# d2's Planted Tank Adventurama



## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

Hi all!
After more than a decade and several successful builds in the Saltwater Reef hobby, I've decided to jump ship and try my hand at this planted tank thang. I need something new to learn but still need to have a tank in the house, so I figure let's try something a little different and *go green*! Isn't that what all the cool kids are doing these days? :grin2:

I took down the reef a few months back. Meanwhile, I set up a little 7g cube that I've been fooling around with to kind of dip my toe in and start familiarizing myself with freshwater planted practices. But it's really just scratching the surface. For the big tank, I'm going all in! And I'm going to need some (lots) help along the way. I hope you all will be patient with me as I fumble my way through. I do understand the basics of fish keeping and growing things underwater. I just need to mentally let go of some things and pick up new ideas/practices if that makes sense.

Anyway, let's get on with the show, shall we? 

Here's a quick rundown of some of the basics of this build.

*Tank:* WaterBox Clear Pro 6025 - 143 gallons (541 Liters)
*Lighting:* (3) GHL Mitras 7004 
*Controller:* GHL Profilux 4
*Doser:* GHL Doser 2.1 <--- will be implemented later, but I have it from my Reef tank

Those are the current "knowns".

Now to the "unknowns" and "leaning towards" items...

*Filtration:* Thinking of starting with a Fluval FX6 and possibly adding a second one later if needed
*Co2:* 10lb tank? And Dual Stage Regulator needed. Suggestions welcome.
*Heater:* Possibly something in-line?
*Water Changes:* Leaning towards setting up some sort of Auto Water Change system

*Fish, Plants and Scape style:* Going for more of a nature-scape, Amano type of thing but maybe not so plant heavy. A good amount of hardscape with large branch. I'm not really sure. I think I'm just going to have to feel it out. I'd really like to try Discus. But I know they prefer warmer water which limits plant selection. So I'll be talking with the guys at ADG here in Houston to help figure that out. 

It will probably have a pretty asymmetrical setup, partly to help hide equipment in the tank, and partly because the tank is being located close to a corner of the room.

Which brings me to the final part of my first post of this build... the tank location.
The tank will be located on this empty wall, next to the large sliding glass doors, behind the sofa.





























That's it for now! Comments and suggestions appreciated. I'm here to learn and share ideas. 
There will be more coming next week as the lights and hopefully the tank arrive!
Thanks!


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## PurdueGK (May 16, 2015)

Man I can’t wait for this Dennis! Your reef tanks were superb! I am in the same boat you are. I was in reefing and I need a change. I am going with a 50 gallon setup 90P and I am leaning towards heavily planted with a large school of cardinals. Discus are amazing fish, I would love to see you go that route with that large of a setup. Can’t wait to see your progress.


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## Miller (Aug 9, 2017)

I saw this post and thought, "I wonder if this is Dennis. I just converted my 200 to planted. So far so good minus the ich I'm dealing with now. Welcome to the other side.


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

Hello,

Looks like you are off to more then a good start with the equipment you have/are choosing. Regarding the CO2 regulator. You will hear people referring to "building" their own but what they mean is they are taking an existing CO2 regulator and then screwing on parts to make it more precise and better suited for our needs. The best option is to either "build" your own from a used regulator and use parts from some place like diyco2regulator.com. Or to buy one from a member in the sale and trade section who has already done this. After that there are off the shelf options specific to our hobby. CO2Art is the nicest "cheap" brand probably. GLA is well thought of but more expensive.

A FX6 is probably adequate though a lot of people choose to go the sump route when they have tanks this big. 

Have you given thought to substrate or plant choices yet? Do you want a plant to carpet some or all of the tank floor? 

If you want to do discus I would seriously consider finding a way to put in an auto water change system. I have not owned discus but my understanding from reading about people who are successful at keeping them is that water changes more then once a week is not uncommon. 

What are your tap water parameters? Pretty much anything can be worked with but some plants / fish will be easier to work with certain types of parameters then others. The worst case scenario is the need to use RO/DI water for some or all of your water changes. If this is required you will either need a monster system to keep up with a tank this size with discus or reconsider the discus thing.

Edit: one last thing. Regarding the CO2 tank. Before you buy a bright shiny new one figure out where you are going to be refilling the thing. Some places don't refill your tank but trade it in for one of their tanks they already filled. These places also sell tanks. So before you pay for something nice and shiny make sure you will actually be getting to hold on to it after the first fill up.


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

PurdueGK said:


> Man I can’t wait for this Dennis! Your reef tanks were superb! I am in the same boat you are. I was in reefing and I need a change. I am going with a 50 gallon setup 90P and I am leaning towards heavily planted with a large school of cardinals. Discus are amazing fish, I would love to see you go that route with that large of a setup. Can’t wait to see your progress.





Miller said:


> I saw this post and thought, "I wonder if this is Dennis. I just converted my 200 to planted. So far so good minus the ich I'm dealing with now. Welcome to the other side.


HA! Thanks for checking in, guys. Hopefully this build doesn't turn into an epic fail. :grin2:



minorhero said:


> Hello,
> 
> Looks like you are off to more then a good start with the equipment you have/are choosing.


Thanks! Lots of great info. Let me try to answer...



minorhero said:


> Regarding the CO2 regulator. You will hear people referring to "building" their own but what they mean is they are taking an existing CO2 regulator and then screwing on parts to make it more precise and better suited for our needs. The best option is to either "build" your own from a used regulator and use parts from some place like diyco2regulator.com. Or to buy one from a member in the sale and trade section who has already done this. After that there are off the shelf options specific to our hobby. CO2Art is the nicest "cheap" brand probably. GLA is well thought of but more expensive.


I've done both before (build vs buy) for my calcium reactors on the reef. I think this time I'll be purchasing. I just don't have as much free time as I've had in the past to search out all the parts.



minorhero said:


> A FX6 is probably adequate though a lot of people choose to go the sump route when they have tanks this big.


Yes, I considered both options. Was looking at some wet/dry setups too. I don't know if it's just because I want to do something different this time or what but decided to try going the canister filter route.
I was also considering two slightly smaller filters like the FX4 but they are the same diameter and I like the extra tray in the FX6.
Also thought about a couple of Oase 600 but reviews seemed to be pretty mixed, making me hesitant to go that route.



minorhero said:


> Have you given thought to substrate or plant choices yet? Do you want a plant to carpet some or all of the tank floor?


Yes, I'm most likely going with the ADA substrates. I would like some ground cover if there is something that is slower growing and easier to trim. But i may limit this, keeping it to the mid-ground, with a white sand in the foreground. Again, still kinda figuring this out and the hardscape may drive my final decision.



minorhero said:


> If you want to do discus I would seriously consider finding a way to put in an auto water change system. I have not owned discus but my understanding from reading about people who are successful at keeping them is that water changes more then once a week is not uncommon.


Yeah, i did notice that and one reason I'm leaning towards the AWC, especially with the size of the tank. It would be hard for me to do single massive water changes.
Plus, I always have an AWC with my reef tanks. So much easier. In that first pic you can see a bunch of 1/4" RO line coiled up outside, from the reef setup. Haha. It goes through the wall to the tank inside. And directly behind that wall is a half bath, so I have access to the sink drain.



minorhero said:


> What are your tap water parameters? Pretty much anything can be worked with but some plants / fish will be easier to work with certain types of parameters then others. The worst case scenario is the need to use RO/DI water for some or all of your water changes. If this is required you will either need a monster system to keep up with a tank this size with discus or reconsider the discus thing.


We have pretty high TDS in Houston... and high in both chlorine/chloramines. I have a SpectraPure RO/DI with Auto Flush. What I'm still unsure of is exactly what I would need to remineralize the water.



minorhero said:


> Edit: one last thing. Regarding the CO2 tank. Before you buy a bright shiny new one figure out where you are going to be refilling the thing. Some places don't refill your tank but trade it in for one of their tanks they already filled. These places also sell tanks. So before you pay for something nice and shiny make sure you will actually be getting to hold on to it after the first fill up.


Yep, good point. We have a Home Brew shop just down the street that I will check in with before purchasing a tank.

Thanks!!! :smile2:


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

Ah you are in really good shape with the RO/DI setup already in place. 

If you don't want to mess with researching regulators then there are folks in the buy/trade forum that can sell you rebuilt regulators for a few hundred dollars that will be better then pretty much anything you can buy elsewhere. The reason being that the solenoids on the off the shelf regulators are usually not great and the needle valves are sometimes less then ideal. Most off the shelf regulators will come with a bubble counter but given the size of tank you will be using this will not be very useful to you, likely you will want a flow meter instead. I know you said you want to buy instead of diy, but diyco2regulator.com makes it pretty easy to do it yourself because they sell everything you need (minus the used regulator itself) in a kit. But not everyone wants to go down that path, sounds like you have gone both ways so to quote my wife, "whatever sparks joy in your life". 

Carpeting plants tend to be a lot of work to keep trimmed and looking nice, especially if they cover a lot of real estate in a tank. Your tank is going to be pretty big so yea I get wanting to keep it low maintenance. If you have the patience you could go with something like Cryptocoryne parva. It will carpet, but its going to take a while (like 1 or 2 years) before it grows in really well assuming you plant with decent density to start with. It doesn't require much/any maintenance so it makes it an easy choice given what you described.

For discus you may want to consider going with a blackwater aquascape with a lot of tanin in the water. This is a very natural environment for them but its not to everyone's taste. 

If you do commit to going with discus it does simplify your plant choices a LOT because most things won't work with temperatures in the mid to upper 80s basically you are can do lots of different kinds of amazon swords, anubias, and crypts. These are relatively low maintenance plants which sounds like that is a goal of yours. The anubias doesn't grow in substrate so you will be planting that on wood/rocks. The crypts and the swords are easy to grow plants that do go in substrate. I will say the ADA aquasoil is kind of overkill, especially if you are planning an auto-doser anyway, but certainly those plants won't mind. The lights you picked I am not familiar with but a google search says they are each capable of 130watts. This is crazy high overkill for swords, anubias, and crypts so you will need to turn those down a lot. If you run your discus a little colder (lower 80s) it gives you access to a lot more plants but /shrug then you are running them at the lower end of their comfort range. 

If you think you might change things up down the road then all of these choices make sense, otherwise you may want to consider inert substrate options. An inert and homogeneous substrate has a lot of advantages when aquascaping long term because it doesn't matter if pieces from one part of the tank find themselves in another part. If you have decorative sand in the front and aquasoil in the back then its only a matter of time before you are picking bits of aquasoil out of your sand. As for the lights, certainly you could use much less powerful (and cheaper) lights then the ones you picked out, but it sounds like you either already own these or budget is not a factor to be concerned with?


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## Frank158 (Oct 1, 2013)

I subscribed to your journal because your house looks really cool. Very nice.

You have lots of sunlight coming in. Will that not be a problem about algae?

Looking forward to see your progress.


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

minorhero said:


> Ah you are in really good shape with the RO/DI setup already in place.
> 
> If you don't want to mess with researching regulators then there are folks in the buy/trade forum that can sell you rebuilt regulators for a few hundred dollars that will be better then pretty much anything you can buy elsewhere. The reason being that the solenoids on the off the shelf regulators are usually not great and the needle valves are sometimes less then ideal. Most off the shelf regulators will come with a bubble counter but given the size of tank you will be using this will not be very useful to you, likely you will want a flow meter instead. I know you said you want to buy instead of diy, but diyco2regulator.com makes it pretty easy to do it yourself because they sell everything you need (minus the used regulator itself) in a kit. But not everyone wants to go down that path, sounds like you have gone both ways so to quote my wife, "whatever sparks joy in your life".
> 
> ...


You rock, brother! Thanks for all this info you're throwing my way, really appreciate it. 

I'm going to look into that diy regulator website. Thanks for the tip. I like the building part, but last time I was scouring ebay for weeks and it was kind of a pain in the butt.
This sounds much easier.
Definitely will look into that carpet. I don't mind the wait. Although I might eat those words 6 months from now. :laugh2:

My thoughts on the soil is this... I figure if I can get the tank setup initially as optimum as possible, it removes certain factors from the equation if I'm having issues.
And I won't have to bother with the doser for awhile, keeping things simpler in the beginning.
I figure as the soil starts to deplete and/or livestock starts taking too much out of the water, I can slowly start dosing. Does that make sense?

As for the discus/plant issues, will probably swing by ADG next week. Having a resource like that locally... can't let that go untapped! haha

Budget.... yeah... so coming from the reef side of the hobby, you guys have it made!!! Everything is so much cheaper. LOL
But even with my reefs I tend to have a buy once cry once mentality and get good equipment from the start. I also would rather overbuild than underbuild.
And to top it off, I'm a professional designer, artist, and photographer. And my wife is a graphic designer, too. So style plays a massive part in EVERYTHING. I don't deny it. How do I pick out a bottle of wine, even? By the label design!!! :grin2:
So quality, performance, and design are first and foremost. If the equipment has the ability to grow with me, rather than hold me back, even better.
I've been a huge fan of GHL equipment for years. Ticks all the boxes. I won't trust my tanks to any other controller on the market and their lighting has the same build quality and robust/stable software and firmware. Might be overkill from an intensity standpoint, we'll find out. But that's ok since they are so controllable. Again, I'd rather have to turn them down than regret my purchase and wish I got something better.

Speaking of the lights, I'll be showing those in detail. Lots of pics and possibly some videos too.
You don't see them around here and these smaller 4-puck versions are brand spanking new. 
I'll be a bit of a guinea pig around here I guess!





Frank158 said:


> I subscribed to your journal because your house looks really cool. Very nice.
> 
> You have lots of sunlight coming in. Will that not be a problem about algae?
> 
> Looking forward to see your progress.


Ha!!! Thanks. I'll pass that on to my wife. :grin2:
Yes, sunlight may definitely become a problem. Will have to wait and see. That spot doesn't really get a lot of direct sunlight, but lots of filtered.
We've talked about getting some drapes or other treatment for those, so worse comes to worse we do that.


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## somewhatshocked (Aug 8, 2011)

1st. Holy wow at the awesome blue couch. GIVE ME IT.

2nd. Please hurry up and make this thing happen because I cannot wait to follow along. 

Those large windows are just begging for some automated shades that adjust to temperature. Clean and modern to go with your terrific home.


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

somewhatshocked said:


> 1st. Holy wow at the awesome blue couch. GIVE ME IT.
> 
> 2nd. Please hurry up and make this thing happen because I cannot wait to follow along.
> 
> Those large windows are just begging for some automated shades that adjust to temperature. Clean and modern to go with your terrific home.


HA! Gimme about 6 months. When the cats are done shredding the back two corners  I'll give it to you. :red_mouth


So I forgot about one other piece of equipment I was thinking about.... UV Light.
I ran AquaUV Classics on my reef.
Suggestions for this tank? Do it? Don't do it? What size if I do it?


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## aquaoz (Jul 17, 2019)

d2creative said:


> Suggestions for this tank? Do it? Don't do it? What size if I do it?


Do it....

Rimless, long shallow with the base higher then usual so that the centre tank is at eye level. Pendant LEDs (The shimmer would look amazing on that wall behind), in fact go the whole hog and setup RGB tank back lighting.


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## somewhatshocked (Aug 8, 2011)

UV filtration isn't something we use all the time on the freshwater side of the hobby.

I have a couple UV filters and an in-line unit and have only ever used them when I needed to help deal with contaminants or illness - only a handful of times in a couple decades.

Definitely more useful on the reef & salt side. But nothing wrong with having for fresh if you want be extra-prepared. I'm sure there are at least a few people on the forum who use UV as part of their filtration routine constantly, though, so hopefully they'll chime in.



d2creative said:


> So I forgot about one other piece of equipment I was thinking about.... UV Light.
> I ran AquaUV Classics on my reef.
> Suggestions for this tank? Do it? Don't do it? What size if I do it?


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## Jamo33 (Feb 18, 2014)

somewhatshocked said:


> UV filtration isn't something we use all the time on the freshwater side of the hobby.
> 
> I have a couple UV filters and an in-line unit and have only ever used them when I needed to help deal with contaminants or illness - only a handful of times in a couple decades.
> 
> ...


Most frequently I have seen people actually place a uv line into their system temporarily. As easy as place a hose on one size and hooking up to your current canister filter. 
Many, many a people are using them as @somewhatshocked has said, and for green water clean up I believe.
Perhaps something useful to have on hand, but maybe not a necessity.


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

Jamo33 said:


> Many, many a people are using them as @somewhatshocked has said, and for green water clean up I believe.
> Perhaps something useful to have on hand, but maybe not a necessity.


That's actually more how I've seen them used on the reef side. I was one of the few people who run them. 
I guess I see it as an extra safeguard to have in place... a preventative rather than a fix. Needed? 99% of the time, no. Helpful in keeping water clear and a little added protection against pests... yes.
And you have to size them properly with the correct amount of flow. Enough to be effective but not so much that you are nuking all the good stuff as well.

I actually would have thought they would have been more popular in fresh but maybe not planted? I know they are definitely popular in ponds. But ya, i don't want to spend the cash if they are not needed at all, but if they are considered helpful and not detrimental in some way, I'd be interested. The good thing is that if I do get one, the size needed would be much smaller... aka cheaper. lol


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## somewhatshocked (Aug 8, 2011)

Since it's not necessarily something you want to spend a lot on and don't obviously need it right away but still want? I'd just keep an eye out for a used unit over the next few months. Buy something someone is tired of, something that just needs replacement bulbs or a new sleeve. You'll save yourself a chunk of cash and will still end up getting something that will give you peace of mind. 

I do like having mine even if I rarely use them. 



d2creative said:


> don't want to spend the cash if they are not needed at all, but if they are considered helpful and not detrimental in some way, I'd be interested.


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Welcome to the planted tank world.

It seems in the last year or so we have seen a large number of reefers converting to planted here. The attention to detail required for reef will be very helpful to you. They are both complicated but in different ways. 

I am not familiar with the lights you mentioned, but after a quick search looks like they will be capable of producing lots of PAR. Keep in mind more is not necessarily better, and you will want to match the light intensity to type of plants you choose. 

Good luck and look forward to seeing how things develop. 

Subscribed!


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## PurdueGK (May 16, 2015)

Dennis, have you received your tank from water box yet. How’s the quality? I am trying to decide between: 
Landen 
Water box 
UNS


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## EdWiser (Jul 14, 2015)

Greggz said:


> Welcome to the planted tank world.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




The great thing about the GHL Lights is that they are fully adjustable. Something that planted tank light makers have decided to not include in their designs. 
You never see a Reef Led light that is not fully adjustable. So you can give the corals the right amount of par. Would be so helpful if it was a thing in the planted tank world of lighting too.


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

Greggz said:


> Welcome to the planted tank world.
> 
> It seems in the last year or so we have seen a large number of reefers converting to planted here. The attention to detail required for reef will be very helpful to you. They are both complicated but in different ways.
> 
> ...


Thank you! And yeah... i don't think PAR will be a problem. I'm probably the one who will be the problem. LOL



PurdueGK said:


> Dennis, have you received your tank from water box yet. How’s the quality? I am trying to decide between:
> Landen
> Water box
> UNS


It shipped yesterday via UPS freight. I think it's supposed to be here around Tuesday this coming week but not sure if that means my home or if they will be calling me to schedule delivery. I would assume the latter. Either way I should have it around mid-week.
I'm going to do some unboxing and setup vids. Hopefully that will give you a pretty good idea.
My current (well, previous now) reef tank was an Elos Diamond Line. So I'll be comparing the WaterBox to what is basically considered THE premium "off-the-shelf" aquarium.
We are talking about two systems where one is literally twice the price (at least) of the other, so I would definitely expect some differences. But just from what I've seen online, I do have high hopes for the WB tank and stand.




EdWiser said:


> The great thing about the GHL Lights is that they are fully adjustable. Something that planted tank light makers have decided to not include in their designs.
> You never see a Reef Led light that is not fully adjustable. So you can give the corals the right amount of par. Would be so helpful if it was a thing in the planted tank world of lighting too.


