# Puzzleknot - 100 Rimless



## d33pVI (Oct 28, 2015)

Traded out the old 75 for this beauty:












































Planting is very much in flux, but all the hardscape and plumbing is good to go. Going to try and keep it low maintenance this time around with crypts and ferns mostly.


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## geektom (Dec 17, 2012)

Wow, that is some gorgeous hardscape! Great job!


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## lisals (Jun 21, 2017)

Beautiful beautiful beautiful!


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## xmas_one (Feb 5, 2010)

Looking good, this tank is going to look awesome as it matures.


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## d33pVI (Oct 28, 2015)

Month two update:



















Thought I would go over the 'guts' of this set-up. Tank is 24"x48"x20", 1/2" glass, bottom drilled with a bulkhead and standpipe in each back corner. The standpipes run up into an overflow box I constructed out of 1/4" acrylic. Sort of like a Herbie, one is the primary drain and the other the overflow drain. 



















There is a gate valve beneath the primary and a ball valve for the overflow. These flow down into a 30 gal sump tank. First chamber is empty, sized to make it easy to net out anything that takes an accidental trip down the drain. First set of baffles sends the water down through a coarse sponge and then back up through a fine sponge. Last chamber has a few sponge filters and biomedia from the old canister, a pair of heaters and a return pump. I wanted this chamber to be as large as possible to hopefully account for the massive amounts of evaporation and eliminate the need for an ATO. So far so good, we shall see how it fares through the winter.










There is a Griggs reactor for the CO2 system made out of 2" pvc. Worked great on my Fluval 404 but not so well with the higher flow rate from the new return pump. Gets lots of bubbles in the display tank. One of these days I'll try throwing some bioballs in the reactor to see if that helps, otherwise will need to build something bigger. Autodoser rounds out the equipment list.










Crypt farm is coming along nicely. S repens didn't handle the transplanting very well. Trimmed most of it pretty hard, we'll see if it comes back in better shape. Only stem plants left are some Mermaid Weed and Hygro Siamensis. Some scattered Java fern varieties and a ton of bolbitis along the background. Surprised at how well the Erio Vietnam is doing in the shade beneath the manzanita. Small patch of mini xmass moss and a couple of buces on the wood rounds out the planting list.










Next update I will cover the new lighting that just got installed yesterday!


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## GouramiVillage (Jul 13, 2017)

What beautiful pearl gouramis you have!! I am currently keeping a trio of female pearls in my 75g and absolutely love hand-feeding them everyday. My all-time favorite gourami and one of the best freshwater fish IMO. 

The tank is looking spectacular so far. Definitely love the driftwood you've picked out.


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## d33pVI (Oct 28, 2015)

GouramiVillage said:


> What beautiful pearl gouramis you have!! I am currently keeping a trio of female pearls in my 75g and absolutely love hand-feeding them everyday. My all-time favorite gourami and one of the best freshwater fish IMO.
> 
> The tank is looking spectacular so far. Definitely love the driftwood you've picked out.


#lovemypearls

Thanks! Really do love my pearls. I've got two generations going in this tank. Pearls get overlooked these days, but I would go so far as to say that a fully colored up male pearl gourami is the prettiest freshwater fish in the hobby. You should get your harem a man to show off to them!

I gotta give props to @ROWEBLAST for supplying and helping pick out and arrange the manzanita. The branches are attached to a lilac stump out of my backyard. Hard to get a good pic of it because of all the shadows, but the stump is hollow and forms a cave that all the botia hang out in.

Another shoutout to @Capsaicin_MFK. This was his tank before and has previously graced these forums pages.


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## Capsaicin_MFK (Nov 15, 2009)

d33pVI said:


> #lovemypearls
> 
> Thanks! Really do love my pearls. I've got two generations going in this tank. Pearls get overlooked these days, but I would go so far as to say that a fully colored up male pearl gourami is the prettiest freshwater fish in the hobby. You should get your harem a man to show off to them!
> 
> ...


I'm glad this tank was put to good use. Everything looks wonderful!


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## d33pVI (Oct 28, 2015)

Let there be light!










