55 gallon makeover day! Full tank shot, 11/11/07

[majolo]

I've been planning to move my 55 gallon from a side room to the living room for some time now (was meaning to do it this summer ). It will happen eventually, so I want to start thinking/planning out loud here, and eventually this will be a log for the move and makeover.

To start with, here's the tank as it appears this week (click for larger images):



And here's some data on the tank:
Inhabitants:

10 black neon tetras, 5 penguin tetras, 1 pearl gourami, 6 kubotai loaches, 1 albino BN pleco, ~18 olive nerite snails, 3 bamboo shrimp.

Plants:

lots of Hygrophila salicifolia, several Anubias (nana, coffeefolia, afzelli, gracilis I think), one onion plant, and a handful of small crypts, barely visible in the pic.

Decor:

African rootwood (yay), black paint backround (yay), chainstore gravel (boo).

Lighting & Ferts:

Current Satellite power compact daylight fixture 2x65W, 10 hours/day, with a .15 neutral density filter/gel to lower the lighting a bit; EI lite dosing (dry macros & Plantex CSM+B from Rex Griggs, dosing levels changed too many times to list... Mainly dosing K sulfate now) + Flourish Excel. No CO2.

Now, my objectives:
1. Provide a happy healthy environment for the inhabitants.
2. Have a reasonably attractive tank with natural materials (not a showstopper, but nice enough to be in the living room)
3. Have a low maintenance tank. I don't want to have to trim or replant frequently, and I'd really like to only think about fertilizers at the weekly water change (which is a habit I'm slipping into anyway).

Some general ideas of what I might do:
1. Definitely change the substrate. Maybe to Eco-complete, which I'm liking in my betta tank, or something similar. It will have to be loach-friendly, and hopefully nutrient-rich, if that helps me not have to fertilize much.

2. More driftwood, probably almost wall-to-wall. This is also for the loaches benefit (and the pleco)

3. Probably lower the lighting. I don't have very bad algae problems now, despite being at a level where I "should" have CO2 or be in trouble. But if I can change the lights to 50/50 bulbs, say, and still have plants that I like, that would be ideal in terms of the low-tech/low-maintenance goal.

4. Maybe get rid of the Hygro. They're the fast growers in the tank, and they may be sucking up more nutrients than I'm providing. When I put them in, the idea was they would be good cover to make the tetras comfortable, but oddly enough they seem to hunker down around the driftwood instead. For taller plants, I could go with some things like Anubias congensis or Crypt. retrospiralis maybe.

I'm currently soaking a bunch of driftwood, and when I get a chance, I'll try photographing it in different configurations. Any comments are welcome, particularly any good plants with the lower light (and hard water btw).

 

[majolo]

Ok, here are some shots of the driftwood that's soaking (click on pics to view larger)

First, just the five pieces laying out:



And a few different arrangements (the masking tape is the footprint of the tank):






I forgot to mention, I will also probably put a powerhead in the tank down low to keep water moving throough the driftwood, and to give some more high-flow areas for the filter shrimp.

 

[triazole]

looks like a great setup is on the way.
regarding driftwood arrangements, i like the third one the best....

 

[smn723]

my vote on the arrangement would be either #1 or #3

 

[WaterPond]

I like #'s 1, 3 and 4.

I can't wait to see the transformation!

 

[majolo]

Well, I've set a deadline for myself to get this done by the first weekend in November. The driftwood has been soaking for almost a month now with several changes of water, so that's getting ready. I decided to order Aquariumplants.com substrate. Here are a couple pics:

Dry:

Wet:

From reading around on this stuff, I gather it doesn't have nutrients in it but it holds them well, so I have some Flourish root tabs I'll put under it. I'm also going to leave some of the old gravel and mulm in the bottom, staying under the aquarium frame so it won't be visible. I spent a lot of time rinsing this stuff, about an hour and a half. Hope I got it clean enough! I also hear this is fairly light until it spends some time absorbing water, so I hope the pleco doesn't end up scattering it everywhere.

I realized I'm going to need a Python extension for the new location -- glad I caught that before the move!

I've got a big order of Anubias from aquabid on its way, should get here tomorrow. It's from Asia, hope it makes it in good shape (I figure Anubias is probably about as tough in shipping as I could hope for...)

And I have to decide on the big plant order. How many Crypt balansae would make a good background for say 1/2-2/3 of the tank? Maybe 20-30? I also want to get a lotus, and I'm leaning to having some stem plants floating. I have some freebie Rotala rotundifolia floating and my dwarf platies and pearl gourami really like it! If it can survive this way, then I can have stem plants and still have them be low maintenance.

 

[newfound77951]

The lotus should work well. I have a somewhat similar setup, 2x96 watts with 50:50 bulbs on a 55 and I am growing a variety of Crypts, a compacta sword, a red tiger lotus and Nymphoides sp 'Taiwan'. Also Java moss, a nice broad leaf hygro that grows slowly, Anubias, Hemianthus micranthemoides as carpet (was established under higher light) and Lobelia cardinalis. The salicifolia is beautiful but grows like mad, I got rid of mine for that reason. Hydrocotyl leucocephala would make a nice floating/rooted stem plant, too.

