[mommyeireanne]

I am very excited; I am about to do my first big tank! (I almost feel like saying first real tank.) I started with fish two years ago and soon wanted plants. I tried Nano soil setups, then did a 10 gal, then a 20 gal. soil set-up... Now I am going to consolidate the plants and animals from these into a 75 gal tank. We got the stand six months ago or more and I've tried to think ahead as I purchased equipment. So all I have should all work with my new tank. Both tanks are crowded with plants so I should have plenty.
Here's my tank plan:
open top 75g tank
may put a piece of wood in this tank, it's been soaked and ready
Some sandstone rocks (rocks and wood will go on bottom before dirt)
plain topsoil without fertilizers
sand/gravel topper by kwikrete
heater (I'll keep the temp at 78degF)
(Submariner) UV filter
may run a HOB filter too for bit until soil settles in
two architech style lamps; each with 100w eqivalent CFLs
all kinds of plants: plenty of rooted, fast growers and two floater species
MTS, RCS & Amano shrimp
some Rainbow fish, Dwarf Gouramis, molly, Oto cat

I'd like some advice on a few things: I considered re-using the soil from the 20 gal that has been running for 8 months because I know I won't be able to find all of my inverts. But I'd rather not. If I feel like I have almost all of the snails and cherry shrimp, then I won't. Of all the things I've fed them green beans and sweet potato have had the best responce, so I'll try to bait and trap them, net them, whatever I can. I've considered using my gravel vac all over once I think I've found all I can. But I'm afraid that that would kill the shrimp fry. I'd like to know what has worked for other people in this situation.
I also really need to know how long to bottle test gravel to see if it will increase water alkalinity.
I have very hard, very alkaline water as it is. I bought distilled water and added some of the 3M Quikrete 'sand' that I would like to use. It's like pool filter sand, the MSDS says quartz silicate but the color says limestone to me. Anybody have first hand experience with this product?

Recap:
I want to know the best way to get the inverts out,
how long until I see results on the gravel test
and/or if Quikrete sand will raise my alkalinity or general water hardness.

Thank you to everyone here! I've gotten so much help from you all as I worked with and learned about my NPTs.

 

[mommyeireanne]

Thanks for the reply. I hear they are pretty hardy, so hopefully my colony will be ok. I won't put them all in the new set-up right away just in case I have an ammonia spike. I'm airing out the soil (which has been in the garage for months) and hoping for the best. I know they'll be stressed though.

Still trying to figure out the Quikrete topper. Further perusal of the MSDS revealed a tiny addition that said it may indeed contain limestone. The 800# guys say it's mined from local rivers. But they couldn't tell me anything definite. I really should have tested it sooner. We have a lot of limsestone. I have people coming Sunday for the set up so I have to make some decision soon. I'm gonna go mix it with vinegar too I guess. I'm hoping that id it's low enough to not show me immedite results that it'll be ok. But I know that's not really a safe bet.

 

[mommyeireanne]

I answered my own question, the bottle test (with all the dust in suspension) made the distilled water hard and alkaline. I don't want to take the chance that it's all in the dust, and wash it. I'm gonna get something else today. Good for some cichlids, but not for me.

 

[mommyeireanne]

I just bought more of the aquarium gravel I used before. I's a bit smaller than reg gravel and it worked fine for the 20g NPT. I'm gonna re use most of it when I break down this afternoon. I'm hoping someone from my aquatic plant club will be able to use it for hard water cichlids.
gravy9, bottle traps with sweet potato only got a few over night. So I'm going down there now to net them. I am def going to vacuume last, I have two more sets of shrimp fry in the 10g. The smallest looks just hatched, about 1/3 the length of a long rice grain. Tiny. I'll be using a daphnia net. And uncountable tiny MTS. Wish me luck.
The plants are going in buckets until tomorrow afternoon. Some club members are coming over for an NPT set-up demo. We have a couple of members who have been doing it for a while, more experienced, who I'm hoping will do the talking. :tape2: I'll do the hands on. Hopefully some serious scapers can give me aesthetic advice. My previous NPTs have all looked rather wild. I'm so excited to finally have a big tank! :whoo:

 

[mommyeireanne]

Pretty sure I got most of the Cherries. I siphoned water into my Daphnia net. I have dozens of fry from moving 6 or 8 adults in there two months ago. Wow. I also found that I still had a few Daphnia Moina in this tank. I tried Daphnia last winter. Guess my water conditions were ok. It almost looks like I have enough to plant the 75 from just the 10. Crazy mats of roots under the gravel. They looked happy. My taller plants are in the 20. Going to break that down now. I should have even more shrimp in this one, depending on the Gouramis of course. Shrimp & snails are in a bucket with some plants. I'm not going to put the heater in there, I'm worried it would melt the plastic while we are sleeping. I'll turn the heat to keep it 72F in the house overnight, and I think that'll be ok short term. Fish are going in the 10g with the UV filter for movement and some floating plants. They will probably go in the new tank tomorrow night or Sunday morning, if all goes well.

 

[mommyeireanne]

I had used two clamp-on architect lights planning to utilize them for the larger set-up. No go. There wasn't enough edge left over to grasp. I looked at them more closely; I saw that they were only rated for up to 60w bulbs. Two of those wouldn't have given me the 2-3watt ideal for an NPT. We found two floor lamps that would work at Walmart and got them the next day- disaster averted. This changed the lighting plan, though. I now have two "tree" lamps on each end of a four foot set-up. I added more watts than planned to reach the plants in the middle. I'm running the equivalent to 300w but in Compact Flourescent bulbs. 2-60's and 2-40's are 6500K GE sunlight bulbs, the remaining 40's are cool white bulbs. If I have algae I'll cut back on the wattage, but it looks ok to me this way. It looks too dark with the only two bulbs lit on each side. I still need the background, too. What do you guys think?

 

[mommyeireanne]

OK, I tried to resize the pics, but this isn't my thing. Didn't seem to work. Sorry for the trouble. I'll try to figure it out.

 

[mommyeireanne]

Thanks Ravi.
If the lights don't work, our other alternative is wall mount style singles (two 100w) mounted on a frame over the top. For some reason, my husband doesn't want shop lights in our main living space.
I'm worried that the Vals are too close to the light, but we'll see. The only one that doesn't look well light is the water sprite in the back, center. I may move it and put the annubias there in back, and put the sprite in their place up in the corner.

I have another question, too. I'm trying to remember how long it took the 20g to show ammonia when I set it up. I have the rest of my inverts in a bare bottom 10g with mosses. They look kinda sad, but I was afraid to put them all in and loose the whole population. It's been 36 hrs and my tests read 0 ammonia. When would it be safe to the rest of the shrimp in the new NPT?

 

[mommyeireanne]

They spent the first night in a bucket. Maybe 2/3's are in the 10g with LOTS of moss, and a Marimo ball. It's running a charcoal HOB filter. The big ones colored up in there, but I know it's not ideal. I'm juggling them because I'm afraid to loose the whole colony with a new tank ammonia spike. My 20g tank log stated that I saw ammonia in two days (when I didn't air out the soil). The 75 was planted and filled Sun afternoon, fish in Sunday night, running 3 days now. I've tested it twice a day and still zero ammonia. I'm gonna put some more of the shrimp in there. I have to turn the lights out and distract the Rainbows; while they don't hunt them, they will eat whatever falls in...
Still wondering how many days would put me in the safe zone as far as an initial ammonia spike. Anyone?