Not only intensity (PAR), but spectrum as well. 
The settings GHL offers in their software is pretty impressive and go beyond what you'll find in most light systems, even other reef lights. For example, you can even "borrow" power from one color channel and overdrive another.


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## somewhatshocked (Aug 8, 2011)

I'd say lighting functionality is pretty similar on both sides of the aquatic hobby these days. But I'd consider GHL extremely high-end. 

You're not going to see it on low-end fixtures available on fleabay or Amazon but most high-end planted LED fixtures are fully adjustable, customizable, programmable. Probably goes far beyond what most planted tank hobbyists require.

Even the medium tech Current brand of fixtures are adjustable in terms of intensity and color and have offered that functionality for at least 7-8 years. 

Fluval has some products with decent functionality. 

Not trying to compare them with GHL but the functionality and features are definitely available.

My frustration the past couple years has been with locating decent, affordable 6500k-ish LEDs that aren't adjustable and don't require much effort. Especially when it comes to lighting shallow or smaller tanks. That's only recently started to improve.


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## Ventchur (Apr 29, 2018)

That space is my kinda style, super jealous.. 

Subscribed and good luck man!


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

Ventchur said:


> That space is my kinda style, super jealous..
> 
> Subscribed and good luck man!


LOL, thanks man.


So TODAY IS FINALLY *NEW TANK* DAY! 
UPS Freight should be swinging by the house later this afternoon. :grin2:


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## PurdueGK (May 16, 2015)

I think I’m
More excited than you are!


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## Jamo33 (Feb 18, 2014)

This is going to be fun. Impatiently awaiting pictures!


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

IT'S HERE!!! :bounce:

I've got a vid I'm working on but here's a couple pics after I dug into it to make sure it made the trip in one piece.

One thing I've got to say... it's a lot bigger in person than on paper!!! :grin2:


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## PurdueGK (May 16, 2015)

Drool!!! 
Awesome looking tank. What are your first impressions? How’s the silicone seams? Glass clarity?
It looks nicely packaged! I am close to pulling the trigger on the 44 gallon.


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

PurdueGK said:


> Drool!!!
> Awesome looking tank. What are your first impressions? How’s the silicone seams? Glass clarity?
> It looks nicely packaged! I am close to pulling the trigger on the 44 gallon.


From what i can see in the box, silicone looks nice. 
Can't see much as far as clarity or anything else yet. I need to get busy building the stand. Luckily the wife keeps my IKEA building skills sharp. LOL


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## PurdueGK (May 16, 2015)

d2creative said:


> PurdueGK said:
> 
> 
> > Drool!!!
> ...


lol I hear ya. I am going the custom stand build route. 

Happy for you man! Can’t wait to see more


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

First vid for the new build! Had a little help with this one.roud:


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## PurdueGK (May 16, 2015)

d2creative said:


> First vid for the new build! Had a little help with this one.<a href="http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/images/smilies/proud.gif" border="0" alt="" title="Proud" ></a>


Nice video! Looks like you have a nice family Dennis


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

I need to make a decision on the filter.
I'm down to two.
Fluval FX6 and Oase Biomaster 600 Thermal
One major concern is the power. The fluval is rated much higher, but how accurate are these number? I read somewhere that the Oase rating is much closer to reality. Maybe the two aren't that far apart???

Pros for Fluval:
Stronger Flow
Self starting
Auto air evacuation
Can probably get away with one for awhile

Pros for Oase: 
Integrated Heater
Easy clean pre-filter
Smaller diameter tubing fits Lilly Pipes
Customer service

Probably going to need two of the Oase right away or fairly quickly. Or at least one plus a power head?

Interested in what everyone else thinks.

Thanks!


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## ange062 (May 9, 2011)

Hey man, glad to see this is finally starting to come along! I'm just down the street if you need help with anything hit me up!

My take on a couple of things. For the filters, the Oase are pretty awesome, especially because of the integrated heater! If you change up the media setup in them they are easy to work with and effective. They have a priming bulb on them which is very effective, as well as an integrated dry break for the tubing. Very clean solution all in all, just need to delete some of the blue foam blocks and replace with a good biomedia, and run a finer filter pad (and possibly some Purigen) up top. I would run two of them so you get added flow and added filtration. 

UV filter all the way. I don't know how it took me so long to start using them, but I have an AquaUV on both my reed and planted tank now and they are absolutely awesome. They polish water, kill diseases, and kill algae - why would you not want to use one?!?  That being said you need a much lower rating for FW compared to SW so the one you have may be a massive amount of overkill. 

For CO2, if you don't want to build a medical grade one just get a GLA system. I have several of them and they work well, are well built. Get a PRO-SS dual-stage changeover setup and you will be set!


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

I haven't used either canister filter, but when I watch youtube videos of planted tanks in the 120 gallon class, if they are using 1 oase then they are all using 2. If you decide to go that route I wouldn't hesitate for a second to just buy 2 out of the gates.

I have seen people running fluval 6's on 120 setups. The King of DIY is running a single fluval 6 right now on a 120.


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

IMO always better to run two filters on a tank that size.

With two filters you have more flow, and more control of that flow. The filters get dirty at a slower pace. More debris is removed from the water column. When you clean one filter, the bio field of the other is untouched.

And if for some reason one needs service, it's no emergency as the other filter can keep things going while you get it figured out. 

There is no such thing as too much filtration. The more the better.

Good luck and enjoying following this build.


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## chulai48 (Oct 7, 2018)

Hey D2, I've followed all of your builds on RC for quite a few years. On RC I was known as vitodog. You helped me with my reef tank quite a few times. Glade to see you on this forum. I too will be converting my 125-gallon reef tank to a planted tank in the very near future. I currently run a 56-gallon planted tank that has been up ad running for about 7 months now. I'm very excited about your new tank build and will certainly be following along. I own an Oase 600 and am very pleased with it. I think you will need 2 for your new tank. These filters are very easy to maintain. I can't believe how big your children have become. I remember the little girl when she was just a baby. I would like to ask one question, any particular reason you did not just convert the Elos? I can't wait to see this builds progress.


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## PurdueGK (May 16, 2015)

Not saying I have the best taste, but I am definitely going with a oase thermo biomaster 600. From what I have researched they are top of the line aside from the ADA.


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

Greggz said:


> IMO always better to run two filters on a tank that size.
> 
> With two filters you have more flow, and more control of that flow. The filters get dirty at a slower pace. More debris is removed from the water column. When you clean one filter, the bio field of the other is untouched.
> 
> ...


Thank you very much! 

I definitely agree (after much research over the past few months) that two filters is the way to go on this tank if not running a sump.
In this particular case I was just thinking maybe I could get by with one for a little bit, until the bio-load increased, then pick up the second. 
But yes, all good points and I do like the idea of alternating maintenance between filters.
Right now I'm leaning toward picking up two Oase.



chulai48 said:


> Hey D2, I've followed all of your builds on RC for quite a few years. On RC I was known as vitodog. You helped me with my reef tank quite a few times. Glade to see you on this forum. I too will be converting my 125-gallon reef tank to a planted tank in the very near future. I currently run a 56-gallon planted tank that has been up ad running for about 7 months now. I'm very excited about your new tank build and will certainly be following along. I own an Oase 600 and am very pleased with it. I think you will need 2 for your new tank. These filters are very easy to maintain. I can't believe how big your children have become. I remember the little girl when she was just a baby. I would like to ask one question, any particular reason you did not just convert the Elos? I can't wait to see this builds progress.


Hey man! Good to see you here. 

The Elos was a fantastic reef tank. Small overflow and perfect dimensions for a reef. But as you can see in the pics/vid, we did a bit of remodeling this year and the tank has to move location, 90 degree around the corner. The deeper dimension of the Elos was going to make things a little tight there and overlap the windows more. And this new spot allows for a longer tank which is kinda nice for planted.

Man, they grow up fast, don't they! And neither kid knows what it's like to NOT have an aquarium in the house. haha
And think about it... my daughter started showing up in my photos back when I was just about to start running beta units of the first gen Radions. LED was just starting then! Crazy. :icon_eek:

Thanks for the tip on the Oase. So you going to run a sump on the 125?
I dunno why, but I just didn't want a sump this time. Maybe just to have something different than normal???


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## chulai48 (Oct 7, 2018)

Hey D2, My plan right now is to keep the sump but would like to do a little more research before I make the decision. My 56-gallon does not have a sump and it just seems cleaner and easier to manage. I also have the Mitras LX7's. Can I adjust these lights to accommodate the plants?


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

chulai48 said:


> Can I adjust these lights to accommodate the plants?


You have the reef version of the LX7 so a lot more blue and less of the others. I haven't tried it, but you could probably get close in spectrum? But you'd have less par available to you, not utilizing some of the leds.

7004/6 (fresh) 9 channels: Royal blue, blue, warm white, cool white, true green, sky white, blue white, yellow, red, hyperred
7204/6 (reef) 9 channels: Royal blue, blue, cool white, true green, sky white, blue white, hyperred, hyperviolet, ultraviolet

Probably worth a shot since you have them. Plus if you don't use some of the channels like the UV for example, you can overdrive some of the others in your settings.


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## Blue Ridge Reef (Feb 10, 2008)

d2creative said:


> I need to make a decision on the filter.
> I'm down to two.
> Fluval FX6 and Oase Biomaster 600 Thermal


 I have a Fluval FX5 on a 125 and it's a TON of flow in a 6'x18" tank. Though I'm also of the mind that on a tank this size that 2 smaller canisters might be preferable.


Just one thing I'll mention that I wish I'd known when setting up my own tanks. There are some plants that once you put in your aquarium, they're pretty much in there for life. The worst of these for me is Java moss. It grows over and all around plants that I am trying to cultivate. I hate it and consider it the herpes of planted aquariums. Second on my list is duckweed. While it's a floater, it can still be really hard to get rid of. You leave one cell of the stuff and duckweed is covering the surface again in a month's time. This is even worse if you have other floaters because trying to get rid of just the duckweed when it's mixed with Salvinia minima or so forth is nearly impossible. Last would be subwassertang. I like to put some in shrimp tanks and it's a neat looking plant. But once established, your tank is pretty much always going to have it barring breaking the tank down. But at least it's not Java moss. I'm pretty certain that even a full tank breakdown isn't enough to get rid of that. One tiny speck of it left on a filter tube or so forth and it comes right back. Avoid these 3 unless you are sure you want them. Forever.


I can't wait to see more updates and best wishes setting this up and getting it going from another reef to planted convert.


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## DaveKS (Apr 2, 2019)

Agree on 2 canister approach. 2 FX4 and then split each one into 2 225gph outputs, that will give 4 outputs to spread around around tank for good coverage front and back and each output will be more plant tank friendly at 225gph or valved back slightly. In planted tank any output over 250gph is to hard, in fact right at 200 would be what I’d shoot for in your tank. 

Also the alternating the filter cleaning is a definite plus to me, alternating every 2 weeks.

What you did in reefs has no place in fresh planted, you want good coverage but overall circulation needs to be calmer, not blowing your plants sideways and making large portions of your tank inaccessible to fish because of bombastic current there. Design it so currents work together to create a greater whole and you can easily get by with 6-7x turn over rate in tank with no dead spots, just a nice gentle breeze all around tank making plants gently wiggle in the current.


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## somewhatshocked (Aug 8, 2011)

Haha! I love how you took all these photos of everything still packed up - including the stand - just to torture us.



d2creative said:


> IT'S HERE!!! :bounce:
> 
> I've got a vid I'm working on but here's a couple pics after I dug into it to make sure it made the trip in one piece.
> 
> One thing I've got to say... it's a lot bigger in person than on paper!!! :grin2:


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## EdWiser (Jul 14, 2015)

chulai48 said:


> Hey D2, My plan right now is to keep the sump but would like to do a little more research before I make the decision. My 56-gallon does not have a sump and it just seems cleaner and easier to manage. I also have the Mitras LX7's. Can I adjust these lights to accommodate the plants?




You should be able to get the freshwater LED boards to replace the saltwater ones. I would email GHL about changing them out. That is the great thing about the Mitras you can change and up grade the LED boards.


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

somewhatshocked said:


> Haha! I love how you took all these photos of everything still packed up - including the stand - just to torture us.


:hihi:

_"Hey Dennis, your threads are a little lacking in the pics department."_ - *Said NO ONE, EVER!!!* :grin2:


Started building the stand last night. Going to try to put a bit of a time lapse vid together but for now, here's a few pics...

Hardware...










All the things...










And the base. Tons of leveling feet. 
The exterior of the stand is white, but the interior is black now.
I'll try to show it in the vid, but the instructions are lacking. They are illustrated steps, nice and clear but almost zero mention of any of the hardware.
If you've put IKEA together before, it shouldn't be a problem. Has been pretty straight forward so far.
And there are some good videos for reference, even if it's not this specific stand.
https://www.waterboxaquariums.com/manuals/


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## RollaPrime (Jul 27, 2018)

I'm excited to see how things are progressing. As for filtration





d2creative said:


> I need to make a decision on the filter.
> I'm down to two.
> Fluval FX6 and Oase Biomaster 600 Thermal
> One major concern is the power. The fluval is rated much higher, but how accurate are these number? I read somewhere that the Oase rating is much closer to reality. Maybe the two aren't that far apart???
> ...


I have an FX6 on a 118 gallon and I swear by it. The auto air evacuation alone makes it a strong contender. But the return flow is an understated game changer











You can eliminate deaspots and/or create the type of circulation you want as opposed to a traditional spray bar. As for pre filters I consider them damn near essential and although the FX series doesn't come with an internal one you can purchase an external pre filter from Amazon. It keeps the canister squeaky clean.


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

Well, I just pulled the trigger on TWO Oase 600 Thermo canisters.
The integrated heater, prefilter and ability to easily use glass pipes won out. 

Next I probably need to be looking at c02 and how best to hook that up.
Seems like inline would be most efficient. GLA has regs with multiple outputs so I could run one line to each return.


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

d2creative said:


> Well, I just pulled the trigger on TWO Oase 600 Thermo canisters.
> The integrated heater, prefilter and ability to easily use glass pipes won out.
> 
> Next I probably need to be looking at c02 and how best to hook that up.
> Seems like inline would be most efficient. GLA has regs with multiple outputs so I could run one line to each return.


For a tank that size you should consider building a CO2 reactor (Cerges or Griggs). 

Inline diffusers need maintenance, as they get clogged up and need to be cleaned. I also had one fail (burst at the seam), which would have been a disaster had I not been standing there when it happened. 

With a reactor that is sized right you should have zero bubbles in the tank. I use a 20" house filter housing for my Cerges, and it works perfectly.


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

Greggz said:


> For a tank that size you should consider building a CO2 reactor (Cerges or Griggs).
> 
> Inline diffusers need maintenance, as they get clogged up and need to be cleaned. I also had one fail (burst at the seam), which would have been a disaster had I not been standing there when it happened.
> 
> With a reactor that is sized right you should have zero bubbles in the tank. I use a 20" house filter housing for my Cerges, and it works perfectly.


Noted! Will get my research hat on. :nerd:


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## houstonreef (Aug 24, 2018)

ange062 said:


> Hey man, glad to see this is finally starting to come along! I'm just down the street if you need help with anything hit me up!
> 
> My take on a couple of things. For the filters, the Oase are pretty awesome, especially because of the integrated heater! If you change up the media setup in them they are easy to work with and effective. They have a priming bulb on them which is very effective, as well as an integrated dry break for the tubing. Very clean solution all in all, just need to delete some of the blue foam blocks and replace with a good biomedia, and run a finer filter pad (and possibly some Purigen) up top. I would run two of them so you get added flow and added filtration.
> 
> ...


i am local houston too. I have UV on both of my plant tanks and i never have issue of green water. To me, it is an extra step to eliminate certain issue when dealing with algae. 

i have 2 GLA Co2 regulators and they are working fine.

I am running 2 eheim filters on my 120g and i would suggest to have 2 small instead of 1 big.

Bump:


d2creative said:


> Well, I just pulled the trigger on TWO Oase 600 Thermo canisters.
> The integrated heater, prefilter and ability to easily use glass pipes won out.
> 
> Next I probably need to be looking at c02 and how best to hook that up.
> Seems like inline would be most efficient. GLA has regs with multiple outputs so I could run one line to each return.


DIY a reactor that is what i did. i have run inline diffusor and it is a pain to clean. and if you don't clean it on time it effect the co2 level of entering into the tank.


i have a extra inline that you can try it. Let me know.


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

More work completed on the stand last night. Only thing left is doors.
There has been some concern about the black interior but the side walls are white.
At this point, I'm not seeing much of an issue with it being too dark inside. Plus I'll be adding a light anyway.

There are just two things I'm a little disappointed with. Disappointed may even be a little strong... more like "not as impressed with".
1. It's obviously the same stand used for their reef-ready tanks. A cutout in the top panel and huge opening on the rear wall for all the plumbing coming down from an overflow. You're selling a new line of NON-DRILLED tanks, specifically marketed for freshwater. There should be a stand specifically for that. I have an email into support just to confirm it wasn't an oversight. If I was sent the correct stand I'll be offering some "advice" on that.

2. The white exterior panels are... "OK". They are glossy but from what I can tell they are powder coated or lacquered or something. Comparing them to my previous Elos stand, the finish is not going to be as durable. The Elos had a strong laminate that was glossier and could really take a beating. I've drilled through it, it's thick. And even though the interior was some sort of man-made pressed wood, overall it was impervious to water and wear, and very strong. I'm worried about how the finish on the Waterbox stand is going to hold up over time. The interior plywood construction is nice from a water damage standpoint, but I can tell by the edges and corners that the outer layer is not nearly as strong. It's definitely wayyyyy nicer than the new Planet Aquariums stands. Those things look like a home spray job. On a scale of 1-10, with Elos being a 10, I'd rate the finish of the white panels around 8.5, and the Planet tanks a 4-5 at best.

That said, the stand seems very sturdy. I like the finish of the black panels which has a bit of a texture to it and feels more durable than the white panels. I like that it actually has a floor (the elos is designed without a floor, so vibration from equipment is not transmitted/reverberated through the stand), and the floor is raised which is kind of nice, even though it technically does eat up a little interior space. I think I mentioned earlier that there are tons of leveling feet. There are some good cutouts, plenty of room for cables and hoses. Although in my case, I do kind of wish there were cutouts on the right like there are on the left. Again, this is an issue that it's a reef stand, not freshwater. ADG makes some custom stands that have hose cutouts on the side panels. I waiver back and forth on that vs the rear placement, but at least there are provisions for multiple canister filters or a choice of placement if just running one.


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## RollaPrime (Jul 27, 2018)

Are discus still in the running @d2creative ?


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

RollaPrime said:


> Are discus still in the running @d2creative ?


Yes, but I haven't had time to run down to ADG to talk with Jeff Senske about it. :smile2:


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## RollaPrime (Jul 27, 2018)

d2creative said:


> Yes, but I haven't had time to run down to ADG to talk with Jeff Senske about it. :smile2:


Awesome. 

I noticed you mentioned plant selection being limited due to temperature. I have a source which has a surprising number of plants that do well at discus temps. However, it's on another forum and I'm not sure about the rules concerning linking to other forums. I'll pm it if you're interested.


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

Stand construction is complete.

I did hear back from Waterbox on the stand being "reef ready". It's not one of their reef stands because the tank itself is 1" smaller than their closest size reef tank.
So apparently the stand was specifically designed like this, which doesn't make much sense to me. They say it's so you'd have the option to run a sump if you want.
But why would I buy a non-drilled tank and drill it, when they sell reef ready tanks? 
Anyway, doesn't really matter, just seems odd to me. If it was me I just would have duplicated that left panel with the two large holes in it on the right side.
No need for the large center opening on the back wall. That's space that could be used for mounting equipment. And of course no need for the cutout on the top panel.

