The 120 gallon jungle (56K warning)

[Joander123]

So i've been lurking around SD for a while now these past few months... asking a few questions here and there, looking at sponsors fish, and looking at members tanks...

But in the mean time i've also been planning/ working on my own 120 gallon planted show tank... there's some earlier stage pictures if you guys are really interested.. but not a whole lot to see in those..

Here's the tank as of now, with 5 Mata Limpa Semi Royal discus arriving tomorrow morning..!

full tank shot
http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f146/joander123/DSC_1234.jpg

from the right panel
http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f146/joander123/DSC_1222.jpg

right half
http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f146/joander123/DSC_1218.jpg

left half
http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f146/joander123/DSC_1219.jpg

top of water
http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f146/joander123/DSC_1229.jpg

cardinal close-up
http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f146/joander123/DSC_1264.jpg

overview of room the tank resides in...
http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f146/joander123/DSC_1278.jpg



More pictures to come upon discus arrival tomorrow...! Stay tuned!

And like always, any comments or criticisms are more than welcome!

[Joander123]

ewww i'll have to get a better room overview... slow shutter speed is evident in that one..

[William Palumbo]

I like it!...looks wild, but still manicured to a degree. Great choice of fish. Wilds will look great in there, and with the ones you're getting, they'll get all the attention. You may want to cut the lights down at first for them. Enjoy...Bill

[Hnguyend83]

looks nice.

[stephcps]

Very nice!!

[DLock3d]

This is exactly why I didn't post my pictures in the planted tank area. LOL Your tank looks AWESOME and I haven't quite aqua scaped enough to feel like my tank is truly "planted".

[DLock3d]

Oh man! I just noticed, are those snails? HOLY SNAILS BATMAN!

[Joander123]

Oh man! I just noticed, are those snails? HOLY SNAILS BATMAN!

unfortunately they are... i'm looking for a remedy.. but i don't really want to add a loach at this point...i've read assassin snails look good, but they also like water that's moderately hard and slightly alkaline.. and my tank is neither one... but i might give them a shot anyways..

[DLock3d]

I've got few in my tank as well. I've thought about loaches too but maybe I'll try an assassin like you.

[roundfishross]

when I ran a planted tank it got the "snail explosion" then I picked up a diy co2 setup. when you drop the ph below 6.8 or so the snails cant grow thier shells and the problem will dissapate. at least it did in my tank anyway.

[Joander123]

Discus arrived this morning from hans, in great shape.. just typical shipping/stressed out look, im sure within a few days they'll look fantastic.. tonight they're a bit skiddish and tend to hide in the wood a lot..

Sorry no pictures tonight as I don't think its fair to hans to post pictures of discus that are still clearly stressed, i'll post a whole bunch once they settle in.

One thing I thought was a bit funny however was how as soon as they entered the tank the cardnials behavior immediately changed... from swimming all over the tank all spread out all over the place, to swimming in a very tight knit school as far as possible from the discus... gotta love it :).

[phorty]

post up those pictures!!

[jball1125]

Great looking tank. Cant wait to see the new pics.

[Joander123]

Hey guys, one of the discus isn't doing so hot hence the delay in pictures, but ill post some more tonight anyways

[Cb350z]

looks great. love the cardinals

[Second Hand Pat]

Great looking tank. Hope your one guy is ok.

[Gohans_Onna]

Pictures! I can't wait to see your discus :)

[TrinhLe04]

nicely done.....

[TURQ64]

Ahh, a lot of red and blue dinner for the Mata Limpa's!.....

[maxpain]

i started with yoyo loaches first and they were not effective at all. they out eat all the other fish, pooped a lot and annoyed my discus. i like the assassin snails. i started with 5 assassin snails and they wiped out the infestation of trumpet snails in my tank within a month. a little slow but c'mon, they're snails. btw, my water is soft. now i have an infestation of assassin snails, lol. but that's ok, at least i can sell them or give them to friends.

[Yowi]

Nice planted tank... :)

[Joander123]

Hey guys- Sorry for the lack of updates! I had the two discus QT'd for about 2 weeks, at higher temperatures (around 88-89) and they seemed to look much better, I didn't treat with anything because other than not eating well, they weren't showing any symptoms. They went back into the display yesterday, so fingers crossed that they'll do ok.