I wanted some sort of pendant-style light for this tank, but the price on the few commonly available options is a bitter pill to swallow. Meet the newly released Aqua Illumination Prime HD Freshwater. Everything I was looking for in a fixture, for hundreds le$$ than the competition. Five channel programmable light schedule via wifi right out of the box, up to 80+ PAR @ 24". Nice, clean look that really opens up the surface of the tank for a whole new dimension of viewing pleasure.










One of my goals is to start experimenting with floating and emergent growth. My design concept for the overflow incorporated the idea of being able to use it to adjust the water level up and down seasonally. Didn't work out exactly as planned but I should be able to make some modifications in the future should I ever decide to try it.

Starting out with one of my favorite floaters, Brazilian pennywort.










This stuff grows like gangbusters for me. Took an ugly, stunted 4" stem I found languishing in my low-tech tank and six weeks later it is covering half of the surface.

I also discovered that the top of the stump is positioned perfectly to hold a wabi-kusa ball halfway out of the water.










Picked up a few of these from @j03yYunG . Not a great time of year to try and transition tropical aquatic plants to emergent growth, so we shall see how things go with this. There are a few strands of moss for now, some AR mini on top that I'm expecting to shrivel up, and a few small rhizomes of mini bolbitis around the sides.

Finally got around to rigging up a mount for the pH and temperature controllers. Plants and fish all seem to be doing fine. There are a few new inhabitants that should be coming in this week that I'm pretty exited about. Stay tuned!


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## geektom (Dec 17, 2012)

Really intrigued by those lights!


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## d33pVI (Oct 28, 2015)

geektom said:


> Really intrigued by those lights!




Me too! They have only been up for a week so I can't really speak to their performance as of yet. I can say that I am very impressed with the easy set-up and programming functionality. Only real complaint is the instructions are a bit lacking for detail, but once I figured out a few little things it's actually pretty easy. 


I run the controls through my iPad. Currently I have it set up for a gradual ramp from 8AM to noon, peak at about 80% until two, with a ramp down to 8PM. I keep the cool whites running low from 8-midnight for late night viewing, with a 1% blue and 1% cool white moonlight. You can even set up time periods for random "weather events" to occur with variable frequency and intensity settings for each period. I can't tell if the overall lighting dims during these "events" or if it is just random lightning flashes. Still, having preset periods for random effects is way better than the options on previous lights I have had which only had manual button controls.


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## geektom (Dec 17, 2012)

d33pVI said:


> Me too! They have only been up for a week so I can't really speak to their performance as of yet. I can say that I am very impressed with the easy set-up and programming functionality. Only real complaint is the instructions are a bit lacking for detail, but once I figured out a few little things it's actually pretty easy.
> 
> 
> I run the controls through my iPad. Currently I have it set up for a gradual ramp from 8AM to noon, peak at about 80% until two, with a ramp down to 8PM. I keep the cool whites running low from 8-midnight for late night viewing, with a 1% blue and 1% cool white moonlight. You can even set up time periods for random "weather events" to occur with variable frequency and intensity settings for each period. I can't tell if the overall lighting dims during these "events" or if it is just random lightning flashes. Still, having preset periods for random effects is way better than the options on previous lights I have had which only had manual button controls.



I will be doing a Tank next year that is euro-braced and the top opening is 56” x 26” so something like that would work great and is more affordable than the Radion’s I am considering.


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## j03yYunG (Mar 26, 2013)

Nice setup bro.


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## d33pVI (Oct 28, 2015)

Above the rim


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## d33pVI (Oct 28, 2015)

Spent the last few days doing some fine-tuning. Mixed up a new batch of ferts for the auto-doser. I had previously done N-P-K in separate containers so I could adjust them individually. Realized that I needed to recalculate doses for the larger water volume since I had it all set up for a 75 gallon. Seems I always run into solubility issues when mixing up my ferts (as in, they don't completely dissolve in solution) so I ended up combining the N-P-K into one big bottle, doubled the water to get everything to dissolve and doubled the dose size to keep levels correct. I'm set up with standard EI macros for now. Micros may still be off but I'll let the old batch run out before mixing up a new one.

