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I want the filter to be able to handle enough ammonia in the tank where I won't have any troubles(read no ammonia spike) adding in the first batch of rainbows and feeding them well. That should be enough ammonia IMO to cause a bit of problems with algae with the amount of light I'm going to put on the tank. Plus, I'm going to need the additional time to afford the lights. It really shouldn't take all that long, I should be able to steal some already cycled bio rings from work. Maybe I'm being over cautious, but I thought there would be some troubles there.

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

It's really just a method of fishless cycling.

Fishless cycling and planted tanks do NOT belong together.Totally , totally unneccessary and an open invitation to GW and other algae. Ammonia is protist caviar.

Plant heavily,adda handful of mulm from an existing tank at the bottom of susbstrate add fish gradually don't even have to think about cycling.

As for fish I'd go with a big school of threadfins. I've had these before and they are a joy in a big group. The tighest schooling of all the rainbows and in large groups very active and display almost constantly. This is a fish that can be pretty drab colorwise in the store but really brighten up.They are pretty tough too. They really do look special in a big group.

Furcata's I found to be very weak and sensitive.

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Some days you're the pigeon and some days you're the statue.

Remember that age and treachery will always triumph over youth and ability.

Fishless cycling and planted tanks do NOT belong together.Totally , totally unneccessary and an open invitation to GW and other algae. Ammonia is protist caviar.

That's why I'm going to fishless cycle before adding plants and light. Once done cycling, big water change, add plants, and then fish. No protist caviar, and easy on the sensitive fish, and I can start with a decent sized school. It makes sense to me at least.

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

Matty,

I'm also sorry I didn't join in sooner - I was on one of my patented "drop off the face of FP for a few days" vacations

Great to see you're starting up a new planted tank, and 50G is a great size, nice and wide without being too tall.

Question - if you're using EC, why cycle at all? Or why not just throw some Bio-spira in there if you can't get mulm and then start adding fast growing plants to helt the tank start settling in?

Fishless cycling with ammonia is like cutting the lawn with scissors IMO. There are so many better/ faster/ easier ways!

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Back in the saddle!

I dunno Wings, I think I'm the only one who would do that, so I guess that would make me a bit kooky.

BTW, I've never seen biospira in any store, ever, and I've looked. As far as I'm concerned it doesn't really exist*shrugs*.

like cutting the lawn with scissors

That makes me think they should make an underwater lawnmower/hedge trimmer. That way there's no need to spend so much time trimming the aquatic plants.

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

Matty,

Many of these cycling suggestions make sense. With your access to mature biofilters, eco complete, healthly plants it sounds like cycling shouldn't be much of an issue, but I also know your a more hands on, DIY person who probably likes to experiment a bit, etc. So the fishless cycle might be interesting to see how it goes.

My Scapes

Well I never said any of your ideas didn't make sense, and I know my idea is going a bit of the extra mile, but I just don't want to see any of my rainbows go belly up cause I wasn't patient enough to cycle the tank before I got them. I care about the fish's lives foremost, but it'll also hurt the wallet to replace them.

I've fishless cycled before, so it's not the DIY/creative side coming out.

You guys are right, I should just toss them in there with the plants and everything. It probably won't be hard enough on them to do them damage.

I tell you what, I'll let their availability determine the route I take. If we have some in stock when I get the tank and lights set up, I'll get them and plant the tank right away. If I have to wait to get them, I might as well do something with my time, and cycle the tank.

On the tank setup news front(and off the whole fishless cycle ordeal, sheesh never thought I'd get so much resistance for that) I thought we had a tank and stand in stock, but I was wrong. So I special ordered them and should be arriving within two weeks. Usually it takes a week at the most, but I'm not sure what will happen with the holiday. So the whole setup got pushed another week back I think.

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

Well like most things in life there is more than one way of doing things.

-fishless vs fish cycling
-substrate feeding vs water column feeding
-Breathing thru your nose or your mouth (could explain why some of us blow more hot air than others.

My Scapes

Aaanyway, matty, do you have an idea for the tank layout in terms of plants/ hardscape? Anything concrete or just ideas?

EDIT: Edited to match tetra's edit...

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Back in the saddle!

Breeding thru your nose or your mouth

Bad typo has been corrected. It's this laptop keyboard

My Scapes

True enough tetratech. I'm still unsure about what I'm going to do, but it should work out fine either way. As for breeding through the nose....that sounds like it would hurt.