Heavy duty drawer slides are on order. I think i'm going to put both canister filters right in the center, on a slide out shelf.
Will make maintenance easier.
Thinking of having the co2 equipment on the right side, and then using the separate compartment on the left for electronics.


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

Soooo.... Griggs style co2 reactors.... do you think I can get away with just one?
The plan is for my plantings to be more heavily skewed to the right side of the tank. So figuring I could hook up the reactor to that filter that returns the water to that side of the tank.
If there is any real difference in co2 concentration within areas of the tank, odds are it would be higher on that side?
Or is that not even a thing?
Thoughts?


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

d2creative said:


> Soooo.... Griggs style co2 reactors.... do you think I can get away with just one?
> The plan is for my plantings to be more heavily skewed to the right side of the tank. So figuring I could hook up the reactor to that filter that returns the water to that side of the tank.
> If there is any real difference in co2 concentration within areas of the tank, odds are it would be higher on that side?
> Or is that not even a thing?
> Thoughts?


One reactor will be fine.

It's sizing that is the trick. 

I use a DIY Cerges, which is based on a 20" whole house filter. Completely dissolves CO2 for my 120G no problem. 

As long as you have good wide laminar flow, I would not worry about getting CO2 everywhere.

That being said, I split the output from the filter that drives my Cerges. So I have one outlet at each end of the tank. Doubt I really need it though.


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## chulai48 (Oct 7, 2018)

Hey D2, I know you're in the early planning stage with this tank, but check out Dfeagly's 55-gallon "Discus Community" on the Tank Journey forum. Beautiful tank with Discus and many beautiful plants.


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

Continuing to do a little work here and there.

Last night I spent playing with about 30 (yes, thirty... give or take) leveling feet.

They are all around the perimeter and on the cross braces.
I worked on all the perimeter ones first, then flipped the tank up on one end and used a straight edge to get all the center ones at the correct length to match the perimeter ones.
I've basically got it perfectly level but will re-check before the tank goes on. I'll be moving it around quite a bit between now and then as I install various things I'd rather do without the tank on top.

Here's one end of the stand showing the leveling feet.











And now I'm in the middle of drilling and test fitting the GHL "Flex Mounts" for the lights.
I've got two of the three installed. Need to add an extra brace in back for the third due to the large opening in the back wall of the stand.


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## somewhatshocked (Aug 8, 2011)

Did they include free CBD or a comped doctor visit for a prescription for all the anxiety that so many leveling feet are bound to induce???

Big fan of those lighting brackets.



d2creative said:


> Last night I spent playing with about 30 (yes, thirty... give or take) leveling feet.


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

somewhatshocked said:


> Did they include free CBD or a comped doctor visit for a prescription for all the anxiety that so many leveling feet are bound to induce???
> 
> Big fan of those lighting brackets.


:laugh2::laugh2::laugh2:


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

Extra brace added for the center light mount.
And the heavy-duty sliders came in so I can start working on the pull-out shelf for the filters.


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## Janci (Aug 21, 2019)

RollaPrime said:


> I'm excited to see how things are progressing. As for filtration
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Hi Rolla

Do you use the suction and outlet pipes that come with the FX6?
These look huge, but the hose diameter is nothing that can be used with the existing lily pipes on the market.


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## RollaPrime (Jul 27, 2018)

Janci said:


> Hi Rolla
> 
> Do you use the suction and outlet pipes that come with the FX6?
> These look huge, but the hose diameter is nothing that can be used with the existing lily pipes on the market.


Hi Janci

The pic you quoted is the outlet pipe. It's adjustable and in short allows you to create/direct flow in ways a traditional spray bar does. As for the inlet/suction I removed the FX6 and replaced it with this prefilter.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07BKSQCWH/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

There's no loss of suction and it keeps the tank and filter clean.


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

Well this should make maintenance easier.


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## Janci (Aug 21, 2019)

d2creative said:


> Well this should make maintenance easier.


Nicely done Dennis.
These Oase filters are pretty nifty.
You will not even have to work with extra long hoses with that detachable hose connector head.

Good that you take your time to prepare all these add-ons now. It will make running and maintaining the tank a breeze.

Now you just have to drill the tank bottom to install the bulkheads for the lily pipes... :grin2::grin2::grin2:


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## EdWiser (Jul 14, 2015)

That Green Aqua’s square display tank [emoji3] would like to know how may the broke making them. [emoji3] Lilly pipes can break real easy. I always keep an extra set up hand and use cut proof glacé when cleaning them. Learned the hard way. [emoji3]


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

Lol, no adult toys in my tank, k? Thanks.


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

Hope everyone is enjoying their labor day weekend.
Had a heck of a week last week with the biggest bummer being getting caught in a flash flood with my brand new 6 week old car, stalling out and completely seizing the engine. :crying:

But meanwhile, Slow Build must continue.
This weekend I'm working on the electronics side of the cabinet.
Two 1/2" pieces of plywood against the walls give me a support for a shelf to hold the controller and doser.
The black plywood on the right covers the complete right side, which should give me a good spot to mount the controllable powerbars and other electronics without having to drill a bunch of holes into the stand itself. Just two screws hold each support wall to the stand.


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## somewhatshocked (Aug 8, 2011)

Wait. Car? I thought everyone had a Big Foot in Texas? 

Joking aside, that sucks. Sorry that crap happened but glad to hear you made it out unscathed. Flash floods are terrifying.

This build is turning out to be a lot of fun to watch. Your perspective from the reef side of the hobby is clearly lending itself to this setup

Will you be implementing any sort of auto top-off system?


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

somewhatshocked said:


> Wait. Car? I thought everyone had a Big Foot in Texas?
> 
> Joking aside, that sucks. Sorry that crap happened but glad to hear you made it out unscathed. Flash floods are terrifying.
> 
> ...


We have lots of hairy bearded millenials but no big foot. :tongue:

Yes, I'm currently working on the ATO and Daily Auto Water Change system. I had this set up for the reef but making some minor changes/upgrades for this build.
New tubing and fittings should arrive this week.


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## PurdueGK (May 16, 2015)

I like your sliding filter drawer. Looks just like the OASE aquarium filter section inside their cabinets.


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## Janci (Aug 21, 2019)

d2creative said:


> Hope everyone is enjoying their labor day weekend.
> Had a heck of a week last week with the biggest bummer being getting caught in a flash flood with my brand new 6 week old car, stalling out and completely seizing the engine. :crying:
> 
> But meanwhile, Slow Build must continue.
> ...


very neat.
Those GHL units are pretty sexy.
Are you planning on controlling pH/CO2 dosing with the Profilux?


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

PurdueGK said:


> I like your sliding filter drawer. Looks just like the OASE aquarium filter section inside their cabinets.


That's funny, I didn't even realize they made larger aquariums and cabinets. :laugh2:



Janci said:


> very neat.
> Those GHL units are pretty sexy.
> Are you planning on controlling pH/CO2 dosing with the Profilux?


I've got one of those glass drop checkers to put in the tank to measure C02. 
In a reef we are measuring pH as a way to dissolve calcium in a calcium reactor, so it makes sense to control pH.
But in planted we need to measure the amount of co2. Enough for the plants, but not so much we kill the fish.
Although it may be a good idea to monitor pH and set it up as some sort of safety alarm and/or shut-off.


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## PurdueGK (May 16, 2015)

Yep they look very nice. I prefer the rimless look better, but their cabinets are nice looking


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

Supplies are in for the Auto Water Change upgrade!
3/8" tubing and connectors to get it hooked up to an old Cole Parmer Masterflex pump with dual heads.











And starting to route the tubing and ethernet cable for the controller's powerbar. You can see the tank behind the cat. lol
Tubing will enter through the wall down low.
Water storage tanks are off camera on the left.


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## somewhatshocked (Aug 8, 2011)

Your water change system looks impressive. 

Think there'll be much issue with it being outside in the Texas heat? Or is the temperature differential going to be trivial because you won't be changing huge amounts of water?


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

somewhatshocked said:


> Or is the temperature differential going to be trivial because you won't be changing huge amounts of water?


Exactly. 
And we rarely get below freezing so that is not an issue.


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

Annnnd we're through. 
Thinking I'm going to run these into the stand and then figure out a more elegant solution to run the lines up the back of the tank and over the top.
And I need to work on the opposite side... getting these hooked up the pump and water storage tanks.


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

Stand is leveled, lights are installed, and the tank is finally getting moved in this weekend! 

Also started getting electronics mounted inside the cabinet.


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## Discusluv (Dec 24, 2017)

Wow! This is a build!

Something you discussed earlier: If you are going to go with sensitive fish like discus I would go with UV 24/7. I have UV on my discus tank as well as on my 180 gallon that has wild geophagus, Altrum Angels, and African tetras. When have these types of fish- a UV system is essential in cutting down on bacteria and viral load in water column in aquarium. 
I use the Aqua Ultraviolet brand- really an exceptional UV system.

If you need some names of some reputable discus vendors let me know. 
Look forward to following along.


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

Discusluv said:


> Wow! This is a build!
> 
> Something you discussed earlier: If you are going to go with sensitive fish like discus I would go with UV 24/7. I have UV on my discus tank as well as on my 180 gallon that has wild geophagus, Altrum Angels, and African tetras. When have these types of fish- a UV system is essential in cutting down on bacteria and viral load in water column in aquarium.
> I use the Aqua Ultraviolet brand- really an exceptional UV system.
> ...


Thanks!
The whole discus thing is up in the air.
I think I'm just going to concentrate on the aquascape for now and decide on a large colorful fish species later.


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## EdWiser (Jul 14, 2015)

Dennis what are your thoughts on the Waterbox VS Elos quality wise since you have owned both brands?
I am talking with ADG about there stands not a bad price for one really. [emoji3]


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

EdWiser said:


> Dennis what are your thoughts on the Waterbox VS Elos quality wise since you have owned both brands?
> I am talking with ADG about there stands not a bad price for one really. [emoji3]


You can go back to post #50 to see my thoughts on the stand.
The tank itself is still sitting in the crate but from what I can see it looks nice. Nice silicone work.
It doesn't have an overflow so that doesn't apply, and it doesn't have that bottom construction that Elos has. But it looks like a pretty nice glass box from what I can tell. Same low iron and clarity.

The ADG stand are nice, I've played with them in the shop. Tons of skin options to choose from.


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## EdWiser (Jul 14, 2015)

Getting a English oak finish. 
I have been working with Luis on the order.


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

Finishing up the water delivery system for auto water changes and auto top-off today.

Here's the Masterflex pump that will be performing the AWC's.
One head will be pumping water out while the other head is pumping water in simultaneously.
I will probably run the two lines to opposite sides of the tank.











And here is the plastic shed (it has seen better days) that holds my storage tanks and the pumps.
An ethernet cable runs from the tank to the shed where it plugs into a GHL powerbar.
This allows the controller to run the ATO and AWC, as well as mixing pumps, and heater if I were to need it.
The small pump is for the ATO.
I prefer to use all peristaltic pumps because it prevents backflow.
And these Cole Parmer Masterflex pumps are meant to run 24/7 in the medical industry. The pumps have stainless steel rollers.
Other than changing out the tubing periodically, they run forever.



















P.S. - Can you find the lizard? lol 




EDIT: Also, here is an unboxing and bit of rambling for the GHL Mitras LED....


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

The tank is finally on the stand!


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## wuryan (Jul 26, 2018)

You have an absolutely beautiful home and a gorgeous setup.
Please keep up with the pictures! [emoji106][emoji106]


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Janci (Aug 21, 2019)

d2creative said:


> The tank is finally on the stand!


Impressive tank.
Curious about your hard scaping ideas.


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

Just delivered.... 3/8" stainless steel u-bend tubes for the ATO and water change lines.


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## somewhatshocked (Aug 8, 2011)

Oooh - those are nice and won't be a distraction.

What kinda contraption will be attached to each? Strainers? Sponges?

The tank is gorgeous as it is. It's going to blow minds once it's planted and mature.



d2creative said:


> Just delivered.... 3/8" stainless steel u-bend tubes for the ATO and water change lines.


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

somewhatshocked said:


> Oooh - those are nice and won't be a distraction.
> 
> What kinda contraption will be attached to each? Strainers? Sponges?
> 
> The tank is gorgeous as it is. It's going to blow minds once it's planted and mature.


Thanks! 

Going to try to get away with nothing. One line will need to be submerged 24/7, the "old water" line for the water changes. Going to fit a piece of clear rigid tubing i think. It's only 3/8" and the flow into it should be pretty weak, so I'm not worried about anything getting sucked in. Not sure what will happen as far as plant material possibly clogging it, but I may put that one on the side of the tank that I plan on being pretty bare plant-wise. Worse comes to worse I could probably cut some slots up one side of it so there are multiple entry points. 

The two inputs don't need to be submerged so they really don't need anything on them.

I should be able to set the controller up with some safeties so that if the level sensor senses that the water is too high, it will cut off both ATO and AWC.


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

I have a vid up now that shows the GHL Flex Mounts... that's their hanging system. They're pretty nice. Good looking, sturdy and functional.


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## mboley (Jan 26, 2018)

d2creative said:


> I've got one of those glass drop checkers to put in the tank to measure C02.
> In a reef we are measuring pH as a way to dissolve calcium in a calcium reactor, so it makes sense to control pH.
> But in planted we need to measure the amount of co2. Enough for the plants, but not so much we kill the fish.
> Although it may be a good idea to monitor pH and set it up as some sort of safety alarm and/or shut-off.


As an ex-reefer myself, trust me that you will want the Ph control of your CO2 solenoid; it provides much more certainty than a drop checker. You may have read that a 1.2 drop from your totally degassed Ph number is the goal. You'll want your solenoid to shut off when you hit that number and then come back on at a 1.1 drop for example. 

Since you like tech, an Apex controller with a lab grade Ph probe and a Griggs reactor dissolving 100% of your CO2 is the way to go.


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

mboley said:


> As an ex-reefer myself, trust me that you will want the Ph control of your CO2 solenoid; it provides much more certainty than a drop checker. You may have read that a 1.2 drop from your totally degassed Ph number is the goal. You'll want your solenoid to shut off when you hit that number and then come back on at a 1.1 drop for example.
> 
> Since you like tech, an Apex controller with a lab grade Ph probe and a Griggs reactor dissolving 100% of your CO2 is the way to go.


I use a GHL Profilux 4, not Apex. But can you help me understand how I would control the pH? Just like with a reef tank? Set the controller so that it monitors the pH of the water and turns the solenoid off/on at around 7-7.4? Haven't posted yet but I have a reactor. Just need to get it installed.


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## ange062 (May 9, 2011)

d2creative said:


> I use a GHL Profilux 4, not Apex. But can you help me understand how I would control the pH? Just like with a reef tank? Set the controller so that it monitors the pH of the water and turns the solenoid off/on at around 7-7.4? Haven't posted yet but I have a reactor. Just need to get it installed.


KH, pH, and CO2 are all related (similar to Ca/Alk/Mg in a reef). For a KH of 4 you want your pH to be 6.6 which means you have ~30ppm of CO2. Your KH is dependant on your source water and your hardscape materials, but generally speaking 4dkh is a good target. I've used certain types of stones that will push kh into the 5-6 range which will change your pH target. CO2 changes your pH (higher CO2 = lower pH). 

Soooo, all that being said, if your tank is running at 4dkh then you want to set your pH monitor to trigger (i.e. shut off CO2) if pH drops below 6.4-6.5 which means your CO2 is getting too high. Make sense? 

Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk


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## mboley (Jan 26, 2018)

d2creative said:


> Since you like tech, an Apex controller with a lab grade Ph probe and a Griggs reactor dissolving 100% of your CO2 is the way to go.


I use a GHL Profilux 4, not Apex. But can you help me understand how I would control the pH? Just like with a reef tank? Set the controller so that it monitors the pH of the water and turns the solenoid off/on at around 7-7.4? Haven't posted yet but I have a reactor. Just need to get it installed.[/QUOTE]

Im not familiar with the GHL programming but if it's the same as Apex PM me and I'll give you the particular language. It was more complex than I thought it would be, at least on the Apex.

The first step would be to know your degassed Ph number. To do that let your future tank water sit out for a day or two and take a reading. Let's assume its 7.6. So your low setting for your controller would be 6.4. That 1.2 drop equates to 30+ ppm CO2 level. The power to the solenoid comes on 1.5 hours before lights on and CO2 flows until 6.4 is reached at about the same time the lights turn on; youll want to set your bubble rate to achieve that. I set the upper limit at 6.47, so the ph fluctuates in the 6.4 to 6.47 narrow range during lights on and I know my CO2 level is consistently high.The solenoid only goes on 2 or 3 short periods during the day. I can pull up a Ph chart anytime on Apex and see what's happening. Finally power to the solenoid shuts off an hour before lights off. Ph will rise over night, in my case to just below my totally degassed number, and the cycle repeats. My CO2 actually runs only about 5 hours a day.

Keep in mind that I'm running a sump with a 32" Griggs Reactor. With a cannister and another diffusion method the amount of time it takes to reach the 1.2 drop may be shorter. Also, I'd recommend reading the CO2 section on Dennis Wongs' site for good information. Take it from a long time reefer, the planted tank hobby is just as satisfying as reefing and is instant gratification compared to a reef. AND you'll retire earlier!


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

mboley said:


> Im not familiar with the GHL programming but if it's the same as Apex PM me and I'll give you the particular language. It was more complex than I thought it would be, at least on the Apex.
> 
> The first step would be to know your degassed Ph number. To do that let your future tank water sit out for a day or two and take a reading. Let's assume its 7.6. So your low setting for your controller would be 6.4. That 1.2 drop equates to 30+ ppm CO2 level. The power to the solenoid comes on 1.5 hours before lights on and CO2 flows until 6.4 is reached at about the same time the lights turn on; youll want to set your bubble rate to achieve that. I set the upper limit at 6.47, so the ph fluctuates in the 6.4 to 6.47 narrow range during lights on and I know my CO2 level is consistently high.The solenoid only goes on 2 or 3 short periods during the day. I can pull up a Ph chart anytime on Apex and see what's happening. Finally power to the solenoid shuts off an hour before lights off. Ph will rise over night, in my case to just below my totally degassed number, and the cycle repeats. My CO2 actually runs only about 5 hours a day.
> 
> Keep in mind that I'm running a sump with a 32" Griggs Reactor. With a cannister and another diffusion method the amount of time it takes to reach the 1.2 drop may be shorter. Also, I'd recommend reading the CO2 section on Dennis Wongs' site for good information. Take it from a long time reefer, the planted tank hobby is just as satisfying as reefing and is instant gratification compared to a reef. AND you'll retire earlier!


Thanks! The standard ph controller part is easy, just need to figure out the overnight part where that socket would be completely disabled.



ange062 said:


> KH, pH, and CO2 are all related (similar to Ca/Alk/Mg in a reef). For a KH of 4 you want your pH to be 6.6 which means you have ~30ppm of CO2. Your KH is dependant on your source water and your hardscape materials, but generally speaking 4dkh is a good target. I've used certain types of stones that will push kh into the 5-6 range which will change your pH target. CO2 changes your pH (higher CO2 = lower pH).
> 
> Soooo, all that being said, if your tank is running at 4dkh then you want to set your pH monitor to trigger (i.e. shut off CO2) if pH drops below 6.4-6.5 which means your CO2 is getting too high. Make sense?
> 
> Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk


Thanks, Angelo. :thumbsup:


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## mboley (Jan 26, 2018)

[/QUOTE]

Thanks! The standard ph controller part is easy, just need to figure out the overnight part where that socket would be completely disabled.[/QUOTE]

Again, I don't know the programming on your controller but it could be along the lines of this: from TIME ( 1 hr before lights out) to TIME ( 1.5hrs before light on) IF Ph is greater than 9 then ON. Since your ph will never hit 9 it will never turn on.

With the Apex it's not that simple, maybe it is with yours.


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## Janci (Aug 21, 2019)

mboley said:


> I use a GHL Profilux 4, not Apex. But can you help me understand how I would control the pH? Just like with a reef tank? Set the controller so that it monitors the pH of the water and turns the solenoid off/on at around 7-7.4? Haven't posted yet but I have a reactor. Just need to get it installed.