Also got a new probe for the pH controller. Probably should have done that two years ago since I bought it used and it didn't come in storage solution which I hear is bad but it always seemed to calibrate properly and didn't wander too much. The new one seems very slow to react but I hopefully have it calibrated now. Also put a drop-checker in to have a second point of reference. Still need to check a degassed sample of tank water to determine my final settings. I was getting some unexpected readings last night, but the drop checker looked good and the controller was reading as expected this morning. 

Still need to reevaluate my rex grigg CO2 reactor. The 1 1/2" pipe was great hooked up to a Fluval 404, but not so much with a 1,000 gph pump. Picked up some parts to try adding a valve on the outflow to increase backpressure in the reactor chamber. If that doesn't work I will either have to build a bypass or an entirely new, larger reactor.


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## sevendust111 (Jul 15, 2014)

Nice tank. I so wish I had a big enough tank for a pearl gourmai.


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## sdwindansea (Oct 28, 2016)

Great looking tank. It appears like you have some threadfins and the obvious pearl gouramis. Do you also have RCS and if yes, how are they doing?


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## d33pVI (Oct 28, 2015)

sevendust111 said:


> Nice tank. I so wish I had a big enough tank for a pearl gourmai.



Thanks! How big is your tank? I started with a pair in a 20 gallon, which was admittedly too small. I'd say a 29+ would be fine, though.



sdwindansea said:


> Great looking tank. It appears like you have some threadfins and the obvious pearl gouramis. Do you also have RCS and if yes, how are they doing?




Thanks! I do have a good population of cherry shrimp right now. Last winter I broke down my shrimp tank and put the remaining dozen or so cherries in the old 75. I didn't really expect them to survive with the loaches and gouramis, but when I took down the 75 this summer there were easily hundreds of cherry shrimp. I separated out the best looking ones for the new 100 gal and sold most of the culls. Not sure how many I have now, but I regularly see babies and some of the old females are looking really nice.


I had a few culls left in a 10 gal that I decided to use as a quarantine tank for some new arrivals last week. Unfortunately I discovered that some of the new fish are straight-up shrimp murder machines. Not sure what to do about that just yet. They will have to stay in the quarantine until I figure something out...


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## sevendust111 (Jul 15, 2014)

d33pVI said:


> Thanks! How big is your tank? I started with a pair in a 20 gallon, which was admittedly too small. I'd say a 29+ would be fine, though.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I have a 24.1cube. I have a honey gourmai in there now


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## sdwindansea (Oct 28, 2016)

Thanks for the response and great to hear. Still not sure what I'm going to add (if anything) but it sounds like the pearl gourami are both probably good choices.


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## d33pVI (Oct 28, 2015)

Wanted for the crime of shrimpicide in at least one tank:









They look guilty to me!

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## d33pVI (Oct 28, 2015)

Mermaid weed crown, cupping the surface.










Dwarf lily on the rise.


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## d33pVI (Oct 28, 2015)

Been a while since my last update, but tank is doing pretty well. Still tinkering with the lights/ferts/CO2. I'm on standard EI dosing right now. CO2 has been difficult to keep at higher levels. Pretty sure with the sump that I'm off-gassing quite a bit. Still need to track down something to seal the sump up better. I also built a larger Griggs reactor out of 3" pipe, but it had some leaks that I still need to fix and test. Hopefully that will help some, since my current reactor still spits plenty of bubbles. Bumped up the lighting levels a few weeks ago, and of course started getting a bit of an algae outbreak. Nothing too concerning, mostly affecting stuff up near the surface directly beneath the light.

The Peacock Gudgeons I added about six weeks back are doing well. I was a bit worried about them being out-competed for food since they are so small and kind of slow moving, but they are taking flake and pellets just fine. I did discover that they can be good jumpers, though. Rescued one off the floor last night, and found another a while back that wasn't so lucky :frown2: Still have some Pseudomugil Gertrudae in the QT tank that are just too small to add. Tried putting them in at the same time as the gudgeons, but they were all sucked into the overflow/sump after the first hour so I scooped them back into the QT to grow out. Might just put them into my 20g and hope the dwarf Acara don't see them as snacks.