I'm still trying to find some inspiration for a unique(is that a contradiction?) setup. I had originally thought of using some petrified wood looking rocks, but tetratech beat me to it. I doubt i'd be able to get a big enough rock anyways. I still may try to go for the rock formation though, I'm not sure. I have a second idea, I've been tossing around, but I'm not sure exactly how to implement it, or explain it to you for that matter. If I could pull it off, it would be pretty cool - think plant waterfall. I was thinking about a glosso fall, down a pile of river rocks/ecocomplete. Sounds like it could be very difficult to do, but I'm going to try to think it over, see if I can do it.

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

First of all, sorry guys that I haven't been adding anything to any thread recently, work is just plain crazy.

Now, Matty, I think I can get a good visual idea about your rock/glosso water fall. It sounds great to me as I have been playing with a rock pile idea when I sat up the 125G. I encountered the follwing issues that in the end made me drop that idea:

- In order to achieve stability (in a 24" tall tank) of that pile it would have consumed quite a bit of ground cover, otherwise it would have been too steep and could have tumbled over.
- To avoid this tumbling, I could have "glued" the rocks together, but then the whole thing would have become to heavy and unhandy to remove, ever.
- If I cannot remove it, then how would I have managed to clean the gunk from it. Suggestions were to stick the vacuum hose between the rocks and suck out as much as I can. With plants on it that seems almost impossible and is in the least unreliable and a danger to any small fish that may hide in the cracks.

Hope this helps,

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

I'm a bit late to comment on the fish probably, but my two favourites are the threadfins and the gertrudae. If I was only going to pick one school, it would be one of them.

But, if you're going to have 2 schools of rainbows, I think that the praecox and threadfins would make a nicer contrast to each other. So I'd go for those, one school of praecox & one school of threadfins. I have no idea if they both like the same water params. I think they look different enough from each other (body shape & fin length) to compliment each other in the tank.

Anyway, that's my two cents worth.

Cheers
TW

Matty,

That sounds pretty neat, and there is some inspiration out there for something like that. In Amano's Nature Aquarium book 3 he shows a very long tank in which he created the image of a hill using glosso and riccia. He used rocks and wood and basically over the course of a year the glosso swamped everything and chased out just about every other plant in the tank, but it worked like a charm. The runners were so plentiful they covered and ran over the rock and wood, creating the beautiful impression of a big green hill.

It looked VERY challenging though in terms of initial layout. And I don't know how the water was kept clean, because at some areas of the tank the carpet of glosso was 6 inches thick, with dead plants under it all.

Maybe I'm thinking of it wrong, but check it out if you can.




EDIT: gertrudae My favorites too. I'll proclaim here and now, I want to get a school of these when I set up my larger tank, so no one accuse me of being a copycat should Matty get them too But they are very pretty little fish.

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Back in the saddle!

- In order to achieve stability (in a 24" tall tank) of that pile it would have consumed quite a bit of ground cover, otherwise it would have been too steep and could have tumbled over.

Well, I think I only want it to go 3/4 the way up the tank, somewhere between 12-15 inches I think.

- To avoid this tumbling, I could have "glued" the rocks together, but then the whole thing would have become to heavy and unhandy to remove, ever.

This is where a DIY guy like myself can excel, I was thinking of pvc framework, attaching the rocks to that, and filling most of the space behind by boxing it up with acrylic that I'll silicone in place. I was thinking that to keep the ecocomplete in place(I want more "water" than rocks, like a real waterfall), a plastic mesh might be placed under the PVC or something. The mesh won't be seen as soon as the glosso takes root. Anybody have better ideas?

- If I cannot remove it, then how would I have managed to clean the gunk from it. Suggestions were to stick the vacuum hose between the rocks and suck out as much as I can. With plants on it that seems almost impossible and is in the least unreliable and a danger to any small fish that may hide in the cracks.

I think the acrylic box will take care of this for the most part, there won't be a HUGE dead spot in the tank, what do you guys think?

It looked VERY challenging though in terms of initial layout. And I don't know how the water was kept clean, because at some areas of the tank the carpet of glosso was 6 inches thick, with dead plants under it all.

Well I'll try to find a copy of that book, though I don't think the store has one. I've only seen something similar once, and it wasn't built up, instead it looked like a stream with a small pile of rocks in the corner. I also don't plan on letting the glosso go crazy like that. Hopefully I can keep it under control, that is if I can get it to grow at all.

