[The old man]

Pics of my setup tank after 2 days.
Coralife Aqualight lunar 192watts with a 10,000 and 6700 cf bulbs.
Tank is 36x18x18 with 1/2 glass top to give room for adjustable mounting legs.
Substate is Aquariumplants own about 3-3 1/2 inches deep.
Plants are Sags on left back and side. Vals on right back and side.
Anubias midground with mostly green small on left and gold small on right.
Will try and keep the sags and vals to see how they will do.
Filtering currently is with a Emporer 280 and it sure did clear up the tank after putting in
the substrate and planting overnight. Will be adding canister later.
Stand is from Petco. Lights are set up on a Coralife Digital timer controlling three cords
and running full time with the other cords for the pumps, etc.
Comments appreciated.

 

[The old man]

The rhizomes are attached to small lava rocks and are juist above the substrate.
I adjusted them slightly.
I did get about 200 free plants with the Sags. Duckweed

 

[The old man]

It is not eco complete, but similar to soil master. Sells at aquariumplants.com for about $45.00 for a 5 gallon pail and will definitely cover a 55 gallon tank to about 3 inches in height. I actually bought it because of getting the free pail and the price seemed reasonable. A little light in weight to plant my stem plants, but managed to do it with patience and the crown a bit deeper on some, but plan on trying to raise them a little after they get their roots established if needed after the substate settles.
Next project will be pressurized C02 and then a front carpet and some kind of plant on the driftwood. Will see how this does for awhile first. 3 Small 1" swordtails enjoying helping it cycle right now with probably three more next week.

 

[The old man]

Update on tank: Got my fish load up to about 10 baby swordtails, no nitrites, nitrates, ammonia.
Plants doing ok with the exception of a couple anubias showing signs of probably
nitrate difficency (clear to yellowing leaves) See pic on bottom left. Added some
java moss on a thin rock on top of driftwood and another moss and anubia
in the crevice front middle. Sags holding in substate, but will try to raise them a
bit next weekend. Running just the 6700 bulb about 8 hours a day so far. Any
suggestions for adding more plants welcome and other ideas on the yellowing,
brown spot in middle and clear leaves.

 

[The old man]

High left and lower right was what I was going for. I'm hoping the sags on left will get taller and perhaps shade the anubias a bit. Once things get to growing a little I'll probably arrange the anubias a little differently as they are "portable" attached to small rocks. Ever seen the golden anubias on the right? Hard to tell in the pic, but they really a lighter shade of gold (yellow) than the other ones. Hard to tell in current pics, but will get closeup of them for comparison. Holding back on my light for awhile until I see how well these do.

 

[The old man]

Got a few more pics. A couple of these pics show the contrast in color of the anubias green and gold. Still trying to figure out the yellow-brown spots on leaves. Best seen in the bottom of pic two.
Started adding ferts (seachem line of Flourish and Excel plus a little nitrogen. Will probably begin using trace next week. Still running one bulb 96 watt 6700. Enjoying the lunar lights although I havn't been able to spot TexGal's Pleco's yet. No more pics until probably next week as going to add a few gift plants from members and redo my 40 gallon hex. That will be a project in itself probably.

 

[The old man]

Tommorrow is the one month anniversary of my tank and decided to give an update. Things have gone smoothly and here is a list of plants and fish in it now.

13-swordtails (they growing quite nicely)
2- Bushynose Pleco's
3- Corydorus paleatus
3- Corydorus caudimacalatis
5- ottos (next week)

Bolbitus Fern (should it be this dark?)
Hygrophilia Sunset (small stems)
Ludwigia repens (small stems)
Bacopa caroliniana
Various Crypts
Various Anubias
Vals
Sags
Java Moss
Java Fern "windelov"

Dosing with the Seachem line now and plants beginning to take a hold. One of the pics shows how deep I left a couple Sags as they were growing well and didn't want to disturb them.

I know it looks like a disorganized aquascape, but will be doing a bit of moving around after the smaller plants and anubias get settled in. Still unsure about doing a low foreground and even thought about using the Hygro sunset with small trimmed stems, but that would be a job to keep trimmed.

The last pic is in another tank of two anubia's. I removed about 5 "portable" ones that were very algea coated and put them in a three gallon bucket. Dosed twice in a week with algeafix (API) and this pic shows how it cleaned them up compared to the one on right not dosed. The one on the left was a lot worse than the one on the right.

