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90 Posts
Hello everyone,
I am a total noob when it comes to planted tanks. I have had a couple of smaller (10 and 20 gallon) tanks that I have mainly kept guppies and mollies in, as well as basic plants (no fake stuff for me, thank you very much!). However, for my 30th birthday recenly, my family all chipped in and bought me a monster 75 gallon tank.
Here's how it looked when I first received it:
![]()
(You can see my original post with tons of pics here)
(And pics of my adapting the filter to the existing overflow filter and sprayline here)
At first, I was intrigued by the idea of setting up an el natural tank, and even bought some cheap topsoil to try it out. As one person suggested, I tried to demineralize it beforehand by soaking it in two tubs of water; it smelled like sh*t frankly, and the mud was as black as midnight. "There's no WAY I'm doing that to my new baby!" I thought. So I abandoned that idea and bought some Flourite instead. Here's a couple of pics of that setup:
Gravel border going in:
![]()
Flourite going down:
![]()
Gravel on top:
![]()
... And cheap-o PetsMart plants to kick off the cycling:
![]()
So today I finally went down to my LFS (Neptune's Reef in Torrance, CA) and bought some driftwood and my first round of plants. Additionally, I switched out the 50/50 white/blue 10,000K bulbs with some all-white 6700Ks (there are 2 x 55W). I realize that for such a large volume tank this is definitely on the low end of WPG. Any suggestions? Just suck it up and buy a new ballast and bulbs?
Here's what it will look like with the driftwood, once it's been properly soaked to leach out the color:
![]()
Here's the first round of planting, after removing the driftwood again so it can soak separately.
![]()
I will be adding some gravel to the back to slope it some, after reading some more posts here on APC
Also, I might add a layer of Aquasoil (that's the medium-smaller grain, black soil, right?) over everything ... yes I realize I'll have the "Grand Canyon" layering effect around the edges ... I kind of think that might look cool. My wife is going to flip however - she loves the look and color of the gravel I have in there now.
I have a little Hagen yeast-based CO2 system going right now, just to add SOME CO2, but plan on replacing the miniscule Hagen container with a juice bottle setup that should produce much more gas. I am currently dosing every other day or so with Flourish (the regular kind). Is this about right? Oh and I'm going the tapwater route - 75 gal. is too big to mess with lifting giant 5 gallon jugs of RO water to shoulder height, not to mention purchasing and schlepping all that water from the LFS.
Please can anyone help me here - again, I apologize for the noob questions - I see this stuff that people refer to as "HC carpet" or an "HC bed" - it looks like that beautiful ground covering, very tiny leaves. What is that called, where can I find some, and how does one plant and grow it? Do you have to have Aquasoil to do that?
Many thanks - stay tuned in the following weeks as I add to this page. :mrgreen:
-Mark
I am a total noob when it comes to planted tanks. I have had a couple of smaller (10 and 20 gallon) tanks that I have mainly kept guppies and mollies in, as well as basic plants (no fake stuff for me, thank you very much!). However, for my 30th birthday recenly, my family all chipped in and bought me a monster 75 gallon tank.
Here's how it looked when I first received it:
(You can see my original post with tons of pics here)
(And pics of my adapting the filter to the existing overflow filter and sprayline here)
At first, I was intrigued by the idea of setting up an el natural tank, and even bought some cheap topsoil to try it out. As one person suggested, I tried to demineralize it beforehand by soaking it in two tubs of water; it smelled like sh*t frankly, and the mud was as black as midnight. "There's no WAY I'm doing that to my new baby!" I thought. So I abandoned that idea and bought some Flourite instead. Here's a couple of pics of that setup:
Gravel border going in:
Flourite going down:
Gravel on top:
... And cheap-o PetsMart plants to kick off the cycling:
So today I finally went down to my LFS (Neptune's Reef in Torrance, CA) and bought some driftwood and my first round of plants. Additionally, I switched out the 50/50 white/blue 10,000K bulbs with some all-white 6700Ks (there are 2 x 55W). I realize that for such a large volume tank this is definitely on the low end of WPG. Any suggestions? Just suck it up and buy a new ballast and bulbs?
Here's what it will look like with the driftwood, once it's been properly soaked to leach out the color:
Here's the first round of planting, after removing the driftwood again so it can soak separately.
I will be adding some gravel to the back to slope it some, after reading some more posts here on APC
Also, I might add a layer of Aquasoil (that's the medium-smaller grain, black soil, right?) over everything ... yes I realize I'll have the "Grand Canyon" layering effect around the edges ... I kind of think that might look cool. My wife is going to flip however - she loves the look and color of the gravel I have in there now.I have a little Hagen yeast-based CO2 system going right now, just to add SOME CO2, but plan on replacing the miniscule Hagen container with a juice bottle setup that should produce much more gas. I am currently dosing every other day or so with Flourish (the regular kind). Is this about right? Oh and I'm going the tapwater route - 75 gal. is too big to mess with lifting giant 5 gallon jugs of RO water to shoulder height, not to mention purchasing and schlepping all that water from the LFS.
Please can anyone help me here - again, I apologize for the noob questions - I see this stuff that people refer to as "HC carpet" or an "HC bed" - it looks like that beautiful ground covering, very tiny leaves. What is that called, where can I find some, and how does one plant and grow it? Do you have to have Aquasoil to do that?
Many thanks - stay tuned in the following weeks as I add to this page. :mrgreen:
-Mark