I'm a bit late to comment on the fish probably

Well I haven't gotten any(or the tank even) so it's not too late, and I'll definitely aggree that your two choices are very nice.

So here's the first pic of my tank, a work of art:

Attached Image:

Scribbles

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

It can be done. But will be a pain to maintain (hey that rhymes ! I'm a poet and didn't know it ! Wow that rhymes too, I'm good.... )Err.....anyway.... one way to do it is if you can get hold of some rocks that have crevises or ideally a long piece of wood with lot of gaps/holes. Fill the crevice with substrate and plant the glosso there. Being the plant that it is the runners will grow out and down along the bare wood and rock, eventually the hardscape should be covered. Seen this done with HC too.

Problem is once it reaches critical mass the bottom layer starts rotting. You got to live with that or start the whole process all over again.

Nice idea, if a little "gimmicky". Persomally I'd take the simpler route of using something like Hemianthus Micrathenoides and scuplting it to look like a waterfall (tall at the back and gradually getting shorter and shorter.

Or would that look too "hotch potch"

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Some days you're the pigeon and some days you're the statue.

Remember that age and treachery will always triumph over youth and ability.

if a little "gimmicky"

gee...thanks I think the rocks with crevices would be nice, but would take forever to find the right peices. I'm going to stick with the pvc and mesh idea, and I picked up the supplies today after talking with some of the guys I work with. It should work out well I think, I'm kinda excited to get it all going.

Another great sign that things are on the right track is the fact that my manager quick sent in a special order for today's shipment, and ta-da:





I have two more bags of eco complete in the trunk and all the pvc and fittings and mesh as well. I'll be securing the reactor and tubing and wires and really trying to make the underneath of the stand real tidy. I can't stand the mess my stand used to be. This is also because I plan to keep a 10 gallon QT type tank in the stand. This will help with the acclimation of the rainbows I think. I'll probably plant it pretty well with easy medium light plants. Lemme know what you think, and I need more opinions on the picture I drew.

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

Hey Matty,

Looking good, what's with the yellow co2 tubing
Since your going all out have you considering adding a UV to the bottom of the cabinet. It was one of the best purchases I ever made. Not only does it keep GW away, but I have not had a problem acclimating or keeping any cardinals since I've installed it. I'm getting the feeling it keeps the stress levels down by killing any pathogens and other nasty wc organisms.

As far as your pic. I like the idea of the waterfall, but it looks like you might have to completing focal points with that big DW in the other corner. If you go high with the waterfall I would keep everything else low maybe a nice grassy field with a few low rocks poking thru. Just my impression otherwise very nice

My Scapes

what's with the yellow co2 tubing

Is't it nice that we always find something to pick on

Glad to see that you are getting the stuff together, when I saw the first pictue I thought that this will be not enough Eco, but then you write you have another 40lbs. This means you have 80 all together, about 10lbs more than I have in my 40G. My substrate isn't all that high as I am not planning on heavy rooters. 80lbs will not make it much higher for you either, you may end up with an even 3". Should be enough, but one more bag couldn't harm.

How about the light, is that on the way as well?

Waterfall or not, I would say build the fall and place it in the empty tank and then see how it looks and what it would do to the rest of the tank, meaning - tetratech may be right with the focal point comment. Do you have the wood already? If so then place that one in as well so you get a better idea on what it would loo like.

Have fun,

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

Hi,
My thought about the tubing was the same too...
All of the CO2 "proof" tubing I've ever seen has
been black.
It is made of special plastic that will not weaken and
crack in the prolonged presence of CO2. Normal plastic
will dry out, crack, and leak over time. Kinda like
plastic cable ties will when subjected to direct sunlight
and its UV component.

Frank


-->>> The Confidence of Amateurs, is the Envy of Professionals <<<--

All of the CO2 "proof" tubing I've ever seen has
been black.

I wish I could say the same, as the fast majority of CO2 tubing I have seen is greenish-blue, and rather an eye-sore in the tank (although I got my hands on some dark gray one recently, to be used in the 40G).

Frank, can you give us a link to the black one?

Thanks in advance,

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

Ingo, none of my links would be any good for you, but, if you find a place that stocks JBL (a good german company) you will find that their C02 tubing is black - at least it is here in Australia.

