55 gallon mid-tech community tank journal

[bnbfishin]

I set this tank up around the beginning of this year. Here's my story as it was typed way back when on TPT (The planted Tank forum). You'll see how it changes up to todays final product......

After about a 12ish year vacation from aquariums I am finally getting one set up. I have had many tanks in the past from 10-125 gallons and freshwater community to cichlid tanks to brackish water to community salt to a 90 gallon reef tank. I've had too many species to list but my top two favorites where an archer fish that would "shoot" food off the side of the tank to a 36"+ fire eel that was more like an underwater puppy than a fish!

I picked up a 55 gallon tank, oak stand and canopy from Craigslist. I painted the back and one side black.

Filtration/heating 2 Magnum 350 canister filters, 25 watt UV sterilizer, 300 watt Visitherm submersible heater, 1 powerhead hooked up to some custom piping to prevent any dead spots on the bottom of the tank.

Lighting Will be a dual bulb T5HO 6700K bulb and an actinic bulb. I added the actinic to offset the yellowish color the 6700 was throwing. It balanced it out very nicely! The fixture will be mounted into the canopy making it approx 23" above the substrate.

Substrate Is a special mix sold by aquariumplants.com I will also be ordering my plants and some fish via the net since my LFS's are nothing shy of aweful and don't carry much for variety. The plants wil be from aquariumplants.com and some members on TPT! The fish part is still being looked through.

Plants Consist of Crypt Wendtii red and green, Narrow Leaf Java Ferns, Anubias Nana and Petite, Corkscrew Vals, Aponogetun Ulvaceus and Crypt Parva. I will have some stone and driftwood in there as well. Waiting on pics from DR Drifter tomorrow to see which piece/s will be headed my way.

Fauna Male Betta, Bristlenose pleco, Ottocinclus, Jap Algea Eating Shrimp, Gold Rams, Rasbora Hets, Neon Dwarf Rainbows, Black Veil Angels, Panda Cory Cats, Bleeding Hearts, Cobalt Discus.

I'll be posting pics of the process along the way. Thanks for taking this little aquatic ride with me......

Bill

[bnbfishin]

I picked it and the tank and a bunch of accs from Craigslist for 225 bucks. I know it was a good deal. The tank doesn't even have any scratches
I was really happy to find an actual oak canopy and stand instead of the pine which I really don't care for.

I painted the one side (and the back) because of the room it is going into. There is only one spot in the room for it to go and I painted it to block any potential sun rays from shining through that side of the tank.

[bnbfishin]

1-4-11

Substrate and light bulbs are here. Light fixture is supposed to be delivered today thanks to Brown! I need to see how much the substrate fills in. I'm still waiting on stone to arrive and for pics of driftwood to choose which pieces I'm going with. It's really tough being patient!

[bnbfishin]

1-4-11

I got the light fixture mounted to the underside of the canopy. I took the fixture apart so I could see where it would be safe to put two screws through the reflector and housing without hitting any wires. This is part of the reason that it took me a while to find a fixture is because it had to fit in a particular spot in the canopy so it won't be in the way when I open the canopy to work in the tank. Modified the canopy by cutting out a small piece of the trim for the cord and access to the switch.
I'll be looking on Ebay for some "nightlights". Also looking around for a power strip with multiple timer outlets built in. I found one but am looking around to see what else is available. The one I found has four timer rigged outlets and 4 constant power outlets. The four that run via the timer can be individually set, cool feature.

I only put about half the substrate in the tank. It measures out between 1.8mm - 2.8mm per piece according to the supplier. I am making a flow system that runs beneath the gravel to keep any dead spots from forming on top of the gravel, at least I'm hoping that's what happens. I have a bunch of tubing and elbows n stuff that are sitting here because I need part of the hardscape to arrive before I can really do anything with it. Mearsure twice, cut once. At least that's what I'm going with right now.

Here's a couple of shots from today's fun.....

[bnbfishin]

1-7-11

The rock from DR Drifter showed up today. I really REALLY like it. It is in the tank but so is some water and you can't see into the tank. I have the "dead spot" flow system running right now. Waiting on a part to arrive so I can fill the tank the rest of the way and get that running. Also waiting on a replacement bulb for my UV sterilizer to get here. I am going to pick out some driftwood now from DR drifter and hopefully everything will arrive by the end of next week. In the meantime I bought a betta He's living in a bowl on the counter.

[bnbfishin]

1-10-11

Some shots from last week and today. Put in the plumbing under the gravel with nozzels coming up to keep some flow around the substrate. You can see the ripples on the surface of the water. It's flowing enough to keep stuff from settling but not enough to make the fish fight it. I'm happy with it. I used a reverse flow powerhead that I had originally bought about 15 years ago. I have two but the second one would have been too much flow so it will sit in the bag until needed. I put a sponge prefilter on the powerhead so nothing gets sucked into it. Ordered driftwood from D R Drifter this morning. Hopefully that gets here by the end of the week. The rock in the tank was also purchased from him.

