My new 75 Gal Planted Tank

[Proflooney]

ok thanks ill look it up. i got all the stuff tonight to make a DIY CO2 Diffuser but i need to read more I'm still lost in how long to let it run in the tank

 

[Proflooney]

ok its a wide leafed plant I see. it looks nice I think mixing that in place of the dwarf baby tears with the dwarf hairy grass it can give a nice ground cover thanks. Ill look up the specs on it and add it to my list to find where to get

 

[Proflooney]

well for some reason my nitrates dropped off pretty significantly today

 

[Proflooney]

well while waiting for the foam to cure til tomorrow I made me a CO2 Diffuser tonight. I used 3 - 2 liter bottles with 2 having my yeast generator and they feed into an empty 3rd bottle as a safely so no yeast gets into my tank, then I ran my line and drilled a small hole in the bottom of my intake screen and ran the line into the bottom so that my canister diffuses the CO2. I did use a check valve also so I don't get a backup into my bottles.

I know it is probably not very much for my size tank but I just want to feed a little CO2 into the tank to help the plants a little since I will be using easy plants that don't require CO2

 

[Proflooney]

anyways My Original wood has most of the slime going away finally but I am getting some bubbles in the slime I assume thats what is popping it off when they burst but I noticed some white spots on the wood now they remind me of little tiny calcium baubles are these normal or some kind of fungus or something to worry abt. kind of hard to see in the pics

 

[Proflooney]

Well todays Readings nothing new on nitrites but nitrates went up by abt 10

 

[Proflooney]

went to sis in laws today and snow blowed the snow for her and the old man across the street said if I felt like it I could do his for him lol he is a nice old man comes and visits sometimes when I'm working in sis's yard so I said sure and plowed him out too man was i beat but he gave me 20 bucks for doing it even though i insisted 3 times he didn't owe me anything.

Wifey said why don't I take the money and get some plants for the aquarium. well of course wasn't going to argue there so went got me a narrow leaf java fern, a pack of dwarf Hairy grass, and some grass I dunno what it is but looked cool and says grows to abt 15" so I thought it would look good in the back by my rocks. I took out my PVC tubes and moved the rocks around into a nice arrangement and in front corner wrapped my java moss around a flat rock and made a nice hairy ball with it.

For the grass it was all rooted together and so i carefully pulled it apart into several pieces and laid them out in front of my driftwood.

the bad thing was messing with the tank all that slime released from my long driftwood and got all over everything lol. oh well if this cycle ever finishes my plecos will have a field day.

also my DIY CO2 is going good I am getting abt 2 bubbles every 3 seconds. my canister filter is not having any problems with it but its funny because you get these bubbles going through the lines so every once in a while you here this swoosh sound as a big wad of them come out the airflow as teensy miniscule little bubbles.

Hopefully that plus my lighting etc my Hairy grass will spread fast if I didn't kill it separating it into individual clumps.

 

[Proflooney]

 

[Proflooney]

Day 12 PH down a couple points other than that nothing much same ole same ole

 

[Proflooney]

well today another boring report same ole same ole with my cycle

 

[Proflooney]

I think I am going to do a PWC today whether it takes me longer or not something screwy going on here cause weird that my nitrates are crashing

 

[Proflooney]

I just finished a 60% water change have to run to nursing home and check on father in law and take him one of those red xmas plants then will come back test water and dose it up.

after a PWC should I dose full strength ammonia or just half like I been doing?

 

[Proflooney]

ok after putting 45 gals new water in my tank its almost like I did nothing. My trites are still off the chart though it looks like the trates are showing abt 90 now this cycle crap is weird rofl

 

[Ajene]

Love how its coming along, nice work!

 

[Proflooney]

i just don't know why if I did that big water change how come i still have so many nitrites and how now my nitrates are showing something more proper

 

[Proflooney]

well Day 15 of Cycle. Ammonia not quite to zero its at .25ppm but it was afternoon when I did WC so still has some time for a 24 hr cycle. Nitrites color looks little dif but still off the chart. Nitrates around 110-120 by looking at color and guessing the range between the 80 and 160 ppm on chart the color is getting real close to the 160 mark

 

[Proflooney]

Today was at a LFS and saw some plants on sale so I picked up a couple for behind my Ricci will post pics later they were in colder water so I have the bag floating in mine for a pit to acclimate the plants and not shock them as mines running abt 82

 

[Proflooney]

Well heres some pics of the new plants can anyone remind me of the names? I know I saw these and wanted them for background plants and when I saw at the LFS I recognized the looks but cant remember the names

I believe the one behind the 2 Ricci is Cabomba caroliniana and the one behind the single ricci I think is Pogostemon erectus

at least that is what I was hoping they were when I bought them

 

[Proflooney]

 

[Proflooney]

The right side of my aquarium is kinda bare as I am working on the left side. on the Right I will be doing more with a rock hardscape as this winter is here lot of the landscape stores are closed where I want to get my gravel. I don't want the tiny aquarium gravel but more of the 1/2" to 1" sized gravel so I can have some Larger stones and then some 1 to 2" stones then my 1/2 to 1" gravel with a few of the tiny gravel thrown in to look like more of a cascading of rock rubble. I will then put a couple bush type plans in there among the gravel and maybe some weed looking things scattered here and there. its getting there slowly and starting to look up. I think once my DHG gets filled in it will really look good.