[Niku]

well its about time i did one of these as i have spent far to much time lurking here and picking the brains of every fish person i know of on what i should do. i feel like this makes it official and that i cannot back out now or face the shame.... shameeeeeeee

anyways i hope over the next few months to start up and get running my tank so it is ready for discus in the near future.

this is the tank as it sat about 3 weeks ago (before i moved and changed my fish tastes entirely)



and this is it sitting on the floor of my new apartment and me attempting to do dry scaping ... be kind this is my first attempt at this and the Internets information can be a cruel mistress



my other goal with this tank build is to make my own custom stand and hood. i started the hood last weekend and have plans for the stand this next weekend

this is as far as i got with the hood



and this is where i have made some cross bracing for the ballasts. i plan to do some interesting custom lighting in my tank ... plans to come



i think that is all i have in picture form for the moment please excuse the cell phone pics this round i was ill prepared for a tank journal despite really wanting to do one and will hence forth be using a decent DSLR to track progress. along with making sure to take a few more pictures along the way

 

[Reckon]

Oooh derimmed! Very nice! Can't wait to see this develop.

 

[Niku]

thanks reckon, actually i think i still have most of the plants clippings i got off you from a while ago in my grow out tank and i have hopes of incorporating them into this tank today was nothing but hitting walls with how i want to make my stand look after im done the finishing ... i have bounced back between classic style wood grain showing tank with curvy molding top and bottom to a modern looking all hard angles look to now where i am which is making it fit in with my living room that i bought at ikea... the sad part is i think i will have spent more making this tank stand then i ever have on any piece of ikea furniture -.- if only they made tank stands......

anyways the more pressing questions that i have for all of you lovely fish people is about Co2 and UV filters ....

so after many many hours of reading constant debate over the redundancies of ph monitors compared to drop checkers with double valves ect ect ect i have decided the system i should go with is a decent regulator combined with a bubble counter that feeds to a reactor that is inline with my eheim 2080 and also run a ph monitor as a double safety to ensure the Co2 doesnt fluctuate my tank ph and kill all my pretty fish ... mainly the expensive discus ... with that being said i know very little about Co2 and have had absolutely no experience with them at all. so im wondering what are good brands of regulators and who makes a reputable ph monitor.

also one of my friends who is also into fish (sadly hasent joined bca yet) has been raving over the redsea systems which attach to paintball tanks over your standard 5lb and 10lb bottles ... anyone have experience with these ... are they poor regulators do they fall prey to the end of tank "dump"

and my last question about this is i should plumb my UV filter after the canister on the return line but before the Co2 yes ?

thanks for the help guys sorry if i come off as a little noobish

 

[Niku]

well ... i dont know what happened to me last night but i woke up today thinking " what the hell did i just plant my sexy discus tank full of old hair grass" soooooo i took a little trip and bough some much more awesome plants to dry start with



also got some work done on the hood ... Ballasts are in!


ever since i walked into IPU burnaby and alex showed me the floating island they are doing in one of their display tanks i have had to do one my self ... i have the island... and the light house ish thing


but now that im thinking about hanging it i think i have some issues ... the fishing line is practically invisible in the tank water so when i do hang this will the fish not be able to see the wire as well ... could they run into it and possibly hurt themselves and other fish ?

just a thought i had when looking how to string it

god i love tank setups ... i havent had this much fun since my first 55 ))))

 

[Niku]

so progress has been slow this last week, but that is just fine because low and behold dry starts take for ever ((((((( want ... fishies...now. i have been distracting myself with my corner geo tank that i just got moved into the new place



such pretty fish

but i have made a little progress. after weeks of searching aquarium stores and building stores and every store i could think of that dealt with T5 bulbs i could not find an aftermarket reflector to just bolt on under my bulbs ... and the cheapest i could find online were about $50 per 48" reflector. so i made some and i can honestly say i am more then happy with the result ... i still have to burnish and polish these once the glue sets but all in all with the $6 can of spray adhesive and 1/2 a roll of tin foil and 10' of abs im about $20 into my reflectors and they look amazing



i do have to trim the excess tin foil aswell ... almost forgot that.

anddddddd to finish it off a quick pic of tank progress with the dry start

 

[Florios]

where did you get those rocks?

 

[Niku]

those rocks are slightly dark grey shale ish sorta rocks ... you can find them at any landscapping store and they are reasonably cheap ... that being said i have a butt tonn left over since i re did my scape a little so if you want em they are yours.

well BCA a week has passed and it seems like its been forever. i have done so much to the tank ... got a stand ... painted a stand... got water in it finally.

first night with water and 60% plants


second go at the scape


how it sits tonight after all is said and done


now i just hope i can find a regulator this weekend to hook up my proper Co2 and that i can get my hands on some proper macro dosing things so my plants will be even more happy with me

 

[jhj0112]

very nice aquascaping! I always think of planted tank owners (like reckon or shift) as an artist!