One of these days I'll try and add some more pics. Added a few new crypts, some Hudori and a Nurii from LR Bretz. Also got some beautiful downoi and Erio Polaris from Burr. Downoi is doing well, not sure about the Erios yet. Sprinkled in some Glosso around the S Repens in the foreground, too.

Floating pennywort, throwing off a flower bud:










Tillandsia looks like it is also putting out a flower stalk. Pretty excited to see what happens here:










First time keeping air plants. Any Tillandsia experts around who can tell me what kinds those are? I did a little research and was quickly overwhelmed by how many different species there are.


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## wastewater (Apr 5, 2010)

d33pVI said:


> First time keeping air plants. Any Tillandsia experts around who can tell me what kinds those are? I did a little research and was quickly overwhelmed by how many different species there are.



_Tillandsia fuchsii v. gracilis _(left of picture). Hard to clearly see in your picture, but looks like _T. ionantha _(right of picture).

An idea of what to expect









I get bad juju when I see the word expert. My favorite definition of an "expert": a specialist who knows everything about something, and nothing about anything else.

And... a cynical definition of "expert" by _Robert Heinlein_: "Always listen to experts. They'll tell you what can't be done and why. Then do it."


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## d33pVI (Oct 28, 2015)

Thanks Wastewater. Expert or not, your Tillandsia journal is a big reason I even picked these plants up in the first place.


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## The Dude1 (Jun 17, 2016)

This is just incredible... from the gorgeous rimless tank to the equipment to the selection of fish.and plants... truly fantastic. Would you mind posting a complete stock list?? I recently bought a new 265 that I want to set up much like this... I have larger Rainbows (Bosemani, Goyder River, Millenium, and several others) as well as Celebes and Gertrude that I'm trying to get to spawn. Id love some Threadfins and I really want a group of loaches... just awesome tank...


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## d33pVI (Oct 28, 2015)

Thanks Dude! Here's the current stocklist:

5 Pearl Gourami
12 Harlequin Rasbora
10 Glass Catfish
7 Threadfin Rainbowfish
8 Peacock Gudgeon
6 Botia Kubotai
4 Siamese Algae Eaters
1 Rubberlip Pleco
Amanos, Cherry shrimp, Nerite & Ramshorn snails


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## The Dude1 (Jun 17, 2016)

d33pVI said:


> Thanks Dude! Here's the current stocklist:
> 
> 5 Pearl Gourami
> 12 Harlequin Rasbora
> ...


I love Botia kubatai.. the consensus was that they would wipe out shrimp and ensure no egg / fry survival. If you are still getting cherry shrimplets I can imagine I I would be ok. How large are yours? How long have you had them? I was also thinking about a group of 6. What's your ratio of males to females for the threadfins? I've heard they are super hard to rear fry, but do you ever see them trying? Gorgeous set up!


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## d33pVI (Oct 28, 2015)

The Dude1 said:


> I love Botia kubatai.. the consensus was that they would wipe out shrimp and ensure no egg / fry survival. If you are still getting cherry shrimplets I can imagine I I would be ok. How large are yours? How long have you had them? I was also thinking about a group of 6. What's your ratio of males to females for the threadfins? I've heard they are super hard to rear fry, but do you ever see them trying? Gorgeous set up!


I've had the eldest Botia for about 5 years now. Added a few more here and there over the intervening years once I came to find out they like living in groups. They are all about 3-3.5" now. It's neat that I can sort of tell which ones I got and when by the evolution of the skin patterns which change as they get older. Not sure if it is a mating or dominance ritual, but every once in a while I have witnessed two of them 'grey out' and aggressively chase each around in circles, sometimes for an hour or more. Typically, though, they enjoy hanging out together in and around the stump and are relatively peaceful.


I've seen plenty of my fish go after a shrimp now and again, but I think given a large enough habitat with plenty of hiding spaces enough shrimplets make it through to keep the line going. I probably have more shrimp living in the sump than your average keeper's dedicated shrimp tank!


