Miracles custom 120 rimless reef to discus

[nah]

Nice! You work at Marineland and bring this stuff home. Right?

[Hart24601]

Haha! Not quite!

[Filip]

Have not really done any work on the tank or cleaned sumps in months - just thined out some moss few weeks ago. Thought would be fun to test nitrates with salifert kit. 2ppm. Pretty good!

Great No3 results with just topping off 10% water daily Hart .
Please share some photos of your great looking planted tank .

[Hart24601]

Sure thing. I will take some when get home and the lights turn on. They look pretty much the same from the last set of pics tho!

[Mando]

I should have turned down the lights a bit, washes out the blues and it looks far more impressive in person. Or maybe just learn to use the camera better...

I was so mad at you for quitting when I got to page 23 that I said the hell with this journal and jumped to last page to find this part of your journey! now I must go back and continue reading from page 23! Your journey has been so fantastic despite the lows being very low (losing some fish,job,etc), but the highs have been very satisfying.

glad you continued with discus. I work as a compliance manager for a chemical distributor and lost a lot of friends during the DuPont merger.

Regards,
Armando

Done reading!!

You took me through a rollercoaster. At first, your post gave me the confidence I needed to continue with my discus since mine gave me a hell of a time for 6 months. Now I've been ok for 5+ months and was confident enough to go out and buy a new batch of 2.5" discus yesterday. However, your middle part of the journal had me second guessing my choice and I was a bit bummed out. Then, low and behold, my motivation is back towards the end of the journal because of your two amazing scapes!!!!! it's heaven on earth.

Can you give us a little more info on your sump/filtration? I didn't see much of it.

Lastly, how did you like your hyacinth and water lettuce? I ordered mine two days ago, but it looks like you got rid of yours.

[Hart24601]

Hahaha! I am glad you enjoyed the read, it really has been a rollercoaster hasn't it? I am happy it's been a smooth rollercoaster the past year or more though!


So the sumps are pretty simple. I have a couple marinepure 8x8x4 blocks in each and that is really about it. I put carbon and purigen in there too, but it's a pretty long time since I removed or checked that media. Purigen seems to last a long time though. Of course the heaters are in there too. The two tanks are still connected by UV via a T from the return pump in the 180 and then a passive 1" between the two the water flows back. I run filter socks sometimes, but not in quite a long time.

I liked the water lettuce and hyacinth ok, they need such intense light and get large enough that the sump under the stand really wasn't ideal, although it worked. The water with the auto change, pothos and aquatic plants seems to drop the water low nutrient enough they just were not worth the fuss. If I had a large system with monster fish I would have a remote sump where I could mount a very powerful light and grow both of those plants, but they just were not needed so why bother? I liked the roots in the tank, but they did trap detritus but more it was issue clogging the overflow in the display. The val now provided plenty of surface cover and I need to trim them again soon.

[Mando]

[

Good insight! wish I had known about the hyacinth and water lettuce. I did not want to take over your thread with my questions so I pm'd you.

So what do you think the cloudy issue is from?

To answer your questions, I really do not know. I only feed pellets three times a day and I do daily water changes. 50% or more at a time. It could be my pumps turn around time. 90g with a 430gph pump at 4ft overhead. My 30g with the sponge filter is ALWAYS crystal clear. I even thought about adding a sponge filter into the sump, or possibly wrapping my pump in a polyester mat. My pond (1600g) has a similar setup to my SUMP, but visualize each compartment of my sump in it's own 55 gallon drum, and it's PRESTINE. I overstock my pond, about 200 fish, and never had any issues. The pond is exposed to full sun and a small 700GPH UV light, and no algae with the exception of the waterfall.

(knock on wood)

[Hart24601]

Is there an option to post pics from a phone? Took some ugly sump pics.



Ah ok. If you hit edit post there is a full site link. Sump isn't pretty!





Edit edit... Error uploading files. Will try tomorrow again.

[Hart24601]

Still no luck dang it!

[Hart24601]

So anyway what color is the cloud? Green? Gray? Brown?

[Mando]

So anyway what color is the cloud? Green? Gray? Brown?

very light gray.

[Hart24601]

Not been by the site in a while, drumroll please

.........

No changes! Everything continues to run smoothly. Added eheim feeder so the tank runs itself for month plus at a time. I did need to replace the masterflex pump tubes, but I have plenty. They lasted a few years so am happy.

[rickztahone]

Not been by the site in a while, drumroll please

.........

No changes! Everything continues to run smoothly. Added eheim feeder so the tank runs itself for month plus at a time. I did need to replace the masterflex pump tubes, but I have plenty. They lasted a few years so am happy.

You know the deal bud, no pictures, didn't happen lol. Glad to hear that everything is going strong.