# 120P ADA - The mission begins!



## Omar EAZi (Aug 5, 2015)

So I was impatiently waiting for most of the parts for my 120p ADA tank to arrive, and they finally did. BTW besides the 120p Tank nothing else is from ADA except for the Soil.
The plants/Soil are available in the local store, but most of the other stuff are not available here so I had to order them from Amazon-USA and get them delivered to my forward p.o.box in New Jersey and then shipped to Dubai from there. So it's been a loooong jorney till they got here!. The lights are arriving tomorrow btw(Finnex Planted 24/7+ ES).
The cabinet is custom made, I saw @McCarthy had done something really cool on his cabinet where he had these holes on the side of the cabinet to pass the tubings through, something similar to what ADA cabinets have but I liked @McCarthy's better. So I had them done on my cabinet and I did them on both sides just in case I decided to shift the filter's position in the future based on the layout I'm gonna have. 
So!! Although it's an ADA tank, I'm going to have a Dutch Garden styled tank! So lots of colors and plants with very little hardscape, If I did put any hardscape in it, it'll probably be a piece of riverwood and it'll be covered by moss. 
So at the moment I'm still researching the Dutch style and trying to learn about it, an EI Dosing system is a must so I ordered a PPS Pro pack from GLA which will be arriving within the next 4~5 days most probably. I have a 4Kg Co2 Cylinder on stand by so high lvls of Co2 will be injected in the tank!. 
I still see myself to be a beginner, so there's a lot for me to learn, but this is going to be one hell of an experience to go through. I'm really depending on you guys to help me out here with different stuff, any links that'll help me with my design, any Dutch styled ideas/pics that you guys have. I've already almost seen all that there's related to Dutch styled journals and info here on PT.net and I'm still reading through different forums and youtube videos. 
I happened to found a website completely dedicated to Dutch styled scapes and all, but it happens to be a Dutch speaking forum and I wish I knew how to speak Dutch!! time to take some lingo classes I guess!. 

Anyways I'll leave you guys with some pics of whatever I have in right now! and I'll keep this journal updated as I go through.


The Eheim Filter's package came a bit torn out from here and there, it's been thrown around a lot till it got here I believe, I hope it's working fine lol


















This is thanks to @McCarthy, his cabinet has a bit fancier finishing though lol









Some basics









That's it for today! thanks for the read guys, and as I said any suggestions ideas or pics of cool looking dutch styled plants, any tips, all would be highly appreciated.


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## SKYE.__.HIGH (Mar 18, 2017)

Glad to see another ADA 120-P build. Subscribed or followed (what ever that means). I love the tank size. Not to tall but deep enough to create depth. I'm setting up a 120-P right now also.


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## mattenx (Nov 28, 2016)

The finnex is an interesting choice. You went ultra premium on all the other stuff, how'd you settle on the finnex for the light?


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## Omar EAZi (Aug 5, 2015)

SKYE.__.HIGH said:


> Glad to see another ADA 120-P build. Subscribed or followed (what ever that means). I love the tank size. Not to tall but deep enough to create depth. I'm setting up a 120-P right now also.


Indeed 120P is a good size, not too big, not too small! height and depth are also perfect! I'll come check urs 

Bump:


mattenx said:


> The finnex is an interesting choice. You went ultra premium on all the other stuff, how'd you settle on the finnex for the light?


The 24/7 feature got me hooked lol!! having the lights on all day being able to see your fishes n all is a good feature I believe. I'll give it a month and see how it goes, hopefully it goes good, with EI Dosing and Co2 I think the plants will grow fast enough. I don't want to be trimming every week lol, so if the light extends that period to 2~3 weeks till I have to do trimmings then It's awesome, if it takes 1 month then it's even better haha! 
If it happened to be extremely slow growth due to the light, then I'll add an extra fixture or something. Till then wish me luck :grin2:


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## Omar EAZi (Aug 5, 2015)

So, I set up the tank today, faced some issues, 1 is minor, and 1 is major. 
Minor issue is I found out that I actually ordered the wrong tubing sized Co2 reactor, instead of 16/22 I ordered some really small sized one, couldn't fit it on so I went to plan B and used a diffuser that I had, will keep the diffuser till I get my hands on a reactor or an inline diffuser hopefully within the coming 2 days. 
The major issue is, the Eheim Pro 4+ 600 is either malfunctioning, or I'm doing something completely wrong with it, either way I couldn't seem to get it right, I hope it's a mistake from my part and I can fix it up, because sending it back to USA from Dubai, and then waiting for a new one to arrive will take 2 christmases!!
So the Eheim filter is turning on for like 1 minute, then it goes off for 2 minutes, then on again for 1 minute, then off again for another 2 minutes, can't seem to figure out what the problem might be, I hope someone from the forum can help me out figure a solution to this cause this is really troubling me out. 

For now I'll leave you with the picture. 


































































Here you can see how the tube is way bigger than the reactor's fitting









The Solenoid Co2 regulator









Filling up with water.








Took forever to fill it with the small pump I have!! 









Finally

























Some smexy lightning features


















That's it for today guys, thanks for the read.
If anyone knows what the problem might be with my eheim filter please help me out with this! It'll be a major help from you guys!
Thanks again.