Threadfins are 3 female and 4-5 males. I've seen plenty of mating behavior and absolutely adore the male's displaying rituals. It sort of reminds me of some of the birds-of-paradise rituals I have seen in documentaries, which is interesting since I believe the fish and the birds are from the same part of the world. I tried setting up a breeding tank for them earlier this year but didn't have any success.


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## d33pVI (Oct 28, 2015)

Full tank shot:










Pearl and the Gang:










Mama Loach, hanging out on the 'front porch' of her cave:










Peacock Gudgeon in front of some trident fern:










Mixing it up in the foreground:










Eponymous:


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## Spiffyfish (Jan 30, 2014)

Any updates? How are you liking the lights so far?


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## PlantStudent (Jan 3, 2018)

So friggin' nice!! I am inspired.


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## d33pVI (Oct 28, 2015)

Spiffyfish said:


> Any updates? How are you liking the lights so far?



Love the lights. Everything I wanted out of a lighting system right out of the box. Been slowly ramping up the levels. Barring some sort of massive algae outbreak I think this will be the long-term setting:
















PlantStudent said:


> So friggin' nice!! I am inspired.


Thanks so much! It has been a really fun tank to play around with.

First time trying to upload video. If it works it's a great little shot of the 'Loachy Dance':


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## d33pVI (Oct 28, 2015)

Been up and running for about 6 months now so I thought I would do a State of the Union. Overall I'm pretty darned happy with the way things are progressing. Absolutely love the added perspective of the open top. Being able to see things from above really creates an interactive experience (and the occasional splash of water in the face!)

View from the top:









Plants are doing well for the most part. Decided to let the lily go to the surface. Makes it feel like an indoor pond, and I'm interested to see if it will put out any flowers this way. Speaking of flowers, the Tillandsia looks like it should open it's buds any day now. One of the Buces put out a flower, and yet another one only two feet away looks like it might be dying off. There is also a "traveling buce" that I spot once in a while that just doesn't want to stay anchored anywhere and is bouncing around looking for a home. Aside from a little bit of mermaid weed all the stem plants have been taken out. Thread algae is finally gone from my mini Christmas moss. Hadn't planned on doing a planted foreground, but the Glosso I picked up at a LFS has other ideas. S Repens and Downoi are looking nice, and the single crown of red Downoi has grown to the size of a racketball and has some side shoots. After the unexpected success of the Erio Vietnam in some of the shady spots I was a bit disappointed that the Erio Polaris is not faring well. The scrap of Java fern trident that I found languishing in my low tech tank has turned into a monster. Crypt spiralis and wendtii are doing well. Cleared out some room around the Crypt nurii that was getting crowed out and discovered it has put out numerous runners. Jury is still out on the Crypt hudori. Should have planted them in a more visible location. I think the larger one may do alright, but the little one in the back corner may have melted away. The entire back wall beneath the overflow is a nice backdrop of Bolbitis for now. That may change if I make the alteration to the overflow I'm thinking about. More on that later.

Buce blooming:









As for the fauna, think I'm pretty much set for a while. Pearl and the gang seem pretty happy, although I noticed a white spot on the old lady's eye the other day. Hopefully that clears up. I did lose two of the male threadfins in the last few weeks. I've heard that they are rather short lived, so I'm guessing it was just their time to go. The biggest downside to the open top has been the occasional jumper casualties. Found a SAE halfway across the room one day, as well as a few other crispy critters. I think some of the peacock gudgeons may have gone the same way. Haven't seen the two big males for a few weeks, and out of the 9 I added I can only spot 3 with one confirmed jumper casualty. Maybe the dog has been 'hiding the bodies'? Still have quite a few cherry shrimp, although I did witness one of the loaches trying to fit a big adult female down his throat for the first time! I always figured many of the little ones became snacks, but never actually saw it happen before. It does seem that the fish can tell when the shrimp have recently molted and are vulnerable. There have been numerous occasions when I see a shrimp being harassed by a fish and also spot a nearby molt.