Cheers
TW

Hi,
I went looking and the first place I looked was drsfostersmith.com and their CO2 tubing was blue!
I went to my local CO2 Beer & Tap supplier and all they
supply is black tubing. I initially thought that the
tubing was color coded for use but now I'm having second
thoughts and it seems it is the type of material that is
important and the color can be nearly anything now a days.
Here is a link that I found:

http://www.thekrib.com/Plants/CO2/hose.html

And another:
http://www.bghydro.com/BGH/itemdesc.asp?ic=HPMT12&eq=&Tp=

I located a tubing manufacturer and have asked them
specificaly what type of hose should be used.
I'll let you know what I get for a response.

Frank

-->>> The Confidence of Amateurs, is the Envy of Professionals <<<--

Frank,

Thanks for the info

I, in particular, found Karen Randall's input about non-CO2 specific tubing on tanks very informative (in your first link).

The second link to the manufacturer of commercial black CO2 specific tubing is nice, but they better have a much thinner version of it, as a half of an inch in diameter would mean that I need a huge diffuser to fit it .

Thanks again,

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

what's with the yellow co2 tubing

Dunno, that's what came with the regulator. They said it was CO2 tubing and hasn't shown any signs of deteriorating.

I haven't considered getting a UV steriliser due to the cost. I'm sure it's worth it and I may get one when I can afford it.

it looks like you might have to completing focal points with that big DW in the other corner.

You're probably right, so I'll maybe get some low forming DW and keep that corner lower than the waterfall. I am going to have some stem plants over there though. If not, there wouldn't be any in the tank watsoever....that would just be weird. A little less maintenence maybe, but weird.

Is't it nice that we always find something to pick on

For real

you may end up with an even 3"

That was the goal. Once I fill it, and lay out the substrate, I'll decide if I need another bag. I really do'nt want to buy another if I don't have to.

How about the light, is that on the way as well?

We keep those in stock, so I'll buy that when it's time. I'll have another paycheck or two before I need to get the lights.

Do you have the wood already?

Nope. That was the question mark on the picture. It's me tossing ideas around again. I'll maybe draw up another picture for the adjustments to the other corner.

All of the CO2 "proof" tubing I've ever seen has
been black.

I've seen this, and I believe mine is of the same material, just a different color.

and rather an eye-sore in the tank

Now if you had an external reactor....

I'll let you know what I get for a response.

That would be great Frank, thanks for the info. Good to know these things.

I, in particular, found Karen Randall's input about non-CO2 specific tubing on tanks very informative

Meaning the fact that she doesn't think it's important at all?

When I had my DIY setup, I used plain old clear tubing. That stuff did get brittle over the course of a year. I assume that I was probably losing some CO2 before I switched to compressed CO2.


Whew, nothing really to update about, in the last couple days I've worked 18hrs, played a 1hr league game of roller hockey, won a 9 hole golf round between some guys at work(with a 41 ), and watched the new pirates of the carribean. Tank progress has stalled, but should resume tonight, maybe a little tomorrow, but I hope to have the waterfall structure up and the tank filled sometime tusday. That's a very tentative schedule that excludes any trips to home depot, which are bound to happen, even though I was thorough on my first trip.

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

Ok...did a little work and got the fluval and reactor all plumbed in with the compressed CO2. everything is secured to the stand and pretty tidy. I also brought the other two bags of eco complete and put them in the tank so we have an idea of how much gravel I will have. It looks to be pretty sufficient, unless I need some extra to fill in the glossofall area with. I'll try to minimize that amount with the acrylic, so hopefully these will be plenty.

The whole shebang:


Right side of cabinet:


Left side of cabinet:


That's it for now

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

Very Nice Matty,

I have only one question:

Is that thing that looks like a cat hooked into the CO2 reactor or the directly into the filter?

Nice shots, and you sure are looking very tidy in the cabinet. Now, when you create the fall, make sure to snap some pictures in the process so we can learn from it.

Thanks,

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

Matt,
Nice job with all the piping. How does your filter handle the extra load?

55G Planted tank thread
19G Container Pond
[IMG]http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y118/Wingsdlc/Ric

I always enjoy your setups. It clearly shows your darkside roots. Lot's of PVC/pipping, etc. The 4 bags of eco should be fine. I think I used 6 bags in my 72g and I had plenty to slope, etc. Depending on what your doing, you don't need it to be that deep in the front anyway. The PVC for the waterfall support, more good darkside pull-through.


My Scapes

Is that thing that looks like a cat hooked into the CO2 reactor or the directly into the filter?

Hehe, that's the secret to a great external reactor, magellan made his FP debut. That's one reason why everything is secured to the stand, nosey kitty.

