# A journey into high tech, 55 gallon. Rope fish and Rainbows



## Guyver (Feb 12, 2010)

Purdy! Those are some big swords!


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## fishophile (Feb 6, 2012)

Update 5/22/14
Traded the amazon swords for a good deal of crypt wentii red. I'm thinking about attaching java fern to the majority of the wood.

Any advice is appreciated.









*Flora*
Java fern
Ludwigia repens- one stem is still hanging in there.
anubias nana petite
Lace water sprite
Amazon Sword
Baby tears(got torn apart and now floating)
Java fern windelov
Dwarf sagittaria 

*Fauna*
3 Yellow rainbow fish 
40 green eye rasboras


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## fishophile (Feb 6, 2012)

I upgraded to a pressurized co2 and it really made a huge difference. Sorry for the huge gap between updating, but here's my tank before I removed most of the dwarf sag. and changed the driftwood arrangement.


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## fishophile (Feb 6, 2012)




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## Islandgaliam (May 24, 2014)

Nice Tank. How do you like your LED? I want to get my next light there.

I too have emerald eye rasboras, I just love those eyes and the black spot on their fin. They school nice and are a great tank mate for my betta


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## fishophile (Feb 6, 2012)

Islandgaliam said:


> Nice Tank. How do you like your LED? I want to get my next light there.
> 
> I too have emerald eye rasboras, I just love those eyes and the black spot on their fin. They school nice and are a great tank mate for my betta


Thank you. I love it. The only thing I had before it was the current USA satellite plus and now I use them together. With out it the plants seems to be a little dull. I have the 10000k and was advised to get the 6500k extra bright instead. I think it would have supplied a more visually appealing light.

The rasboras are great, I just wish they wouldn't jump out of the tank as much... I think they will get phased out of the tank and replaced by sword tails and mollies.

Here's the tank update.


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## fishophile (Feb 6, 2012)

added mermaid weed and dark red ludwigia.


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## fishophile (Feb 6, 2012)

Still waiting for things to grow in and can't figure out what exactly I want to do on the right side.


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## Jethro702 (Jul 18, 2014)

Looks quite nice! May I ask where you found that cool piece of driftwood.


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## fishophile (Feb 6, 2012)

Jethro702 said:


> Looks quite nice! May I ask where you found that cool piece of driftwood.


Thank you. I found it washed up on on a lake shore in North Carolina. It was a whole cedar tree and I cut off pieces of the roots.


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## fishophile (Feb 6, 2012)




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## BoxxerBoyDrew (Oct 16, 2005)

Your tank looks VERY VERY GOOD!!!!! You have scaped it to where it doesn't look like a 55g! I to have a 55g, and I haven't been able to get rid of the 55g scaping blues like you have! Your mixture of plants is very eye pleasing to me! I also really love Swordtails and Rainbows, so BRAVO!!! I have never mixed the two, but I haven't been keeping swords to long so that is the main reason!

Keep up the GREAT WORK! Subscribed!
Drew


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## Mikeygmzmg (Mar 19, 2015)

Nice man, that is super clean. I actually like the open area on the right side. It looks natural next to the large wood branches and heavy growth. Going to keep following this one!


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## fishophile (Feb 6, 2012)

Mikeygmzmg said:


> Nice man, that is super clean. I actually like the open area on the right side. It looks natural next to the large wood branches and heavy growth. Going to keep following this one!


Thank you. I just cleaned it, but I think the poor camera quality is what really makes it look so clean. I've always like the open area as well. I do have a hard time figuring out how to arrange the stems in the back without it looking like a wall.



BoxxerBoyDrew said:


> Your tank looks VERY VERY GOOD!!!!! You have scaped it to where it doesn't look like a 55g! I to have a 55g, and I haven't been able to get rid of the 55g scaping blues like you have! Your mixture of plants is very eye pleasing to me! I also really love Swordtails and Rainbows, so BRAVO!!! I have never mixed the two, but I haven't been keeping swords to long so that is the main reason!
> 
> Keep up the GREAT WORK! Subscribed!
> Drew


Thank you! My driftwood is really thin and barely goes past 1/3 of the tank. I think it helps with depth. I also got inspiration from Tom Barr for my plant selection. At least the s. repens and Blyxa.

I think the rainbows eat the fry. Even before I had the 2 rope fish I never saw any.


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## fishophile (Feb 6, 2012)

I took all of my equipment out for a picture to see how it would look compared to the more professional shots that I see a lot on here. 

















Before I hack off all my anubias has anyone completely cut off al the leaves of some that was attached to wood?


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## fishophile (Feb 6, 2012)

Here's a video of my rope fish eating a crushed snail out of my hand. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UA-XRMNzLlo


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## Freemananana (Jan 2, 2015)

I think the tank looks great. It make me laugh when you said "more professional shots" because I think about how my photos look. My photos look terrible by the way. I like the tank. Everything looks pretty. I'd like to see more growth on the plants attached to the driftwood, but that's just personal preference.


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## fishophile (Feb 6, 2012)

Freemananana said:


> I think the tank looks great. It make me laugh when you said "more professional shots" because I think about how my photos look. My photos look terrible by the way. I like the tank. Everything looks pretty. I'd like to see more growth on the plants attached to the driftwood, but that's just personal preference.


Thanks for the feedback. As time goes I plan on letting java fern, anubias, and fissidens take over the wood. They are starting to shade my foreground.

I replaced the ropefish with a school of neons and gold tetras. The ropefish hide in the plants almost 24/7 and I prefer to have a school.


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## Freemananana (Jan 2, 2015)

Nice update! The tank looks stellar! I'm surprised you have two powerheads flowing. My tank couldn't handle the addition of one.


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## heel4you (Mar 8, 2015)

Beautiful tank! 
I have enjoyed watching you change it around. 
I loved your video of you feeding your rope fish!!


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## fishophile (Feb 6, 2012)

Freemananana said:


> Nice update! The tank looks stellar! I'm surprised you have two powerheads flowing. My tank couldn't handle the addition of one.


Thank you, I feel like I still need more circulation. The drift wood and java fern kills the flow and causes some algae. I have 2 hydors (565 and 240), what type did you use? 

Thanks Heel. I really enjoyed having ropefish again, but they would eat any school that I was interested in.


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## Freemananana (Jan 2, 2015)

I used a hydor 240 that was too much flow. I also have a, model I can't remember, 800~ GPH powerhead that I use when I clean my filter. Too much flow for me. I have swords though and they seem to bend over in a medium current.


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## frenchie1001 (Jun 23, 2013)

looks so good dude!


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## fishophile (Feb 6, 2012)

In an experiment to see if new growth would produce more tiny leaves, I hacked up the anubias nana in the middle of the drift wood a little too much. The new growth is about the same size as the old, but now it has a bald patch.


















I also ran out of co2 for a week or 2 before noticing which really hurt the AR mini. So I pull it up, trimmed off dead parts and replanted the remaining amount.
I also realized that my neons and gold tetra have become much more brave when I feed flakes instead of granules.









Below shows a trim of the rear right stem and then a trim of s. repens. You can start to see the anubias growing back.


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## fishophile (Feb 6, 2012)

I've begun to let blyxa become a carpet just to avoid pruning s rupens all the time. It is much more forgiving and doesn't need constant attention. However it does grow a good deal taller.


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