75G Anubias Jungle

[Llegmore]

As some of you may know, it's long been my dream to do a (fairly) large central African biotope. This journal is going to follow my progress in fulfilling that dream.
 
Kind of.
 
I'm posting this part early to get it out of the way before I go on to the actual planting etc. Basically, guilty confession time. Ignore if you want to get to the tank stuff.
 
Unfortunately it's not going to be 100% African. There will be one Indonesian and one Thai guest: my red tailed shark and one, solitary clown loach who I've been trying to re-home for a year. (I can't find anyone nearby who'll take it and I don't trust my LFS not to sell him to someone who will put him in a much smaller tank).
 
Before you all shout at me, I am aware that a clown loach will out-grow a 75 gallon tank. I am also aware that they prefer to be in large groups. It is not possible for me to get a larger tank for him. I bought said loach approximately 5 years ago when I wasn't aware of the care he would require. He's still relatively small, only about 2 inches long, and completely healthy. If you're in the West Midlands and you have a 6 foot tank + keep loaches, do tell and you can have him. You would have to pick him up, but I'd really like him to be with his people.

 
The stocking of the tank will probably change depending on how my shark reacts to newcomers. I've had him for 5 years and I've got to know his personality fairly well. Thus far, he's a friendly fish. He spends most of his time under the filter or in caves with the clown loach. They've become quite attached. (Another reason I'm reluctant to relocate the loach). Anyway, I will be stocking hesitantly, and the tank will be heavily planted to break the line of sight if he becomes aggressive towards other fish.
 
Phew. All right, that's out of the way. I'll be posting pictures and updating this as I go along. Thanks for reading!

 

[Llegmore]

Tank:
Juwel Rio 300 (350 litres/75 gallons)
 
Substrate:
My usual mix of play sand from Argos and JBL Manado.
 

 
Plants:
-2x Anubias hastifolia
-6x Anubias nana
-4x Anubias barteri var.caladiifolia
-10x Anubias heterophylla (my favourites, and they were on offer)
It was my first time ordering plants online so I wasn't sure about sizes. i got more than I probably needed, however I will be using this tank as something of an anubias farm so i can split them to add to my other 7 tanks.
 
Hardscape:
I have 3 beautiful pieces of wood, one of which is oak. I'm not sure about the other two, but they're from JBL. I may go out looking for more oak if there isn't enough surface area for the anubias.
 
Pre-soak:
 

 

 
Although they've been in the tank for over 2 months, the larger piece still hasn't sunk, so I'll probably have to use weights or stones to keep it down.
 
This is the cave piece:
 

It's been living in my angel tank for a year but none of the fish use it so it's moving house.
 
Fish:
THIS WILL PROBABLY CHANGE DEPENDING ON LENNY (my shark). I don't know the numbers yet, but the fish I'm thinking of are:
-Upsides down catfish 9?
-Congo tetras 10?
-African butterfly fish 1?
-Female kribensis 3?

 

[MojoDex]

This will be an interesting tank! I never thought of just using anubias, I look forward to this

 

[Lunar Jetman]

I'm thinking about a rescape on my 75G tank so will be keeping an eye on this thread. Interesting pieces of wood!

 

[Llegmore]

Well I worked on the tank for 8 solid hours (4pm - midnight (and yes my mother was angry)), hit a whole load of problems and nearly broke my back. Here begins the epic tale.
 
I emptied the tank completely, somehow managed to fish out Lenny and Socrates (shark + loach). Neither of them were very happy about it, but they were OK in a plastic tub for most of the day. Lenny did jump out once, but I managed to get him back in fairly quickly. Here he is in his tub:

 
I also got rid of half the sand that was already in there to prevent compaction. Halfway through the process, I dropped a full bucket of water and sand all over the floor

and there the nightmare truly began. An hour and many, many, many towels later, the crisis had been averted. So:

I washed the manado:

in the bath (sorry mother), and mixed it with the playsand still in the tank. I didn't make it too deep as I won't need substrate for planting. The other end of the bath because an anubias forest:

Ah it's so beautiful. I NEVER WANT TO SEE ROCK WOOL AGAIN IN MY LIFE! It took so long to get it all out, and I did damage some roots when I got frustrated.