 

[mommyeireanne]

Well I got an ammonia read today. It was low at 0.25ppm. I changed 15 gallons of water and ammonia was undetectable again. I'm watching this closely.
I also have BBA coming in on the Valisineria. Whenever I saw BBA before in the 20 it was on Vals that were shaded from overcrowding, but didn't spread again to the rest of the 20g tank. This time it appeared on damaged leaves. I trimmed them off. I may also have green dust algae on the glass. I did a cursory wipe before I changed the water. I can't tell if the water is green tint or if it's dust algae. But it's very pale, at least. I trimmed the rest of the tank of damaged leaves. (I had been rough on them trying to net all the shrimp). Lastly did a loading dose of Excel. I don't want to battle an entire field of BBA in this bigger tank. My plants are all short as it is. I had just trimmed and thinned the duckweed way down not knowing we'd find the 75 tank on sale.
I have 0 nitrite, 0 nitrate, KH 300+ ppm, GH 300+ ppm and ph of at least 8.4
I doubt the 21 gallons of distilled water mattered much with our water, the readings didn't change form tap at all. I figure it would take almost all distilled to have a 7 pH. I doubt my small piece of wood will make much difference.

 

[mommyeireanne]

I back-pedaled on the Excel today. 24hrs after the loading dose I decided to go the conservative route instead and run carbon in a H-O-Front (very ugly but that's where it fits) Filter. I'm gonna watch and wait. If I need the Excel I can always do it later. I'm gonna be vigilant about ammonia, water changes and use the activated charcoal. Water is a bit tinted or I'm seeing fine green dust algae. The MTS are all on the glass eating like fiends. Ammonia was undetectable by test again today. Shrimp are my live water quality indicators and they seem happy still. I'm gonna put the rest of them in tomorrow.
PS I tried to edit the pics the next day but couldn't. Edits must be time limited. Sorry. When I do updates I'll start a new thread witht he smaller pics if anyone wants to see.

 

[mommyeireanne]

Thanks for the positive reinforcement gravy.
The remaining shrimp and snails went in today. Ammonia still undetectable, and I'm still watching. My single Otocinclus catfish looked a bit pale when I turned on the lights this morning, He is actually another "canary". After an hour with lights on he looked fine. Maybe low O2; from lights-out or from bacterial consumption? precursor to a nitrate problem? No nitrite or nitrate detectable today either. Who knows? It worked itself out. Another thing to think about. I can already see signs of growth in the plants, but they are subtle.
Diana, thanks. I can't wait to give the Turquoise some buddies. It's been fun watching him develop. His colors have come out nicely, even brighter when he acts up.

 

[mommyeireanne]

I had a nice surprise last night. I did my usual water test and Nitrite, nitrate and ammonia are still undetectable. However, my pH and KH dropped. That's a first. Never have any of my NPTs varied from my tap readings before. I have to figure it's from the driftwood. pH went from the usual 8.4(or more that's the highest reading option) down to 7.8 and KH went from 300 ppm (at least, ditto) to 150 ppm. Still high but I am happy. Plants alone never did this in any of my tanks. I did put 21 gallons of distilled water in this tank at set up. But for nine days it read the same as tap.
Everything else is good with the tank on day 11, here. I see growth in all the plants, even the annubias. My crypts haven't died off, but I'm still watching them. Well, duckweed isn't doesn't show growth but that's probably because of the charcoal filter. What's there looks ok, but not reproducing that I can tell. Fish are happy, even the Oto. Snails and shrimp still look happy with half dozen cherry girls saddled. Still watching for evil BBA, but looks ok so far. I plan on running charcoal for a month, maybe 6 weeks. Then I wan tot take that HOFront filter off and go back to just UV for water movement. I'll wait a while for another 'update'.
Cheers!