The driftwood you have looks fantastic, can't wait to see how the setup progresses, and how you like the new substrate.

 

[majolo]

Thanks, newfound. I'm the one you just sent the hydrocotyle and Nymphoides 'Taiwan' to (thanks!), so you've caught on to my plan exactly! The Taiwan lost some leaves in shipping but it is bouncing back nicely -- it has a new leaf about halfway to the surface already.

 

[newfound77951]

Ha, I forget who I send stuff to....it's hard to connect the name on the shipping box with the screen name sometimes. The Taiwan will come back fast, but the leaves don't last long anyway, a week maybe, but it'll grow a new leaf about every week to replace the lost one. kind of a pain to keep clipping the tattered leaves but on the other hand the plant doesn't try and take over the whole tank surface like some other floaters do.

 

[JustOneMore20]

I have a 55g with the same amount of light, so I am anxious to see your tanks transformation!

The AP.com substrate looks really nice. I thought about using it in my 20g, but shipping was way too much! Not worth it IMO. Makes me a little sad....

I love the driftwood...I can tell already that the tank is gonna look great!

 

[Zezmo]

The aquariumplants.com subsrate will strip all the Kh out of your water. I have a tank that has been using it for a year, and it still takes the water to 0kh within a week of water changes.

 

[majolo]

And of course after I post about how nice the Nymphoides is doing, I get home and...

The loaches decided to have a snack. Well, we'll see if they decide to leave it alone. Oh well...

On a brighter note, my Anubias package finally got here, later than expected but in fine shape:

That's A. congensis in the top left, and the rest are a bunch of different varieties of A. barteri.

The aquariumplants.com subsrate will strip all the Kh out of your water. I have a tank that has been using it for a year, and it still takes the water to 0kh within a week of water changes.

Thanks for the heads up. I'm going to test a batch of the substrate in some tank water. I'll try to post the results when I see any effect.

 

[majolo]

Just a little update. The makeover hasn't happened yet, but the Hygro is out, so here is the tank without it:

The floating mass is Rotala rotundifolia, which I may or may not keep.

The plant order is in, here's the list:
25x Crypt. crispatula 'balansae'
10x Hydrocotyle leucocephala
3x Crypt. wendtii v. 'Tropica'
1x Crypt. lutea
1x Nymphaea zenkeri (red)
1x Aponogeton boivianus

And preliminary results on the KH experiment:
A small container of tank water last Thursday tested at 16 degrees KH. After adding the substrate, 5 days later KH is at 7.5 degrees. So there is definitely an effect. The container has about an inch of substrate in less than 4 inches of water, so presumably the effect may be less in the actual tank where the ratio by volume will be less.

 

[majolo]

And the plants have arrived:

Sorry the picture quality isn't that good. Top row is Crypt wendtii 'Tropica' x3, Apon. boivianus, and Nymphaea zenkeri 'red'.
Bottom row is Crypt lutea, Hydrocotyle leucocephala x10 bunches, and Crypt crispatula 'balansae' x25. They're all sitting in the tank, won't bother planting until the big tank move (this weekend, I hope!)

I love the crinkled leaves on the balansae and the Apon. I really hope the balansae grows well, I think this could be a great backdrop. The Hydrocotyle is sort of disappointing... On the one hand, I ordered 10 units, and that turns out to be 10 bunches, so I've got like 100 stems here. On the other hand, each stem has maybe 1 or 2 leaves, and no hint of roots... On the third hand some of the leaves are surprisingly huge, like 3 inches across. Didn't expect that. Anyway, I'll clearly have to let them grow out a while before it starts looking good. I may take a bunch and put them in my Endler's/RCS tank too.

 

[majolo]

Okay, so today was the day of the makeover. The room change didn't happen as it was too hard to level in the living room. But the substrate swap and planting happened, and here are some pics!

Here's the holding tanks for the fish and plants during the draining:

(Don't know why I had the intake in there... The filter media was kept wet in a separate container.)

Here's the substrate and hardscape in:

Here it is planted and filled:

The right side has balansae planted as the background, not very tall yet. There are a couple swords in the middle, a Nymphoides Taiwan in middle front, a Nymphaea zenkeri Red in front left, and many Anubias scattered around.

Here's the right side after I put a bunch of floating Hydrocotyle in:

And here's the left side:

I'll post a full tank shot once the water clears up and stuff. Here's a side shot showing some cloudiness:

 

[majolo]

Here's an update now that things have settled in. I ended up trading in my BN pleco since he was way too fond of throwing the new substrate around with his tail (I kind of thought it might happen, this stuff is pretty light). He was uprooting half the stuff and burying the other half...

Here's a full tank shot:

I have to pick a new exposure adjustment now that I've got a shady half of the tank. Anyway, it doesn't look like too much, especially as the crypts are melting a bit, but I think it accomplishes what I wanted. The bottom third is nice and dense, and it's fun to see the loaches come popping out of odd places in the driftwood.

 

[Atl300zx]

i really like your choice of plants, looks good.

 

[Zezmo]

The tank is looking really nice. Nice selection of driftwood.

I'll be interested to hear what your experience is over time using the the aquariumplants.com substrate.