Cherry on top:









On to the hardware. Lights are great. I keep increasing intensity and duration every few weeks and haven't had too many negative effects. I do get algae on some of the plants and hardscape near the surface, but nothing too terrible. Glass gets some green dust that I have to wipe off during the weekly water change. (BTW, Magic Eraser pads are, well, pretty magical for glass cleaning. Even takes off stubborn green spot algae that would usually require a razor blade to remove.) Finally got the power strips up off the floor and mounted in the stand. A pair of 200W heaters on a Finnex heat controller are handling the Minnesota winter, keeping the tank at 74-75 even though the house gets down into the low 60s at times. The sump return chamber holds just enough water to handle a week's worth of evaporation between water changes. Might be nice to have an ATO reservoir for some safety factor, but I just don't have the space beneath the stand. Jebao dosing pump has proved to be a great investment to keep the EI ferts flowing w/o having to remember to dose which ferts and when. Finally fixed and hooked up the larger Griggs reactor a few days ago. We shall see how that goes, although I'm still getting plenty of bubbles blown into the tank. Ran out of CO2 this week after less than 2 months on a 10 lb. tank. I do run 24-7 with a pH controller in an open topped tank with a huge overflow weir and more overflow baffles in the sump, but that was still much faster than I had expected. I'm thinking I need to do a better job sealing the sump to start with, but not much else I can do aside from maybe adding a timer to turn the gas off at night. We shall see how long this newly filled tank lasts and adjust from there.

Aside from a new sump lid I think the next project is to add some doors to the open stand. Long term I am thinking I want to change my overflow system. Functionally it is working even better than I had hoped for a DIY system, but it just eats up too much valuable real estate inside the tank. I'm thinking I will switch to a HOB overflow, and use the standpipes for the return. Anybody out there have any advice on HOB overflows? The possibility of a siphon break and flood scared me off from using one in the initial set-up. Kind of wishing I had just bit the bullet and drilled in an overflow to begin with, but oh well. Anyhow, enough rambling. Once that Tilly blooms I'll try and add some more pics. Some day I might even try and figure out how to take pictures that don't suck!


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Don't know how I missed this thread.

Very, very nice set up. Love those rimless tanks.

Great layout and presentation. Very well done!


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## d33pVI (Oct 28, 2015)

Greggz said:


> Don't know how I missed this thread.
> 
> Very, very nice set up. Love those rimless tanks.
> 
> Great layout and presentation. Very well done!


Thanks Greggz. I've been keeping this thread like I keep my tank: minimal maintenance!


I do check in and enjoy your rainbow tank journal as well.


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## Spiffyfish (Jan 30, 2014)

I couldn't resist, I ended up buying 2 of the AI primes as well. I hope they will be better than the 2 current USA I had on there before.


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## moseschi1 (Mar 9, 2017)

d33pVI said:


> Been up and running for about 6 months now so I thought I would do a State of the Union. Overall I'm pretty darned happy with the way things are progressing. Absolutely love the added perspective of the open top. Being able to see things from above really creates an interactive experience (and the occasional splash of water in the face!)
> 
> View from the top:
> 
> ...



So I have a question. I don't know if it gets super cold where you are, but do you leave the hood open also in winter? I have always wanted to do that as I want my lights not to be blocked slightly by the hood. But would the water evaporate quicker and the water heater working consistently?


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## The Dude1 (Jun 17, 2016)

And new FTS shots? I've never had a problem with jumpers... until the Gertrudes in my little rimless tank... even with make shift tops on it.. it makes me wonder if the lack of a rim or partition is somehow involved?? I've learned that there isn't much that upsets me as much as jumpers. 
What are you doing with the tillandsia? Do you spray them every couple of days?? I don't k ow why mine aren't doing well


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## d33pVI (Oct 28, 2015)

moseschi1 said:


> So I have a question. I don't know if it gets super cold where you are, but do you leave the hood open also in winter? I have always wanted to do that as I want my lights not to be blocked slightly by the hood. But would the water evaporate quicker and the water heater working consistently?