[bnbfishin]

1-13-11

OK I couldn't wait for the weekend. I couldn't even wait for the driftwood let alone for the tank to clear up! We'll see what the layout looks like after the driftwood arrives.
I have 3 different kinds of crypts with the C. Parva in the foreground. Going to see how that does as ground cover as opposed to some of the more favored types of plants. some Crypt Walkerii and also Wendtii (red and green variety) I also have two Apon Ulvaceus. Only ordered 1 but they shipped me 2 also have some corkscrew vals in there.

[bnbfishin]

1-19-11

OK the driftwood arrived last Friday. It's been soaking since then in a washtub. I had it weighed down with some rocks. Both pieces were easily submerged with only 2 rocks as of yesterday so I made other plans. I bought a larger piece of grey slate and using a hammer drill made two holes in it and used stainless steel lag bolts to attach it to the back of the larger piece of wood. I couldn't find the appropriate size slate piece for the smaller piece of wood so I picked up a piece of flag stone and used 50lb clear monofilament fishing line to tie it to the bottom of the wood. It worked out rather nicely and will show some pics of it tomorrow when the tank clears up. I had to move around most of the plants and substrate to get them installed.

I had received two Aponogeton Ulvaceus bulbs 6 days ago. One had no leaves and the other had one leaf spike coming up about half an inch from the surface of the bulb. Look at how big they are now!! I really like this plant. One has about 9 leaves and the other has 5 or 6.

[bnbfishin]

1-20-11

Well I have found that I deffinitely need a better camera to take full photos of the tank. Here they are anyways.......

[bnbfishin]

1-25-11

[bnbfishin]

1-26-11

I'm really liking the way this has turned out. I ended up needing to do some shopping yesterday for some parts so the filtration never got finished. I'll be working on that this morning though.

After a bunch of thinking I need to cut out a section of the stand (backside) to put the hoses from the filter through before I can do anything with the UV sterilizer. So that is going to be my project for Friday. I also have 4 gold rams that should be here next Tuesday.

Got the modification to the stand done along with plumbing the other filter and the uv sterilizer.

[bnbfishin]

2-10-11

It looks like the Aponogetun likes the tank. It now has two flowers that are open and 3 more flower stems heading towards the surface. I added 4 panda cory cats and 4 neon dwarf rainbows to the tank. I also added a bunch of Crypt Parva. The Crypt Wendtii is growing nicely now. More new leaves are coming up. I picked up a couple of Anubias Nana Petite too and placed it between the big rocks. I need about 6 more of those. Pics were taken this morning.

[bnbfishin]

2-13-11

Not much going on in the tank right now. The gold rams aren't doing very well. Two have died and the other two just look crappy but are eating well. We'll see what happens. I'm outta town working the next three weeks so I'm hoping the tank looks different when I come home on the weekends, and not in a bad way!!

[bnbfishin]

2-21-11

Couple of pics from this morning. I need to get up earlier before the sun comes up so I don't get so much glare/reflections in the glass. I rearranged a little. Moved one of the Aponos to the far right corner and shifted that piece of driftwood over as far as I could. Added more Anubias Nana, a Madagascar Lace plant and a sword which I can't recall the name off hand. No more room for plants so I hope I don't find something else I like! I also added a couple of Gudgein gobies.
I also trimmed a few of the leaves and flower stems from the Aponos. They were just getting way to big.

[bnbfishin]

3-6-11

Not much has really changed other than the plants growing in some more. I just picked up 2 ABN 2" long today for 3.99 a piece. I have been running the T5HO for 12 hours a day and have gotten a little algea on the plants but it has been very minimal on the glass and decor. One bulb is a 12,000K and the other is an actinic. The combo really makes it a pleasure to stare at for endless amounts of time.
I have been working out of town the past 3 weeks and will be this week as well. If I am home the latter part of this week or next then I'll order my 6 2" cobalt discus for the tank and have them shipped NDA. So far all the fish are growing and coexisting very nicely.

[bnbfishin]

3-24-11

OK since the last post I have been working out of town some more. I never did turn down the lighting. So now I have more algea on plant leaves. Cutting down the lighting to just 4 hours a day thanks to the timer on the powerstrip I don't have to worry about remembering to do it myself. We'll see how it works on the algea. I have also noticed a lot of new leaves on my Anubias that are more hiddin from the light as opposed to the ones that I "planted" on the driftwood so the driftwood will be stripped and the anubias will find new homes down at gravel level.

[bnbfishin]

7-9-11

I can't believe it's been almost 4 months since my last update!

The brace on the top plastic frame cracked in half so I drained the tank. All the plants went into one bucket over night and the fish went into another one with an air stone. The apponogetuns didn't do well but the crypts and anubias did. So I now have no huge plants in the tank I did shift the driftwood closer to center. Now to wait and see how the plants fill in. I picked up 5 discus today. 3 Blue Diamonds and 2 Blue Snakeskins from Cozykeith. All are from the same parents and locally raised here in WI. They are aclimating great right now. We'll see how they feel in the upcoming days. The current fish in the tank include the discus, 3 med sized dark marble angels, 6 rasbora hets, 5 lemon tetras, 3 panda cory cats, 1 female bristlenose pleco, 1 ottocinclus. I ended up selling off my T5HO dual bulb light and replaced it with a T5NO dual bulb light. I can now leave the lights on for 10 hours and not have any algea issues. Plus the not quite so brite tank looks better in the room.