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## Omar EAZi (Aug 5, 2015)

btw, when the filter stops running, I hear some pressure voice coming out of the head, as if the head is trying to breath or something, could this be a hint that something is stuck in causing this issue?!


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## Immortal1 (Feb 18, 2015)

Good looking setup - made a post regarding your filter in your other thread.


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## Omar EAZi (Aug 5, 2015)

Immortal1 said:


> Good looking setup - made a post regarding your filter in your other thread.


Thanks bro, yeah thanks a lot for the suggestion bro, I actually bought the voltage converter today and now the filter is running just fine with no issues at all, really appreciate your help. Glad the filter has some safety and was cooling down the head when getting heated, otherwise I would've burned my filter without even knowing what has caused it.


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## Immortal1 (Feb 18, 2015)

Good to hear the suggestion worked for you! I have a Eheim Pro 4, Model 350 on my 75g tank (like it a lot). Having some knowledge about electricity it just seemed odd that your pump was doing what it was - only thing I could think of was a voltage / frequency mismatch.


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## Aceman (Aug 16, 2014)

Do you have plans for the stand you built ?


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## SKYE.__.HIGH (Mar 18, 2017)

I'm just gonna give you one big problem and one big complement. Your going to need at least two of those lights for your plants to just stay alive. But you will definitely not have to trim that much.....if you get two. You won't have any plants to trim with one light. 

On the positive side, wow...... it looks so good. Especially at how fast it went up. Looks great man, keep us updated.


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## Omar EAZi (Aug 5, 2015)

Immortal1 said:


> Good to hear the suggestion worked for you! I have a Eheim Pro 4, Model 350 on my 75g tank (like it a lot). Having some knowledge about electricity it just seemed odd that your pump was doing what it was - only thing I could think of was a voltage / frequency mismatch.


They seem to be quiet good filters(if you know how to use them that is lol), anyways. I have something that's bothering me. Thought I'd share it here and get some suggestions.

So I have this big riverwood piece in the middle of the tank which looks nice and all, but I've noticed that it's disturbing the water flow in my tank and causing some dead spots that have no water circulation.
A Demonstration: Red lines showing the dead zone in the tank~









So I have to play with the lily pipes a bit to get a good flow going on in the tank, if it didn't work out I'll have to put them on the other side of the the tank.
Here on the left side of the tank you can see some movement on the water surface:









on the right side of the tank which comes after the riverwood you can notice there's no movement on the surface:









The plants in the right edge of the tank are completely stationary and aren't moving at ALL which is where the dead zone is:









I'll try to play around with the lily pipe for now to see if I can figure out something, mean while it'll be great if someone has some suggestions. Listening to other's ideas and thoughts specially from those who have experienced things and figured out something is always a good thing, so as always I'm open to suggestions 

Thanks for the read

Bump:


Aceman said:


> Do you have plans for the stand you built ?


Basically I just gave the carpenter some sizes and photos and he made it for me  by plants you mean like blueprints or something?

Bump:


SKYE.__.HIGH said:


> I'm just gonna give you one big problem and one big complement. Your going to need at least two of those lights for your plants to just stay alive. But you will definitely not have to trim that much.....if you get two. You won't have any plants to trim with one light.
> 
> On the positive side, wow...... it looks so good. Especially at how fast it went up. Looks great man, keep us updated.


Haha, well I heard good things about the SE version of the 24/7, they enhanced some of the lacking areas, also saw some videos of normal people reviewing it not advertising it, read some threads and people are having good reviews about it. So I'll wait for like 2 weeks, see if there's any growth, from there I'll decide if what I have is enough or I have to order another fixture and have 2 of them running. 

It didn't go as fast as the post believe me, it took me more than a month to get everything ordered, delivered, built. I live in Dubai so I ordered some stuff from USA and that's a long wait believe me lol. Thanks for both the compliments and the criticism, without criticism we won't learn and won't improve :grin2:


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## SKYE.__.HIGH (Mar 18, 2017)

May I ask how many bags of Amazonia did you use? 

Thanks, skye


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## Omar EAZi (Aug 5, 2015)

SKYE.__.HIGH said:


> May I ask how many bags of Amazonia did you use?
> 
> Thanks, skye


Used 3x 9 liter bags + 1x 6 liter bag of power sand


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## SKYE.__.HIGH (Mar 18, 2017)

And I forgot to ask you how many inches in depth that brought you up to? Or what ever measurement you use in Dubai.  LOL


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## Omar EAZi (Aug 5, 2015)

SKYE.__.HIGH said:


> And I forgot to ask you how many inches in depth that brought you up to? Or what ever measurement you use in Dubai.  LOL


around 2 inches in front and 4.5 inches in the back. 

We use the Metric system: The metric system is an alternative system of measurement used in most countries, as well as in the United States. The metric system is based on joining one of a series of prefixes, including kilo-, hecto-, deka-, deci-, centi-, and milli-, with a base unit of measurement, such as meter, liter, or gram.:grin2::grin2::grin2:


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## Omar EAZi (Aug 5, 2015)

So it's been only four/five days since I planted this tank and set it up, with 1 day being with no pump running and Co2 off till I fixed the pump issue. So I'd say the tank been running good for only the past 3 days, and there's already some new growth, So far I'm happy with the light, seems to be working fine, so for now I don't plan to add an extra fixture, but we'll see about that in a month or so. I've ordered an inline diffuser now since my reactor was the wrong sized one, so for now I'm using a normal ceramic diffuser which looks pretty ugly lol. 
Here are some pics: 

I'm really bad with the plant names, so I don't really know what the names are I remember them by the way they look.


