I've changed the water change schedule on the display, now doing about 33% daily, and everyone seems to be benefitting from it (obviously)...

Any thoughts on what can entice these two picky guys to eat? They must be eating something as i've had them for over a month now, and they look fine... i'm no discus expert, but i presume if they weren't eating they'd be in serious jeopardy if not dead already after a month? They look great though...

I feed primarily freeze dried black worms from Al, But have also tried frozen BW, Brine Shrimp, Mysis, pellets, etc. Maybe I should try to feed live?

And as far as the cardinals and Discus goes, no problems thus far, I was halfway expecting there to be issues, but nothing so far, still a school of 50+ cardinals hanging around, it's awesome to watch them school away in fear of the bigger discus ;)

Pictures to come soon (sorry) as soon as I feel I'm happy with the Discus health and tank health :)

[Joander123]

when I ran a planted tank it got the "snail explosion" then I picked up a diy co2 setup. when you drop the ph below 6.8 or so the snails cant grow thier shells and the problem will dissapate. at least it did in my tank anyway.

This seems to have happened to an extent, There's still snails kicking around, but much less noticeable than it was at one point, my PH is right around 6.6, and my hardness is about 80PPM, I'm thinking they might not be able to grab enough carbonate out of the water to really keep the population flourishing... that and I pull them out quite often..

[Joander123]

Hey everyone, been a while... but updating now. I'll show you guys a picture of the tank with the wilds in it... I've also got 3 Blue Scorpions coming in from kenny this week!

http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f146/joander123/DSC_1589.jpg

Will update on the blue scorpions once they get here!

[rbarn]

Looks awesome.

Couple of landscaping tips.

1. move the 2 low clumping plants in the center. Push them together and plant in front of the big sword to hide its root structure.
Leave that center area open.

2. take the short grass on the right and plant them all together tightly around the small driftwood.

3. Remove the tall stringy (val. ?) in the back completely.

This will give your tank much better symmetry

[Altum Nut]

I would say it looks great just the way it is.

...Ralph

[ialtalal]

this tank is super awesome

[Poco]

Very nice. Great job.

[shoveltrash]

beautiful tank!!! and with more Discus coming :D. I have 2 Blue Scorpions I got from Kenny back in January, they are awesome. one is a deep metallic lavendar color. keep us updated!

[Joander123]

thanks for the compliments everyone.. that picture is actually from a few months back... The tank is in the middle of a complete overhaul right now, I actually am pulling all of the plants and re-doing the aquascape after the new discus arrive. I'll be sure to update with more pictures along the way!

[Elliots]

I am probably going to do something very similar to what you did and apparently in the same order. I have three questions for you, how big are your Discus? Do your Cardinals still school tight? Have you lost any Cardinals since your Discus arrived? I really want to know because if I buy similar size Discus I may want to grow my Cardinals larger before I get Discus. My 150g arrives Sunday.

[Joander123]

I am probably going to do something very similar to what you did and apparently in the same order. I have three questions for you, how big are your Discus? Do your Cardinals still school tight? Have you lost any Cardinals since your Discus arrived? I really want to know because if I buy similar size Discus I may want to grow my Cardinals larger before I get Discus. My 150g arrives Sunday.


All of my discus are over 5" in size, most around 6" with one closer to 7". The cardinals do school fairly tight, there was a time when there were only two discus in the tank and they did not school as tight, but I've found that with the more discus around, the tighter they will school. I started with between 50-60 cardinal tetras, they grew very quickly and are all now full sized... it's possible that I may have lost a few along the way, but I haven't noticed it... they are hard to count :P. The only way I could have lost one is a discus ate one... but I think if the discus were eating them I would have lost a significant amount by now, and I certainly have not...

Hope that helps! good luck with your setup.

[Elliots]

Thanks!
Elliot S.

[BigWave]

That looks very nice. I am anxious to see the new discus!

[ktm4us6]

very nice.:D

[krislewis3]

I notice that you don't use a background. I've been trying to decide on one myself, however, I kinda like it with no background. My question is....are you planning to use one, or do you also like the look without one???

[rbarn]

How do you keep your cardinals out of the overflow box ? Mine last about 2 days before the end up in the sump.