125g planted Project Tank

[fish.or.frog]

I found my 125g about a year ago on Craigslist, life happened and it sat empty for the longest time.
After the summer I got a piece of wood and bought some gravel as well to get things started. I thought about using a good substrate, but it wasn't in my budget at the time.

So I planted some lilies, just to give it a touch of color (they are now happily living in a friend's viquarium)

After christmas, I bought an FX5, two heaters (have to buy a new one, so they are both teh same size) and not long after, I filled the tank up to get the cycle going.

I took some filter sponges from another tank and rinsed it in this tank in an attempt to at least get some beneficial bacteria into the new filter. Additionally, I dosed household ammonia every day for about a month.
So I saw ammonia spike, then nitrites...accompanied by a nice brown algae outbreak. yummy

I thought I would never see the end of this...BUT, eventually, the ammonia dropped and so did the nitrite, so I did a big water change and added fish. So far, no casulties.


Franck, look how much your plants filled my tank so happy with them. Thanks again.

Added a few german blue rams on saturday, but they are still very timid and only come out when there's no movement in the room. I know, they need dither fish, they'll come very soon. I just don't know how fast I can introduce more fish, so to be on the safe side, I'm doing that slowly. So more plants and more fish coming on the weekend

[Sanka101]

Wow looks great! Love the wood, were'd you manage to find that? all the little branches off of it really give the tank a natural look! cant wait to see more pictures! btw what do you have planned in the way of stocking? curious =]

[crazy72]

Wow Yvonne it's spectacular! It really is. I love the scape, and especially the wood. Well, ok, the val too .

So what other fish do you have in there aside from the GBRs?

[2wheelsx2]

I like the layout. It's looking like a great start so far. What kind of lighting do you have on there? To grow the plants you have so far, plain gravel is fine, but you may want to add some root tabs as the tank starts to mature and the growth fills in.

Are the rocks to hold the wood down? If they're not, you may want to arrange them in a more natural looking pile and then get some rounds rivers rocks of various sizes to pile around them so it looks more like a natural underwater environment, where the water action has sorted the rolls into position.

[fish.or.frog]

thanks for the comments on my layout.....but to be honest, that's just how everything found it's place. I had it scaped, then filled it and the wood pulled everything up. The rock on the left is probably not staying, it's there to hold the wood down. The grey ones on the right are going to be piled up over the wood with some more wood (I should've taken a picture of the "dry" layout).
I'm not a big fan of round river rocks. I like the more edgy stuff. I have a bunch of smaller edgy rocks that I was going to "pour" in parts of the scape to make it look like they fell there.
Franck, are you asking about my miracle killi? It's still alive
-to fill everybody else in: I took a small java fern out of my killi tank, rinsed it off, put it in the big tank before I filled it up. About a week into the cycle (with daily dosing of ammonia), I was watching the brown algae mess when I saw this fry appaer in front of my eyes! He (or she) made it through it all, I watched "waldo" yesterday, playing in the floating wood. He deserves to stay for now....
So besides the rams and the killi, there is a very few rummies (3) and rasboras (4) in there (they moved already from my 20g), but they hide as well. I have to get them some friends soon. But I'll move the other fish (2 angels, 3 plecos) from my 20g first, before putting 'new' fish in there.

root tabs, yes, that's the way I was going to take...any suggestions for good ones?
Right now I have shop lights over my tank. I'm thinking about upgrading to some fancy lighting in time, since I have some co2 to play with as well. But want to experiment on what I can do with what I have on hand here first.

[crazy72]

The miracle killi is a keeper for sure!

[Diztrbd1]

nice looking tank! I really like the wood you have in there