These stems are dead at the bottom but there's some new growth, as suggested by @burr740 I'll trim the tops and propagate them and toss the old dead stems, but I'll have to wait till the new growth gets slightly bigger.









not sure what's the name of this plant, but it's growing well and lot of new growth on it.









Not sure of the name as well, but some good growth, btw the red plant at the back, it looks way more reddish with bare eyes than it looks in my [censored][censored][censored][censored]ty phone camera, will try to get better pics of it in the coming days. 










These are also dying at the bottom but lots of fresh good looking new growth.










I'm thinking I might actually leave the tank to be for now till the nitrogen cycle is done, and then only I'll go do some trimming and propagating. 

Btw all the moss that I planted looks dead with no new growth at all atm, is this normal or sometimes moss just don't grow back?!

Thanks for the read.


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## Immortal1 (Feb 18, 2015)

Something I learned with my tank is when my fert mixture was not right, the lower leaves would die off and the newer leaves look ok to good. Took me awhile to figure out my fert dosing (started with PPS Pro, then switched to EI). Once I got things a bit closer to what my tank liked, and I started listening to Burr (replant the good tops, remove the ratty looking bottoms), the plants started looking better. Now I have a few stems that get more than 12" tall AND still have all their leaves. Has been a learning curve, and I likely still have a LOT more to learn, but that is part of the fun.


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## Omar EAZi (Aug 5, 2015)

Immortal1 said:


> Something I learned with my tank is when my fert mixture was not right, the lower leaves would die off and the newer leaves look ok to good. Took me awhile to figure out my fert dosing (started with PPS Pro, then switched to EI). Once I got things a bit closer to what my tank liked, and I started listening to Burr (replant the good tops, remove the ratty looking bottoms), the plants started looking better. Now I have a few stems that get more than 12" tall AND still have all their leaves. Has been a learning curve, and I likely still have a LOT more to learn, but that is part of the fun.


Sounds right, but I think in my situation it's not the lack of ferts since the tank is fairly new.. haven't been a week yet, I think it's mostly because when I planted the tank, I had to leave the plants without water in the tank and run to a store to get a big bucket of water and some ice to fill it up since the tap water in Dubai is EXTREMELY hot in summer. So I think lot of these stems dried out during this period of time that I was out(Around 2 hours). Anyways for now I'll replant the tops and toss the bottoms, and once my PPS package arrives I'll start dosing. and maybe a month from now I'll have a more clear picture of how the tank is doing.


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## Immortal1 (Feb 18, 2015)

Yep, you will learn a lot in the next month


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## HenrySheehan (Jun 13, 2017)

Looking forward to seeing how this tank progresses. Especially interested to see will one Light fixture do you. My is going to be 60cm in width. Gonna def need two I'd say, but if one was to do you I'd consider bringing my width back into 45cm. 

Show me the way  

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk


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## Omar EAZi (Aug 5, 2015)

HenrySheehan said:


> Looking forward to seeing how this tank progresses. Especially interested to see will one Light fixture do you. My is going to be 60cm in width. Gonna def need two I'd say, but if one was to do you I'd consider bringing my width back into 45cm.
> 
> Show me the way


Thus far I don't feel like I'll need to add an extra fixture, growth is going good, but I'll wait for a month before I can give a proper review.


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## Omar EAZi (Aug 5, 2015)

So I got some new goodies today, main 2 things are the PPS Pro Package, and the other thing is the inline Co2 atomizer, finally getting rid of my rubbish in tank Co2 diffuser.
So first things first, I've installed the Co2 atomizer, and on the same pressure that I used to have before, the bubbles are afcourse way finer than they used to be now, but I think I need to reduce the Co2 pressure because now more Co2 is getting diluted in the water than before, I'll see how my drop checker reacts and adjust according to that. Here's a pic of how it looks now, and yeah new lily pipe from GLA:










The goodies that I received today:









I also ordered some Flourish Tabs, thought I'll give it a try and see how it does. Time to do some PPS Pro dosing calculations and see how much I need for my tank.

Will update you guys in few days


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## Omar EAZi (Aug 5, 2015)

So I was checking GLA website for instructions on how to use the PPS Pro, and it says I dose Macros and Micros together everyday, is this the right thing to do for PPS Pro?! because for EI Dosing I remember it was Micro one day, and Macro the other day, and 7th day you do the water change. anyone has any idea about this?

This is a screenshot from the website:


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## Omar EAZi (Aug 5, 2015)

Although I liked the piece of riverwood that I had, unfortunately it was taking up so much space in my tank giving me very small space to play with, so I decided to remove the riverwood and rearrange my plants.
After removing the riverwood my tank looks semi naked, too much free space, my LFS is getting a new shipment of plants this Thursday, so I'll get bunch of plants to fill up the empty spaces. the front will be UG plant & Montecarlo, maybe I'll seperate them with some alternanthera reineckii mini.


