Autumnsky's 72G Bowfront

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Autumnsky

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Apr 4, 2012
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Location
Northern Colorado, USA
This tank was a dream for me about 4 years ago. And the dream was only for a 46G. But when a deal hits you grab it and run.

There will be a back story and a part to catch up to the present and it will be a journey from now 2016 forward. The next post will be the equipment and stock, etc.

After setting it up and really loving the tank I was awarded TOTM and was very proud. Just LOVED my tank.

Here is the link for some pics.
March 2014 TOTM Award : Autumsky's 72g Bowfront - Aquarium Advice

Right after that I had done a large pwc and used a new dechorinator product which had done some pretests on with small pwc The product apparently works fabulously for harder water as it binds kH/minerals to do its work (maybe getting this slightly mixed) but anyhow since I basically have 0 KH, it caused a huge pH crash (3 larger tanks and mostly a wipe out). The imbalance caused most of my beloved creatures to die and most of the plants and it looked like Mars with a few rocks and some DW.

Hated it, never looked at the tank - it was heart wrenching. After months maybe 8 months it took to get the tank stable and almost a year to get things back to feeling better.

There were lessons learned on making sure to keep the pH up a little and hopefully not ever experience anything like that again. I now have mineral additives to make sure to keep it on the chart.

I have been consistently learning on a regular basis - all aspects of keeping aquatic inhabitants FW & SW.

Lots of sad times: learning curve, misunderstanding and errors and many happy ones too.

Here is a link to lots of pics from the time I have kept the tank
http://www.aquariumadvice.com/forums/members/60074-albums11380.html

The short version is this

New tank May 2013
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After the tank crash
July 2014 Thank goodness Angels like low pH
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TOTM shot
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The ugly lack of priority and maintenance result of a very tough 2015
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New refreshed Scape

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Ah... I feel like I love the tank again.

Tank
72G Oceanic Bowfront and stand stock black background
Fluval FX-5 Filter

2 Heaters one Fluval and one other

Glass tops and
Stock hood light one 65W plant grow blb maybe Aqua Sun
Current USA 48-60" Satellite Freshwater LED Plus
Ultra bright 6500K white LEDs and full spectrum RGB LEDs

Substrate is all Eco Complete probably 4 bags plus part of one and maybe need one more but thinking of a sandy area in the front for happy Cories.


I use Prime water treatment always.
 
Hardscape
3 Large pieces of DW as seen in post 1
Misc. pieces and colors of Petrified Wood Stone


Plants
Anubias Nana Petite Mini
Anubias Nana Petite
Anubias Nana
Anubias Hastafolia
Anubias Barteri
Abubias Nana Pinto

Crypt Wendtii Green
Crypt Wendtii Red
Crypt Wendtii Bronze

Limnophila aromatica
Lobelia cardinalis
Ludwigia Sp. Red

Pogestomon Erectus
Pogostemon Stellatus octopus

Rotala Macaranda
Rotala Colorata

Eel /Tape Grass aka Vallisneria americana (gigantea)
Dwarf Vallisneria


Livestock

Boesemani Rainbow
Will have Turquoise Rainbows soon
Neon Tetra
Green Tetra
Cardinal Tetra
Glowlight Tetra
Emperor Tetra
adding a few more of the above to round out the groups

Angelfish Will have 3 males
Double Dark Black
Golden

Cories
3 Bronze 1 Green
12 Melini
6 Peppered

1 Spotted Raphael Catfish She eats my Cardinals and Neons need to move to my other tank
4 Siamese Algae Eaters 2 will move to other tank
Trio of Albino Bristlenose Plecos
Opaline Gourami need to rehome

Red and Bronze Ramshorn snails
MTS
 
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Tank looks great Autumn, you've came a long way with it, I remember the hard time you had with it.
You've got there in the end ☺
Lesley

55 gallon elephant nose tank.
30 gallon shrimp and snail tank
 
Thank you. Yes it has been a long time coming now. Finally pretty happy.

There are a few little changes still needed.

My favorite parts right now are how much swimming room has been added into the center; as well as the 3 groups of Cories.

They hang out in their own groups - really don't mix unless they are all heading for the opposite side of the tank after a fish scares them. Funny how they can tell.

The lone Peppered that had been adopted and lived in the 72G since summer still doesn't hang together as much as the group of Peppereds that grew up together.

Previously took in a lone little Green Cory and he started hanging out together right away, though went off on his own, after a liitle while other than the size, you can't tell who was who!!!

The little Melinis seem to group in 4-6 usually and scurry all around.

As of now every thing seems good in there.

Decided for sure to rehome the Opaline Gourami, the Big Angel isn't really an angel with him. Rather mean and chomps at him and the other fish. Gourami would prefer a more peaceful environment I think.

Leaving the lighting on the higher setting for now. I plan to see if I can get it to work with a timer, but I dont think it works that way so may want to invest in a 24/7 or other plight which can have a timer.

One of the things I want is to set up this tank on pretty much all automatic. Water changes and fill, fert dosing and light.

My Betta died after a brief illness so that is one less tank. If I can do a nano fish tank in the 46G and the larger tank Rainbows, I would love for them to be all auto.
 
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I remember the TOTM shot most of all. I love seeing tanks evolve.
Diversification in plants lets you see what works best in your setup. Oddly, I am going in the opposite direction and you ended up being the benefactor...win-win.
I predict the pogo octopus will grow rampantly out of control and you will be cursing my name with a machete in hand as you bring order to the jungle. Okay, a bit much but you know what I mean.
Good job!


