Please comment : Planted tank with HUGE driftwood

[rasbora]

Dear all,
Please give your comments, advices for my 75 gallon planted community tank.
Fish list:
10 rasbora espei
12 harlequin rasbora
5 guppies
3 gouramis
6 red nose tetra
4 pristela (?) tetra
1 unknown tetra
9 panda corydoras
3 unknown corydoras
5 amano shrimp
1 red cherry shrimp

There are 4 driftwoods inside, including one HUGE driftwood that still not fully submerged (I put some rocks to make it submerged). The huge driftwood was not boiled, I only soaked it for 3 weeks. So it is still leaching tannins. I already put activated carbon and purigen in my filter, which seems not helping a lot. I still need to make 50% weekly pwc to keep the water clean.

The plants:
5 unknown plants. I and my wife only buy it from LFS without knowing the name of the plants. Some of them are attached to a small driftwood and rocks.

Equipments:
Eheim 2075 with activated carbon and purigen
72 watts (4x18) lighting
220 watts heater
400 gph powerhead, running for 10 minutes each hour from 7am to 7pm

Any comments, advices, especially about the layout, are welcomed.

 

[rasbora]

It seems the attachments were not succesfully uploaded. resend.

 

[bruinsbro1997]

Wow that is a beautiful tank. One of your plants is definitely an anubias, another looks like rotunda illuda, if that's the correct spelling, but it seems a little big to be it, I'm not sure. Very pretty fish!

 

[aquabeast]

a black background would really set that off

 

[mom2reds]

a black background would really set that off

I totally agree. Beautiful tank love the dw

 

[uh.oh...]

What an awesome piece of DW!

 

[rasbora]

Thank you for all of your suggestions and comments. Regarding the background paper, I used it on my other tank. But according to my wife and daughters, It looks better without any background. Then I took off the background paper.

Regarding the driftwood, the biggest one (on the right half of the tank) has a LOT of tunnels inside. The amano shrimps make it as heir house.

I expected purigen to work to remove the tannins. But seems not help. I will check the purigen condition inside my canister this weekend, if the colour changed or not.

 

[rich311k]

Very nice looking tank, excellent job.

 

[jcolon]

T Regarding the background paper, I used it on my other tank. But according to my wife and daughters, It looks better without any background. Then I took off the background paper.

I would wager if put a black background, snapped a picture and posted with and without ... you'd get overwhelming feedback for the background. IMO it would really make that great DW POP!

 

[Coleallensmom]

Very NICE!

 

[Sparky74]

Sweet looking tank

a black background would really set that off

I also agree

Check your Purigen, mine got really brown fast with the new wood....Once I changed it, it cleared up fast.

 

[Mr. Limpet]

Looks great and the DW is awesome .

You might want to save the big bucks on the purigen and use poly-fil in it's place. It'll grab the tannins like a magnet and a bag will last you a year or more for $5, rather than 100ml of purigen for the same price.

 

[rasbora]

Thanks for all advices. Finally I had time to visit LFS and bought black background paper. I also made little change to the layout and attach it to my tank. Please check the pictures and give comments. Anybody has idea how to arrange that huge DW ?

 

[rasbora]

Looks great and the DW is awesome .

You might want to save the big bucks on the purigen and use poly-fil in it's place. It'll grab the tannins like a magnet and a bag will last you a year or more for $5, rather than 100ml of purigen for the same price.

I can not buy poly-fil here, in Japan. However I bought a filter floss made by 100% polyester and put it to my canister. Is it the same thing with poly-fil ?

 

[Keybler]

I wish my lfs had diftwood like that.