Im not familiar with the GHL programming but if it's the same as Apex PM me and I'll give you the particular language. It was more complex than I thought it would be, at least on the Apex.

The first step would be to know your degassed Ph number. To do that let your future tank water sit out for a day or two and take a reading. Let's assume its 7.6. So your low setting for your controller would be 6.4. That 1.2 drop equates to 30+ ppm CO2 level. The power to the solenoid comes on 1.5 hours before lights on and CO2 flows until 6.4 is reached at about the same time the lights turn on; youll want to set your bubble rate to achieve that. I set the upper limit at 6.47, so the ph fluctuates in the 6.4 to 6.47 narrow range during lights on and I know my CO2 level is consistently high.The solenoid only goes on 2 or 3 short periods during the day. I can pull up a Ph chart anytime on Apex and see what's happening. Finally power to the solenoid shuts off an hour before lights off. Ph will rise over night, in my case to just below my totally degassed number, and the cycle repeats. My CO2 actually runs only about 5 hours a day.

Keep in mind that I'm running a sump with a 32" Griggs Reactor. With a cannister and another diffusion method the amount of time it takes to reach the 1.2 drop may be shorter. Also, I'd recommend reading the CO2 section on Dennis Wongs' site for good information. Take it from a long time reefer, the planted tank hobby is just as satisfying as reefing and is instant gratification compared to a reef. AND you'll retire earlier![/QUOTE]

Very clear explanation.


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

I got it, straight from the guys at GHL.

You use Programmable Logic... pretty simple actually.

_First you will want to create the timer.
Set it to turn ON at 10AM, then OFF at 10PM (or whatever time you need), and save settings.

Then you will have to specify the desired pH value by going to the pH probe settings page and entering the value in the Nominal Value section.

After that is done...
Go to the programmable logic settings page and select an unused gate, then set the function to AND
Set first function to pH value decrease
Set second function to TIMER; choose the Timer you made earlier.
Save settings
Go to switch channels settings page, select the outlet that has the solenoid connected, set that function to Programmable Logic (select gate number used in the 1st step)
Save settings

The assigned socket will now run the outlet within the specified time, ONLY when pH is above the nominal value_.


It will be a while before I can actually put this to use but it's set up and ready to go.


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

I just dropped over $500 at ADG today on some gray mountain rock, river wood, and 3 bags of ultum soil, and I'm not even sure if I like what I got or how I'm going to make this turn out like what I have in my head. #AquariumProblems :laugh2:


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## somewhatshocked (Aug 8, 2011)

Take about 5 billion photos and then sit for 20-30 hours rearranging things until you can't curse any more. Then spend about 5 minutes doing more rearranging and you'll be all set.

Isn't that typically how it goes? At least a full day of fussing with stuff and giving up. Then getting things perfect in the blink of an eye a day or two later.


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## EdWiser (Jul 14, 2015)

Dennis did you use their Scape DoJo to try the pieces out? Did you work with Andy or Luis to pick out the pieces?


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## ange062 (May 9, 2011)

d2creative said:


> I just dropped over $500 at ADG today on some gray mountain rock, river wood, and 3 bags of ultum soil, and I'm not even sure if I like what I got or how I'm going to make this turn out like what I have in my head. #AquariumProblems :laugh2:


I'm always down to scape if you wanna enlist help!

Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

somewhatshocked said:


> Take about 5 billion photos and then sit for 20-30 hours rearranging things until you can't curse any more. Then spend about 5 minutes doing more rearranging and you'll be all set.
> 
> Isn't that typically how it goes? At least a full day of fussing with stuff and giving up. Then getting things perfect in the blink of an eye a day or two later.


LOL, sounds about right. :grin2:



EdWiser said:


> Dennis did you use their Scape DoJo to try the pieces out? Did you work with Andy or Luis to pick out the pieces?


No, it's too small. Plus what I have in mind wouldn't work in that anyway unless i start dumping a bunch of soil on one end. lol



ange062 said:


> I'm always down to scape if you wanna enlist help!
> 
> Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk


Thanks! Actually, I got home tonite and tossed in the sticks and got exactly what I was going for in 2 minutes! 
Now I just need to make it work with the rocks and soil.


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

Oh man, wouldn't you know it... the GHL Mitras are now on sale! Too bad I got mine months ago. lol
Oh well, heads up for anyone on the fence!
https://www.aquariumcomputer.com/products/ghl-illumination/mitras-lx-7000-series/


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## EdWiser (Jul 14, 2015)

Already have them in my Cart [emoji1787]


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

Very beginning stages of my hardscape. 
Pile of lava rock in the corner to reduce the amount of soil I'll need in that area. 
Three pieces of River Wood. And starting to add the Gray Mountain Stone. More stone and Ultum Soil is next.


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## Streetwise (May 24, 2019)

I'm going to skip the deserved compliments on your tank, stand, and start. I really appreciate your photo composition, cropping, and leveling! Are you using a tripod?

Keep going!


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

Streetwise said:


> I'm going to skip the deserved compliments on your tank, stand, and start. I really appreciate your photo composition, cropping, and leveling! Are you using a tripod?
> 
> Keep going!


:laugh2: Thanks!
No tripod, all handheld. Except for the first shots in this thread of the overall space. I very rarely break out the tripod. Too lazy. :tongue:


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

Moving along... all the rock is in. 
Soil too, but I think I still want it higher on the right? 
How close to the top do I need it to be if I want plants that grow out of the water?

The front left is supposed to be sand. 
The plan is for the right to have a heavier amount of plants, and less plants and more open as you get to the left.


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## somewhatshocked (Aug 8, 2011)

Looks wonderful.

I'd leave soil like it is. That's plenty for what you plan to do. Any more and it could throw off the scale. Though, you may have to add little bits here and there as you're planting and flooding.

What kind/color/grade of sand? Or have you settled on that yet?


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

somewhatshocked said:


> Looks wonderful.
> 
> I'd leave soil like it is. That's plenty for what you plan to do. Any more and it could throw off the scale. Though, you may have to add little bits here and there as you're planting and flooding.
> 
> What kind/color/grade of sand? Or have you settled on that yet?


Thanks! And yeah, you're right.... even leaving as is I might need to add more as it settles and mixes more with the lava rock.

I'll be using this for the sand. ADG just used it in one of their tanks and it's got the perfect amount of yellow tint to it, so its not pure white.
It's also not too fine of a grain.
The problem is finding it locally. I ended up ordering from Amazon.
https://amzn.to/2mI59Sy


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## ange062 (May 9, 2011)

Looking awesome, can't wait to see this thing get planted and wet!

Have you thought about how you are going to keep the driftwood from floating when you fill the tank? Also, from my experience with the ControlSoil it's way leaner on nutrients than Tropica or ADA substrates. Mine grew stems great for only 2-3wks before things stalled and I had to do some pretty drastic fert adjustments for a new tank. I'd suggest getting some Tropica Root Capsules or Seachem root tabs into that substrate before you even plant it. 

Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

I'll be curious to see if those substrates stay separated over the long haul.

In my experience substrates have a way of settling and eventually bleeding into each other. 

Hopefully not, but only time will tell. 

And great journal so far, enjoying following along.


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

ange062 said:


> Looking awesome, can't wait to see this thing get planted and wet!
> 
> Have you thought about how you are going to keep the driftwood from floating when you fill the tank? Also, from my experience with the ControlSoil it's way leaner on nutrients than Tropica or ADA substrates. Mine grew stems great for only 2-3wks before things stalled and I had to do some pretty drastic fert adjustments for a new tank. I'd suggest getting some Tropica Root Capsules or Seachem root tabs into that substrate before you even plant it.
> 
> Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk


Good point. The guy at ADG said I should have much floating problems with the river wood but i guess i should have some kind of rock or something on hand to weight it down temporarily. 
And thanks for the tip. I'll pick up some root capsules.


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

Greggz said:


> I'll be curious to see if those substrates stay separated over the long haul.
> 
> In my experience substrates have a way of settling and eventually bleeding into each other.
> 
> ...


Thanks!

I bought some corrugated plastic sheet I’m going to cut and build a wall to separate the dark from the light. Trump would be proud.


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## Hendy8888 (Mar 6, 2008)

Looks great! One thing is forsure, soil will level and the substrates will mix. Densely planting the areas also helps alot since the roots keep everything in place. Planting from the front towards the back helps maintain the slope when the time comes. Cosmetic sand looks great just know there is a bit of upkeep. Easiest is to syphon off the top layer and add fresh every so often. The border wall will defentantly help at the start.


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

Well... i think my hardscape is basically done!
Added a 6th bag of soil today. The sand went in last week, with a styrene plastic border wall.
I used the same stuff to create some substrate supports within the soil as well, especially on the right side.
The only thing I may add is some small gray rubble haphazardly along the substrate division.

I cut and screwed the long skinny branch into the main branch right where it seemed that an old branch used to be. 
Stainless steel screw with a little wood filler to cover the head.
Hopefully with some plants covering that area it will look pretty natural.

Also started running the tubing from the canisters to the glassware.










And finally, the Auto Top-Off and Auto Water Change are both fully functional.
The AWC changes out equal amounts of water. I haven't officially timed it yet but I think it's moving around half a liter per 30 seconds.
That will run automatically many times per day. I have yet to calculate an approximate amount I want to change over the course of 24 hours.
ATO and AWC Input are on the right and AWC Output is on the left.

Here's the ATO and AWC input lines as I was connecting them to the lines coming in through the wall.



















So it's just about time to start looking for plants!
I guess that's the next discussion and where I'm really going to need help.
And I do need to finish gathering Co2 gear.


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

OK ALL.... TIME FOR PLANT SUGGESTIONS!!!!
This is the point where I'm really a NOOB and haven't much of a clue. Need some serious guidance.

One thing I know is that I'm going to go with Monte Carlo for some ground cover. Which is a higher light plant. 
So I'm assuming that since this is the plant that will be farthest from the light, the rest of my plants are going to have to be of the higher light variety, except maybe out in the corners.
This leads me to my first dilemma... what to put on the branches that is not moss. I need something for the horizontal arching branches. And then something to kinda grow up the vertical.

Thoughts? :confused1:


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## somewhatshocked (Aug 8, 2011)

Why not moss? Mini Christmas Moss would remain compact enough to look great in a tank like that.

But you could also consider something like Riccardia chamedryfolia. It's not a moss but would do really well with CO2. Same goes for various types of Fissidens - though I think F. fontanus would be the easiest to manage. 

There are also plants like Hydrocotyle tripartita and Hydrocotyle sibthorpioides that would look great trailing up and down the wood. Would take a bit of training and trimming on a semi-regular basis but it'd look wonderful and tiny in a tank that size. 

Are you going for a jungle look? Something well-manicured? If you want flow-y plants, then a really long Cryptocoryne would look nice growing up and flowing across the surface of the water


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## ange062 (May 9, 2011)

Once you have moss in your tank you will ALWAYS have moss in your tank. I wouldn't use it!! There is also consideration into how often you want to trim, some plants are ultra-fast growing and going to be very tough to keep up with, unless you like / have time to trim weekly. 

For branches I'd personally suggest Bucephelandra, Hygrophila Pinnetifida, various microsorum like trident or narrow, and of course annubias could work. 

But you mentioned your main challenge, getting light down to the MC is going to be a hard to balance with lower light epiphytes on the branches. Likely to lead to algae up top in order to get enough light down low. 

We should go brain storm a plan at ADG 

Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk


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## Jeff5614 (Dec 29, 2005)

ange062 said:


> Once you have moss in your tank you will ALWAYS have moss in your tank...
> 
> Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk


This is very true.


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

ange062 said:


> We should go brain storm a plan at ADG


YES. hahaha

As far as moss..... exactly what was said above. 
It's my main plant in my little 7g cube. If I find it annoying in that... it's not going in my big tank. lol

Thanks for all the suggestions. Will start looking them up.


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## Janci (Aug 21, 2019)

I am a big fan of hygrophila pinnatifida for rocks and wood.
I love it combined with pogostemon helferi for the green/red combination.


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## gjcarew (Dec 26, 2018)

d2creative said:


> YES. hahaha
> 
> 
> 
> ...


What about fissidens? Slower growing so it won't take over the tank. I love the look of moss on branches.

Sent from my Pixel 3 using Tapatalk


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

Starting to plant!
Picked up some Monte Carlo locally (see why below the pics) so added some water to the tank and got to planting.
It's a mix of tissue culture and submersed potted. The potted was actually easier to work with because there was a distinct root system.
The tissue culture was much thicker/more lush, but I had a heck of a time trying to find the roots as they were just kinda all mixed up within the leaves.
So I did what I could but i know I planted a bunch of healthy leaves. Hopefully that is ok.




























So first thing LAST monday morning (6 days ago now) I ordered approx $300 worth of plants from BucePlant.com
I never got shipping info so i finally contact them Thursday to ask when they would be shipping. I get an email back saying they had been trying to contact me (I received no emails or phone calls) because the Monte Carlo they had left wasn't up to par. Well that's good they didn't want to send out subpar plants but how long was that going to go before they picked up the phone? So i had them refund me for that portion which they did immediately. Never got an answer to the shipping. Asked again on Friday and have still not heard anything. So tomorrow will be a week and still no plants have shipped. Not a good experience so far.

So for now, this is all i have to plant, and why I picked up the MC locally yesterday. Which was hard to find.
Any tips as I wait for the rest? I planned on at least spraying down the Monte twice per day. Or should I flood the tank more, to cover most of what I planted?


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

No personal experience with buceplant. But a lot of people won't ship plants or fish till Monday. This is to give the plant/fish the best chance of reaching a person before the weekend and the postal folks stop working.

Anyway regarding what you have. It sounds like you have an unintentional dry start. This is a perfectly valid method (usually used in low tech tanks) of growing a carpet. What you want to do immediately is fill your tank so that the water is just below the lowest level of substrate where you have the plants. Then you want to take some plastic cling wrap and put it over the entire top of your tank. There is some discussion as to whether you should leave a small opening or not. After trying it both ways in my current walstad tank I am keeping mine completely sealed but misting 2 to 3 times a day. You have an active substrate so that's all you need to do to keep it alive. 

Oh and turn on your lights. Not sure if you have a par meter but monte carlo likes light. So you want at least 25 par at substrate and 50 won't hurt a thing. Typically you are keeping lights on 12 to 14 hours a day during a dry start. If you leave this in place you will have a full carpet of monte carlo in 1 - 2 months. 

It doesn't sound like this is your goal since the rest of your plants are arriving in a week most likely, but /shrug it will keep the monte carlo alive in the meantime.


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## somewhatshocked (Aug 8, 2011)

If you can't easily cover the tank with plastic/plastic wrap, I'd flood to just above the plants. Way easier than trying to create humidity in a tank that large while also trying to keep everything covered. 

About covering: I've never found it necessary to create an opening. I grow a lot of plants emersed and their containers and tanks are always sealed. The only air exchange they get is every day or so when I mist and have to lift open a lid. So if you go that route, I don't think it's absolutely necessary. Just seal things up where you can.


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## EdWiser (Jul 14, 2015)

I haven’t had not had any problems with Buceplant. They have been busy with Aquashellia and the Aquatic experience this weekend. 
Should ship first of next week for sure.


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

So long, BucePlant. After several unanswered replies to their email/contact string starting last thursday, I finally just canceled the order.
THAT email they responded to immediately. Imagine that. 
I don't care what your excuse is, if you can't communicate with your customers who are dropping hundreds of dollars, you can take a walk.

So now to find another source. Probably locally, it was just easy to browse and research through a large catalog of plants on one website. 
Oh well. Lesson learned.

Meanwhile.... I had gone ahead and flooded the tank enough to cover the MC. 
So far everything is still planted, and green. Woot. :grin2:


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## EdWiser (Jul 14, 2015)

Biggest problem with Planted tanks is availability of plants. One see’s how many plants are available in Europe in video by Green Aqua. The US market has a limited supply of plants.


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

d2creative said:


> So long, BucePlant. After several unanswered replies to their email/contact string starting last thursday, I finally just canceled the order.
> THAT email they responded to immediately. Imagine that.
> I don't care what your excuse is, if you can't communicate with your customers who are dropping hundreds of dollars, you can take a walk.
> 
> ...


Congrats on partial flooding 

But now that you have substrate completely under water you need to start doing your active substrate water changes. That substrate is going to be leeching nutrients into the water extremely rapidly for the first month or so. Combined with lots of light to keep your monte carlo alive and the fact that all your plants are just starting off, and you have a recipe for lots of algae.

So for the next week you need to be changing water every day. Week 2, change water every other day, week 3 should be 3 times that week, week 4 should be twice that week. 

Since your water level is quite limited right now that probably means filling the tank higher then draining it back down to its current level. 

Other option is draining back below the top of the substrate and doing mistings plus closing up the top with plastic wrap ala a dry start method.


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## somewhatshocked (Aug 8, 2011)

Depending upon the batch, Controsoil (is that Controsoil? I think it is) may not leech much at all. I've got a batch that leeched ammonia non-stop for more than two months. But it didn't release so much that water changes were necessary. 

I have a separate batch that's released nothing that I can measure. 

So it'll just take some occasional monitoring to see if water changes are necessary.

Compared to ADA and Tropica products, it's kinda light on the nutrient front. But it's got some decent buffering capacity.


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

Ammonia is 0.5. 
That's fine, right?


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## somewhatshocked (Aug 8, 2011)

That's a LOT lower than I thought. Wow.

And just in case you aren't being facetious? I think that's fine.



d2creative said:


> Ammonia is 0.5.
> That's fine, right?


----------



## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

somewhatshocked said:


> That's a LOT lower than I thought. Wow.
> 
> And just in case you aren't being facetious? I think that's fine.


LOL! No, i was serious. I mean, i figured that was fine.... but being a newb at this plant stuff... didn't want to assume. 

So what would be the danger zone where you would suggest I go ahead and do the water change?


----------



## somewhatshocked (Aug 8, 2011)

I'd say anything over 6-7 PPM. But that may not be necessary if your plants seem fine - since you haven't fully flooded the tank. I'm not sure where the concentration of ammonia/ammonium becomes a negative in the cycling process or when it becomes harmful for plants (I'm sure that info is available in other threads on the forum) but I've only ever changed water when using something with tons of ammonia - like Aqua Soil Amazonia - once it hits a PPM beyond what I'd normally use to cycle, or about 4-5 PPM. With ADA products, that's almost always lined up with their recommendations. 

When I've used substrates like these in plant-only (no livestock) tanks or grow-out tanks, I don't think I've ever changed water or monitored ammonia levels with any particular focus. Haven't had a plant die on me in a situation like that yet. 

What you're doing will actually help process/"cycle" a portion of your substrate so there'll be less ammonia once you finally do flood. That's not a bad thing.


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## Ben Belton (Dec 12, 2008)

d2creative said:


> BucePlant.com.......I get an email back.... the Monte Carlo they had left wasn't up to par. Well that's good they didn't want to send out subpar plants......


Well, that's interesting. I ordered Monte Carlo from them Sunday, and it's on its way. Did they get mine out quick because you taught them a lesson? Am I getting subpar plants? 




EdWiser said:


> Biggest problem with Planted tanks is availability of plants. One see’s how many plants are available in Europe in video by Green Aqua. The US market has a limited supply of plants.


Preach on. I've been trying to get a tank back going and most popular plants go out of stock quickly and take months for return to availability. I started a tank with some plants I wanted and some I didn't because I didn't want to order from 2-3 different vendors. Also there are not as many people as usual are selling on the forum right now.


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

First batch of plants and water is in! 
Both Oase Biomaster 600 filters are running, and they are completely silent. I can't tell the tank is even running. A little bit of a change for me after running a reef tank with a sump and skimmer. lol

Ammonia is sitting steady at 0.5
Water has gotten a little cloudy.

I'm ready to hook up the co2 and my ph is currently sitting around 6.4
Isn't that already on the low end???


