The New 100g Planted

[Rokuzachi]

It's up and running!

I moved into a new apartment and I basically used it as an excuse to go from a 56g to this 100g by Deep Sea Aquatics. (The tank + stand + glass lids were only $440 brand new!). Everyone survived the move, plants (the ones I wanted to survive anyways) and snails included. There were a few minor injuries from the whole ordeal, but my fish seem to be pretty tough.

Equipment;
1x80w T5HO Catalina fixture
Fluval FX5
Fluval 405

Fish;
3x Hoplosternum littorale
4x Hoplosternum ? (probably more Littorale)
2x ctenopoma acutirostre
1x Fancy goldfish
1x Black moor
2x Bristlenoses

Fish notes; I know, Fancies with this stuff, what am I thinking right? The fancies aren't actually my fish, but they've been living with mine for a while now after breaking their tank down and they are doing pretty well. The only other things I'm looking to add for livestock are a few more other types of catfish and possibly some colorful gouramis since most of my fish are pretty drab.

Plants;
Crypt. wendtii
Crypt. petchii
Wendilov fern
Red melon sword
Banana plants
Rotala indica

I've got a few more plants coming in this friday. A java fern and bolbitis heudelotii for the driftwood. Some dwarf sag to fill in the far left. Red tiger lotus to add color amidst all the green on the driftwood end. A little bit of compact hygro to fill in the odd spot and some Rotala nanjenshan for no particular reason/purpose.

The plan is to plant heavily on the right with the ferns and other big bushy plants and taper it down to the left side and have an "open water" area with low lying plants and thinner coverage (the crypts, hygro, dwarf sag).

My ferts won't be very involved, just Excel, and the 'Complete' package of stuff from RootMedic.

I've misplaced my good camera in the move, so phone pics will have to suffice for today Also can't find my plastic saw to trim the intake tube of the filter (that's why it's crooked for the 405). The water is very clear but I need to clean the glass too. Speaking of... my god, it was nice not to have to wash the Eco-Complete at all, after having done my 56g with black fluorite sand, which was a nightmare. The convenience was totally worth it. ^_^

Does the substrate seem a bit too deep in some areas? I measured it after I put 8 bags of eco in plus some leftover fluorite mix from my old tank and it's anywhere from 2.5" to 3.5" in the front and the big hump in the back center is ~5.5. I'm thinking it may give me problems with algae since the distance from the plant to the light won't be all that far. When I was setting this up originally I was planning on low to low-medium light based off the PAR/distance data you can find around these days. If that ends up being the case I might take 1-1.5 inches off the top everywhere. Will update with more pics as things become less barren and more interesting.

 

[AaronW]

Whoa is that a Pleco in there? That thing Is beastly haha

 

[CorallineAlgae]

I don't think the substrate is to deep. You're going to eventually have a lot of large plants in there and they'll do well with all the root space. It may seem that it lifts the plants high into the light but once your background plants fill in the shading will lower the amount of light at the substrate.

 

[Rokuzachi]

@Aaron; the bottom pic? That's my largest (and only male) Hoplo cat I think he's about 2 years old now, very slow grower.

@coralline; That's a good point. I should have realized that, since my tall 56g initially had huge problems with my tall plants strangling everything out of existence at the bottom of the tank with their shade. Any recommendations for large (preferably wide, not so much tall) background substrate rooters? I've got ~13-16" of height to work with in the back before plants would break the surface.

Edit: Made a short (phone quality ) video.

100g Planted Aquarium - YouTube

 

[mohican]

Love the hardscape! I think your gravel depth is perfect too. I have some amazon swords, small right now (<4") if you want any. Let me know. The tank looks good so far!!

 

[Rivercats]

Amazon swords will get big, I have 2 in my 220g and constantly cut off leaves to keep them from totally shading everything else out. You could still add a few tall growing stem plants in the back of the tank so they don't block out light in the front. Or go with something like corkscrew val. It does not grow near as tall as other vals and is easy to cut and pull rummers if you don't want it to spread. It also grows slow and will give a good verticle focal point in your tank. Water sprite is good too. Leaves are thinner than wisteria and its so easy to trim to keep it the size you want. I had some in a corner and it works well there. Here's a pic of my 220 that still has the back stem plants growing in after rescaping... note the tall plants aren't blocking out light as you move forward in the tank (and I keep my light fixture pushed towards the back of the tank). You can do alot with plants in that 100g.

 

[Rokuzachi]

Thanks Mohican!

That is a stunning tank River. Really nice mix of colors in there. I've never had Vals before but I'd like to try them. I'll see if I can locate some this weekend when I go to all the LFS' in search of my elusive prized fish.

My last tank was a bit of a bad experience with stem plants. My light 'upgraded' fixture was very poor in the reflector department and the substrate was getting very poor light. I ended up with a bunch of tall, spindly rotala, wisteria and watersprite that was nice and bushy towards the top (and had really nice color, but the lower stems looked just awful). I think this time I've got the right amount of light and tank depth to grow something on the bottom. Hopefully I won't need to do CO2.