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## HenrySheehan (Jun 13, 2017)

Are you going to put in any dw or stone?? 

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## Omar EAZi (Aug 5, 2015)

HenrySheehan said:


> Are you going to put in any dw or stone??
> 
> Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk


Not gonna put in any stone,, what's DW?! Dry Wood?


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## HenrySheehan (Jun 13, 2017)

Ya, Dead Wood.

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## SKYE.__.HIGH (Mar 18, 2017)

Drift wood*


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## Omar EAZi (Aug 5, 2015)

HenrySheehan said:


> Ya, Dead Wood.





SKYE.__.HIGH said:


> Drift wood*


Well, yeah I'll put a piece of drift wood, actually I already done adding the extra plants and a smaller DW. Couldn't wait till Thursday so I went and got myself some plants from a fish shop in another city.
here's how the tank looks after filling up the empty spaces created by removing the older big ass DW.

The DW is on the left side of the tank to the back a bit.


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## TheMakani (May 31, 2017)

what about getting some smaller diameter driftwood that is taller in height? a taller piece would help fill in the vertical space until your plants grow in
the driftwood is barely visible in the most recent photo, but then again it is a photo so we are super limited in what we see


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## Omar EAZi (Aug 5, 2015)

TheMakani said:


> what about getting some smaller diameter driftwood that is taller in height? a taller piece would help fill in the vertical space until your plants grow in
> the driftwood is barely visible in the most recent photo, but then again it is a photo so we are super limited in what we see


Well, I used what I had, but on the weekend I'll go pass by few LFS and seek out some DWs that as you said are a bit taller in height, thanks for the input.


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## TheMakani (May 31, 2017)

Or maybe just move a portion of the driftwood closer to the front glass? I'm just thinking that you wouldn't want to put effort into growing moss on the driftwood and then it could end up hidden


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## Omar EAZi (Aug 5, 2015)

TheMakani said:


> Or maybe just move a portion of the driftwood closer to the front glass? I'm just thinking that you wouldn't want to put effort into growing moss on the driftwood and then it could end up hidden


I'll see what I can get and do in the tank. this weekend I'm not getting any chance to visit any LFS to get some more wood, but I'll try to go within the coming few days..
btw.
Did some Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate test today... Ammonia is around 2~4PPM, nitrite and nitrite are 0. I think the tank still requires some time to cycle..
Now about water changes, I'm worried about doing water changes since the plants aren't rooted well yet, so I think a water change might disturb and uproot some plants.. What do you guys suggest?! shall I do a water change, or just keep the tank to be for meanwhile till it cylces and then do a water change? I think if I did a water change I won't do it before another 7 days or so.
#22Omar EAZi, A moment ago


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## Omar EAZi (Aug 5, 2015)

Did a big water change today, cut some new tops and replanted them.

Water Change:









Filling it back:









Before water change and pruning:









After water change and replanting tops:










Tank seems to be doing fine so far, there's a bit of debris at between plants and soils, some dead leaves, but it's hard to vacuum them at the moment, so I tried to clean whatever I could only.


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## Omar EAZi (Aug 5, 2015)

well, it's been over a week since I updated the tank, I've done some pruning, some re-positioning, added some more plants here and there, and now I have 50 cardinal tetras, 10 pygmy corys.. not sure how many red cherry shrimps and amanos I have right now, but I definitely need more, got 3 blue electric rams in there as well, really love these guys. 
Tank is still maturing. There's still some repositioning is required, I'll do that around the next water change probably, the carpet is taking it's time growing up, the Co2 is okay, I'm doing PPS Pro dosing, stems and other plants are doing fine, but MonteCarlo which is supposed to be an easy carpet is taking a while, and UG is also taking a while, I'll bring up the Co2 a bit in few days if I saw the growth is very slow, the stems on the extreme ends(right&left) are growing very fast, I have to trim them every few days, I'm also planting the extra cuts in my other tanks and making a jungle out of them lol. anyways enough talk I'll leave you guys with the pictures.

Full view









These guys in the back grow fast, I trim these the most, in front you can see the monte carlo just sitting there not growing or anything.









These guys are also growing slowly, I'll give them time though, the dark red plant to the left, not sure what it's called but it's growing nicely









The UG is also taking its time, I got 2 more cups yesterday and filled up the empty spaced a bit, (on the front glass to the left you'll see my black helmet mystery snail digging into the soil).









The alternanthera reineckii mini is growing fine, but the leaves are turning dark red in some places and getting destroyed, not sure how to explain it, but at certain places it looks like it's infested.









I have a subscription with MyAquariumBox, and they sent me some stuff included in the box were these 3 wood pieces, I'm thinking of covering them with moss/or some rock/wood growing plants and keeping the sides open making it a good hiding space.









Lastly my new added cardinals haven't colored up yet, I added them to the tank yesterday, they looked pretty pale, now the color is slightly coming back, not sure how long does it take till the red is fully back.









The blue electric ram chilling around the plants I don't know the name of










That's about it for now, I think I'll prune the AR mini and give them a wider area, and do some repositioning to the front part of the tank once they grow a little more.


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## Nigel95 (Mar 5, 2017)

Next time I would split the carpet plants more for faster growth and also cheaper for your wallet.