 

[mommyeireanne]

I was testing morning and night; then mornings; then every other day but in the same time in the morning; now every third morning. Not as often now as it's been ok and I see a lot of plant growth, but still testing and at the same time of day.
My Turquoise Rainbow male spawned this morning with an unidentified Rainbow female. (M. inornata or axelrodi would be my guess but they are not full grown.) I didn't think I'd have to worry about that yet as they still seem small to me, but it clearly happened. I noticed them yesterday over the Java Moss, and no eggs were apparent. This morning they were at it again and she released eggs. It was not my intention to breed or raise fry. And they shouldn't be hybridized. But I saw the other rainbows eating the eggs immediately and I'm betting the shrimp cleaned up the rest. I can't see any eggs left, now. If there are fry, I doubt I'll even see them before the gouramis. I'm glad they are happy but I don't want them to reproduce.
Anybody else keep different Melanotaenia species together? Do the fry survive if you don't remove them or remove the eggs?

 

[mommyeireanne]

If they come right up to the surface, I won't worry about being overwhelmed with off spring. I kinda figured that fry would be eaten, but my shrimp have managed a good colony so I wasn't sure.
I didn't know they'd spawn so easily.
I hope to get more Turquoise and some Boseman's at a club auction this weekend. Having empty tanks will be a huge temptation knowing they breed this easily. My son would get a kick out of growing babies.

 

[mommyeireanne]

Hello and thanks guys. The plants closest to the ends show considerable leaning. I'm not thrilled about that. And our house is so dry that emergent growth isn't happy once it passes the surface. The Sprite and Vals that float across do well, Hygros and Ludwigia not so much. But everything is growing like crazy. I have made three partial water changes (1/4, 1/3, 1/4) since the set up Oct 5 and I no longer have charcoal or the HOB filter. I really need to take some pictures but things have been busy at my house lately. I'll try to post a real update soon with a pic.

 

[mommyeireanne]

I decided to update on the original thread, because it looks like it had more hits. My last update was here.
Let me start by saying the tank is doing well overall. As you can see it grows like crazy. I trim when it plants to the top because the house is so dry in the winter that my Aerial shoots die. But the duckweed aren't growing fast, a first for me, so I figure the water can't be over rich. pH has never dropped again, just that one time. it went back up and stayed up even though I test at the same time in the morning. Maybe a dead snail I didn't see or something. ? I didn't clean up for the pictures. Didn't even use the magnet to clean the glass. I was thinking about whether or not I'll be taking out the Vals because they aren't doing well. I thought I'd replace them with some more of the Sprite in that corner. I'm going to give them some time to see if they perk up from the Potassium I just added. I had noticed small holes in many of the plants leaves this week. Yesterday I threw in about 1/2 tsp of "No Salt" dissolved in water which I then de-chlorinated. They were looking rough before this so I don't know. I'm thinking they are loosing to all the Hygros in the tank, just failure to thrive in the plant chemical warfare. I'm sure it's because our plant club leader said he'd had a hard time with them, and I blythly responded, "Oh they've done great in both my little tanks." Well now I just have the one bigger tank and they are grossly outnumbered. I jinxed myself I trim them and they don't come back, they just get worse. The Amazon Sword is doing well. It lost the original leaves, you can kinda see the last of these turning translucent in the back. I haven't trimmed it off yet because the baby Ancistrus seems interested in it. I also saw a single molly fry in the plants. Just one. And I couldn't find it again when it swam away. I was hoping not to have a population boom with the Rainbows in there, and they must have done the job. If there's only one though, I'll wait a bit to do the big trim and water change, give him a chance. I've changed water about four times, about 25-30% each time. I put salt in when I first added the mollies, but haven't replaced it with water changes. And it was very little, like 2 tsp total. The plants didn't seem to notice. I don't see the MTS much, but I wouldn't have thought it was enough to bother them. I know for sure that the Red Cherry Shrimp eat the snail eggs, because I've seen them more than once. So MTS probably aren't growing as a colony, but with the shrimp and 2 sucker mouthed cats that's ok. The shrimp have a good colony and the fish seem happy. I really enjoy my tank.