Sent from my iPhone using Aquarium Advice
 
I remember the TOTM shot most of all. I love seeing tanks evolve.
Diversification in plants lets you see what works best in your setup. Oddly, I am going in the opposite direction and you ended up being the benefactor...win-win.
I predict the pogo octopus will grow rampantly out of control and you will be cursing my name with a machete in hand as you bring order to the jungle. Okay, a bit much but you know what I mean.
Good job!
Sent from my iPhone using Aquarium Advice

Well all I can say is thank you for sharing the extra plants, and I can only hope the Pogo O will produce well and I can share a ton of plants around the Aquarium Society. A machete, lol that would be something.

I hope to get a nice long scissor and tongs or whatever you call the thing to pinch and push plants into the substrate...all along I have just called it my arm!!! hahaha...

Wow... 70 gallons... mine's 70 liters haha
Awesome tank!

Yeah that's ~ 271 liters and your 70 liters would be ~ 18.5G. My favorite tanks are small 5-15G - I kinda favor dwarf shrimp and nano fish. But my next favorite would be a 150G because I would like to have an awesome display tank with Discus some day.

Thank you for the kind remarks.

*************

The Peppered Cories have been playing in the outflow all day. It has been great fun to watch them.

My couch curves around the place in front of where the lower part of the tank is and the couch is taller so it blocks lower 6" of the tank [from where sit and can't see the other Cories/bottom dwellers.]

Have been secretly shopping (for one that is a really good deal) with a chaise on that side so it doesn't block it at all!!! :angel:
 
Yes, we must select our furniture to work with our tanks and not the other way around.


Sent from my iPhone using Aquarium Advice
 
Have been too busy that's for sure. Have a couple fun pics of my HUGE Spotted Raphael Cat (compared to any other fish in my tank, lol).

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Cute lil face!
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Thank you, speaking of TOTM!!!

~~~
I was supposed to rehome the SRC (eats almost all the Neons, Cardinals & Glowlight Tetras)- but I just like her so much I might not ever get around to it.
 
awesome looking tank

Thank you, I am enjoying it again. (y)

Still missing the once large school of Neon Tetra types I had. They really liven up the space and look amazing against the black background.


Cories are doing great! There are 11 or 12 little Melini Cories (still hide the most in the back), 6 Peppered Cories and the 4 Green/Bronze ones still. They are crazy when the food comes out!
 
Yes they were beautiful. Over the course of time, illness and mean tank mates I lost them though.

They were from a lfs and they never got any more like them in again. One of the companies selling Angels online has some spendy beauties.

They were labeled at the lfs as mixed Angels. The best thing about them was that their color was clear and didn't have dirty black speckles. Which I see on most lines of bright orange reddish Koi Angels.
 
Any time I get them I always lose some. Buy 6-12, lose 2-4.

One thing about them is the long trip from catchers where they live (who may use poison methods) from middleman to middleman to maybe even another middleman, to the company wholesaler to retailer to us - long trip, more long trips and more long trips, etc. Surprising that we end up with any!

Try some tank raised ones. I try to only buy tank raised now.
 
Okay long time and many changes since the last post with this tank. I post the daily happenings on "what did you do with your tank..." thread here
http://www.aquariumadvice.com/forums/f23/what-did-you-do-with-your-tank-today-195155.html

I will give a quick overview of the ~ past 6 months.

Everyone loves this tank around home and it was decided it should get moved to a more centrally visable location a few months ago (now located in a space kinda behind the sectional sofa). I made room but that hasn't quite happened yet. Soon.

So the Angel Fish paired up and caused all kinds of turmoil. Rehomed the queen fish, and then the other immediately paired up with one of the 3 young Double Dark Blacks I got as babies in December. So I rehomed 2 of the DD.

Then I had 2 males. Found some kinda nice Koi Angel babies - 3 of them, couldn't pass them up.

As the young Koi Angels grew up half way the grown 2 males started fighting with all the fish so I am believeing I have at least one female in the Koi Angels.

Moved the 2 males to the 46G tank, lost one to an illness, moved the other DD male back to the 72G to use the 46G as a QT and hoping that the DD would be better behaved with out the instigator Angel.

Nope. He's rude and chases all the fish, but doesn't seem to hurt them, so leaving him in there for while.

Here's one of the Koi Angels and my new school of Neon Tetras.
60074-albums11380-picture70547.jpg


Around July I got Odessa Barbs (3 males) and some longfin Green Dragon Plecos, 2 Albino and one deep green (the breeder selected for me for quality specimen) and one which is more ebony with a hint of green with a tan trim on his tail, the one I picked cause it was so attractive.

bad pic of Odessa Barbs and one of the Koi Angel babies.
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More Pics
of Albino Longfin Dragon Pleco
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My selected LF Dragon Pleco
60074-albums11380-picture70545.jpg


Peppered Cory and albino BN Pleco
60074-albums11380-picture69733.jpg


Bought approx 60 Neon tetras from $1.00 sales (3 purchases w/QT) and had pretty good luck until this last batch of 22 - in QT only have 6 or 7 left.

Here are some more of the Neons next to the xxL moss ball. Unfortunately around 20 were eaten by the giant Spotted Raphael Catfish. So there are only around 30 left in the shoal.

Decided that it would be an enjoyable tank to have 60-75 Neons so they could really school. And look beautiful.

Frustrated that they got eaten before I could move the Spotted Raphael Cat over to the 46G as it is being used as a QT. And ended up with a illness problem so I couldn't move her on the time schedule I had planned.

I will update the stocking list too as things have turned over a bit. That is a basic catch up.

Oh yes and I got a bunch of new plants that mostly perished over the past 6 months, probably from too little light.

Fun with fish!
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