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## IntotheWRX (May 13, 2016)

monte carlo has been the hardest for me the grow. they did not grow for a long time, and when they did, it grew slowly. I would say dwarf baby tears "cuba" grows like a cloud. looks similar and grows easier.


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## Omar EAZi (Aug 5, 2015)

IntotheWRX said:


> monte carlo has been the hardest for me the grow. they did not grow for a long time, and when they did, it grew slowly. I would say dwarf baby tears "cuba" grows like a cloud. looks similar and grows easier.


I think it's the other way around, monte carlo is supposed to be an easier carpet than HC Cuba, that's the reason I chose it the first place!


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## IntotheWRX (May 13, 2016)

Omar EAZi said:


> I think it's the other way around, monte carlo is supposed to be an easier carpet than HC Cuba, that's the reason I chose it the first place!


dont believe the internet. half the time it is false news. seek the truth!

HC cuba grows like a cloud and monte carlo is hard to grow.

Bump:


Omar EAZi said:


> I think it's the other way around, monte carlo is supposed to be an easier carpet than HC Cuba, that's the reason I chose it the first place!


dont believe the internet. half the time it is false news. seek the truth!

HC cuba grows like a cloud and monte carlo is hard to grow.


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## Aceman (Aug 16, 2014)

Did you build that stand ?


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## Omar EAZi (Aug 5, 2015)

Aceman said:


> Did you build that stand ?


I got it built for me at a local carpenter.


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## Aceman (Aug 16, 2014)

Omar EAZi said:


> I got it built for me at a local carpenter.




Do you have the plans by chance ? I'm wanting to build my own and can't find plans for that size. Mines a little different at 120x50x50


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## Omar EAZi (Aug 5, 2015)

Aceman said:


> Do you have the plans by chance ? I'm wanting to build my own and can't find plans for that size. Mines a little different at 120x50x50


Sorry I don't have the plans, I think you can easily find it on google.


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## Aceman (Aug 16, 2014)

Omar EAZi said:


> Sorry I don't have the plans, I think you can easily find it on google.




Ya I've been looking everywhere, nothing for the 120


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## geektom (Dec 17, 2012)

Tank is looking really great! Be patient with your growth rates- not everything grows as fast as stem plants do.

The plant you don't know the name of is a red tiger lily- they are beautiful and can produce some really large leaves. If the leaves get bigger than you would like, just keep trimming them- more will grow back. Occasionally they run a leaf up to the surface of the water- make sure you trim those at the base, or the rest of the plant will stop producing leaves.

Did you cycle the tank before adding your livestock? Seems like a lot to add at one time.


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## Omar EAZi (Aug 5, 2015)

geektom said:


> Tank is looking really great! Be patient with your growth rates- not everything grows as fast as stem plants do.
> 
> The plant you don't know the name of is a red tiger lily- they are beautiful and can produce some really large leaves. If the leaves get bigger than you would like, just keep trimming them- more will grow back. Occasionally they run a leaf up to the surface of the water- make sure you trim those at the base, or the rest of the plant will stop producing leaves.
> 
> Did you cycle the tank before adding your livestock? Seems like a lot to add at one time.


Thanks bro, yeah the tank has been cycled before I added the livestock, I'm keep check on parameters and everything seems fine so far. yeah this tiger lily plant is growing bigger and bigger everyday.

Bump: So I ordered the Fe EDTA 11% dry fert from GLA, I checked on rotalabutterfly calculator and it said to mix 44.7 grams with 1000ml of water, and dose 10ml into my 65gallon tank, so I went and did that, my water looks red now, is there something wrong with the calculation or is this normal?! never used any other Fe besides Seachem Fe, and water would only get red with Seachem Fe when I used to overdose sometimes. If anyone knows anything about this please help me out.


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## Omar EAZi (Aug 5, 2015)

A Fix, it's an DTPA Fe 11% not EDTA.


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## Ben Belton (Dec 12, 2008)

Everything is looking really good. Now you just have to be patient. :smile2:


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## Omar EAZi (Aug 5, 2015)

So there's this thing that's worrying me about my tank, not sure what it is, can't tell if it's some sort of deficiency or a parasite, but plants are being melted and torn down. I need help to fix this before it spreads out further, I trimmed down most of the parts, but I'm not sure if that's gonna actually help.


















after trimming bad parts









also my AR Mini are having some deficiency 

























I dose PPS Pro, and recently started dosing Metricide instead of Excel, but this problem started before I switched to Metricide so that's not what's causing it. 
I recently started adding DTPA 11% Iron as well, but it started before I dosed the iron so that's not the issue either.
If someone knows what this is and can help me fix it out it'll be much appreciated.


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## Omar EAZi (Aug 5, 2015)

Now today I came back from work to find a new problem in the tank, a sudden algae bloom.

































From one problem to another, I started this tank knowing I'd be facing lot of problems throughout the journey, but it's all a part of the fun, I'll have to go through each problem, figure out the problems and come over them.
Now for this I'm not really sure, but I think maybe the Finnex Planed+ 24/7SE that I'm using, on the 24/7 feature the light is always except for 4 hours at night, rest of the time the light is always on, it's on max functions only for 6 hours of the day, the rest is light blue/red etc sort of things, so not 100% sure if it's the light that have caused this, or because there's more light and less fertz, the Co2 is pretty high, I keep it on for 12 hours a day, with uncountable bubbles per second.