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## Jamo33 (Feb 18, 2014)

6.4 is to be expected with buffering substrate. Honestly it will matter will co2 injection, but I cannot say how much. Maybe drop down to a pretty low ph, but I haven't seen any ill affects on my tank. Over time my ph has slowly started to rise as the buffering capacity has decreased. 
Everything will equal out in time.
Great work mate, looks amazing.


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## chulai48 (Oct 7, 2018)

Very nice Dennis, can't wait to see how everything looks after the plants have grown in.


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

It already looks pretty fantastic, once the plants grow in its going to be something really wonderful.

My understanding from reading these forums (no first hand experience with this issue) is that animal life will be unaffected by ph that is lowered by co2 injection. Base ph is all that matters.


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

Thanks everyone!

I was able to buffer the kh and gh up to 4 and 7 with my dry salts. This brought the pH up a bit even with the co2 running.
This morning after no c02 for the past 9 hours my pH is at 6.55
I've always had low ph issues with my tanks. My reefs are always on the low end too. With the heat down here, the house is always closed up tight and the AC is running. Too much co2 in the house I guess.

I'm noticing leaves on the monte carlo turning white/transparent.
From what I understand, it shouldn't be a fert issue since I have the soil, correct?
Too much light possibly? I went ahead and lowered the intensity. I have them ramping up and down but i have about 6 hour of midday.
I have no idea what my PAR is yet, not until I get my hands on a PAR meter.

Thinking I should hold off just a bit on more plants until things work themselves out?

Here's a front shot from saturday.


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## Jamo33 (Feb 18, 2014)

My MC went through a melt stage, and every now and then it does it randomly. It's a great plant and will bounce back, it is just shocked from the change of conditions and dropping some leaves is normal. 
I am unsure if light could be the cause, not my experience. But, it is smart to keep intensity low during initial start up, helps ward of algae.


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## fftfk (Jul 13, 2017)

d2creative said:


> First batch of plants and water is in!
> 
> Both Oase Biomaster 600 filters are running, and they are completely silent. I can't tell the tank is even running. A little bit of a change for me after running a reef tank with a sump and skimmer. lol
> 
> ...




Really nice scape Dennis! 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Janci (Aug 21, 2019)

Nice update.
I understand that the more plants you start with, the less opportunity you give to algae to get hold of the nutrients in a freshly started tank and to spread.
So if you know which direction you want to go out to, I would not wait too long to add more plants.


----------



## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

Jamo33 said:


> My MC went through a melt stage, and every now and then it does it randomly. It's a great plant and will bounce back, it is just shocked from the change of conditions and dropping some leaves is normal.
> I am unsure if light could be the cause, not my experience. But, it is smart to keep intensity low during initial start up, helps ward of algae.


ok, good to know. thanks!



fftfk said:


> Really nice scape Dennis!


Thank you, sir!



Janci said:


> Nice update.
> I understand that the more plants you start with, the less opportunity you give to algae to get hold of the nutrients in a freshly started tank and to spread.
> So if you know which direction you want to go out to, I would not wait too long to add more plants.


Yeah, that's why I was trying to get a decent amount in from the start. Just didn't want to go to far and lose a bunch of cash. haha


----------



## chulai48 (Oct 7, 2018)

Hey D2, if you don't mind, how many Monte Carlo plants did you purchase to cover the area you intended to use them?


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

chulai48 said:


> Hey D2, if you don't mind, how many Monte Carlo plants did you purchase to cover the area you intended to use them?


I picked up two tissue cultures, and then i think 6 submersed potted ones.
The tissue culture had more in them. Probably would have been good with 6 of those.
Although the submersed were easier to break up and find the roots.
The roots in the tissue culture were all entwined in every direction.


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

d2creative said:


> I picked up two tissue cultures, and then i think 6 submersed potted ones.
> The tissue culture had more in them. Probably would have been good with 6 of those.
> Although the submersed were easier to break up and find the roots.
> The roots in the tissue culture were all entwined in every direction.


your monte carlo being tissue culture were grown in an emersed state (the roots were in liquid, or in this case tissue culture gel while the leaves were in air). They have to "transform" into a submersed state where the entire plant grows underwater. This means everything you see right now from them will die. That is actually normal. Look for new leaves forming in the next 10 days or so, that will be how you can tell things are going ok.

Is your auto water change system operational at this point?


----------



## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

minorhero said:


> your monte carlo being tissue culture were grown in an emersed state (the roots were in liquid, or in this case tissue culture gel while the leaves were in air). They have to "transform" into a submersed state where the entire plant grows underwater. This means everything you see right now from them will die. That is actually normal. Look for new leaves forming in the next 10 days or so, that will be how you can tell things are going ok.
> 
> Is your auto water change system operational at this point?


Actually, all the monte carlo has seen better days. lol
But ya, i've expected die-off. My two crypts have been melting as well.

The AWC is ready to go. Last night I changed out about 8g as an extended test. It ran for about an hour which is right on point for 500 ml/min which the pump is set to. So i'll be getting that going for real by this weekend. My controller will turn it on once an hour and I'll start with running it about 4.5 mins which should give me 7g per day, so just about 50g per week. Will see how that goes only because my storage tanks hold 55g comfortably. I have two of them but would like to see how this goes. 

Also waiting on the magnetic mount I needed to hold my optical level sensor for the ATO. Won't be here till monday.


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

d2creative said:


> Actually, all the monte carlo has seen better days. lol
> But ya, i've expected die-off. My two crypts have been melting as well.
> 
> The AWC is ready to go. Last night I changed out about 8g as an extended test. It ran for about an hour which is right on point for 500 ml/min which the pump is set to. So i'll be getting that going for real by this weekend. My controller will turn it on once an hour and I'll start with running it about 4.5 mins which should give me 7g per day, so just about 50g per week. Will see how that goes only because my storage tanks hold 55g comfortably. I have two of them but would like to see how this goes.
> ...


So one thing to keep in mind is normal recommendations for any active substrate is 50% water change every day for the first week, every other day the second week, three times in week 3 and two times in week 4. Thereafter once a week.

This is due to new active substrates leaching a lot of nutrients, more then can be used by even established plants and newly planted plants tend to be using even less. You might want to give that auto-water change a much more thorough workout or get some buckets ready. Otherwise you could be looking at some rather explosive algae growth.


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

minorhero said:


> So one thing to keep in mind is normal recommendations for any active substrate is 50% water change every day for the first week, every other day the second week, three times in week 3 and two times in week 4. Thereafter once a week.
> 
> This is due to new active substrates leaching a lot of nutrients, more then can be used by even established plants and newly planted plants tend to be using even less. You might want to give that auto-water change a much more thorough workout or get some buckets ready. Otherwise you could be looking at some rather explosive algae growth.


Ok, will do.
Been monitoring ammonia. Still sitting at around .25-.5


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

d2creative said:


> Ok, will do.
> Been monitoring ammonia. Still sitting at around .25-.5


Thats good but that's not the only thing you need to worry about. Unfortunately there are no good tests (that I am aware of) that really give us a good idea of the amount of nutrients in our water at any time. Labs can do it but by the time you get the results its no longer relevant. Its the excess nutrient leech that causes the problem. Your tank is currently not in balance because its brand spanking new. Plants are not growing, lots of nutrients, lots of light. It causes problems. So water change to get rid of the excess nutrients and your plants can establish themselves. Once they are growing properly and you get the rest of your stuff planted then you will be in a much better position in the war against algae.


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

Ok, AWC is running. lol

Another question... my c02 tank/regulator must have a leak somewhere. Totally empty in a few days.
I checked with soapy water after connecting but didn't see anything. Although admittedly I did it kind of quickly so will be more thorough this time.
The reg is the c02art Pro Elite model. 
One thing I noticed is the washers they sent are weird. I checked with tech support and apparently they are ok? She said "those look just like mine". :|
Here's some pics of what they sent me, and the last pic shows their's on the right and what i consider a standard washer on the left.
There's has a larger hole, it's quite a bit thicker, and the diamater is a little smaller making it shift around inside the CGA nut. And you can't tell in the bad iphone pic but the surface of their's is smooth where the standard one has that raised rib on it.
Could this have been my issue?


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## Janci (Aug 21, 2019)

d2creative said:


> Ok, AWC is running. lol
> 
> Another question... my c02 tank/regulator must have a leak somewhere. Totally empty in a few days.
> I checked with soapy water after connecting but didn't see anything. Although admittedly I did it kind of quickly so will be more thorough this time.
> ...


I would prefer using the left ring as it will fit more snug and have less chance of moving while tightening the regulator nut to the cylinder.
On the other hand, this does not mean the right seal ring is bad.

I had a leak in one of my connections between the regulator and the tank. They all seemed fine, but after removing and assembling everything again, the problem was solved.
Due to the low pressure to the tank, soapy water might not always show a leak. So I just took everything apart, cut a small piece (1/4 inch) from each end of the tubing and get it all together again.


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

ok, well I did a pressure test overnight (i used the new, more familiar washer) and i know it's not leaking from the tank connection.
I sprayed soapy water all over the rest of the reg and I don't see any bubbles anywhere. 
Hopefully it's ok this time.


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

First fish went in friday... 8 Ember Tetras. 
Everybody is OK so far! This bunch of 8 was a test. I'll go back for another 16 probably if they are running the same deal of 8 for $26. 

I also have some new plants on the way this week from @Bartohog, so looking forward to that.
He's awesome. Hooked me up with a custom selection of plants that would be a good fit for this newbie tank.
Thanks, @Greggz for the recommendation. roud:

And yes... i need a surface skimmer. :laugh2:


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## butchblack (Oct 25, 2019)

minorhero said:


> Hello,
> 
> Looks like you are off to more then a good start with the equipment you have/are choosing. Regarding the CO2 regulator. You will hear people referring to "building" their own but what they mean is they are taking an existing CO2 regulator and then screwing on parts to make it more precise and better suited for our needs. The best option is to either "build" your own from a used regulator and use parts from some place like diyco2regulator.com. Or to buy one from a member in the sale and trade section who has already done this. After that there are off the shelf options specific to our hobby. CO2Art is the nicest "cheap" brand probably. GLA is well thought of but more expensive.
> 
> ...


Regarding the CO2 tank, check out fire extinguisher companies. I found one in the city that I live in that will refill a tank that I bring in.


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

d2creative said:


> First fish went in friday... 8 Ember Tetras.
> Everybody is OK so far! This bunch of 8 was a test. I'll go back for another 16 probably if they are running the same deal of 8 for $26.
> 
> I also have some new plants on the way this week from @Bartohog, so looking forward to that.
> ...


Those are some great pictures of those fish! Nicely done!


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

minorhero said:


> Those are some great pictures of those fish! Nicely done!


Thanks! They are small little buggers. :wink2:


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

So ummmm.... when should I start dosing ferts? And what do you think will be my best method? 
I have a 4 head doser waiting to be used. N, P, K... and then one slot left.
Plant load is light but more going in this week. Fish bioload is almost non-existent.

I think it was mentioned earlier that all this Ultum Controsoil will get me by for awhile?


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

d2creative said:


> So ummmm.... when should I start dosing ferts? And what do you think will be my best method?
> I have a 4 head doser waiting to be used. N, P, K... and then one slot left.
> Plant load is light but more going in this week. Fish bioload is almost non-existent.
> 
> I think it was mentioned earlier that all this Ultum Controsoil will get me by for awhile?


Some folks say start fertilizing right now, others say wait till you are done doing the water changes every other day (so on the third week). As for what to dose and how much... you are going to need to get someone more knowledgeable then me. I dose Thrive because its super easy and effective. If you want to go with dry ferts and save some money mixing your own then you should head over to the fert subforum for some advice/research. I haven't done any of my own research on that yet because as of right now Thrive is my goto and I am pretty happy with it.


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

minorhero said:


> Some folks say start fertilizing right now, others say wait till you are done doing the water changes every other day (so on the third week). As for what to dose and how much... you are going to need to get someone more knowledgeable then me. I dose Thrive because its super easy and effective. If you want to go with dry ferts and save some money mixing your own then you should head over to the fert subforum for some advice/research. I haven't done any of my own research on that yet because as of right now Thrive is my goto and I am pretty happy with it.


Thanks!
I have a bottle of Thrive i had bought for my nano, so I've done a couple of half doses already just in case.
Not sure if that's something I want to continue with though. With my size tank, I'm probably better off mixing my own separate fertz.


----------



## Morgan Freeman (Feb 5, 2014)

Great work. I'm a SW guy too. Not overkill on the equipment if you already had it!


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## Hendy8888 (Mar 6, 2008)

Really liking the colour on those mitras so far, I have high hopes for the reds. Personally I wouldn't fertilize at all for the first 2-3 weeks. I think I lasted 20 days and started dosing when I saw the nitrates bottoming out. The tank was fully planted though, just monitor nitrates once and a while to figure out whats going on inside the tank. Tropica even has an app that is an almost daily schedule to do when starting a planted tank with aqua soil. It's aimed at beginners but gives you an idea for the timeline.

Everyone has their opion on fertilizers and to be honest most plants arn't that picky. They adapt and thrive in alot of different conditions, one of the reasons why there is little consensus to how to fertilize.


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

Morgan Freeman said:


> Great work. I'm a SW guy too. Not overkill on the equipment if you already had it!


Thank you. And I read that in your voice. :laugh2:



Hendy8888 said:


> Really liking the colour on those mitras so far, I have high hopes for the reds. Personally I wouldn't fertilize at all for the first 2-3 weeks. I think I lasted 20 days and started dosing when I saw the nitrates bottoming out. The tank was fully planted though, just monitor nitrates once and a while to figure out whats going on inside the tank. Tropica even has an app that is an almost daily schedule to do when starting a planted tank with aqua soil. It's aimed at beginners but gives you an idea for the timeline.
> 
> Everyone has their opion on fertilizers and to be honest most plants arn't that picky. They adapt and thrive in alot of different conditions, one of the reasons why there is little consensus to how to fertilize.


Thanks! I'll watch those nitrates. They were around 5ppm a few days ago. But ammonia was still hanging in there at .25


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

Got one of these today. OMG! The water surface was crystal clear within 20-30 mins. :surprise:
https://amzn.to/34maxv5


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

What can I put right in that pocket of the wood at the surface of the water?
The roots would be submerged and the rest of the plant would be above water.
Would be directly under the light.


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

Something slow growing that doesn't get too big would be my pick. I would do bucephalandra, species of your choice. Preferably one that was always grown emersed and thus doesn't need to be reconverted.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

Keep in mind that even if you purchase plants that were emersed grown they still will probably require a moist environment and/or regular missing to keep them alive until they can completely convert to "normal household air" You can also place moss in that pocket submersed and it will grow above the water line and stay moist by itself through a type of capillary action.

In this pic of my tank you could see the moss submersed and it's keeping the moss that has grown above the water line moist without any misting.


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

New photos since i added some more plants this week.
I've also noticed that a lot of the stuff that melted is being replaced by new growth.


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Wow this is really getting somewhere now.

Nice artistic presentation. Really looking forward to seeing how this continues to develop.


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## Streetwise (May 24, 2019)

Very nice. How about some videos on Vimeo?


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## GMYukonon24s (May 3, 2009)

I like it it we'll nice to see it when it matures.


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

Thanks, guys.
And yeah, I'll eventually get around to getting some vids up on my youtube.


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## Janci (Aug 21, 2019)

d2creative said:


> What can I put right in that pocket of the wood at the surface of the water?
> The roots would be submerged and the rest of the plant would be above water.
> Would be directly under the light.


A Fittonia could do, or any other terrarium plant that likes direct light.
The Fittonia is not a direct light light lover, but does good under T5's. I am not sure about LED.
I saw Hygrophila Pinnatifida growing emersed aswell which has a thinner leaf and does not take much attention away from the rest of the tank.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

Janci said:


> ...
> I saw Hygrophila Pinnatifida growing emersed as well which has a thinner leaf and d*oes not take much attention away from the rest of the tank*.


That's really key to me. If you put something above the water line you don't want it to draw attention away from the stuff below the water line, especially if there's significant hardscape.


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

Asteroid said:


> That's really key to me. If you put something above the water line you don't want it to draw attention away from the stuff below the water line, especially if there's significant hardscape.


Yes, I agree... nothing too big/bushy.
In fact, even if it was just something that was more like a vine that could literally grow up and around the wood, that would be great. 
The very rear right corner (to the right of this wood) is where I want something more substantial growing out of the water.


----------



## shattersea (Sep 6, 2013)

I've had good luck with Hydrocotyle sp. 'Japan' in that sort of pocket. Mine is growing emersed and I just sort of twine the upper runners around a branch with the roots and the lower third of the plant floating in the water.


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

My first RAINBOWS in da HOUSE!!!! :grin2:
I got 6 Boesemani's from ADG here in houston.

And I already lost one! :crying::crying::crying:
I had all 6 acclimating in a small bucket. I turned my back for 5 minutes. When I returned, one was on the floor, not moving, with my two cats standing over it.
I put him back in the bucket and was able to resuscitate him, but he never swam quite right after that. He didn't make it through the night.
One fish and 30 bucks down the toilet. 

But the other 5 have settled in and are doing ok!






































And some of my Schwartzi Cory Cats hanging out...


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

Those are nice and of course nice pics. What is your water level at? I would definitely keep it +1" probably even 1 1/4" - 1 1/2" assuming no cover. I haven't had any flying fish yet with a 1" drop from rim, but my biggest fish is a Black Neon.


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## talontsiawd (Oct 19, 2008)

Wow, beautiful setup all around. Your setup is amazing, from your filters, auto dosing, auto water change, stand, lighting, lighting stands/hangers to the actual tank, much less the room it is in. I really enjoy it when someone incorporates a tank into their home like it was meant to be, matches the decor well, etc.

So far, I feel your scape is excellent, and often prefer no driftwood. I love the idea that part will be emmersed, I think that will fit well with the theme. Great plant choices so far. I can't wait to see where this goes.


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## butchblack (Oct 25, 2019)

d2creative said:


> My first RAINBOWS in da HOUSE!!!! :grin2:
> I got 6 Boesemani's from ADG here in houston.
> 
> And I already lost one! :crying::crying::crying:
> ...


Nice photos. What are you using for a lens? Macro?


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## knm<>< (Mar 18, 2010)

The tank is gorgeous and I love your house, it’s so clean and open!!


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Those look like good high quality Bows. 

Showing nice color like that at a young age is a good sign.

Good luck with them and looking forward to seeing them grow out and mature.

Bump: Those look like good high quality Bows. 

Showing nice color like that at a young age is a good sign.

Good luck with them and looking forward to seeing them grow out and mature.


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

talontsiawd said:


> Wow, beautiful setup all around. Your setup is amazing, from your filters, auto dosing, auto water change, stand, lighting, lighting stands/hangers to the actual tank, much less the room it is in. I really enjoy it when someone incorporates a tank into their home like it was meant to be, matches the decor well, etc.
> 
> So far, I feel your scape is excellent, and often prefer no driftwood. I love the idea that part will be emmersed, I think that will fit well with the theme. Great plant choices so far. I can't wait to see where this goes.


Thanks so much! 



butchblack said:


> Nice photos. What are you using for a lens? Macro?


Thanks.  Yes, Fuji 80mm macro on a Fuji X-T3.



knm<>< said:


> The tank is gorgeous and I love your house, it’s so clean and open!!


Thank you!



Greggz said:


> Those look like good high quality Bows.
> 
> Showing nice color like that at a young age is a good sign.
> 
> Good luck with them and looking forward to seeing them grow out and mature.


Thanks, man! They are really nice looking for their size... around 2-2.5"
Was willing to pay a bit extra for good looking specimens, and being able to see them in person before purchasing.

A day or two later I saw some at my local Pet Smart. They were less than half the price but also less than half the color. 



--------------


*So question.... i know we talked briefly earlier about my Monte Carlo possibly dying back, the tissue culture specifically.
Since I mixed it up when planting I'm not sure what was planted where but I am just now seeing a bunch of it die back. On the other hand, some seems to be doing well.
Normal this far in or should I be concerned?

