[niko]

Here's a gallery of the fish room of a local guy (here known as "CrownMan"). What he does is completely beyond me. Most of his tanks have low light and bulbs that I personally consider utterly inferior. He says that the water in Arlington, TX is great for growing plants, but I don't know what to think. Most of his tanks have no CO2. All but one have HOB AquaClear filters.

Don't think he breaks his back maintaining his tanks either. For him it's a hobby, and he enjoys it, and maybe that is "the secret" to keeping even a single planted tank. (Use the magifying glass icon (top right) if you want to see a bigger picture):

http://picasaweb.google.com/ddasega/Mike

In post number 7 in this thread Mike talks about his setups:
http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/forumapc/lighting/55792-very-low-light-will-work.html#post418447

--Nikolay

 

[Tex Gal]

Pretty dang amazing!!! Ok, I'm officially bowled over!:faint2: How does he do it!

 

[cah925]

It's a dream come true.

 

[hoppycalif]

What substrate or substrates does CrownMan use? I suspect it is just fine gravel or sand, but I'm curious. One thing low light does is greatly reduce the algae problems you can face and none of those tanks seems to have algae.

 

[orlando]

I see quite a bit of AS in there.....

 

[stuckintexas]

i know ive seen 2 tanks with amazonia and looks like he just added that new one sitting on the table that has amazonia it appears. dont know what the others are but they are not AS.

 

[CrownMan]

Thanks Niko for the pics of my tanks and everyone for the gracious comments. I wish you had left out the pic with my backside showing. Anyway... Tank Info

Each of the tanks was started at a different time. The oldest tank, 29G, has been setup for about 7 years now, has flourite for the substrate, a RFUG, and a HOB. It houses Corys and Cherry Shrimp. The red cabomba in this tank is really red. I started this tank on Excel and a modified EI dosing scheme with water changes every other week about 6 weeks ago and trim the cabomba about twice a week. The pH hovers around 6.0 with no CO2 (possibly the RFUG has produced a very acidic substrate condition?).

The ADA aquasoil is in the 3 newer CO2 tanks, 40G, 20G and 15G (the oldest is a little over 2 months old, the newest, less than 1 week). Only the 40G has critters, Pygmy Corys, OTOS and Nerite snails. The other 2 are plant tanks only.

The 90 Gallon (setup now for about 18 months) has about 3/4" amazonia over an unknown substrate that came with the tank that was a combination of Flourite and something else. This is my community tank with about 100 Cherry shrimp, 12 Albino Corys, 11 Lemon Tetras and a few other different tetras. This is my lowest light tank with about 1.2 WPG of Compact Flourescent.

The other 6 tanks have, let's see, 2 tanks have Flourite, 2 tanks have Onyx, 2 tanks have Eco Complete and are all about 3 years old or less. They house mostly Cherry Shrimp but I also have Endlers with Cherrys in one tank and Yellow Shrimp in a tank by themselves. 2 of these tanks have plants only and will be closed down when I get my 40G breeder (I still have some aquasoil to use up).

Hoppycalif is right, I don't have any algae at the moment and I attribute it mostly to the low/medium light situation on the non CO2 tanks. In fact, I haven't had any in the newly setup CO2 tanks yet but I'm sure I will. Nature of the beast until I can get the EI setup correctly on those amped up tanks. I think each one of those is about 3 to 4WPG of CF. The newest CO2 tank, the 20G, has some standard T5 lights (not HO) on order to replace the 36" Odyssea 96watt CF light. Only the 90G and 40G CO2 tank will have CF lighting when I am done. A lot of CF generates too much heat.

Maintenance is 50% water changes on the 3 CO2 tanks weekly along with a lot of trimming, 50% water changes every other week on the 4 Excel tanks and only topping off for the other 3 tanks. I dose Macros and Micros according to EI on CO2 and Excel tanks. Sunday maintenance takes about 2.5 hours each week. The HOB filters require cleaning every couple of months. The prefilters about every 2-3 weeks each. I use a Python for water changes and Prime for dechlor. EI is dry.


Picture 1 shows, left to right, 10G 15w NO Flourescent, 20L 40w NO Fl., 20Tall 28w T5, 29G 60w T5, 15G Tall 55W CF.
Picture 2 shows 20L 96w CF, 40G Tall 192w CF, 10G with shop light about 10" above tank.
Picture 3 shows the 90G 110w CF, 30G 78w T5HO, 10G under 30G has about 25w of T5.

The NO Flourescents have 10 year old bulbs, CFs are 3 years old, T5s and T5HO about 1 year old. Some are low, some are medium and some are high light.

Thanks Niko. My pics don't ever turn out that well.

 

[dstephens]

Mike,

Holy smokes! Well, it looks to me like the city of Arlington finally finished the mess they made in front of your home so you could get that tank room set up. It looks amazing Mike. Those tanks are to die for. I like that low set stand you have the 90 on. I remember seeing your tank room alomost 2 years ago and all those beautiful tanks under low light were gorgeus then as well. Thanks for sharing the photos. I don't do much if anything for the moment with freshwater. I am taking a sorely needed break from most hobbies while I get my brood through college. Take care bud.

Darrell

 

[CrownMan]

Thanks Darrell, good to hear from you again and thanks for the comments.

Yea, the house is about 90% finished. Had to fire 3 contractors but almost there. The fish room was the first room to be finished (priorities!!). The stand was a Petco put it together yourself project. Since the pics, I have put the doors on the front.

 

[gravy9]

Wow. Unbelievable.

Crownman, I will have to digest all of the stuff that you have here and will probably bombard you with questions. Hope you don't mind.

Awesome setup. I'm green with envy.

regards,
Ravi

 

[greenjoe]

I agree. Your setup is pretty much algae free and geez your fishroom very organized! Keep it up man .

 

[CrownMan]

I will gladly answer any questions anyone has and thanks for the comments.

All of the tanks have some algae. Green Dust on the glass is the most prominent one. I open the window shades every now and then to promote it because the baby shrimp and snails love to eat it.