 Yeah, I had concerns about those issue. I have two heaters on a controller set to 75 and there haven't been any issues with keeping that temp even though the house gets down to 62 at night. Evaporation was a bigger concern but the sump is just large enough to give me about a week before it needs topping off. 


The Dude1 said:


> And new FTS shots? I've never had a problem with jumpers... until the Gertrudes in my little rimless tank... even with make shift tops on it.. it makes me wonder if the lack of a rim or partition is somehow involved?? I've learned that there isn't much that upsets me as much as jumpers.
> What are you doing with the tillandsia? Do you spray them every couple of days?? I don't k ow why mine aren't doing well


It's hard to get a good head-on shot without light glare, but here's one from last week:








I found another peacock gudgeon on the floor this weekend, right next to a dried up cherry shrimp... I'm going to need to try and catch the last couple of gudgeons and put them in the 20 gallon. I can only assume the other 4-5 missing ones became Scooby snacks for the hound. I think euro-bracing may help keep jumpers from surfing up the glass and on to the floor.
















Not that I really know what I'm doing yet, but I mist the tillandsia daily and drop them in the tank once a week during water changes. If the one hadn't started flowering I'm not sure I could tell if they were dead or alive! I suspect they enjoy being right under the lights, and that is the best source of humidity in the house short of keeping them in an enclosure.


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## d33pVI (Oct 28, 2015)

Finally added some doors to the stand. Makes a big difference, and that handle is pretty dope!



















Been going through some plant and algae issues I suspect are being caused by alterations to the dosing regimen. Long story short, I cleaned out the tank and sump, dialed back the lights and ferts and turned up the CO2 a bit. Unfortunately I have lost a few plants over the last couple of weeks. Brand new Crinum bulb floated up and went rotton, all the Erio Polaris and about half of the Pogostemon helferi are gone, too. Hopefully the remaining downoi hang in there. 

Got a new project in the works, too. You can see it in the background here:


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## d33pVI (Oct 28, 2015)

Nature. Can't stop her.










This may be a TPT first. Mushroom aquascaping is the new black. Get on board, folks.










Been a while since my last update. The state of the tank is strong. Even recently saw one of the male gudgeons I thought was a goner. They must have some hidey-holes they camp out in, or only come out at night. They do have a strange, milky eye color reminiscent of some deep-sea fishes which could point to a more nocturnal schedule. The last of the females is out all day, though, so who knows. Not me.


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## The Dude1 (Jun 17, 2016)

Man I would LOVE to see an update on this. I'm trying to figure out how to set up some tillandsias on my 20 long. Are you just placing them on the rim and on those pieces of driftwood or are they secured?


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## d33pVI (Oct 28, 2015)

One year in the books! Transitioning to low tech, just did my first big thinning. Here's a video update:








The Dude1 said:


> Man I would LOVE to see an update on this. I'm trying to figure out how to set up some tillandsias on my 20 long. Are you just placing them on the rim and on those pieces of driftwood or are they secured?


I made wire stands for them with a hoop on top to rest the base on/in. Thinking of remaking them with bigger hoops since the tillies fall out on occasion.


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## Mike A. (Jan 6, 2018)

Very nicely done.


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## mgeorges (Feb 1, 2017)

d33pVI said:


> Nature. Can't stop her.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


https://www.plantedtank.net/forums/120-aquascaping/1124842-looking-opinions-layout-2.html

Post #21, got some mushrooms growing on my wood fully submerged! It was pretty cool. I think it was here just in the last few years that the first aquatic mushroom was identified out in Cali, maybe somewhere else on the west coast...can't quite remember. Since my wood was fully submerged, they never got big like yours...I'm jealous haha.

Tanks looking pretty sweet. Good work!


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## cbachmann (Aug 6, 2013)

Wow, what a gorgeous tank! 

I wish I'd taken my tanks in a more jungle-ey direction, but now ive got a ton of stem plants. Sigh.

So sad that you lost so many peacocks to jumping. I'd say a lid is essential with them. After I found my first one on the floor I got an acrylic lid for my rimless, ugly as it is.


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## jfish043 (Jan 13, 2017)

Nice


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