 

[Fishfreak1]

Quick question which exact aquarium did you get? I'm thinking of a new 100gallon aquarium but at first that big of a tank cost about $800 usually and if I did a DIY tank it would cost me $500 but that's just tank. And since your tank cost $440 for tank and stand then I think I'll buy from them but which exact kit or tank is it on their website?

 

[Rokuzachi]

Quick question which exact aquarium did you get? I'm thinking of a new 100gallon aquarium but at first that big of a tank cost about $800 usually and if I did a DIY tank it would cost me $500 but that's just tank. And since your tank cost $440 for tank and stand then I think I'll buy from them but which exact kit or tank is it on their website?

This is the one from Deep Sea Aquatics.

OceanView 100g Combo

I had a LFS locally in Austin, TX order the combo for me. As I understand it, these are some of the folks that used to work for Oceanic aquariums. The quality of their tank and stand so far seems very high, especially for the price.

Amusingly enough it was even cheaper than the Aqeuon 90g tank + stand with no glass lids that was also in the store and on sale

 

[Rivercats]

Thanks Mohican!

That is a stunning tank River. Really nice mix of colors in there. I've never had Vals before but I'd like to try them. I'll see if I can locate some this weekend when I go to all the LFS' in search of my elusive prized fish.

My last tank was a bit of a bad experience with stem plants. My light 'upgraded' fixture was very poor in the reflector department and the substrate was getting very poor light. I ended up with a bunch of tall, spindly rotala, wisteria and watersprite that was nice and bushy towards the top (and had really nice color, but the lower stems looked just awful). I think this time I've got the right amount of light and tank depth to grow something on the bottom. Hopefully I won't need to do CO2.

A couple things I learned is with the stem plants leave enough room between each planted stem so they can open up fully with just almost being able to touch the stem next to it. For small stem plants I leave about a fingers length between each stem (including the corkscrew val) and for large leaved stems, which is alot of what I have I leave sometimes up to an inch all the way around the plant between stems. This will help light get to the lower leaves and water movement can get in them better bringing ferts to them.

Look for corkscrew val tho. Regular jungle val grows like a weed and individual stems can get 2-3 feet long shading your entire tank. If you look at the height of my corkscrew val in the picture that is as tall as it's grown in 8 months. Its slow to establish and slow to grow. Another thing is if you use Excel/API CO2 booster/ glutaraldehyde it melts most other val species. I use a high dose of glut and as you see mine do fine. I don't have CO2 on any of my tanks.

A cheap way to dose liquid carbon is to buy this... Glutaraldehyde Cold Sterilization Solution 14 day 1 Gallon: Amazon.com: Industrial & Scientific. You throw away the small activator bottle that comes with it, you never use it. Its 2.6x times stronger than Excel so I mix the 1 gallon of Glut to 1-1/2 gallon of RO water and end up with 2-1/2 gallons of Glutraaldehyde which is a pretty good deal for about 28 bucks including shipping.

 

[Rivercats]

forgot to add some info

Forgot to add if you go with higher light and liquid carbon with alot of plants you should also look into dosing dry ferts. I dose PPS-Pro and it works great for me, plus you can adjust dosing to your tank.

Also once your stem plants hit about 3/4 of the way to the surface, trim them back by half. This will encourage branching which is why so many of the stem plants in my pic's are so short. Once they have achieved enough branching then I let them grow to the height I want them.

 

[mohican]

Awesome tank Rivercats!! I wanna try corkscrew val again. Didn't know each stem had to be spaced; different than 4-5 bunched as a group.

 

[Rivercats]

Awesome tank Rivercats!! I wanna try corkscrew val again. Didn't know each stem had to be spaced; different than 4-5 bunched as a group.

Yeah since they are in the back of my tank behind that big DW I had to have my one adult daughter who is quite tall plant them and man you should have heard her. I kept gettting "and tell me again why I can't stick a bunch of them in one hole"...lol! You can't tell in the picture but by giving them that little bit of space the stand looks fuller yet fish can actually swim in them and water flow can move through them. It's really worth the extra time planting them that way.

 

[Rokuzachi]

River, may I ask what your maintenance schedule is like for that lovely tank? I'm hoping to have a pretty light one when I'm done planting this new tank. One of my favorite tanks ever in the past was a simple 10g with tons of plants and a couple of small fish. It was practically set it and forget it save for topping it off. Of course I expect more work than that with this new tank, thanks to those messy goldfish. I may end up with a lot more fast growing stem plants than I had originally planned, but with this much more shallow tank I think I'll be able to enjoy stems more than last time.

