vonjankmon
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- Jan 5, 2008
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Several months ago I decided that I wanted to try a high tech planted tank. I did some reading and research first to determine what I wanted to do specifically and I ended up realizing that all of my fish were from SE Asian, Tiger Barbs and Gourami's, so I decided I would do a SE Asian biotope tank. Below is the progress of the tank from it's beginnings a month ago until now.
First thing I did is get another 55G tank cheap off CraigsList to house my fish while I re-did the tank in my living room. Took me a couple weeks to get that setup and cycled, at which point I moved all my Gourmai's and Tiger Barbs over. Then I emptied my old tank, cleaned it, ordered everything I needed and began to set it back up.
January 23rd 2008:
Since I had a bit of money to spend I decided that I would try ADA substrates. Sticking with my SE Asian theme I ordered Malaya substrate and some Power Sand for the bottom of the tank for some longer term nutrient flow. I ordered them both before X-mas but they were back ordered so I didn't get them until mid January, which turned out to be fine as I had to get the new 55G cycled so I could move my fish anyhow.
Since I was going for a high tech tank I also purchased a substrate heater, Root Therm from RedSea. Set up was easy but I fish they had included a few more suction cups with it as I was about 3 short of how many I ideally needed, I made due though.
For lighting I picked up a very nice Compact Fluorescent setup from AquaTraders. Dual strip with blue LED moon lights for about $107 USD. I was a little bit concerned about it considering how cheap it was but now that I have it I can't say enough good things about it. From what I can tell it appears as if it is a Coralife rip off.
I then purchased some 8,000k lights from my LFS.
Then I got to putting the substrate down, I bought some Flourite Red for the tank also as I was planning on having crypts and Rotolla both of which need a good source of Iron and I knew Flourite had that. I know the ADA soil may also but Flourite gives you a breakdown of what it contains so I know for a fact it has a bunch of iron in it. I used it between the power sand and the Malaya substrate as I wanted the iron but I did not want people to be able to see the Flourite as I don't really like the look of it.
Substrate with the Flourite still showing.
And with the Flourite covered...
From the side you can kind of see the layers of substrate and that I made it slop up from the front of the tank.
And then I got the red granite for a leveled look on the left side and some of the Malaysian driftwood I purchased from Aquatic Eco-Systems, Inc. (This stuff looks good but has crazy tannins. I boiled this 3-4 times and then put it in a bunch that I changed the water in every day for a week and it still had a bit left in it it)
Now for heating and filtering I went Rena. I bought a Rena XP3 external canister for filtering and a Rena Smart Heater since it integrates with the XP3.
I really like the Rena Smart Heaters, all plastic outside so they're virtually impossible to break. (I know I dropped this one twice on accident before it finally made it into the tank) And the Rena XP external filters are very very bare bones, which to me is a good thing, it means that there is very little that can go wrong or break on it. It also makes it easy to buy whatever type of media you want for it since the containers fro the media are just boxes.
I bought some Fluval Pre Filter Media, some Rena Bio Chem Stars, some SeaChem Matrix, Rena Sponges, and some fine filter mesh/foam that I cut to size for water polishing. I kind of picked a bit of everything, since it's a planted tank I didn't want any Carbon and the XP3 has three entire baskets for me to fill up.
I also bought a PH Monitor as I will be doing pressurized CO2 injection and would like to avoid any unfortunate surprises.
Once I got the PH Monitor setup I went to work on my CO2 injection system. I purchased the RedSea system that works with Paintball CO2 tanks, as I play Paintball and have a number of CO2 tank lying around for it. Now the system is excellent but with one exception, the bubble counter is crap, utter and total crap. It's hard to open, hard to close and mine leaked, badly. I set it up on the 24th and by the morning of the 25th I had an empty 12OZ CO2 tank. So I ordered a different bubble counter on the 25th.
And here is my tank on the first day of its setup. I've got Cryprocoryne Wendtii on the left side, Rotalla Macranda in the middle, and Crinum Thaianum on the right side at this point.
The 24th coming up next...
January 24th 2008
The water has cleared the morning of the 24th and you can actually see inside the tank now. I have java moss floating in the right hand corner of the tank before I get it attached to the driftwood I have for it.
Here you can see the wire/tube mess that is my new tanks setup now.
