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03-19-2007, 09:45 PM
| #1 (permalink) |
| Super Fish  Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 1,261
|  My 55g Planted Tank Journal: Phase II March 19, 2007 After last Thursday's CO2 disaster, I decided it was probably time to start a new thread to track the progress of the tank rebuild, rather than have it be buried at the end of an 11-page thread. Consider it a new beginning, if a painful one. I spent about 6 hours yesterday breaking down the tank to the point of substrate-only still in the tank, then rebuilding, replanting, and refilling it. It was a lot of work, but I definitely found catharsis in the process. It was therapeutic, in a sense, in getting over what happened to my fish. I set the CO2 back up today and dosed macro fertilizers on my Monday/Wednesday/Friday schedule: 5/8 tsp Potassium Nitrate (nitrate) 1/4 tsp Mono Potassium Phosphate (phosphate) 3/4 tsp Potassium Sulfate (potassium) On Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday, I dose Plantex CSM+B mixture for micro fertilizers. And now, some pictures: The new tank set up:  A new plant: I think it's Alternanthera reineckii, but please confirm that if you can:  Another new plant: Compact Sword  Morimo ball, perched in the driftwood:  Anubias barteri v. coffeefolia, arranged on lace rock:  [For Reference: 55g Planted Tank Journal, Phase I: July 24, 2006 - March 19, 2007]
__________________ 55 gallon Planted Freshwater Aquarium |
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03-19-2007, 10:01 PM
| #2 (permalink) |
| Little Fish  Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Daytona Beach, FL
Posts: 135
| totally sweet pics
__________________ 55g:1 Albino Tiger oscar 50g:Slightly decorated: 2 Red eared slider turtles, Pleco  10g:saltwater nano:live rock, clean up, scarlet cleaner 5g:2 baby fancy guppies (I also have a ten gallon which i use to hold feeder guppies.) |
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03-19-2007, 10:16 PM
| #3 (permalink) |
| Super Fish  Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: Wenatchee, WA
Posts: 1,280
| Looking really good. I believe you are correct on those plant names.....
__________________ 5.5G Crypt tank, 10W CF Screw-in. No filter, and air wand for circulation 26G Medium Planted Community - 65W CF Lighting - Emperor 280 Bio-Wheel 55G Aggressive Community - Filstar XP3 75G Heavily Planted - Pressurized CO2, 520W Lighting, Filstar XP3 with spraybar 29G Planted - 130W Lighting, Filstar XP2 with spraybar 4 10G Tanks - Various setups |
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03-20-2007, 01:00 AM
| #4 (permalink) |
| Super Fish  Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Omaha, NE
Posts: 3,635
| Wow, Jeff...this looks great! I bet your hands are all 'pruny' now, eh?  BV
__________________ "The more it eats, the more it excretes."  75 gal. - 'Triton's Garden': 9" oscar, 5" salvini (M) 38 gal. - 'The Abyss': 5 firemouth juvies, 4 spotted raphael catfish, 1 leopard frog pleco, 1 peppermint pleco 20 gal.: growout/temporary housing Couple smaller (mostly blue cray) tanks. |
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03-20-2007, 01:55 AM
| #5 (permalink) |
| Super Fish  Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Michigan
Posts: 1,817
| Yeah, I can only hope my tanks turn out to be half that good! Great new start!
__________________ OUR ZOO Too many tanks and a pond! Dogs: Sammy-6yrs, Lexus-3yrs, Roxie-2yrs Cats:Pepe Le Pew-4?yrs. Keelie-1yr |
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03-20-2007, 07:15 PM
| #6 (permalink) |
| Super Fish  Join Date: Oct 2005 Location: Gibsonburg, OH
Posts: 1,422
| Looks good Jeff! What are you planning on putting in it? I see you incorporated some rocks into the tank.................... 
