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Alm0stAwesome

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I figure I'll start a thread to chart the progress of this recently set up tank. This won't just be about plants but about my fish as well and I like to post lots of pictures
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This first post will be fairly long as I'd like to go a little into the set up of the tank as well as how it is now and some detail on the tank inhabitants. 
 
Let's start with the basics!
 
Tank: Calico Aquatics 340L 4ft x 2ft x 18in deep
Filtration: 2 x TetraTec Ex1200, roughly 7x turnover
Heating: 2 x Hydor ETH 300w external heaters
Lighting: Arcadia Ultra Seal Controller
Bulbs: 1 x T5 Sylvania 54w Growlux, 1 x T5 Osram 54w Skywhite 880
Substrate: Unipac Limpopo Sand
Hardscape: Scottish Heather
Flora: 
Hydrocotyle leucocephala
Tiger Lotus "Red" Nymphaea Zenkeri
Anubias nana
1-2 Grow Weeping moss
Cryptocoryne bullosa
Echinodorus ozelot red
Cryptocoryne balansae
Limnophilia aromatica
Lobelia cardinalis dwarf
Cryptocoryne wendtii tropica
 
Ferts/Carbon: TNC Carbon 6.5ml daily, TNC Complete 6.5ml daily
Fauna:
6 x Angelfish
2 x Bolivian Ram
2 x Bristlenose Plec
9 x Sterbai Cory
12 x Espei Rasbora
 
So! This tank was an upgrade from my Juwel Rio 180 and has been running for 7 weeks. The tank had been drilled and had a weir installed. It was easy to remove the weir with a razor blade.
 
You can see the pipes here:

 
So we sawed the pipes down to about two inches and capped them off with pvc caps and solvent weld glue. 
 

 
Unfortunately I had a leak but luckily figured out that it wasn't my caps that were leaking but where the original pipe fitted into the bulkhead. This was fixed by slathering silicone over everything lol. 
 
My hardscape is Scottish heather which had been burnt so was dry as a bone but the bark was a PITA to get off!
 

 
These pictures are mostly 7 weeks old from when the tank was first set up. I did do another "photoshoot" a couple of weeks ago but managed to delete all of the FTS 
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I'm planning to take some pictures this weekend so I'll have another update soon. Although it doesn't look much different haha. Most of the plants melted back and the ones that didn't I ended up trimming to get rid of the emmersed growth once the good stuff started growing in
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Unfortunately, my angels have discovered a taste for weeping moss and lobelia cardinalis dwarf so it looks like I have aquatic caterpillars 
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I do have a a tiny amount of diatoms setting in but it seems restrained to the edges of some leaves. Maybe because my filters are very mature. I hope it comes and goes no worse than this!
 

 
Ok that's it for now, I'll do a FTS update and a fishy post to show you all of my wet pets later on 
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 Thanks for looking and feel free to ask any questions!
 
Beautiful tank.  What type of Angels do you have? I see what looks like a Koi and then another silver/gold one.  Just curious, I have 3 Albino platinum, 2 Koi and one Marbled with a good blue pigment that comes out in the light.
 
Thanks for your kind words everyone 
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My angels all show a bit of blue and are all golds but different varieties so I've got:
Gold
Blushing gold marble
Gold Marble
Blushing gold sunset x 3
 
Luckily they seem to be outgrowing their blushing cheeks because I really don't like the pink cheeks lol Most blushers do lose them but I was a bit worried they wouldn't :p
 
Thanks for asking! I'll get a detailed fishy post up soon
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Oh man, I just dropped £90.00 on various consumables for this tank - ouch! But I should have enough dechlorinator, ferts, carbon, filter floss and purigen to last me a year now - so that's not so bad...right? 
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As promised here's some photos of my tank inhabitants. Taking pictures of my tank and fish are a big part of the hobby for me. I'm not brilliant at it but I like the challenge of trying to get a good picture with the really basic digital camera I have lol. Some of the pictures will be from before I moved them to this tank as I haven't got new pictures of all of them
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Let's start with the angels.
 
I have one confirmed pair, this is the male

 

 
This is his mate:

 
This one is old, so her colours aren't as dark as they are now

 
This guy has changed loads since I took these, you can't even see his blushing cheeks any more. Blushing angels grow iridescent scales on their gill plates as they age.

 

 
These are my three little babies
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This little guy has a shortened gill plate which is one of the most common angelfish deformities. From what I've read, it really should have been culled and not sent to the LFS. Oh well, I've got him now and it doesn't seem to bother him. The deformity may become more visible as it gets bigger, we'll see!
 
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That's enough for now, more fishies later!!
 
Thanks for your kind words everyone! 
 
I love this tiger lotus - the leaves are such a brilliant colour :D
 

 

 
And my water change assistant, keeping an eye out for any passing fish - not that it ever happens of course 
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That's a good looking tank set up and lovely fish!

Like the lotus plant. Not something I've seen before, is that an easy or hard plant to care for?

By the way, great pics, what camera are you using for these decent pics? My camera is rubbish for these close ups shots I want!
 

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