Nitrate is around 5ppm. Phosphorous is 70 ppb. pH is around 6.2-6.9 depending on time of day. Temp at 76.2*


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## ange062 (May 9, 2011)

d2creative said:


> My first RAINBOWS in da HOUSE!!!! :grin2:
> 
> I got 6 Boesemani's from ADG here in houston.
> 
> ...


ADG always has awesome rainbows! They may not look super-colorful in the store because the blue background on their tanks washes out there colors. But a day after getting them home and into your own system they are always stunners!! Looking good man, we should catch up soon!

Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

d2creative said:


> --------------
> 
> 
> *So question.... i know we talked briefly earlier about my Monte Carlo possibly dying back, the tissue culture specifically.
> ...


Are you running co2 at a good rate at this point and dosing appropriately with ferts?

And is there any pattern to what is melting? Groups in certain sections or just random ones?


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## Grobbins48 (Oct 16, 2017)

I can't believe I am just finding this now. What a beautifully done presentation, and great looking rainbows! I'll be following along for sure from here!


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

minorhero said:


> Are you running co2 at a good rate at this point and dosing appropriately with ferts?
> 
> And is there any pattern to what is melting? Groups in certain sections or just random ones?


I'm going through a 5lb tank in like 3 weeks. My dropper is green-ish yellow. I've been gradually turning it down over the last several days.
I think my daily high was creeping up, but my controller was keeping the same daily low goal, so it was slowly increasing dosage.

The most open area seemed to be dying first, now it's kinda spreading.
Haven't dosed much other than the occasional Thrive. Wasn't sure how to proceed with fertz yet.

Actually, it just dawned on me.... maybe my cory cats are bothering it. Some are uprooted.



Grobbins48 said:


> I can't believe I am just finding this now. What a beautifully done presentation, and great looking rainbows! I'll be following along for sure from here!


Thanks!


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

d2creative said:


> ...
> 
> The most open area seemed to be dying first, now it's kinda spreading.
> Haven't dosed much other than the occasional Thrive. Wasn't sure how to proceed with fertz yet.
> ...


Yep, the cory's will uproot newly planted stuff. Also what is your substrate? Aquasoil? You should be dosing K and micros. Everything else will be provided by the soil. Also make sure you watch you lights. You should be still in short photo period mode.


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

Asteroid said:


> Yep, the cory's will uproot newly planted stuff. Also what is your substrate? Aquasoil? You should be dosing K and micros. Everything else will be provided by the soil. Also make sure you watch you lights. You should be still in short photo period mode.


Ultum ControSoil.
I don't have potassium or micros yet. I'll look for some.
How do I know when I can go for a longer photo period or up the intensity?


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

d2creative said:


> Ultum ControSoil.
> I don't have potassium or micros yet. I'll look for some.
> How do I know when I can go for a longer photo period or up the intensity?


I would definitely start dosing K and micros. No reason not to and you'll avoid a shortage. I would wait to you have more plant mass to increase light duration. Intensity you need for certain plants, but if everything is growing I wouldn't increase it. The peak period can be pretty short and you can get good plant growth.


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

Feeding the fish this morning and the rainbows are going crazy, splashing water out of the tank.
Caught Nona's attention... she was quite interested, but sadly too far away to reach. lol


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

Went to my LFS to pick up a few more plants but couldn't resist getting a few of these Albino Rainbows while I was there.


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Very hard to resist the Albino's.

Here's what you have to look forward to.........










I hope they do well for you. Like any Albino, they tend to have more health problems than the regular variety. So not as long lived (5 to 10 years) as most Rainbow varieties, but quite striking and worth trying. Good luck with them.


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

Greggz said:


> Very hard to resist the Albino's.
> 
> Here's what you have to look forward to.........


:surprise::surprise::surprise::surprise::surprise:

Amazeballs. And what a fatty. :laugh2:


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## Janci (Aug 21, 2019)

Greggz said:


> Very hard to resist the Albino's.
> 
> Here's what you have to look forward to.........
> 
> ...


Wow, so when these rainbows grow, everything in their body grows, except the head.
Magnificent

Bump:


d2creative said:


> Went to my LFS to pick up a few more plants but couldn't resist getting a few of these Albino Rainbows while I was there.


Gorgeous fish and photos.
These will be even more striking when maturing and be the attraction in the tank.


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

Janci said:


> Wow, so when these rainbows grow, everything in their body grows, except the head.
> Magnificent


:icon_lol::icon_lol::icon_lol::icon_lol::icon_lol::icon_lol:


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

Updated FTS with more plants....


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

Also, my Buce Red has a new bud looks like it's about to open.


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

That Buce bud is opening!










And another Bow pic.


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Great pics!

I have to up my game.:grin2:


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

Greggz said:


> Great pics!
> 
> I have to up my game.:grin2:


Your pics are pretty darn good for a cellphone, but you should get a fast macro lens (F2.8 or lower) and attach it to that SLR to take it to the next level.


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

Greggz said:


> Great pics!
> 
> 
> 
> I have to up my game.:grin2:




Lol I need a little edge to make up for my little skinny rainbows.


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## Grobbins48 (Oct 16, 2017)

Looking fantastic, and wonderful picture clarity. Very nicely done!


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

WOW, 30 days since my last update! It's been a busy month... work, freelance, holiday shenanigans... :confused1:

So some things have been happing.
For one... GROWTH!  It's really starting to fill out. Yesterday I actually trimmed a few things.

Something not so good that has happened since my last post was blue/green cyano. It popped up all in the moss, and two small patches on the wood. I tested and realized my nitrates had dropped to zero. I was able to halt its growth by dosing potassium nitrate and sucking out what I could daily with a turkey baster, and then after a week of that and seeing it wasn't spreading anymore, I got my hands on some UltraLife Blue-Green Stain Remover and the cyano was completely gone in about 3 days.

Something else not so good is I lost two of my Boesemani Bows within about a week of each other. One jumped. I found him about 20 ft from the tank. Must have been a cat toy for a bit. The other body was never recovered. So I'm down to 6 bows total. Maybe I can pick up some more over Xmas break.

Once the cyano disappeared, I finally started increasing my light intensity! I've had it coming on early in the morning but at a super low intensity, with a spike late in the afternoon. So I've just been upping the intensity overall for the entire photo period.
I've also been decreasing my Co2 a bit. My only guide is the glass c02 drop checker. I was originally trying to get a 1 degree drop in pH but anything close turns the drop checker liquid to a more yellowy green. I've now got it to a dark green. my Ph current runs between 7.3-6.7

The only thing I've been adding the tank occasionally is a little potassium and some Flourish micros.

So some questions based on some observations.... mainly being growth related.
1) My Monte Carlo still isn't taking off. I'm assuming this is due to the lower light levels?
2) My stem plants grow tall and thin/wispy. Lots of space between sets of leaves, and even the leaves will change shape from almost round to long/skinny. Again, I'm assuming it's a light intensity issue? 
3) When trimming stem plants, what happens at the point of the cut? Will it sprout new branches there or just continue growing straight up?
4) How do I need to know if I need additional flow in the tank? All I have right now are the two Oase 600 filters and their outputs are at the surface. The good thing is the sand bed has stayed clean other than fish poo! No problems with soil mixing in or anything like that. lol

Thanks! Here's the pics!


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## Ventchur (Apr 29, 2018)

d2creative said:


>


Dayum!


----------



## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

This is a very interesting tank.

Very unique style, and very well presented. Love the whole thing.

And I thought for sure those different color substrates would mix. Glad to see they are holding up so well.


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

If your monte carlo is not taking off with co2 and and aquasoil its almost certainly due to low light. Same with thin whispy stems.

What happens when you cut a stem depends on the stem. My rotala for instance will usually turn a leaf into a new branch and continue growing up but the cut site itself will not grow again. When I had ludwigia I remember it growing again from the cut site /shrug.

When trimming my rotala these days I try to find a place where its already branching out and then cut off the main stem just above where the branch is occurring. 

Since you are just guessing with various light levels it might be a good idea to try and rent a par meter so you can figure out what different settings on your lights translate to in objective data. There are some sites online that rent them. I seem to remember you being very close to a good fish stores which will likely also rent them.

If you want to buy your own you can get one for 200-300 dollars I believe.


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

Greggz said:


> This is a very interesting tank.
> 
> Very unique style, and very well presented. Love the whole thing.
> 
> And I thought for sure those different color substrates would mix. Glad to see they are holding up so well.


Thanks, man! And ya... haha... i'm not following any specific style. Just having fun. 




minorhero said:


> If your monte carlo is not taking off with co2 and and aquasoil its almost certainly due to low light. Same with thin whispy stems.
> 
> What happens when you cut a stem depends on the stem. My rotala for instance will usually turn a leaf into a new branch and continue growing up but the cut site itself will not grow again. When I had ludwigia I remember it growing again from the cut site /shrug.
> 
> ...


Awesome, thanks.
I'll continue raising light levels little by little each week.
Our local club has a couple Apogee par meters to lend out... i just haven't felt like dealing with the hassle of getting my hands on one. :red_mouth


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## EdWiser (Jul 14, 2015)

No par meter.  I have one you can borrow.


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## Grobbins48 (Oct 16, 2017)

Looking really good!


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## talontsiawd (Oct 19, 2008)

Depending on how bad your cyano was, it may have been sucking up all the nutrients. For whatever reason, I almost always get a BGA/Cyano outbreak and my plants really suffer, but once it is gone, they just take off. You may not need to adjust anything, just give both the MC and the stems time to recover. Scape looks amazing though.


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

talontsiawd said:


> Depending on how bad your cyano was, it may have been sucking up all the nutrients. For whatever reason, I almost always get a BGA/Cyano outbreak and my plants really suffer, but once it is gone, they just take off. You may not need to adjust anything, just give both the MC and the stems time to recover. Scape looks amazing though.


Maybe! It was a real quick bout, but could be.
Thanks!


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## talontsiawd (Oct 19, 2008)

d2creative said:


> Maybe! It was a real quick bout, but could be.
> Thanks!


BGA really sucks up nutrients so I hope so. Anyway, I love this tank and I love the setup, can't wait to see where it goes.


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## Jamielampert (Dec 11, 2019)

Incredible!!!!


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

Doing a little maintenance this morning.
Loving how easy it is to work on the Oase Biomaster filters. That pre-filter is the shiz. :icon_cool




















Got a little battle I'm going through right now with Staghorn algae growing everywhere.
Trying to get some more algae eaters but would rather find/fix the cause. 
I probably need more flow so will probably add a powerhead. Love the oase filters but they do not have a strong flow.
I was trying to increase my light, still having a problem with the Monte Carlo not growing but I guess I'll have to decrease it for a bit.
Is short periods of high light better than long periods of low/medium light?

*Current parameters:*
GH 11, KH 4.5 (was going to lower these two a bit)
Temp 76.3
pH 6.5-7.2 daily
No3 15ppm

Only thing I'm currently dosing is a little Seachem... Flourish Comprehensive and Potassium.

Finally got my Dwyer CO2 meter and hooking that up this weekend.


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## Streetwise (May 24, 2019)

I haven't used canister filters since my marine days, but that looks really cool! Does it mean you can do most of your maintenance without disconnecting and taking your canister to a bathtub or big sink?


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

Streetwise said:


> I haven't used canister filters since my marine days, but that looks really cool! Does it mean you can do most of your maintenance without disconnecting and taking your canister to a bathtub or big sink?


The prefilter catches all the big junk. You can see how black the water got just from the one set of sponges.
So every week or two you can just pull it, clean the sponges in tank water and put it back.
They've been running for months and I have yet to open the main canister. 
Between the pre-filter and the inline heater, I'm really liking these. My only issue is the flow could be stronger. I have two of these and still need to add a powerhead. And you definitely see a reduction in flow as those prefilters get dirty/clogged. It's easy to clean them but you do have to do it fairly often. Still way easier than having to clean the whole thing.


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## Streetwise (May 24, 2019)

Thanks. I have a buddy setting up a 36 gallon bow front tank who wants one of these that has the easy pre-filter chamber and heater. Do you have a model recommendation?


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## EdWiser (Jul 14, 2015)

d2creative said:


> Finally got my Dwyer CO2 meter and hooking that up this weekend.



How are you using the meter? What model are you using?


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

EdWiser said:


> How are you using the meter? What model are you using?


I got the Dwyer RMA-150-SSV
The bubble counter is pretty useless on my tank so this should give me a better reference as to how much co2 i'm using.

Bump:


Streetwise said:


> Thanks. I have a buddy setting up a 36 gallon bow front tank who wants one of these that has the easy pre-filter chamber and heater. Do you have a model recommendation?


Probably doesn't need the 600. 
The 250 Thermo is probably enough. He's right at half of what they list as max tank size (70g).
I'm just guessing though.


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## EdWiser (Jul 14, 2015)

Just watched a Tom Barr talk at the 2015 AGA convention. He uses ph and dkh to determine the level of Co2 in his tanks. 


https://barrreport.com/threads/co2-ph-kh-table.10717/

Made me think if I could use my KH director and my PH probe together to monitor CO2.


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## butchblack (Oct 25, 2019)

EdWiser said:


> Just watched a Tom Barr talk at the 2015 AGA convention. He uses ph and dkh to determine the level of Co2 in his tanks.
> 
> 
> https://barrreport.com/threads/co2-ph-kh-table.10717/
> ...


That's basically what I'm doing with my PH controller and is why I try to keep the dKH relatively stable.


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## EdWiser (Jul 14, 2015)

butchblack said:


> That's basically what I'm doing with my PH controller and is why I try to keep the dKH relatively stable.




The KH controller keeps the dkh of the water stable.  It’s part of the GHL controllers system. One can maintain a constant dkh with the controller.


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## Streetwise (May 24, 2019)

d2creative said:


> I got the Dwyer RMA-15-SSV
> The bubble counter is pretty useless on my tank so this should give me a better reference as to how much co2 i'm using.
> 
> Bump:
> ...


Thanks! That was the best guess I put on the draft shopping list I wrote!  Can I PM you to check my list? That pre-filter cleaning totally changed how I think about canister filters, I must say. Is that a brand-exclusive feature?

Cheers


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

Streetwise said:


> Thanks! That was the best guess I put on the draft shopping list I wrote!  Can I PM you to check my list? That pre-filter cleaning totally changed how I think about canister filters, I must say. Is that a brand-exclusive feature?
> 
> Cheers


Sure thing. And ya I don't believe I've seen that feature elsewhere. Plus the included heater. Keeps you from having to hook up some kind of inline heater or having it inside the tank. The heater also has it's own power cord so I'm using my controller to control both heaters for added safety.


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## KayakJimW (Aug 12, 2016)

d2creative said:


> I got the Dwyer RMA-15-SSV


Is it really the RMA 15 ssv? Or did you mean the RMA *150* ssv?


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

KayakJimW said:


> Is it really the RMA 15 ssv? Or did you mean the RMA *150* ssv?


Oops, thought I typed 150. Someone stole my zero! :laugh2:
I corrected it. Thanks for catching that.


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## KayakJimW (Aug 12, 2016)

Sure thing! I have an RMA 150 SSV on my 90g and like it quite a bit. Had to look up the 15 out of curiosity and saw the high range and wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something. Those Dwyers are pretty cool


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## Crude (Nov 8, 2011)

Perfect. I was only searching for information on Waterbox, but I just binged my way through all 16 pages and came away with quite a few learnings and inspiration. After a few years away from the hobby, I got myself a little nano tank and tried live plants for the first time. Of course that made me want to go bigger.

I had originally been planning on going with a Waterbox AIO, but your build convinced me to go with the rimless (and likely copy your Oase canister, unless I can convince Fish Gallery to order me the Marine version sans cabinet - I'm going to have a custom cabinet built to match our furniture, but have been wanting to try a sump). 

I need to make a visit to ADG before I start buying anything. I'm on the north side of Houston, just north of 610, and its a trek to get down there. 

Everything looks amazing, and I'm nerding out on your set-up and technology. Keep it up!


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

Crude said:


> Perfect. I was only searching for information on Waterbox, but I just binged my way through all 16 pages and came away with quite a few learnings and inspiration. After a few years away from the hobby, I got myself a little nano tank and tried live plants for the first time. Of course that made me want to go bigger.
> 
> I had originally been planning on going with a Waterbox AIO, but your build convinced me to go with the rimless (and likely copy your Oase canister, unless I can convince Fish Gallery to order me the Marine version sans cabinet - I'm going to have a custom cabinet built to match our furniture, but have been wanting to try a sump).
> 
> ...


Where north of 610? I'm at Shepard and 43rd.
And ya... both FG and ADG are a bit of a trek!


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## Crude (Nov 8, 2011)

d2creative said:


> Where north of 610? I'm at Shepard and 43rd.
> And ya... both FG and ADG are a bit of a trek!


Close. Althea and Rosslyn. Been in Oak Forest for a little over 4 years, and lived in the Heights before that. 

Spent a good chunk of the evening sketching out what I want my stand to look like and getting dimensions right. Using a local furniture company we've used a few times in the past. Did you order straight from Waterbox? Any thoughts on the canister vs. sump yet?


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

Crude said:


> Close. Althea and Rosslyn. Been in Oak Forest for a little over 4 years, and lived in the Heights before that.
> 
> Spent a good chunk of the evening sketching out what I want my stand to look like and getting dimensions right. Using a local furniture company we've used a few times in the past. Did you order straight from Waterbox? Any thoughts on the canister vs. sump yet?



oh yeah, real close. haha
I used to know a guy that lived on Rosslyn just north of 43rd. I photographed his tank for Ecotech Marine.
They still use one of the images on the Ecosmart Live landing page. EcoSmart Live? Login

I did order the tank and stand direct from Waterbox.

I love sumps when running a saltwater reef tank. I don't like to do it any other way, even those all-in-ones with rear filter compartment I don't like.
On this tank I just felt like I wanted to keep things a bit simpler and try the canisters, even though most people recommend sumps with the larger tanks. No regrets so far. It does help me use less CO2.
The only thing with my particular setup that would have been easier is my ATO and AWC setups, but I was able to work around it. And if/when I start dosing, I'll have to have lines for that running up the back of the tank as well.
And I probably have around the same maintenance with the filters.... maybe??? Instead of changing socks or other filter media I have to clean the pre-filters.
I have yet to clean the rest of the canisters.


----------



## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

Just a couple pics from this week after some maintenance. 
I removed the moss from the arching branch. I felt it was throwing of the balance of the overall composition and blocking a lot of the better looking plants behind.
It was nice to have while everything else was growing in, but don't feel it's needed any longer.
Going to head to my LFS this weekend and see if I can find some more fish.


----------



## AcidGambit (Aug 30, 2018)

Have you hooked up your auto-dosing system? If so, can you take some pictures of how you plumbed it to your tank? I designed a bracket for my ATO line and dosing lines, which I had 3D-printed, but I'm curious to see if there is a more aesthetically pleasing alternative.

Similar question about your water-change system. I'm not seeing the lines in your pictures.

Thanks!


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

AcidGambit said:


> Have you hooked up your auto-dosing system? If so, can you take some pictures of how you plumbed it to your tank? I designed a bracket for my ATO line and dosing lines, which I had 3D-printed, but I'm curious to see if there is a more aesthetically pleasing alternative.
> 
> Similar question about your water-change system. I'm not seeing the lines in your pictures.
> 
> Thanks!


I haven't set up the dosing yet. At this point i'm still manually dosing a little bit of seachem comprehensive and potassium when I remember. That's it.

And yes, I have to get off my butt and take pics/do a write-up on that AWC.
I may end up treating the dosing lines in a similar way. I will try to do that this weekend.

Oh and I forgot a major thing in my post above... i added an old Tunze powerhead i had leftover from my old 200g reef I had several years back!
It's dialed way down but I'm getting a lot of good plant movement now. 
It can be seen in the rear left corner of the tank.


