat in there.
alt image http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/g...l_original.jpg

Next goes the Amazonia Aquasoil. I really like the color. You can crush it in your hand if you try, but I think it will be ok with normal use long term. Strangely there were bits of twigs and wood chips etc in the mix. Not sure if that is intentional or not.
alt image http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/g...1/amazonia.jpg

Here is the layout I decided to use after some fiddling around. The wood is manzanita for the curious.
alt image http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/g...s/4/1/wood.jpg

..and with plants. This is within hours of filling up the tank so it is a bit hazy. The water is a bit brown cause I forgot to clean out the filter after tearing down the previous tank (filter was on when removing lots of stuff and hence got mucked up). Overall, I am quite happy with it. I will move a couple things a little bit though. Give a couple months and it will take on a whole new shape! For those taking count, the plants are: HC, petite nana, marbled nana, blyxa japonica, weeping moss, narrow leaf fern, bobitus, rotala sp. vietnam. This tank is intended to be a low maint tank relative to my supercharged tanks I have done in the past.

040105
alt image http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/g...040105day1.jpg

UPDATE 040705:
Water is a little brownish since I have yet to do a WC (tomorrow). I am noticing very good HC growth. I experienced some stunting/burned tips on the rotala. Not sure what is the cause of it, but it is recovering now. The rest of the plants ..well..they are slow growers, so it is hard to judge week to week LOL

UPDATE 060705:
I decided I wanted to keep this as a very low maint green tank and the rotala went against that, so I decided to re-structure things a little bit. This photo was taken about 1 week after making the change.

UPDATE 070805:
Tank is just about there. I'll be doing a photo shoot very shortly. Unfortunately, I lost a whole lot of fish (practically all of them) to a VERY resistant infection of sorts about a month ago. I'll have to find some more lemon tetras soon.

UPDATE 071405:
DONE! I am very happy with this tank and think it is probably my best creation so far.

04-01-2005, 10:42 PM	#1 (permalink)
Gomer Senior Member Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: So Cal Posts: 2,291 iTrader Ratings: 2 iTrader Positive Rating: 100% Plant Points: 18290	40g ADA-ish journal it is late..I am tired and sweaty....but I thought I'd share. It sure is tough to both breakdown and startup a tank in the same day LOL In the tradition of good journals, lets start from the beginning: First comes the tank. This is a 3/8" Cast Cell Acrylic tank custom made. The stand too is custom made and is made of mahagony. Both were made by www.socalcreations.com The tank ran $260 and the stand (with nifty hinging and dual shelves) ran $480. Delivery was a tiny $30 right to my door. alt image http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/g...lCreations.jpg First goes the Power Sand Special. It was quite odd when I poured it out. It looks black and dirty and looks to have a fair amount of peat in there. alt image http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/g...l_original.jpg Next goes the Amazonia Aquasoil. I really like the color. You can crush it in your hand if you try, but I think it will be ok with normal use long term. Strangely there were bits of twigs and wood chips etc in the mix. Not sure if that is intentional or not. alt image http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/g...1/amazonia.jpg Here is the layout I decided to use after some fiddling around. The wood is manzanita for the curious. alt image http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/g...s/4/1/wood.jpg ..and with plants. This is within hours of filling up the tank so it is a bit hazy. The water is a bit brown cause I forgot to clean out the filter after tearing down the previous tank (filter was on when removing lots of stuff and hence got mucked up). Overall, I am quite happy with it. I will move a couple things a little bit though. Give a couple months and it will take on a whole new shape! For those taking count, the plants are: HC, petite nana, marbled nana, blyxa japonica, weeping moss, narrow leaf fern, bobitus, rotala sp. vietnam. This tank is intended to be a low maint tank relative to my supercharged tanks I have done in the past. 040105 alt image http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/g...040105day1.jpg UPDATE 040705: Water is a little brownish since I have yet to do a WC (tomorrow). I am noticing very good HC growth. I experienced some stunting/burned tips on the rotala. Not sure what is the cause of it, but it is recovering now. The rest of the plants ..well..they are slow growers, so it is hard to judge week to week LOL UPDATE 060705: I decided I wanted to keep this as a very low maint green tank and the rotala went against that, so I decided to re-structure things a little bit. This photo was taken about 1 week after making the change. UPDATE 070805: Tank is just about there. I'll be doing a photo shoot very shortly. Unfortunately, I lost a whole lot of fish (practically all of them) to a VERY resistant infection of sorts about a month ago. I'll have to find some more lemon tetras soon. UPDATE 071405: DONE! I am very happy with this tank and think it is probably my best creation so far. Last edited by Gomer : 07-22-2005 at 01:31 PM.