Quite a lot of wool, huh.

My fingers are numb. Anyway, what I was left with, was 22 beautiful plants.

I spent the next few hours tying them all onto wood with fishing line. This really tried my patience, especially as my dog ran off with a few and trampled all over some pieces i had on the floor.

look at that face. no shame.

 
I persevered, and eventually got all 3 pieces of wood 'planted' to my satisfaction. 'Brucie voice': and there they alll areee:

At some point, I stood back and stepped right on the light unit which I had stupidly put on the floor. My heel went right through one of the bulbs. Luckily, we had got one for free the last time one had broken (that time it wasn't even my fault

)

Praise the lord for offers.
 
Alas, my day of troubles was far from over. By this point it was about 10pm and i was all ready to put the wood in. I was filling up the tank with the hose when I realised that one of the pieces of wood wasn't fully saturated and still wouldn't sink. I filled a 2litre Pepsi bottle with some left over Manado + water and tied it to the back of the log. It's the first log in the pictures btw. However, when I put it in the water like that, it tipped forward. I wedged it down with some stones and it will hopefully stay down now.
 
The water was incredible cloudy when i finally finished at midnight. Here are some pictures anyway:
FTS:

I'm not completely happy. I think I was just too tired to do a great job, and the constant floating issue with the log on the far left meant that several of the plants came undone. I also hate having those stones on the wood. But I guess it'll do for now.
 
Lenny came out to inspect (and turned tail when he saw the camera):

It is a very pretty tail though.
 
This is my favourite piece:

And the cursed one:

I'll probably take 2/3 of the wood pieces back out to re-fasted the rest of the anubias. I still have about 7 of the plants to tie on, but I ran out of time. Let this be a lesson to everyone: never start a big job when you know you won't have enough time. Rushing ruins everything. I am now going to bed. Farewell!!

 

[Llegmore]

The water is clearing a little today. I've decided not to adjust the plants or add any more until the big piece of wood has become fully saturated.

This is still the nicest bit. I think it's a bit over-planted, but mother likes it so i've gotta leave it.

 

[shoulders]

looking good ,have you thought of putting a black background on the back of the tank ? i think it would make the plants stand out more when the lights are on

 

[Llegmore]

looking good ,have you thought of putting a black background on the back of the tank ? i think it would make the plants stand out more when the lights are on

I have considered it. I'm not sure how I'd get behind there to secure a background. Even with the tank empty, it's in a hard place to pull it out.

 

[greenmumma141]

Great thread!!!! Anubias is by far my fav plant, and I've always thought about doing a tank using only it.  It really looks great, what great pieces of wood!!!! I think you really played it smart too, and went with similar sizes in your wood, instead of just one really large piece (like I did) so now you've got a great balance going with your hardscape.
 
Love it, looks great!!!

 

[Llegmore]

Great thread!!!! Anubias is by far my fav plant, and I've always thought about doing a tank using only it.  It really looks great, what great pieces of wood!!!! I think you really played it smart too, and went with similar sizes in your wood, instead of just one really large piece (like I did) so now you've got a great balance going with your hardscape.
 
Love it, looks great!!!

Cheers! I don't think i could have handled any bigger pieces of wood. I had a hard enough time trying to get those 3 saturated.

 

[greenmumma141]

What I was trying to say is that you were smart to get multiple large pieces, not just one piece of wood looking silly in your tank
 
Just scrolled through the pics again, and I still really love it lol.  I might order some more anubias today.....

 

[Llegmore]

What I was trying to say is that you were smart to get multiple large pieces, not just one piece of wood looking silly in your tank

 
Just scrolled through the pics again, and I still really love it lol.  I might order some more anubias today.....

Anubias really is the best
 
I'm having a bit of an algal bloom at the moment. Also, I noticed  a really tiny fish in the tank. I think it's harlequin fry from when I had harlequins in the tank - although I never saw them spawning. Not sure what on earth I should do. It's about 1cm long and I can already see the vague hockey-stick mark. I'm pretty sure neither of the two big fish in there will notice it. Hmm.

 

[Tropical_Dave]

great tank how long did it take to wash out the manado? i was going to get some but ive gone with jbl sansibar black instead