----------



## Blue Ridge Reef (Feb 10, 2008)

d2creative said:


>


That looks fantastic! I mean, I knew it would, but not even 3 months after adding water you're doing a lot right!


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

Blue Ridge Reef said:


> That looks fantastic! I mean, I knew it would, but not even 3 months after adding water you're doing a lot right!


Thanks, man! I'm happy with it so far. :smile2:


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Well I have to say it's rare that someone comes along and has an ambitious plan for a tank.................and then actually executes it.......but you sure did!:grin2:

I really like the entire vibe of the tank, and the Rainbows look like they are enjoying their new home.

Well done Sir!!


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

Greggz said:


> Well I have to say it's rare that someone comes along and has an ambitious plan for a tank.................and then actually executes it.......but you sure did!:grin2:
> 
> I really like the entire vibe of the tank, and the Rainbows look like they are enjoying their new home.
> 
> Well done Sir!!


HA!!! I admit... I was worried. :grin2: Let's hope it continues. I think the soil is doing the heavy lifting at the moment. 

Thanks!


----------



## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

Hey @Greggz, I picked up some nice looking Threadfin Rainbows today. They're small, but they're pretty.  

Any personal experience with those?


----------



## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

d2creative said:


> Hey @Greggz, I picked up some nice looking Threadfin Rainbows today. They're small, but they're pretty.
> 
> Any personal experience with those?


No I have never kept them.

Was always worried how they would fare getting food with a bunch of ravenous larger Bows.

But I see the appeal. Very, very nice smaller species, with some beautiful varieties available.

Good luck with them....and get some pics!


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

Greggz said:


> No I have never kept them.
> 
> Was always worried how they would fare getting food with a bunch of ravenous larger Bows.
> 
> ...


Cool, ya I thought about the feeding, but all my tetras manage so hopefully these guys will too.
Of course I don't have the bow population you do. haha 
Pics soon! :grin2:


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

Time for a long overdue overview of how I set up my Auto Water Change (AWC) and Auto Top-Off (ATO) systems!

First, let's start off with the major components.

Number one is the heart of my system, the GHL Profilux Controller, seen here on the right.










In the case of the AWC, I created a Timer. 8x per day, the Profilux turns on the AWC pump for a specified amount of time.
It's also controlling ATO. The water level in the tank needs to be monitored, so I installed an optical level sensor.
The level sensor is seen here on the right. 










It's held in place by my magnetic probe holder attached to the back glass, along with my pH and Temp probes.
All three sensors are connected to the Profilux. 
When the water level drops, the Profilux turns on the ATO pump, and then shuts it off when the original water level is reached.

The next major component is my water storage and mixing station.
Our tap water from the city is pretty bad. Full of chlorine/chloramines and high TDS. 
So I prefer to start with a clean slate and make my own RO/DI water. This also makes things easier IMO to always have stable parameters and easier to adjust levels when needed.
Our weather is more mild here in the south so I have everything outdoors in enclosures just to provide some protection from the sun and weather in general.
Here's my RO/DI...



















The RO/DI cabinet is mounted on the wall next to my plastic shed that houses my two 60g water storage tanks.



















The RO/DI creates the water and sends it to the tank on the left. When this side is full, I turn valves and turn on the mixing pump and send the water to the tank on the right. Once the right tank is full, I turn valves so that water is circulating out from the bottom, through the pump and back into the top. While that is running I throw in my salts for GH/KH/MAG and let it mix for a few hours. Meanwhile, the tank on the left is refilled by the RO/DI, which shuts off automatically when the tank is full. There is a mechanical float valve inside the top of the tank which creates backpressure in the RO/DI and shuts it down.

I needed a way to push and pull water to and from the aquarium. Reliability is key! So I went with the pumps that are used in the medical and scientific industries, able to run 24/7/365... Continuous duty. Cole Parmer Masterflex peristaltic pumps. These can be regularly found on Ebay. The Masterflex (big one on the right) typically runs in the $400 range for the noisier brushed motor models, if you are lucky it will come with an Easy Load head. The brushless models are quiet but more expensive. In my case, a little noise is fine since they are outside. The smaller unit is a cheap, steady flow rate model with standard head found for about $99. This is the one I use for my ATO, which pulls water from the RO/DI tank on the left. The larger MasterFlex is running my AWC using two Easy Load heads. When it turns on, both heads run simultaneously but I have them set up in opposite directions. So one is pulling water out while the other head is pushing water in. They are identical heads, with identical size tubing, running at identical speeds. So the amount of water pulled out, is the same amount of water pulled in. This pump is pulling remineralized water from the tank on the right. The two best things about using peristaltic pumps like this is they pump far, and you don't have to worry about back-siphon so they don't need to be mounted higher than the aquarium.

Now that all major components were in place and ready to go, it was time to get water from the storage tanks to the aquarium.
I ran 3/8" semi-rigid tubing from the shed, up under the eve of the house, passed the sliding glass doors, down the other side to the base of the wall, where I punched a hole to get inside next to the aquarium. 

In this pic here, you can see the water storage shed at the bottom left of the pic (the smaller one on the other side holds some pool equipment). And the aquarium is right behind our cat Pigeon (his foster mom gave him that name and we kept it, LOL) at the top right side of the pic. 



















Here you can see the water lines coming in through the wall right next to the tank.
And FWIW, I have run this type of tubing (usually the 1/4") through attics, behind baseboard molding, etc. 
In order for the Profilux controller to talk to the pumps in the shed, I had to run a Cat5 cable as well and install a GHL Powerbar in the shed that the pumps could plug into. The Cat5 runs from the controller to the PowerBar which has 6 sockets. Now the controller can turn sockets on and off as needed.



















Once inside the house and near the tank, I switched to a more flexible tubing so it was easier to work with and much more flexible. 
This is some silicone tubing. Stretches right over the ends of the rigid stuff and is held in place with a ziptie for safety.










Now normally, I'm running these lines to my sump, but this aquarium doesn't have a sump. 
So I needed to figure out a way to get the water into the display tank and not have it look terrible. 
After some searching online, I came across some stainless steel u-shaped barbed tubes used in the refrigeration industry.
They come in a 3/8" size so it was perfect. And they sit right over the glass!



















Here are the current locations.
In this pic, this is the line that pulls old water out of the tank on the left side. (that's my powerhead cord next to it)










I had some black flexible tubing laying around that I used as a coupling between the u-shaped tube and a short piece of 3/8" semi-rigid to extend it down several inches into the water.










On the right side of the tank is where I have the new water line and the ATO line.










Since this is where water is being pushed in, I didn't want it entering straight down, especially since my soil comes up pretty high on this side of the tank.
So i used some more of that black flexible tubing as a coupling between the stainless u-tube and a piece of the 3/8" semi-rigid tubing. I heated up the semi-rigid tubing until it was soft enough to bend and dunked in cool water. Now the water shoots out at an angle away from the rear corner of the aquarium. I did this for both lines.










And that's basically it!
This system has been working flawlessly for a couple of months now. And all components are pretty much invisible to anyone looking at the tank.
As I mentioned earlier, the Profilux turns on the Masterflex pump 8x per day. It's running at 500 ml/min and is running for 5 min each time. So approximately 5.25g per day or 37g per week. That's only 25% tank volume so I may increase it at some point but I wanted to see how it goes. I also plan on doing a regular large water change every few months.

I know this may not be the simplest way of doing this but it works great.
The use of the Masterflex with dual heads ensures that the same amount of water pumped out is replaced so no change in water level in the aquarium. 
There are also some nice advantages to doing small incremental changes throughout the day, seven days per week instead of one large change every week. Parameters do not shift. I don't have to worry about water temp. Dosing is always the same. 

Feel free to ask questions if anything isn't clear.
Hoping this might be able to help someone set up a similar system or at least give you some ideas for creating your own. :smile2:


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## gjcarew (Dec 26, 2018)

Not to pry or anything, but are you an engineer or something? This is an outrageously high-level build

Sent from my Pixel 3 using Tapatalk


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

gjcarew said:


> Not to pry or anything, but are you an engineer or something? This is an outrageously high-level build
> 
> Sent from my Pixel 3 using Tapatalk


LOL no, I'm a Graphic Designer. Mostly packaging graphics (food, beverages/spirits, electronics, etc). 
I guess the creativity carries over, but I usually start out with just a general idea of what I want to do and then figure out the details as I go! :laugh2:


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

What a great post!

That is some serious dedication. 

You know the best thing about this post?

I showed it to my wife and now she thinks I am relatively normal!!:wink2:

Nice work and once again the tank is really becoming a stunner.

Is it my imagination or do the Bows tend to stay in the open area over to the left??


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## EdWiser (Jul 14, 2015)

Nice write up Dennis. Very similar to my AWC set up. I will be redoing it a lot this next time. But it has worked well for years.


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

Greggz said:


> What a great post!
> 
> That is some serious dedication.
> 
> ...


Thanks! And yes, although they will swim back and forth (especially at feeding time) that side of the tank is A LOT more open than the other side so there is always a lot more activity there, and not just the bows. The tetras, and even all the clean up crew is out and about and busy over there. :smile2:

I did that on purpose though. Wanted to have one end more heavily planted and the other end wide open for more swimming room. Works out nicely. The party fish hang out on the left and the introverts can chill in peace on the right. :laugh2:


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

Some pics of the new additions... Threadfin Rainbows and Blue Ram Cichlids.  
Was originally worried about the Threadfins with feeding but they swim high and don't seem to have an issue.
The Rams on the other hand... low swimmers and very chill personalities. May be a challenge.


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## Hendy8888 (Mar 6, 2008)

Very nice, love the threadfins. Just be aware that they have a very small mouth/throat for your food choice.

I love seeing planted builds with high end equipment like yours. Seems pretty mainstream in reef setups but not planted tanks yet.


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

Hendy8888 said:


> Very nice, love the threadfins. Just be aware that they have a very small mouth/throat for your food choice.
> 
> I love seeing planted builds with high end equipment like yours. Seems pretty mainstream in reef setups but not planted tanks yet.


Yep, I noticed the small mouths.  
I feed a variety of foods and prefer the frozen stuff. You end up with a big mix of particle size.
And when feeding flake I tend to crush it between my fingers to make sure there is a good range of size there too.


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## EdWiser (Jul 14, 2015)

Is this the U tube you used. 


https://www.kegworks.com/u-bend-for-draft-beer-lines

Once my tank is up and running I am calling one of my industrial suppliers to make stainless steel lines for dosing of ferts from the GHL doser.


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

EdWiser said:


> Is this the U tube you used.
> 
> 
> https://www.kegworks.com/u-bend-for-draft-beer-lines
> ...




Yep, looks like the same thing.


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## Deedledee (Sep 13, 2016)

d2creative said:


> Hey @Greggz, I picked up some nice looking Threadfin Rainbows today. They're small, but they're pretty.
> 
> Any personal experience with those?


Hi ! I'm really enjoying your tank journal ! You have done an amazing job in such a short time ! I just wanted to weigh in regarding the threadfins, one of my favorites. They can be quite jumpy at times, especially when the males are pursuing a mate. I had a nice group of them, by sadly I lost them all to bailing . I have recently had a custom glass canopy made, so I am hoping to add another school of threadfins. Look forward to seeing your updates :fish:


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

Finally borrowed a PAR meter today to see what I've been running at.
Around 80 near the surface, 60-65 about midpoint, and around 35-40 at the soil.

What would be recommended for me using C02?
My lights are turned down quite substantially. I could probably be pushing 300 easily if I wanted to.


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

d2creative said:


> Finally borrowed a PAR meter today to see what I've been running at.
> Around 80 near the surface, 60-65 about midpoint, and around 35-40 at the soil.
> 
> What would be recommended for me using C02?
> My lights are turned down quite substantially. I could probably be pushing 300 easily if I wanted to.


Are you asking what the best pH drop from CO2 would be?

If so....it depends. While you are running pretty low light, all plants will do better with good CO2 levels. My guess would be the standard 1.0 drop would be good. If you turned up the lights, probably higher. Too much is never bad, unless fish are stressed.

Best practice is to dial it in slowly and pay close attention to both plants and fish. And in general, whatever you have been doing seems to be working pretty well, so I would go in small increments and not rock the boat too much.


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

Greggz said:


> Are you asking what the best pH drop from CO2 would be?
> 
> If so....it depends. While you are running pretty low light, all plants will do better with good CO2 levels. My guess would be the standard 1.0 drop would be good. If you turned up the lights, probably higher. Too much is never bad, unless fish are stressed.
> 
> Best practice is to dial it in slowly and pay close attention to both plants and fish. And in general, whatever you have been doing seems to be working pretty well, so I would go in small increments and not rock the boat too much.


No, sorry... but thanks for the ph confirmation.

I meant as a c02 user, what PAR range should I be shooting for? Up until now I've really had no idea what kind of light I was giving the tank.
Trying to find that balance between enough light for the plants but not too much to fuel algae growth.
I have bare stems at the bottom of stem plants and some decaying leaves, and thinner growth than I'd like. Generally some symptoms that would point to light levels probably being a bit low?


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

d2creative said:


> No, sorry... but thanks for the ph confirmation.
> 
> I meant as a c02 user, what PAR range should I be shooting for? Up until now I've really had no idea what kind of light I was giving the tank.
> Trying to find that balance between enough light for the plants but not too much to fuel algae growth.
> I have bare stems at the bottom of stem plants and some decaying leaves, and thinner growth than I'd like. Generally some symptoms that would point to light levels probably being a bit low?


Aha, that's an entirely different question.

At 35-45 PAR at substrate, you will probably have a hard time getting stems to peak health, and definitely a hard time getting to peak color. I know because when I first got started, I was at about 50 PAR. When I increased lighting, saw a significant improvement in stems. 

In too low of light, many stems will do exactly what you said. Bare stems at the bottom, decaying leaves, thin growth. You might notice wide distance between nodes as the plant concentrates on racing to the light abandoning lower growth. Many times they will slowly begin to wither away over time. 

That being said, you have got a pretty unique mix of plants and scape. Looks like some crypts, ferns, and moss mixed in with ground cover and stems. And you have a lot of bare substrate too. So it will be tricky.

If I were you, I would be dialing up light, but very slowly. Do you still have the PAR meter? If so, I would be noting various settings and the PAR values. My guess and experience is that you will need to get to at least 60 or 70 for stems to be happy. And even more if trying to bring out peak color. 

But each time you adjust up a bit, let it go for at least a week or two. It takes time to fully see the effects of change. And as you dial up, you will probably also see a need for more ferts, so keep that in mind.

And all in all, things look pretty darn good, another reason to go slowly. Really looking forward to seeing where this goes from here.


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

Greggz said:


> Aha, that's an entirely different question.
> 
> At 35-45 PAR at substrate, you will probably have a hard time getting stems to peak health, and definitely a hard time getting to peak color. I know because when I first got started, I was at about 50 PAR. When I increased lighting, saw a significant improvement in stems.
> 
> ...


Ok awesome, thanks!
I do not still have the meter but I did some quick tests with light intensity so I know where I need to go from here. 

The trick now is going to be increasing light intensity but not increasing algae growth. :confused1:


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## Crude (Nov 8, 2011)

You shouldn't be allowed to post questions without pictures  Your tank is too well done to hold out on us.


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

Crude said:


> You shouldn't be allowed to post questions without pictures  Your tank is too well done to hold out on us.


LOL! Thanks.
I have been soooo busy lately, the tank is mostly ignored. I even got some Parkensoni Rainbows I haven't had a chance to take pics of yet!! :crying:
The tank itself though... not much has changed since last time. Probably looks worse, actually (the plants).

Oh, and one other thing I should probably mention...
I decided last weekend that I should finally open up the two Oase Biomaster filters and do a thorough cleaning because up until now I have only cleaned the prefilters regularly.
So I open them up, start pulling media trays out, and everything is clean! :surprise:
So I just put the trays back in and closed them up. LOL
I guess those prefilters are really doing their job.


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## butchblack (Oct 25, 2019)

d2creative said:


> Ok awesome, thanks!
> I do not still have the meter but I did some quick tests with light intensity so I know where I need to go from here.
> 
> The trick now is going to be increasing light intensity but not increasing algae growth. :confused1:


One thing that you might want to consider is adding a UV filter if you're running a canister filter.


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

butchblack said:


> One thing that you might want to consider is adding a UV filter if you're running a canister filter.


Yes! That is definitely on my list. I ran them on my reef tanks, too. Maybe I should expedite that...


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## bctroph (Sep 18, 2018)

Awesome looking tank! Starting my build soon. If I can get mine to look 1/2 that good I'll be happy. 
How do you like the lights? I'm looking at few at a few options but hadn't seen them before.

Bump: Awesome looking tank! Starting my build soon. If I can get mine to look 1/2 that good I'll be happy. 
How do you like the lights? I'm looking at few at a few options but hadn't seen them before.


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

bctroph said:


> Awesome looking tank! Starting my build soon. If I can get mine to look 1/2 that good I'll be happy.
> How do you like the lights? I'm looking at few at a few options but hadn't seen them before.


Thanks! The lights are great. So many options. And more power then you would ever need.
I like that they integrate with my GHL Profilux controller. Both are accessed at home on my local network on my PC, through an app on my phone, or through the interwebs on their cloud website.


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## butchblack (Oct 25, 2019)

butchblack said:


> One thing that you might want to consider is adding a UV filter if you're running a canister filter.





d2creative said:


> Yes! That is definitely on my list. I ran them on my reef tanks, too. Maybe I should expedite that...


I've had good luck so far with the inexpensive Odessea units. Their weak point is the adapter that the plumbing connects into. A good and cheap fix is to use a dishwasher rubber branch connector, they're cheap, available at Home Depot etc, and they should last. You'll need 2 but they're around $5.00 each so no big deal.


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## Crude (Nov 8, 2011)

d2creative said:


> Oh, and one other thing I should probably mention...
> I decided last weekend that I should finally open up the two Oase Biomaster filters and do a thorough cleaning because up until now I have only cleaned the prefilters regularly.
> So I open them up, start pulling media trays out, and everything is clean! :surprise:
> So I just put the trays back in and closed them up. LOL
> I guess those prefilters are really doing their job.


Guess that seals the deal on me going the Oase route. I've purchased everything for the new build, except the filter. The tank is supposed to be delivered (Waterbox 3618) today, but the stand is being custom built and won't be ready for another few weeks. Figure I have enough crap laying around that I don't need to add a big canister filter to the pile just yet.


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## Ventchur (Apr 29, 2018)

Oase sounds amazing.. Except they're not sold in Canada


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

Crude said:


> Guess that seals the deal on me going the Oase route. I've purchased everything for the new build, except the filter. The tank is supposed to be delivered (Waterbox 3618) today, but the stand is being custom built and won't be ready for another few weeks. Figure I have enough crap laying around that I don't need to add a big canister filter to the pile just yet.


My only qualm with the Oase filters is the flow. I have two and still needed to add a large powerhead to get decent plant movement and flow around the tank.
The prefilters clog quickly and reduce this further. I've seen people mod the prefilter on youtube, you can look that up. And different sponges are available from Oase with varying coarseness.
But I've left it as-is so far. And it keeps me cleaning them regularly.


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## bctroph (Sep 18, 2018)

Ventchur said:


> Oase sounds amazing.. Except they're not sold in Canada


You can get oase at aquariumdirect.ca 
I was contemplating one as well.


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## Crude (Nov 8, 2011)

bctroph said:


> You can get oase at aquariumdirect.ca
> I was contemplating one as well.


There are a few US eBay sellers that ship to Canada, as well, with free shipping.