 

[Niku]

Well its gonna be a busy weekend I just got so much stufffffff
But it won't let me post a picture from my phone so photos to come

Yea I find aquascaping some of the most fun I have had with fish tanks in a while

 

[Niku]

well its been another productive weekend on the tank got a bunch of awesome stuff and installed a little of it

scored some sweet fish swag from the guys at J&L amazing and helpful staff as always

got me a regulator for the Co2 setup, a coralife power bar(which i will not buy again), and an awesome deal on a coralife UV sterilizer.

then stopped off at IPU for a surface skimmer attachment for my plans to install a second canister filter as well as a sexy Daz Co2 diffuser and some gorgeous rainbow fish.

View attachment 63921

also i feel like this is the time where i must announce i will no longer be going discus, maybe in the future when im confident in my dosing and have had a stable tank for a long period of time .... and i also fall into a big pile of money but at this time i dont have the funds or the confidence that i wont kill all the pretty discus i buy ... so instead we go rainbows ))) still very pretty. also i find that the temperature needed for discus is not very forgiving for the types of plants i wish to keep.

anyways this is how the tank looks now after a few more plants have been added and i have started adding the fauna i wish to keep

View attachment 63929

i will now try and remember all the plants i have put in here and list them for you right to left in the tank feel free to help me if i get one wrong or forget one

FLORA

Bacopa Salzmannii (3 stems to be grown out)
a cloud of all types of Ludwigia i had... to many types
Ammania bonsai
staurogyne repens
limnophila aromatica
rotala macrandra
rotala macrandra type 5 "mini"
meeboldii pink
(random cryps while i wait for epic ones)
an unidentified light green bushy plant...please help me with that one the guy didnt know what it was either.
windeluv crow
another green plant i didnt get the name of (im so good at just buying without asking)
a micro cultured plant i will probably be getting rid of
more rotala macrandra mini type 5
Alternanthera Reineckii Mini

FAUNA

rummy nose tetra (hemigrammus bleheri) X20
sterbai corydoras X12
otocinclus X10
Madagascar Rainbow fish X6
Goldie River Rainbow fish X6

 

[Niku]

i see... so when i post pictures from my phone they never make it thru haha

well my first week of dosing is over and i have done my first trimming. i can honestly say i have never had a more enjoyable sunday morning. wake up, drink some coffee, then play around with the tank for a few hours. kinda like fish guy paradise.

this is how the tank currently looks i have added a few more species of plants. some red cabomba and a fracking awesome crinum calamistratum !!!! also three varieties of alternanthera one reineckii rosanervig (far right back) reineckii pink (stump right) and reineckii mini (left foreground, just more of this plant as i already had a few sprigs)

and here is a more above shot of how i re did the rocks in the fore ground to accentuate the two different types of staurogyne


thanks for looking, cant wait until some of this stuff grows in fully

 

[Niku]

been some time since my last update for this tank, so i figured after a nice stat holiday of trimming and re planting. that the tank looked good enough that i should take a picture and share some progress. there are still 2 areas of the tank that im less then thrilled with and the stump got over run with BBA when i was sick last week and failed to dose for 4 -5 days as well as be late for a water change. but as a whole im very happy with how this tank is coming along




dont mind the slightly cloudy water i stirred a lot of substrate up with the trimming and just was to lazy to wait another hour or 2 for it to totally settle.

current Fauna
30 rummy nose tetras
8 petricola catfish
3 panduro apistos
4 diamante apistos
3 blue german rams
5 electric blue german rams
25 ottos
12 sterbai corys
10-15 ammano shrimp
a crap tonne of cherry shrimp

Flora (i know im going to forget some)
Hygro sunset
Java Trident
alnatherna reniekii mini & mini variegated
staurogyne porto velho & repens
rotala "mexicana" goias
limnophilia aromatica(which was sold to me very small and miss labled... cant believe i have this in my tank again .... i swore never again, but it looks so good i tell my self im going to stay on top of trimmin)
mermaid weed(thanks ben )
anubias coffefolia
lagenandra meeboldii red
rotala pearl
ammania bonsai
pogostemon helfri
persicaria kawagoeanum (thanks ben)
ludwigia brevipes(also thanks ben)

so i guess i will see how all this grows out over the next month and who knows may add 2-4 more species or lose a few and get even more

thanks for looking

 

[Momobobo]

Looks super good! Didnt even notice the BBA, algae is such a PITA!