 

[Rivercats]

River, may I ask what your maintenance schedule is like for that lovely tank? I'm hoping to have a pretty light one when I'm done planting this new tank. One of my favorite tanks ever in the past was a simple 10g with tons of plants and a couple of small fish. It was practically set it and forget it save for topping it off. Of course I expect more work than that with this new tank, thanks to those messy goldfish. I may end up with a lot more fast growing stem plants than I had originally planned, but with this much more shallow tank I think I'll be able to enjoy stems more than last time.

Let's do a tank run down so you have an idea of what equipment I'm running.

Lights: 3x150w 6000K metal halides with 4x39w 6700K T5HO's Coralife
fixture with LED blue lights and timer.
Running time: T5HO's 12hours (9am-9pm)
Halides 6 hour light burst (2pm-8pm)
Filters: Fluval FX5 and Fluval 406 with 15w Advantage 2000 UV

All I do literally is a 50% WC weekly, add my daily ferts and liquid carbon, keep it topped up, and trim plants as needed. I clean my FX5 every 6 weeks as it has Purgen and mechanical media in it and only open and check the 406 every 3-4 months as it is all sponges and bio-media and has a huge Mayalasian Trumpet snail population in it keeping the sponges clean. Trust me it's nothing elaborate that I do. I check my nitrates, phosphates, GH/KH/PH weekly just to see if I need to adjust my ferts and to watch the PH since my organic dirt is loaded with Peat which as you know keeps the water soft with a lower PH.

 

[Rivercats]

I should have added it's simple once the tank is balanced between lights/ferts/liquid carbon. Until then I kept having to piddle with getting the right dosage for the amount of light so I didn't get algae. But you have to expect it to be work in the beginning. Now other than the 3 hours it takes to drain and fill the tank for its weekly 50% WC with a Aqueon Water changer I really don't spend much time messing with it. WC's are more of a waiting game than me actually having to do anything. Oh, and I have to use the glass magnet maybe once evert couple of weeks, not to get algae off but that bio-film that clings on the glass.

 

[Rokuzachi]

Thanks for the great info River. I brought my FX5 and 405 over from my last tank and I pretty much ran them the same way in regards to maintenance. I take it your experience with purigen has been pretty positive? I've read a lot of good things about it and have been considering consolidating some of the bio media in my filters and clearing up a tray for it.

The plants are already starting to look better than they did in their old tank after ~5 days. I uncovered a few baby wendtii when I was scooping out the substrate that were nothing but 2 tiny leaves coming off of a runner. I separated and planted them in the eco and they're coming right along. I really need to find my good camera, the phone pictures just aren't clear enough!

 

[Rivercats]

Thanks for the great info River. I brought my FX5 and 405 over from my last tank and I pretty much ran them the same way in regards to maintenance. I take it your experience with purigen has been pretty positive? I've read a lot of good things about it and have been considering consolidating some of the bio media in my filters and clearing up a tray for it.

The plants are already starting to look better than they did in their old tank after ~5 days. I uncovered a few baby wendtii when I was scooping out the substrate that were nothing but 2 tiny leaves coming off of a runner. I separated and planted them in the eco and they're coming right along. I really need to find my good camera, the phone pictures just aren't clear enough!

I love Purgen and have never had any issues with it. Plus unless it's all turned dark brown/black I just rinse it and put it back in the canister. I do buy it in the big bottle and just put however much of it I want to use in a woman knee high nylon, tie off the top, and pop it in. Plus you can regenerate it but honestly I've always been leary and just replace it around every 6 months.

You need to find your good camera and I need to learn to take good pic's with mine... lol!

 

[Rokuzachi]

I didn't remember to get Purigen (doh!) this weekend, but I did find some healthy corkscrew vals. I also picked up some watersprite to provide a temporary forest for my shy fish to hide in while things grow out. The rest of my plants will arrive by mail this coming Friday, but the tank is already looking quite a bit less bare.

The search for my prize fish (neosilurus ater) continues, with no one at the shop I visited having heard of it or seen it at any point in their career. They also told me that my chances of finding one are very small since they're an Austrailian native fish. Why do I pick hard to find fish to love?

I found my good camera but I can't really say it's better than my phone cam!

 

[Rivercats]

I didn't remember to get Purigen (doh!) this weekend, but I did find some healthy corkscrew vals. I also picked up some watersprite to provide a temporary forest for my shy fish to hide in while things grow out. The rest of my plants will arrive by mail this coming Friday, but the tank is already looking quite a bit less bare.

The search for my prize fish (neosilurus ater) continues, with no one at the shop I visited having heard of it or seen it at any point in their career. They also told me that my chances of finding one are very small since they're an Austrailian native fish. Why do I pick hard to find fish to love?

I found my good camera but I can't really say it's better than my phone cam!

Yeah well I have a good camera but have to figure out how to get pic's of the tank since it is on the only non glass wall. I'm going to try getting some at night and see if that works better. Plus I'm finding when I'm trying to take pic's with the metal halides on the cause alot of glare on the plants. So don't feel bad if you pic's aren't perfect either, join the club!