These latest pics were taken with my new Canon G9. Great camera not so good photographer, but for first time using I guess they better than my others.

A special thanks to Luis, Dave and Texgal for the advice and plants.

Comments appreciated.

 

[The old man]

I found the stand at Petco. Only available in stores. Really nice, but the bottom will only support the shortest canister filters because of the drawers.
The back is enclosed with cutouts for tubes and cords. Think it is made by Aqueon and will support up to 48" x 18".

 

[The old man]

Not taboo for me. I just might give it a try. Got a small tank in window with a sponge filter for babies with hornwort and java moss. They both do well, so might try some of it in there. Gets lots of light and algea seems to not form much. All my babies are in the big tank now so got room for a piece or two. It is very slow growing and at my age can't wait to long.

 

[The old man]

My 60 day anniversary for this tank is coming up next week and since I got the day off today before a 3 day weekend and a hurricane on the way I thought I'd give an update. Start out with the good news. I think I won the battle with a bad case of BBA. I've added a few more plants and all is well with most of them. The Bolbitus is coming back now, but you'll never find it in the pics. I trimmed off all the black and found some new growth at the bottom and it is up about 2 inches, but hidden by a lot of stuff in front of it. It may show up in the next month or so dor a picture session. I found out that baby tears grows really fast and I had just trimmed it back before I took the pics. Should have used it for a background plant as it has grown faster than the vals, but they may have been effected by the extra excel dosing with the bba. I moved the gold anubias out to another tank as they looked bad after I tried to dose them with algeafix for the bba. Bothered the green a little, but not as bad. The gold ones found their way to my barb tank and found out the Rosy Barbs had the dead BBA cleaned off of them in less than a day. They coming back now with new leaves and seem to be adapting well in that tank. Filled up their space with a variety of plants and it looks a bit overrun now, but everything is doing so well I'll just let things grow for awhile. Oh, I guess you will notice in the pics that I added a bit of hornwort to try and keep any algea from returning and it seems to be doing the job. Also the duckweed is growing like a weed and added a lot to the barb tank as well, but they also made short work of it too. They eat anything.
About the only bad item was the marineland 360 that was to tall for my stand. I put it under the barb tank and in 30 days it developed a bad leak from the block inside and they replaced it. Got it today, but told them I wanted the 220 instead and will give it a try. Seems they had a lot of defective ones. Hope this one holds up better. I really do like my Eheim and the Aquaclear 70 hob with a skimmer. Both are quiet and very efficient. Everyone have a great weekend.

 

[The old man]

Just keeping the hornwort to make sure no algea resurfaces. The plants are growing well now so can probably move it out soon. The gold anubia's getting some new leaves so it will be ready soon to journey back to the tank.
You better hope you don't pick up to many of them as they cost me $20 ea. They better make it. Is Bolbitus also known as African Fern? I heard Ted Nugent mention it last night on Glenn Beck. Saw a tank at lfs with that written on a tank yesterday, but none in it.

 

[The old man]

That is about the price they going for here at my lfs. Hifin's and albinos go for about $15.00. My oldest one had just a few bumps too, but they are growing now and should start branching soon.
We need to send our wifes to shoe stores when we go looking for fish.eace:

 

[The old man]

Here is an update on my tank after Hurricane Ike. Plants and fish all survived and after a minor trimming (Hate trimming) and getting rid of a lot of the baby tears I'm trying out a different foreground plant and even added a small lily from my hex tank that seems to be doing much better.
Still got a little hornwort and duckweed just to keep algea at bay for awhile until I'm sure it not coming back for awhile. The Bolbitus is growing nicely although you probably can't find it in the pic and the repens and sunset are getting quite red and pink. I've included a pic of the sample foreground plants that Dan at HAW gave me to try, but forget the name. Anyone got an ID for me?
Waiting on DaveMonkey to get the word and come here bringing his shovel and Pickaxe to help me thin out the Vals and Repens.

Any suggentions welcome. Is this plant BLYXA JAPONICA

 

[The old man]

Just watch the NASH forum and we'll see when the next meeting is. I'll try and keep you up to date and we'll go to the meeting and get you signed up. Dues are minimal and you should get a free plant at your first meeting. Maybe a duckweed (singular)

 

[The old man]

The Blyxa should only get about 3 to 6 inches high with my high lighting I hope.
That is about what I want in the front as the other plants behind it are quite tall.
Bunbuku, did you ever get any flowers and how hard is it to propagate from the basal side shoots?