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## viwwo (Jan 15, 2010)

OOH NO!!! I have the same light that I'm about to use on my new tank...
Are you adding iron and potassium? (didn’t go back to read it all)

edit.

The way I fixed my Fuzz or Beard (I had the same thing as you but don’t know the name off the top of my head) algae is to increase on the excel and adding potassium. Also, increase the water flow with a powerhead. Clean it up as much as you can and do a water change.
I have a high light for 8 hours a day and I was able to fix the problem. 
Good luck.


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## McCarthy (Mar 13, 2017)

I have no personal experiences yet, only info I have gathered online, so take it with a grain of salt. I would reduced light to 8 hours a day and never up to 100%. I'd start daily water changes, test water and adjust ferts.


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## houseofcards (Mar 21, 2009)

Algae issues like that in new tanks are almost always caused by too much light at startup. Assuming everything else is there for the plants which it looks like it is. If your running one strong light you should only have around 4 hrs at first. If you have too lights you can run just viewing light for longer and then the stronger light to reach the carpet for just 1-2 hours that's all you need. This way it runs clean, as the plant mass increases you can increase the duration of the light.


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## Omar EAZi (Aug 5, 2015)

So lately I've had some algae issues in my tank, I drastically reduced the photosynthesis hours to 4 hours per day, and cranked up on the Co2 a bit in this duration, algae seems to be disappearing, I don't have any ottos in my tank which is why it's hard to totally remove everything, but I've ordered some and they'll be arriving by mid of August, hopefully they'll help balance out this issue.
Anyways so plants been growing up alot(Except for the carpet T_T), I did little tweaks here and there to the carpet, and hopefully within the next 2 weeks they'll start growing a little better, I got a power head today, it was an uncontrolled sunsun wavemaker, it was cheap so I thought it wouldn't be very strong, it almost blasted and uprooted my plants, plugged it out, put it back in the box, threw it in a cabinet for long term hibernation. Added a skimmer to the tank to help with the protein layer building up. Will see if I can get a controlled but inexpensive wavemaker, I need more flow in the tank. 
While doing the water change I noticed something really bad, my cardinal tetras have ich, and I know where it came from, I got some more rams since I liked my old ones, I got the german blue rams, they have some sort of spots on them, between these spots were some ich spots that I didn't notice, not having a Quarantine Tank is a big mistake. I googled ich treatment in planted tanks, saw people suggesting cranking up the heater to around 28~30C, some people advised with little bit of salt, some said no salt at all it'll melt the plants, so for now I'll get a heater first of all and set it to 28~30C, I didn't have a heater because I live in Dubai and it's always super hot here. But I guess it's not super hot in the fish tank so I need to get one. Hope I can solve this out, coz my shipment of ottos/amanos/RCS are arriving by mid of August and I don't have a QT to put them in, I'll have to put them in main tank immediately.
Anyways enough talk, I'll leave you guys with some pictures of today's trimming and propagating. 

Right before water change:









Trimmings:









After trimming and removing 30~40% water:









Filling it back:









After water change, water still looks a bit cloudy after water change coz did some propagating and preposition.









If anyone has any tips on fixing the ich issue let me know please, would appreciate it.


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## houseofcards (Mar 21, 2009)

I would do the heat treatment at this point. 

On a nice size tank a UV is a very good investment. If the flow is set correctly you will never had to worry about ich again. Also when you scape the tank and things get moved around ammonia is released which can cause cloudy and/or green water. You will never have an issue with a UV the water will be crystal clear. It helps when you acclimate sensitive fish that are prone to infection when their immune system gets compromised from the stress.


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## Jeff5614 (Dec 29, 2005)

Quite a few years ago before getting into planted tanks I bought a couple of fish from one of the local big box pet stores and dumped them straight into my tank without any quarantine. A day later I noticed they had ich which spread to my other fish and I ended up losing about half of them while doing the heat treatment. I decided to invest in a UV sterilizer after that and I've continued to use it for the last ten years or more. I can say I've had no disease outbreaks since then, of course I've gotten pickier about the fish I buy, and they do improve water clarity so what's not to like about them? 

I think the concerns some people have with them affecting ferts is overblown. I can't say that I've had any problems growing plants the entire time I've used one.


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## Omar EAZi (Aug 5, 2015)

Jeff5614 said:


> Quite a few years ago before getting into planted tanks I bought a couple of fish from one of the local big box pet stores and dumped them straight into my tank without any quarantine. A day later I noticed they had ich which spread to my other fish and I ended up losing about half of them while doing the heat treatment. I decided to invest in a UV sterilizer after that and I've continued to use it for the last ten years or more. I can say I've had no disease outbreaks since then, of course I've gotten pickier about the fish I buy, and they do improve water clarity so what's not to like about them?
> 
> I think the concerns some people have with them affecting ferts is overblown. I can't say that I've had any problems growing plants the entire time I've used one.


I think lot of people also worry that it might kill the good bacteria in the tank, which is why I don't use it.