__________________ Morgan  AGA 45 gallon ~ Saltwater coming soon! Mini-Bow 7 gallon ~ planted ~ yellow shrimp |
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03-21-2007, 09:33 AM
| #7 (permalink) |
| Super Fish Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 1,261
| Well, after two days of test runs, I think I've figured out what went wrong with my CO2 regulator and I think I've fixed it. I'm planning on running it through the weekend to make sure it's reliable before I put any fish in the tank. Speaking of which, cycle-wise -- given that it's a decently-heavily planted tank, that I'm pretty sure I have a virtual army of MTS patrolling my substrate, that I haven't yet changed my top filter pad (even though I need to), and that the tank was cycled before the disaster -- so long as I add new fish slowly and keep an eye on my parameters, I shouldn't need to run out and buy a new batch of bio-spira (or otherwise re-cycle the tank), right? I'm not 100% sure what I'm going to put in it, but I think it's going to be fairly similar to my old tank. The core idea is: 8-10 Pencilfish 7 Zebra Loaches 2 Siamese Algae Eaters And then I'm not sure about feature fish and plecos. For the plecos, my initial instinct is: 2 L-134 Leopard Frog Plecos and 2 LDA-08 Gold Marble Bristlenose Plecos, just because I've kept both and enjoyed it thoroughly. But I could also see going the Hypancistrus route, or getting one L-134 and one L-204 (although that might mean adding more driftwood later on). I'm not sure. For feature fish, I'm even less sure. I could very well go back to a trio of Rainbows, and I'm definitely going to have some kind of cichlid as the centerpiece, but I don't know what I want to do. I'm considering a pair of Rainbow Cichlids, but also considering a few pairs of apistos instead. And then again, Pure has offered me some angels. So, I really don't know yet - but I'd be thrilled to get others' input...
__________________ 55 gallon Planted Freshwater Aquarium Last edited by FreshwaterJeff; 03-21-2007 at 09:35 AM. |
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03-21-2007, 10:21 AM
| #8 (permalink) |
| Large Fish  Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Crockett, TX
Posts: 727
| Looks pretty good. Hope you have better luck this time...
__________________ My tanks: 2.5g, 5g, 10g, 14g planted, 29g, 30g and 55g planted http://jpotx113.4t.com/index_1.html http://www.myspace.com/tomstreetman นะกัดตัง กะขะชนะ ตัวข้ามีกำลังดังพระยา ปลาในมหาสมุทร สุกุโยเกล็ดแก้วมณีหุ้มห่อตัวข้าดังเกราะเพชร พุตากะเก เขี้ยวแก้วทั้ง 4 ดุจตรีเพชร หนุมาน มะอะอุปลา ใดมารอนราน วินาศสันติ  |
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03-21-2007, 09:08 PM
| #9 (permalink) |
| Super Fish Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: Wenatchee, WA
Posts: 1,280
| You should be able to add fish slowly with no issues at all. The plants will help with that.
__________________ 5.5G Crypt tank, 10W CF Screw-in. No filter, and air wand for circulation 26G Medium Planted Community - 65W CF Lighting - Emperor 280 Bio-Wheel 55G Aggressive Community - Filstar XP3 75G Heavily Planted - Pressurized CO2, 520W Lighting, Filstar XP3 with spraybar 29G Planted - 130W Lighting, Filstar XP2 with spraybar 4 10G Tanks - Various setups |
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03-22-2007, 09:17 PM
| #10 (permalink) |
| Super Fish Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Chicago, IL
Posts: 1,261
| March 22, 2007 Well, as Avalon predicted (see BV's thread in the planted forum), I've got a little outbreak of green algae. I decided to test my levels, and I've really been overdoing it from a phosphate perspective. Here's what I saw: pH - I have more trouble reading my pH test - the color it turns out looks grey, not blue or green. It's closest to around 7.9-8.0, though (which means I'm not getting that much CO2 in) Ammonia - 0.0 ppm Nitrite - 0.0 ppm Nitrate - 8.0 ppm (likely overdosing this as well) KH - 100 ppm GH - 140 ppm Phosphate - 5.0 ppm I'm going to do a decently-sized water change tomorrow, adding RO water, to try to bring down both the phosphates and the pH. I also think I'm beginning to trust my CO2 regulator (again, I think I identified the problem and that I've fixed it), so I might head to the LFS tomorrow to pick up a few new tank denizens... 
__________________ 55 gallon Planted Freshwater Aquarium |
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