My first big tank, 55 gal planted freshwater tank

[Ozydego]

Thanks for the compliments, NO3 jumped from 5 to 30 in 24 hours, my NO2 bacteria are starting to show up, so it won't be long before I get some livestock in the tank!

 

[redsea]

The tank looks great!

 

[Ozydego]

Good to hear the compliments, I have been having fun planting... Cycle is complete, and I stocked my first set of fish Yesterday. 4x diamond tetra, 4x blue tetra, and 4x albino Corydoras. The corys are having fun, the diamonds did not like the change so much, looks like an outbreak of cottonmouth. I am dosing with pimafix and hopefully will clear it up and keep the others from contracting it. We shall see, I will give the tank a few weeks to settle out, then stock some more expensive/sensitive fish.

 

[Ozydego]

Few more, the flash shows my water spotty glass... Gonna have to work on that

 

[Ozydego]

Forgot the video... Gotta give you the full effect
55 gal freshwater planted - YouTube

 

[absolutangel04]

I really like the albino corys. I have a few of them and they are pretty fun.

 

[Helloelliee]

This is awesome! I only have a couple of my plants in my tank right now until it fully gets established. What kind do you have? Good luck!

 

[Ozydego]

After a week of medication, and letting things grow, I did a major cleanup and partial reshape on the left side, as well as add moss and swap out the wisteria for purple Cambomba... I am really proud of the way it's turning out, time to let things grow for a while, I really need more wattage to really get things moving. BTW, 4 red onion and 2 black baseball cap merited have joined the team

 

[Ozydego]

Forgot the pics

 

[absolutangel04]

It looks really great. I like the plant switches. I have a tank with black gravel too, and really make the plants and light colored fish pop out! Good choices.

 

[gabysapha]

Ooo i love the black gravel so much! May I ask where you bought it? I get mine from Petsmart but I'm not liking how the coating comes off so easily. Maybe i got a bad batch.
I wish I had used black gravel in my display tank! I love this

 

[Ozydego]

Mine is from my local lfs, it's not doing too bad, just a few pieces are losing color, I don't remember the brand, sorry

 

[Ozydego]

I set up a DIY moonlight setup using a very cool LED fixture from IKEA that I had from a while back and a christmas lights dusk to dawn timer. The LED setup is here DIODER Light strip - IKEA

and the Dusk to dawn timer is from last christmas. I set the dusk to dawn timer to only 2 hours after "dusk", so when my normal flourescent fixtures timer shuts off, the moonlights show up for 2 hours. The interesting thing is I actually have different built in colors if I want, I use the blue/green for my moonlight, and sometimes change the light pattern to transitioning for an interesting effect. It turned out to be a very nice setup

 

[abrahamavelar]

I set up a DIY moonlight setup using a very cool LED fixture from IKEA that I had from a while back and a christmas lights dusk to dawn timer. The LED setup is here DIODER Light strip - IKEA

and the Dusk to dawn timer is from last christmas. I set the dusk to dawn timer to only 2 hours after "dusk", so when my normal flourescent fixtures timer shuts off, the moonlights show up for 2 hours. The interesting thing is I actually have different built in colors if I want, I use the blue/green for my moonlight, and sometimes change the light pattern to transitioning for an interesting effect. It turned out to be a very nice setup

that looks pretty good!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[BakerBoy17]

Its amazing how both of your tanks look stunning. When are you adding an angel to this one? It looks like a great setup.

 

[Ozydego]

The angels will go in once I know the tank has matured... Still a few hiccups going on, one of my diamond tetras that had cottonmouth had a relapse possibly of something else, it looked really painful, his upper jaw where the scarring was from before was now being eaten away and was an open sore, rather than put him through more, I put him out of his misery, as well as one of my albino corys who has been having neurological issues for 4 days now, two days ago I found him wedged up in the back corner behind the CO2 hose and then today I was sure he was gone again when I found him pale and stuck against the intake, only after I went to remove him did I find out he was still alive. Both will be missed. I really hate when things like this happen, I can understand if I were making mistakes, but parameters perfect and only half stocked with everyone else doing great... a little weird. Needless to say I am wary of putting centerpiece fish in until I know my entire tank is settled

 

[Gboy66]

So what is your lighting? I really like all of your plants and want my 40 to end up somewhat like yours. I have pics in an album if youd like to see its not even close to as awesome as your tank yet!!!

 

[BakerBoy17]

The angels will go in once I know the tank has matured... Still a few hiccups going on, one of my diamond tetras that had cottonmouth had a relapse possibly of something else, it looked really painful, his upper jaw where the scarring was from before was now being eaten away and was an open sore, rather than put him through more, I put him out of his misery, as well as one of my albino corys who has been having neurological issues for 4 days now, two days ago I found him wedged up in the back corner behind the CO2 hose and then today I was sure he was gone again when I found him pale and stuck against the intake, only after I went to remove him did I find out he was still alive. Both will be missed. I really hate when things like this happen, I can understand if I were making mistakes, but parameters perfect and only half stocked with everyone else doing great... a little weird. Needless to say I am wary of putting centerpiece fish in until I know my entire tank is settled

Well all of that happening doesn't mean your doing something wrong. You could have just gotten a bad batch of fish. You should test your whole tank and go from there. I would hate for anything else to happen. Its really a beautiful tank.

 

[Ozydego]

Yeah, I became anal about testing once I started this new tank, only thing is my trates are constantly @ 30 even with pwcs, but never higher, the one diamond tetra came from the store that way, I chose to treat him rather than take him back, but the Cory is a mystery... I will keep a close eye, tomorrow is a major vacuum day, the right side of the tank this week...

 

[BakerBoy17]

Well maybe there are nitrates in the water? Either way that's no to much higher so it isn't much to be worried about. You could get plants that use up nitrates so they would go down. But with way your tank looks great.