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## Omar EAZi (Aug 5, 2015)

So the tank has been through alot, algae bloom followed by ich that killed 50 of my cardinals. I used Kick-Ich medicine with heat treatment, and finally got rid of all ich, then I still had the algae all over the tank, read about the 1, 2 punch method using Hydrogen Peroxide with Excel, so I did that and it helped clear lot of algae.. The tank is now finally back alive looking good, plants are back on track and doing good, added some fish to replace the cardinals I lost, I added a mix of Dwarf Neon Rainbowfish and Congo Tetras. 

this is how the tank is looking now, after trim, and water change today.









I got some wood from myaquariumbox, didn't know what else to do with them so here they go, hope once the algae grows out it looks less uglier than now lol









I'm not sure what this red plant is called, anyone got ID?! Also around it you can notice the MC is finally spreading around, it's taking forever but I ain't in no hurry lol









These are doing fine, the 15 otocinclus catfish I've added are keeping the plants+tank super clean, almost zero algae around, got to get them some algae wafers to munch on.









Also need ID for the plant in the front, got it a while back and it did fine through the algae outbreak, don't know what it's called though.









Last, I was thinking of getting a black background for the tank, colors will look more vibrant, so I did a little test with a black garbage bag, what do you guys think with or without black background?










So that's about it, sry for not updating for a while, but tank was a mess and there was just nothing to share about it. 
also the little empty space in the front mid(little left) that I have, it was filled with S-Repend and AR Mini that both melted out totally. thinking of filling this area with dwarf hairgrass, what do you guys suggest?!
any other suggestions are also welcome. thanks for the read guys. 
Keep planting.


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## Bleuwater (Aug 5, 2017)

I think a frosted glass film might look best, but the black would hide the equipment better


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## SKYE.__.HIGH (Mar 18, 2017)

I would say frosted or no background. I really detest black backgrounds (IMO). I love frosted backgrounds. 


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## Jeff5614 (Dec 29, 2005)

Omar EAZi said:


> I think lot of people also worry that it might kill the good bacteria in the tank, which is why I don't use it.


If the good bacteria is floating around in the water column it will, but most of our good bacteria is found in the substrate, filter, hardscape, etc., not free floating.


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## houseofcards (Mar 21, 2009)

Omar EAZi said:


> I think lot of people also worry that it might kill the good bacteria in the tank, which is why I don't use it.


Think about it. Many with hi-tech planted tank do 50%+ water changes. If there was any significant BB in the water column the thank would have to recycle every time we did a water change and that simply doesn't happen. Whoever thinks there is any significant BB in the actual WC is just misinformed.


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## SKYE.__.HIGH (Mar 18, 2017)

Any update ? I'm really curious because I have the same tank. Not setup yet );


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## Omar EAZi (Aug 5, 2015)

SKYE.__.HIGH said:


> Any update ? I'm really curious because I have the same tank. Not setup yet );


Right now I have no algae, no ich, tank is functioning fine, every water change, I do a bit of pruning and replanting, wanna make streets of plants instead of spots only to look more of a dutch style.

Before water change: Morning Red lights On, on the Finnex planted+ 24/7SE









Still before water change and trimming of today: White lights









After trimming and trimming some of the stem plants on the back: Also changed the location of the plant that looks like Jungle Val, not sure what it's called.









Otto doing his job:










Any suggestion of moving any plant to any other part of the tank?!


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## Hitaiwan666 (Nov 24, 2016)

Get an inline heater!


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## Omar EAZi (Aug 5, 2015)

Hitaiwan666 said:


> Get an inline heater!


I actually ordered an inline heater a few days ago, waiting for it to arrive now!!


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## sudeep (Jun 25, 2017)

where did u get those co2 canisters from here in dubai?


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## Omar EAZi (Aug 5, 2015)

sudeep said:


> where did u get those co2 canisters from here in dubai?


an industrial company that my company deals with for refrigeration. it's in Alquoz if you know the area.

Bump: So as someone suggested on another forum, I rearranged the tank, tried to make some streets with what I had, at the end the tank got so cloudy from disturbing the soil that I couldn't see where I was planting haha. I had to wait till today for the cloud to settle down to take pictures, I'm pretty sure I got my tank into a mini cycle from all the disturbance I did to the soil. anyways I'll leave you guys with the pics.

Full tank shot: 









Left to right shots:

































I received my inline heater today, So I'll install it and remove this in tank heater today, and the small skimmer in the back, I'll get rid of that as well since my stainless steel lily pipes have a skimmer section on the inflow part and it's adjustable and works very well. 
So I'm actually happy of how the tank turned out, but I think there's still much room for improvement, so I'm still open to any suggestions you guys have.

Thanks again for everyone who supported me getting to this point


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## Omar EAZi (Aug 5, 2015)

Some random pics of the tank from different angles..
I know in dutch style we're not supposed to put colorful fishes that will attract the attention away from plants, but I'm not competing with my tank so I think it's okay to have some fun with it.

So I got myself 2 new rainbow fishes 









Some more dwarf neon rainbows and congo tetras:










This is how the entire tank looks like now, still didn't get the time to take out the heater and fit in the new inline heater I got.
also I got a question, if you guys can notice on top of the tank right above the water level, there are these white marks that appear, how to get rid of them?! makes the top of the tank looks ugly.









on the right side, I'm planning to move those red stem plants(don't know the name) to be in a line instead of taking a big spot, and then fill that empty spot with dwarf hairgrass. what do you guys think?!
on the left side if you guys can notice there's also an empty spot, there are some small sr repens there, they'll cover that area ones they grow.


