My 1/4 planted big tank

[mikesmac]

Hello all,

I have been working on this a while but thought I'd finally post some pictures here of my big tank. I always wanted to have a planted discus tank and had enough room in this tank to do part of it without (I believe) negatively impacting my water quality. I built a wall on the bottom that takes up 1/4 of the tanks' footprint, put in spacers with eggcrate over them and an undergravel filter grate...covered with about 4 inches of gravel to hold the plants. I also drilled 2 holes to fit 1 inch bulkheads spaced evenly under the planted area and plumbed them into a 1.5" drain / fill pipe. I flip the valves one way..... the water gets sucked out from under the undergravel filter and into my sump pump.....no buildup there.... flip the valves the other way and my 2400 gallon / hour magdrive pumps my aged water into the tank under..and through the undergravel filter / gravel... cleaning any remaining crap out of the gravel which then either falls to the bare bottom areas to be vacuumed up or is filtered out by the prefilter in the overflow. I've had the plants in there for about 6 months now and they seem to be living fine.... even had a couple of flowers on them recently. I should have taken pictures when I was setting it up....didn't think of it then. Here are some pictures I just took though....it's still a work in progress.

Mike

[mikesmac]

Just a few more pictures....

[jczz1232]

Like how you placed all your plants, even tho almost all you plants are plastic. Put some more real plants in your tank. :)

John

[rick.c]

looks like the fish like the real plants to they seem to be congragating in the area of the plants nice set up, i like the drift wood looks nice!!
rick

[fishmama]

Nice photos...so clean too! And I love the plecos, is that green one an L200?

[mikesmac]

Hi John, Rick and Fishmama,

Thanks for the comments...

John,

There are actually quite a few live plants in the area with substrate, but yes most of the plants in the tank are plastic...there is lots of area to cover and the plastic ones with the ceramic weighted bases work the best in the bare bottom areas. Besides that I had the plants quarantined for about 6 weeks and hit them with every bug killer I had before I put them in the big tank.... all that survived made it in and boy was it a lot of fun trying to get them buried in the gravel enough to hold them in place. I had to drain the water about halfway so my head wouldn't be under when hanging in trying to reach the bottom......It will probably be a while before I think about getting more live plants :)

Rick,

The area with the substrate is more densely covered so they do tend to favor that area, unless they are being fed or laying eggs.... a number of them pair off in this tank and seem to favor the more wide open areas for laying their eggs...it must seem more defensible for them if they aren't cramped....maybe easier to keep others away if there is less for them to hide behind when being chased away. And the pieces of driftwood are popular areas, especially the large formation that I put together on the right side of the tank.

Fishmama,

The green pleco is a Green Phantom...I'm not sure what the number is. I really like this one also, It surprised me how green it actually got. Sometimes if it gets on one of my green plants it blends right in and is very hard to see... it's like an algae color. This one is probably one of the most active ones I have and loves zucchini...it's always the 1st on on it as soon as I put it in the tank and usually continues eating until its gone... rind and all.

Mike

[BSW]

Looks good ! Nice and clean, I really like the BB/Planted idea.
As far as the plants you could try Anubias, they don't need a substrate, tie them right on to the driftwood, and they are able to withstand a 20 to 1 Bleach dip very well, for sterilization when you receive them. A minute or so in the solution, rinsed well in Prime water, and your good to go, no worries.
I like the little spotted Plecos, are they Royals ?
B

[Polar_Bear]

Your fish look healthy and happy, which to me is by far the most important part. Nice job!

[mikesmac]

Hi B and Polar_Bear,

Thanks for the nice comments.

B,

I'll have to check on that plant.... if I can bleach them and they'll survive that would save a lot of time...& medications :). I couldn't believe how hard it was to kill all of the snails that came in on the plants...and figured if the snails were still alive, chances are some parasites could be also..... The no substrate has me confused though....it just gets nutrients from the water? With the regular water changes I do it doesn't seem they'd get enough from just the water to survive. With the ones I have in the gravel I wasn't even sure about those with the way I have it set up to keep the gravel flushed out but I figured the roots would probably keep some of the detritus trapped & available for food for them.

The spotted plecos you can see in the picture are a Gold Nugget and a Snowball....no Royals in the tank. I've had Royals before and aside from being very smart, and aggressive eaters....they learned real quick to suck the bloodworms out of the hanging feeders..... I also caught them sucking on the discus, so they made it to the LFS pretty quick after that. I came to find that Royals can also get very large (I've since seen a couple about 18+ inches) and I try to stick with ones that hopefully won't get over 7 or so inches...actually I'd prefer if they were all dwarfs and stayed under 4 or 5 inches but that would rule out a lot of really nice ones.

Mike