Nice shots, and you sure are looking very tidy in the cabinet. Now, when you create the fall, make sure to snap some pictures in the process so we can learn from it.

Thanks, LF. I'll try to take as many pictures as possible, but when I start getting pvc glue on my hands, I stop taking pics.

How does your filter handle the extra load?

Thanks wings, I'm not sure how the 204 will handle the extra few gallons. I haven't even leak tested everything. I'll load it up with biomedia and filter floss and try to clean it every couple weeks. If it doesn't hold up, I'll probably just throw an aquaclear on the tank unless I feel spendy, and upgrade the fluval.

I always enjoy your setups. It clearly shows your darkside roots. Lot's of PVC/pipping, etc.

Thanks Tetratech, there will be more to come with the glossofall as you said - I'm hoping I can make it so it doesn't look tacky. That's the only thing I'm afraid of.

I made a couple more sketches, these are only of the falls. The first is kinda the what it might look like if glosso were pink, and the second is my pvc layout as of right now. The front will not be straight up and down, it will be sloped, and I'm considering making the front peices snake around so the rocks are not so straight up and down. I've added little forks here and there to maybe take care of the unnatural right angles and straightness. If anyone has better plumbing ideas so that it might look more natural, don't hesitate on letting me know.

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

The whole thing is going to be pink?

Honestly, I am the last one on giving you advice on how to plumb all this together, I rather sit back and enjoy the photos that will elaborate this process.

All I can do is wish you good luck with it, and tell you to be careful that it will neither be too small to make an impact nor too large to fit in the tank. Remember that there will be a 1 to 2 inch layer of plants on the outside of it, and all the other stuff that you wish to stick on (like rocks, and maybe small woods).

Have fun,

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

It's definetely ambitious, and I'm definetely interested to see how this goes.

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Back in the saddle!

Sheesh, you guys are a lot of help. Well, I've come up with a better way to plumb it, but it means a trip to HD for a bunch more fittings. Hopefully I'll get get started on the structure tonight sometime - unfortunately it's a super nice day, and my day off, so it's off to the links.....FORE!!

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

Sheesh, you guys are a lot of help

Well excuuuuse me for not being the technical type. Your ability to imagine and work with artifical structures for attaching plants to is way beyond my understanding: wood+rock+plants+imagination = aquascape. Although I can imagine Ammano writing, "I raise my glass to the PVC pipe and special fittings glosso mound, for, though its eventual appearance is different than anticipated, it was created by Nature"

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Back in the saddle!

Although I can imagine Ammano writing, "I raise my glass to the PVC pipe and special fittings glosso mound, for, though its eventual appearance is different than anticipated, it was created by Nature"

See your imagination IS better than mine. I would never have imagined that.

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

I think that Nowher is just taking writing lessons from Ben in his spare time.

Back to the plumbing thing. It will be interesting to see how the filter holds up to the extra water it has to push around. Though it is probably not nearly as much as we think it is. Didn't you have a simmilar set up with that filter before?

55G Planted tank thread
19G Container Pond
[IMG]http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y118/Wingsdlc/Ric

Whew....I'm about done for tonight. After about 3 hrs, I'm spent. Here's the pics of the waterfall construction(sorry first 2 are blurry ):

Layout of the base:


Layout of the structure:


Some stuff cut and put together:


In the tank:


For the incline:


PVC at random for rocks to be attached:


Close up in the tank:


At a distance:


That's all for now. I still need to glue everything together, attach the screen, and attach the rocks. The acryllic still needs to be cut and siliconed too. This should keep me busy for a while still.

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

Matty,

Looks very, hm, interesting

Just as I thought, it is rather big and makes the tank shrink quite a bit. I still have a hard time envisioning how it will look in the end, but I have faith in you knowing what you are doing.

I guess you will also have to take off all the stickers from each piece of PVC. Don't these stickers contain some poisenous glue that, given the number of stickers, could leach into the water column?

You talk about "attaching the screen", is that so that there is a hollow interior and nothing falls into it? What material is that made off?

Keep us posted,

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

That's very imaginative. As I said you darkside folk really know your PVC.

So when the screen goes on will it be completely enclosed to prevent fish from going inside the PVC structure or will fish be able to take an "inside the waterfall tour."

My Scapes

Wow Matt. You really went to town on your PVC. It looks a little big right now and that is before you have even started with the rocks and such. It might be a little too much. You sure are stepping outside the box with this though.

55G Planted tank thread
19G Container Pond
[IMG]http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y118/Wingsdlc/Ric