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## sudeep (Jun 25, 2017)

Omar EAZi said:


> an industrial company that my company deals with for refrigeration. it's in Alquoz if you know the area.
> 
> Bump: So as someone suggested on another forum, I rearranged the tank, tried to make some streets with what I had, at the end the tank got so cloudy from disturbing the soil that I couldn't see where I was planting haha. I had to wait till today for the cloud to settle down to take pictures, I'm pretty sure I got my tank into a mini cycle from all the disturbance I did to the soil. anyways I'll leave you guys with the pics.
> 
> ...


Is that industrial company Emirates industrial gasses? Also what is the capacity on those tanks? 6 kg? 

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## Omar EAZi (Aug 5, 2015)

sudeep said:


> Is that industrial company Emirates industrial gasses? Also what is the capacity on those tanks? 6 kg?
> 
> Sent from my SM-G925F using Tapatalk


I don't really remember the name to be honest, msg me on private and I'll give you their number.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________



I did some major trimming/propagation and more than 50% water change.. tank is looking good to me, but I think there's a big room for improvement, I want some advice from anyone who's expert in dutch stylin, I still don't think my tank looks like proper dutch tank, besides removing the fishes, what else can I improve, plant position wise etc.

here are the pics:
Tank looks little cloudy/messy due to water change



























waiting for some suggestions, thanks alot guys.


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## SKYE.__.HIGH (Mar 18, 2017)

Any updates? I am pretty anxious to setup my 120-P as well.


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## Omar EAZi (Aug 5, 2015)

I moved to a new place.. I totally rescape my tank.. It's more of a nature style tank now.. The Co2 diffuser is just sticking for no reason.. Tank is running with just filter and light nothing else.
Below picture is around 2 months old, I'll get some new pics and post once I'm back home.


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## Omar EAZi (Aug 5, 2015)

Some new pics of how the tank looks right now, it needs some trimming and cleaning all around.
Photos are even crappy were taking with bad phone cam.


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## Omar EAZi (Aug 5, 2015)

*Back again*

So after neglecting the tank for almost an year I'm back now and want to improve the way my tank looks. 
So currently the tank has all the same equipment that it used to have except for Co2 that has ran out long time ago but I can refill it anytime and get it going. 
The plants I currently have been doing fine with no Co2 and give me less work with trimming and all, so not sure if I'll refill the Co2 cylinder for now unless I decided to buy more plants and run Co2. For the coming month or so I'll still be a little busy since I was away for 1 year so I have lots of things to catch up with besides my tank :icon_roll ... So for now I'll just play around with what I have.
So the tank was looking full and the plants were healthy and all, but it all looked like a big mess so I wanted to rearrange things a bit so the tank looks more pleasant to the human eye.
I decided to remove some of the DW and keep only one piece to the right of the tank. I relocated and trimmed most of the plants. Check out the process in pictures:

*Tank before touching anything*

















*After removing DW and some of the plants right from their roots*








*
removed almost 80% of the water
*









*replanted the plants in their new positions and trimmed them outside the tank
*









*refilled the tank, it stayed cloudy for a long time
*









*After few hours the water is less cloudy
*

















*Next day, water is still little bit cloudy but better than yesterday
*

























*some close up pics of my mushrooms and fishes
*

















































*I had total of 6 endler guppies 2 males and 4 females, now I can't even count them probably close to 30 or more
*









*Before and after 
*









So these are the pics of the process I went through, and the live stock I currently have is way more than this tank can handle on papers, but with the plants I had I think the ecosystem sort of built itself to handle this bio-load, I can't remember the last time I had any dead fish. I have countless number of snails in the tank but couldn't show them in the picture, it's the pest snail that has a cone shape can't remember the name right now, I think they actually help a lot with the ecosystem of the tank, and the plecos and the other bottom dwellers are also helping with it, the tank is so out of algae that I feed my bottom dwellers everyday. When doing the maintenance I see little green spots on the glass but that's about it when it comes to algae.

Anyways, so after doing all this the tank looks better than what it looked yesterday, but I still feel something's off about the tank, I still want to change something but can't really tell what it is, I want your opinions in that. Now to explain something, the original idea was to have 2 sections in the tank, front section that's all white sand/gravel, and then lava rocks around the middle of the tank dividing the tank into 2 sections front to back with the back side being dark aquasoil substrate and fully plants, below is an example of the tank when I first rescaped it sometime during the last year when I had 1 week off. 
*an example of how it looked back then*








Now what has happened is alot of the dark substrate from the back side has crawled to the front making the front side not so white as it used to be, and the lava rocks are totally covered with plants which I don't know if it's a good thing or not, meaning I can't really tell if I like the looks of it or not.
So I want some insight on what to do with the tank and what I can change that will make things look better, I'm open to all sorts of suggestions and opinions. 

Sorry for the long post. Thanks for reading along :grin2:


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## Charrr89 (May 15, 2013)

your tank is AMAZING 

finally reset my password so im scrolling around again :]


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