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

So i've got this doser just sitting here. It's been begging to be used while my ControSoil has been doing the brunt of the work as far as providing nutrients to the plants.
4 heads available... what you suggest?
I'm still unsure of what I should be dosing. Still doing daily auto water changes, which has been working great as far as keeping the tank water fairly clean. 
I still need to occasionally dose nitrate.
Just not sure how to go about dosing ferts.
Till now I just occasionally dose something like Thrive, or Tropica Specialized.
With my reef tanks, it was so easy to test for everything important and then know exactly how much to dose. I'm lost here. :confused1:


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## ange062 (May 9, 2011)

N, P, K, Micros on your 4 channels would be a cool setup! As to tweaking each channel, that's an art form that I have yet to figure out. The guys I know that are good at it have tried to explain but it seems to be a bit of voodoo magic to me 

Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

ange062 said:


> N, P, K, Micros on your 4 channels would be a cool setup! As to tweaking each channel, that's an art form that I have yet to figure out. The guys I know that are good at it have tried to explain but it seems to be a bit of voodoo magic to me
> 
> Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk


HA! :grin2:

Sounds like a good plan. As far as the N, P, K.... i got the N covered. Are P & K easy enough to test for and dose accordingly? I know it would take some trial and error to figure out a daily dose to keep things stable.


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## ange062 (May 9, 2011)

d2creative said:


> HA! :grin2:
> 
> 
> 
> Sounds like a good plan. As far as the N, P, K.... i got the N covered. Are P & K easy enough to test for and dose accordingly? I know it would take some trial and error to figure out a daily dose to keep things stable.


That's the tricky part, the guys I know that have insanely healthy plants don't test anything - maybe EC/TDS on occasion but most don't even do that. They just look at the tank and KNOW what needs to be more or less.... Voodoo magic... 

Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

ange062 said:


> That's the tricky part, the guys I know that have insanely healthy plants don't test anything - maybe EC/TDS on occasion but most don't even do that. They just look at the tank and KNOW what needs to be more or less.... Voodoo magic...
> 
> Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk


haha, right right right.... unfortunately I am not at that level yet. :grin2:
I would think I would be able to look up a general recommended range for each and start there? If of course the test kits are somewhat decent. 
Like in reefing... take Alk for example. My coral may do great at 8dkh, yours may be happier at 9.5 dkh. But the newb can be told to aim for somewhere in the 7.5 to 9.5 range and go from there. 

GreenLeaf has a package with all of that...
https://greenleafaquariums.com/products/estimative-index-e-i-aquarium-fertilizer-package-jars.html


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

The two big competing fertilizing options are EI (Estimative Index) or PPS-Pro (Perpetual Preservation System). Two competing ideas, EI is that you load up everything a plant could want in more quantities it could need and then do big water changes to get rid of excess. PPS-Pro is more about keeping smaller amounts of nutrients around and just refilling them as you go. It can be used with smaller water changes or larger, just depends on how you set it up. There are other fert schemes out there but these two are by far the most popular.

You can buy dry ferts and mix them and then dose accordingly. This is by far the cheapest option currently available for fertilizing a tank. A set of ferts will run you around 30 dollars which can last a long time (year or more? Not sure off hand, I am sure it depends on tank size etc.). The two brands I have seen used most often so far is GLA and Nilcog. Both make dry ferts and sell packages for EI and PPS-Pro with mixing and dosing instructions. 

Under this system you would have 2 channels being used on your pump, one for macros and one for micros. As for what to use the others for? Some dose Seachem Excel daily to keep down algae. 

At this point you can slow down the water changes to once or at most twice a week and you definitely should start dosing ferts. Which scheme to go with? Depends on what you like. I believe tropica is an EI method of dosing. I am researching these questions now for my own purposes. I plan to buy a doser and start dosing PPS-Pro in the next month or so for my 40 breeder. Not sure whose ferts I am going to buy yet either.


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## ange062 (May 9, 2011)

d2creative said:


> haha, right right right.... unfortunately I am not at that level yet. :grin2:
> 
> I would think I would be able to look up a general recommended range for each and start there? If of course the test kits are somewhat decent.
> 
> ...


Agree, that's what I like about reefing. I can measure Alk, Ca, and Mg and adjust those accordingly to my desired levels. I don't see guys in the planted world measuring N, P, K and adjusting, and hence haven't seen any recommended values. Most people will say PPS or EI like mentioned above, but the guys I know that do it best control their NPK independently based on experience. Also, in my experience neither EI or PPS is as precise as what we do in reefing, both methods make a lot of assumptions rather than measuring and adjusting specific elemental values. 

I did a little digging and saw LaMotte makes an NPK "soil test kit". I wonder if this can be utilized for water tests? Maybe we can do some experimentation and work on defining a more precise methodology for a "test and adjust" technique akin to what we do in reefing. 

Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

ange062 said:


> Maybe we can do some experimentation and work on defining a more precise methodology for a "test and adjust" technique akin to what we do in reefing.


Definitely. But looks like the problem is finding freshwater test kits. :crying: :icon_mad:


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## ange062 (May 9, 2011)

d2creative said:


> Definitely. But looks like the problem is finding freshwater test kits. :crying: :icon_mad:


Doing some further digging, hydroponic test kits are available but they are $$$$$

https://www.lamotte.com/en/education/soil-testing/3561-01.html



Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

I found a JBL phosphate test kit but would have to order through eBay from across the pond.

My Salifert nitrate kit seems to work fine, as does my Hanna phosphorous checker. I've also tested the Hanna Alk checker against the liquid fw test kit and they are the same.
Magnesium test kit for saltwater DOES NOT work. :laugh2:


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## EdWiser (Jul 14, 2015)

Will be sending off trident test of water. On a regular basis. If MACNA happens this year I will talk to Matthias of GHL on how he does his tanks. As he is a big freshwater plants person. 
Think most of the current forms of fertilizing is based on overkill. With no testing at all just throw chemicals in the tank and then remove water with big changes. Would love to get Glenn Fong of DSR into keeping a planted tank.


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

EdWiser said:


> Will be sending off trident test of water. On a regular basis. If MACNA happens this year I will talk to Matthias of GHL on how he does his tanks. As he is a big freshwater plants person.
> Think most of the current forms of fertilizing is based on overkill. With no testing at all just throw chemicals in the tank and then remove water with big changes. Would love to get Glenn Fong of DSR into keeping a planted tank.


I was wondering if triton or API or whatever would work.

Bump:


minorhero said:


> The two big competing fertilizing options are EI (Estimative Index) or PPS-Pro (Perpetual Preservation System). Two competing ideas, EI is that you load up everything a plant could want in more quantities it could need and then do big water changes to get rid of excess. PPS-Pro is more about keeping smaller amounts of nutrients around and just refilling them as you go. It can be used with smaller water changes or larger, just depends on how you set it up. There are other fert schemes out there but these two are by far the most popular.


I see that Greenleaf has two separate packages for these two methods. Why is that?

https://greenleafaquariums.com/categories/aquarium-fertilizer/fertilizer-collection.html




Bump: Ok, i placed an ebay order.
In a week or two I should be able to start testing.


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## EdWiser (Jul 14, 2015)

Yes they do freshwater testing. 
Have a friend who does it. 
One could really see what the plants are up-taking. 
Will have to check with Rabih the owner of reefbot to see if he can support freshwater auto testing.


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## amazoniantanklvr (Mar 20, 2020)

Your tank looks amazing! What else are you going to stock it with?


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## andrewss (Oct 17, 2012)

Wow! What a build this tank is, very impressive!


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

amazoniantanklvr said:


> Your tank looks amazing! What else are you going to stock it with?


Thanks!
No real plans. I'll just pick things up as they catch my eye. 
Definitely want some more rainbows. Latest additions were a few parkensoni and turquoise.
Also added over 50 Amano Shrimp last week to help with the algae. And they are! Have noticed a substantial reduction. :icon_cool
And that's with me increasing light intensity by about 5% each week the last few weeks.



andrewss said:


> Wow! What a build this tank is, very impressive!


Thank you! 


Here's some new pics...


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## Crude (Nov 8, 2011)

Looking good! What are your pink/red plants popping in the back?


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

Crude said:


> Looking good! What are your pink/red plants popping in the back?


I have no idea. I could remember coral names without much issue but can't remember a plant name for the life of me. :laugh2:


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

Few more pics from today, hanging around the house. 
I think some of my tetras have been getting into the quarantine snacks a little early. :grin2:


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## Grobbins48 (Oct 16, 2017)

Looks absolutely fantastic! I really enjoy reading updates on this tank.


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## ange062 (May 9, 2011)

d2creative said:


> I have no idea. I could remember coral names without much issue but can't remember a plant name for the life of me. :laugh2:


Looks like alternathera reineckii, I think it recall you grabbing some from ADG 

Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

Grobbins48 said:


> Looks absolutely fantastic! I really enjoy reading updates on this tank.


Thanks! 



ange062 said:


> Looks like alternathera reineckii, I think it recall you grabbing some from ADG
> 
> Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk


Ya, that sounds familiar! ha! :grin2: Yes, it came from ADG.


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

d2creative said:


> Few more pics from today, hanging around the house.


Great pics!

Keep them coming.

Like you said......not a lot else to do.

Hopefully we see an influx of tank/plant/fish pics.........alleviates the boredom for a few minutes anyway. 

I'll be trying to do my part!:wink2:


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

Greggz said:


> Great pics!
> 
> Keep them coming.
> 
> ...


LOL, yeah we probably will!
My life hasn't really changed other than not being able to eat out on the weekends. 
I still have to go to work every day and I always have things to do around the house on the weekends. I'm never bored. Just trying not to go out shopping or whatever.


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## newportjon (Mar 22, 2011)

What. A. Tank. 

Absolutely stunning! Great job!


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

newportjon said:


> What. A. Tank.
> 
> Absolutely stunning! Great job!


Thanks!


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

New pics after a bit of trimming and cleaning the glassware...


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## Crude (Nov 8, 2011)

Love the kitchen and the overall color scheme. Looks like you were considering the color palate when selecting livestock 

Have any fish escaped yet?

How are your rams holding up? I suppose you don't have the same PH problems I'll have with our city water.


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

Crude said:


> Love the kitchen and the overall color scheme. Looks like you were considering the color palate when selecting livestock
> 
> Have any fish escaped yet?
> 
> How are your rams holding up? I suppose you don't have the same PH problems I'll have with our city water.


haha, thanks!

Buncha fish took the final leap unfortunately. 
I'm down to 1 boesemani out of 5. One of the albinos jumped. One of the parkensoni jumped.
And the rams.... all gone. The water was just too cold I'm guessing. They went one by one... perishing in the tank.


Nope, no ph problems. Daily swings (from the c02) from 7.7 to 6.6. 
I prefer using the RO/DI so I can start with a clean slate and control parameters myself.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

d2creative said:


> ..
> Buncha fish took the final leap unfortunately.
> I'm down to 1 boesemani out of 5. One of the albinos jumped. One of the parkensoni jumped.
> And the rams.... all gone. The water was just too cold I'm guessing. They went one by one... perishing in the tank.


How far below the rim is the water level? For something like a rainbow it should probably be 1.5 to 2" .


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## monkeyruler90 (Apr 13, 2008)

tank looks amazing. I love the journey of building the stand, running the water system, and getting the fish

Very interesting thread!


Yeah, agree on starting off easy with EI dosing method and using the doser for micros and macros

Once you get it all tweaked out then you can move over to breaking out each nutrient.

Bump: tank looks amazing. I love the journey of building the stand, running the water system, and getting the fish

Very interesting thread!


Yeah, agree on starting off easy with EI dosing method and using the doser for micros and macros

Once you get it all tweaked out then you can move over to breaking out each nutrient.


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## Crazygar (Nov 16, 2006)

I cannot believe I missed this thread. On my subscription list! WOW

Gary


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## EdWiser (Jul 14, 2015)

Dennis maybe a acrylic lid might. Be needed.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

EdWiser said:


> Dennis maybe a acrylic lid might. Be needed.


Would have to be a custom one to go around the emersed wood or you can always go the Sawzall route


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## EdWiser (Jul 14, 2015)

You can have this done easily On the marine side of the hobby there are several companies that can do this type of work. 

https://www.clearviewlids.com/

https://safetoplids.com/


https://octoaquatics.com/product/octo-lids/

I could go on.


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

Asteroid said:


> How far below the rim is the water level? For something like a rainbow it should probably be 1.5 to 2" .


1 inch




EdWiser said:


> You can have this done easily On the marine side of the hobby there are several companies that can do this type of work.
> 
> https://www.clearviewlids.com/
> 
> ...


Yep, had a Clearview on my last reef tank.
They look ok (for a lid), but still prefer the look of the open top. 
It would definitely need some customization, that's for sure. The wood, probes, two sets of glassware, water change lines... lots of stuff to go around.


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## EdWiser (Jul 14, 2015)

Right I am ordering one once everything is set in place.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

I would just try 1.5" - 2" and see if it stops the jumping. I know it looks better with a higher waterline, but that might be the tradeoff if you want to keep fish like rainbows. If that doesn't work you could always just go to very large schools of smaller tetras. A school of 300 cardinals could look pretty, pretty...pretty good.


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## fftfk (Jul 13, 2017)

Asteroid said:


> I would just try 1.5" - 2" and see if it stops the jumping. I know it looks better with a higher waterline, but that might be the tradeoff if you want to keep fish like rainbows. If that doesn't work you could always just go to very large schools of smaller tetras. A school of 300 cardinals could look pretty, pretty...pretty good.



Any reference to Curb gets a thumbs up!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## houstonreef (Aug 24, 2018)

d2creative said:


> haha, thanks!
> 
> Buncha fish took the final leap unfortunately.
> I'm down to 1 boesemani out of 5. One of the albinos jumped. One of the parkensoni jumped.
> ...


i agree with you on using RO. it is much easy to keep track how much we dose and get help when issue arises.


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

Asteroid said:


> I would just try 1.5" - 2" and see if it stops the jumping. I know it looks better with a higher waterline, but that might be the tradeoff if you want to keep fish like rainbows. If that doesn't work you could always just go to very large schools of smaller tetras. A school of 300 cardinals could look pretty, pretty...pretty good.


Ya i could try dropping a little. 
I've been on a good run. It's been probably a month since I've had a jumper. Knock on wood. :laugh2:


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## monkeyruler90 (Apr 13, 2008)

why do they jump? they have such lovely home already!


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

monkeyruler90 said:


> why do they jump? they have such lovely home already!


I'm sayin!!!! :laugh2:


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## vacko000 (Jul 10, 2019)

Great tank man, the fish look amazing.....


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

My test kits from the UK arrived early this week finally.
Haven't had a chance to try them out yet, though.


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## fftfk (Jul 13, 2017)

d2creative said:


> My test kits from the UK arrived early this week finally.
> Haven't had a chance to try them out yet, though.



Why did you order test kits from U.K. vs more readily available here? 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

fftfk said:


> Why did you order test kits from U.K. vs more readily available here?
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


Yep, couldn't find anyone selling them here! Or in stock, anyway. Ordered through fleabay.
Apparently the USA is not big on testing fw.


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## FischAutoTechGarten (Jul 11, 2003)

Many, many years ago, I recall having to order from Hagen in Germany when I wanted the freshwater Test kits you show above.


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## Crude (Nov 8, 2011)

Seeing as how we have the same filter, any thoughts on why my surface skimmer bobs around uncontrollably and eventually gets sucked under the surface of the water? Lots of burping from it sucking in air, and eventually just submerges.


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

Crude said:


> Seeing as how we have the same filter, any thoughts on why my surface skimmer bobs around uncontrollably and eventually gets sucked under the surface of the water? Lots of burping from it sucking in air, and eventually just submerges.


I've seen that happen a couple times. Didn't even think it was filter related... i had just assumed it had gotten some air in it. It usually works itself out.
I'll have to pay more attention next time.


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

The tank got a bit of love last week. 

First from GHL, as their Tank of The Month.
https://www.aquariumcomputer.com/tank-of-the-month-totm-totm-april-2020/

And then from Waterbox Aquariums on their Wednesday facebook live show, starting at the 9:30 mark.
https://www.facebook.com/waterboxaquariums/videos/831075370721644/


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Very cool.............and well deserved.

The tank is looking fantastic!


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## Hendy8888 (Mar 6, 2008)

Really great seeing GHL give TOTM to a planted tank! 

Love following your build and pictures as always. Certainly envious of all your GHL equipment.

I still see huge potential for this tank as it and yourself mature as an aquatic gardener, can't wait.


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## monkeyruler90 (Apr 13, 2008)

d2creative said:


> The tank got a bit of love last week.
> 
> First from GHL, as their Tank of The Month.
> https://www.aquariumcomputer.com/tank-of-the-month-totm-totm-april-2020/
> ...


awesome interview and congrats on the tank of the month! very well deserved
btw, do you have a pic of your reef tank when you have it all set up?


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

monkeyruler90 said:


> awesome interview and congrats on the tank of the month! very well deserved
> btw, do you have a pic of your reef tank when you have it all set up?


Thanks!

This was one of the last FTS of the reef... mainly SPS and LPS.


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

Whew, been a while since I updated!

Haven't done much since this whole Covid thing started back in March... still working from home but it feels like I have less and less time to mess with the tank!
Only thing I've done is added a few plants and a few gourmai's. 

Also got my doser fully running.
Phosphate, Nitrate, Micros and Easy Carbo.










quick iPhone pics from a few weeks ago...



















And a couple vids from yesterday after some maintenance.


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## dipan (Dec 3, 2006)

Beautiful display and meticulous setup.You and I must think alike! I have set up an auto water change and reverse osmosis water tanks for similar set up as you. I have yet to set up a display tank but have a system running automated for small daily water changes, 3 gallons per day on a test bed 40B that is growing plants pretty well. I’m also autodosing all in one fertilizer (Thrive) once per day before lights on also, along with some extra KH2PO4 every other day because when I measured P it was basically zero. Extra iron once a week (as a guess) also for the reds.

While not doing 10% daily water changes, I’m trying to use PPS Pro levels of dosing so I was thinking as much water change may not be needed. This could be easily changed however. Also the water removed goes to various potted plants and into the garden as it is dumped into a bucket in a utility sink for this purpose.

Anyway, if you have any more insight into daily water changes and how you are going about dosing I sure would appreciate it!


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

Here's what the tank looks like today... almost one year since it got wet.
I've basically ignored the tank lately. That right side has gone nuts.





















And these may be the last pics i take! 
I'm getting a bit bored of this scape so I'm thinking of tearing it all out and starting over with something completely different. :grin2:

Stay tuned... October may be interesting. >


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## Econde (Oct 13, 2015)

Oh man. It'll be sad to see it go but, can't wait for your next project with it.


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## Crazygar (Nov 16, 2006)

I agree, I enjoy this scape, looks so natural and the fish are bursting with color, showing their level of happy. Either way, sounds like we are in for a treat..

Gary


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## monkeyruler90 (Apr 13, 2008)

your "ignored" tank still looks amazing!

Yes, I feel you on the need to change things up. it keeps things interesting! 

Excited to see what comes out! you have a great foundation with the automatic water changer/ doser/ lights so all it needs is to change up the plants and maybe livestock?


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

monkeyruler90 said:


> your "ignored" tank still looks amazing!
> 
> Yes, I feel you on the need to change things up. it keeps things interesting!
> 
> Excited to see what comes out! you have a great foundation with the automatic water changer/ doser/ lights so all it needs is to change up the plants and maybe livestock?


Correct, all equipment can stay. And since I'll be emptying the tank I'll probably go ahead and add a UV.
With the livestock I'm considering, probably going to lean towards a more minimalist scape. More hardscape focused with less focus on plants. :smile2:


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## d2creative (Jan 24, 2013)

quick vid of the bows and other fish....


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## indyjaco25 (Sep 12, 2020)

I saw D2_____ as the posters name and knew this would be good after following all your tanks on RC.


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Nice video!

The Bows look happy in there....and the plants too!


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## ytz (Dec 1, 2020)

I went through all the posts without being able to stop
waiting for update


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## EdWiser (Jul 14, 2015)

Tank has been taken down as Dennis sold his house an moved.


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## Ravs (Dec 18, 2020)

wow... he has taken down the tank!.. 
he was my inspiration for my setup.. particularly for picking up the tank size...


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## EdWiser (Jul 14, 2015)

Dennis does that.


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