Today I set about getting my Java Moss attached to the piece of drift wood I wanted. I used sewing mesh, which I attached the Java Moss to with thread and then attached the sewing mesh to the driftwood.
And then that night with the new drift wood.
First thing I did is get another 55G tank cheap off CraigsList to house my fish while I re-did the tank in my living room. Took me a couple weeks to get that setup and cycled, at which point I moved all my Gourmai's and Tiger Barbs over. Then I emptied my old tank, cleaned it, ordered everything I needed and began to set it back up.
January 23rd 2008:
Since I had a bit of money to spend I decided that I would try ADA substrates. Sticking with my SE Asian theme I ordered Malaya substrate and some Power Sand for the bottom of the tank for some longer term nutrient flow. I ordered them both before X-mas but they were back ordered so I didn't get them until mid January, which turned out to be fine as I had to get the new 55G cycled so I could move my fish anyhow.
Since I was going for a high tech tank I also purchased a substrate heater, Root Therm from RedSea. Set up was easy but I fish they had included a few more suction cups with it as I was about 3 short of how many I ideally needed, I made due though.
For lighting I picked up a very nice Compact Fluorescent setup from AquaTraders. Dual strip with blue LED moon lights for about $107 USD. I was a little bit concerned about it considering how cheap it was but now that I have it I can't say enough good things about it. From what I can tell it appears as if it is a Coralife rip off.
I then purchased some 8,000k lights from my LFS.
Then I got to putting the substrate down, I bought some Flourite Red for the tank also as I was planning on having crypts and Rotolla both of which need a good source of Iron and I knew Flourite had that. I know the ADA soil may also but Flourite gives you a breakdown of what it contains so I know for a fact it has a bunch of iron in it. I used it between the power sand and the Malaya substrate as I wanted the iron but I did not want people to be able to see the Flourite as I don't really like the look of it.
Substrate with the Flourite still showing.
And with the Flourite covered...
From the side you can kind of see the layers of substrate and that I made it slop up from the front of the tank.
And then I got the red granite for a leveled look on the left side and some of the Malaysian driftwood I purchased from Aquatic Eco-Systems, Inc. (This stuff looks good but has crazy tannins. I boiled this 3-4 times and then put it in a bunch that I changed the water in every day for a week and it still had a bit left in it it)
Now for heating and filtering I went Rena. I bought a Rena XP3 external canister for filtering and a Rena Smart Heater since it integrates with the XP3.
I really like the Rena Smart Heaters, all plastic outside so they're virtually impossible to break. (I know I dropped this one twice on accident before it finally made it into the tank) And the Rena XP external filters are very very bare bones, which to me is a good thing, it means that there is very little that can go wrong or break on it. It also makes it easy to buy whatever type of media you want for it since the containers fro the media are just boxes.
I bought some Fluval Pre Filter Media, some Rena Bio Chem Stars, some SeaChem Matrix, Rena Sponges, and some fine filter mesh/foam that I cut to size for water polishing. I kind of picked a bit of everything, since it's a planted tank I didn't want any Carbon and the XP3 has three entire baskets for me to fill up.
I also bought a PH Monitor as I will be doing pressurized CO2 injection and would like to avoid any unfortunate surprises.
Once I got the PH Monitor setup I went to work on my CO2 injection system. I purchased the RedSea system that works with Paintball CO2 tanks, as I play Paintball and have a number of CO2 tank lying around for it. Now the system is excellent but with one exception, the bubble counter is crap, utter and total crap. It's hard to open, hard to close and mine leaked, badly. I set it up on the 24th and by the morning of the 25th I had an empty 12OZ CO2 tank. So I ordered a different bubble counter on the 25th.
And here is my tank on the first day of its setup. I've got Cryprocoryne Wendtii on the left side, Rotalla Macranda in the middle, and Crinum Thaianum on the right side at this point.
The 24th coming up next...
January 24th 2008
The water has cleared the morning of the 24th and you can actually see inside the tank now. I have java moss floating in the right hand corner of the tank before I get it attached to the driftwood I have for it.
Here you can see the wire/tube mess that is my new tanks setup now.
Today I set about getting my Java Moss attached to the piece of drift wood I wanted. I used sewing mesh, which I attached the Java Moss to with thread and then attached the sewing mesh to the driftwood.
And then that night with the new drift wood.
), Rotalla Wallichi, and some Green Temple.