 

[mommyeireanne]

MrG, bet you'll have out of this world growth, hope you'll share your results.
My husband didn't want to take them down. He's a prof. photographer so for him, it's just an excuse to put up more pictures
we have pics on the wall of every room, even the bathrooms!

 

[mommyeireanne]

***UPDATE***

Hello fellow NPT-ers. I wanted to update this tank journal as I reset the thing last night. This tank did very well until spring (October to April 2009) when I got some BBA. I was worried about it because I once had BBA take over an entire tank- covering every plant in my old 10 g. So when this tank faced that problem, I cut the plants back a lot and then dosed it with glutaraldehyde. If that's all I did I think it would have been fine, but this was on top of a previous trim. Then I did another drastic trip a month later before a plant swap. Of course I came home from the swap with new plants, so then I proceeded to yank out lots of foreground dwarf sag so I could put in new plants. Now I know this was just too much, but keep in mind that NPTs have always been resilient for me. Now I see the limit... The tank never fully recovered. I got anaerobic pockets where I pulled out dwarf sag, and it spread. The plants weren't old plants weren't able to come back in fast enough and the new plants never did root. Since all the fish, shrimp and snails were fine (still breeding in fact), I watched and waited. Recently my older established plants roots burned out and started floating. All the creatures were still ok, but I didn't want my house to smell like a swamp. I could see bubbling now and the aerobic areas were continuing to get bigger.

I ripped it out yesterday and spent the day resetting it. (I never want to do that again!) Today all the inhabitants are back in and happy. As I pulled out plants I was afraid I wouldn't have enough to replant it, because more than half my stock had their roots burned black. But I did. The fact that the tank limped along for so long and I didn't loose the fauna is a testament to the NPT setup. I still believe. :biggrin: But I will be more careful going forward. So back to the basics!

I cut my chunk of driftwood in half with my mitre saw so each piece would sit flat to the glass, but didn't use any other rocks this time. I can't see them anyway after about a month. But I knew my Bushy-nose cats would need it with the glass spotlessly free of algae. Next I used about 3/4-1 inch of plain topsoil, same batch as last year, so I didn't bother airing it out this time, just broke it up enough to spread around. Over that I used plain black aquarium gravel, but just enough to cover the dirt. It's a bit bigger than recommended, but it's worked for me before when spread thin like this. Then I planted back in the:
Sagtaria subulata
Hygro Compacta
Rotalla
big Amazon Sword cut back
baby sword-lets
one Sagitaria platyphila (sp?)
Marimo 'moss' ball
Java Moss
Water Sprite, floating

I used 30 gallons of rainwater this time, instead of buying distilled. I have extremely hard alkaline water. (19 gallons of distilled water added the first time didn't put a dent in the pH or hardness. ) I only used about 10-12 gallons of old tank water, which went in last, with the fish. The rest was dechlorinated tap water. I do add conditioner. It was pretty clear even though I didn't rinse the gravel, but I still waited overnight to put the fish back. Now they all seem happy. Lots of spawning activity. The shrimp are doing their usual; now I can see them more clearly because there is space between the plants and more light reaching the bottom.

My Animals are:
'Western' Rainbow girls
'Turquoise' Rainbow male
about 30 Mollies, silver, dalamtion, black and marbled three generations of them
a couple of Swordtails
a male Beta
2 albino Ancistrus
a brown Ancistrus
2 Amano shrimp males
many cherry shrimp
many Malasian Trumpet (Livebearing, burrowing) snails

I'm sure I lost some shrimp fry and small MTS, maybe even fish fry in the move. I'm pretty sure I got all the adults though. It took forever. I'll take some pictures tonight. It sits opposite a large window and the glare is too much right now. I do plan on getting some more fish when the soil settles in, as well as some blackworms. I can't find them in the store and will have to order them. I hope they will be added protection.

 

[mommyeireanne]

Here are the pics for my reset. I forgot to mention the red mangrove pods I suspended. I always wanted to try them so I'm giving it a shot.