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I finally took pics of my 90g tank in process but I have to say I suck as a photographer. My boyfriend also wouldn't turn off his computer monitor so it reflected and I only got 1 ok pic with all the lights on. Everything kept reflecting from the window, the lights nearby for house plants, and the computer. I'll have to remember to take pics after the sun is down and before the main lights go off so I don't get all the reflections.
The tank definitely needs work. To start with I just threw everything in where I thought it fit best like I do with my other tanks but I actually want to aquascape this one a little better.
90g tank stats
Lighting:front PC fixture two 55w and two 65w 10,000k bulbs on 10hrs
back NO fixture two 40w aquaglo bulbs (very high in the red spectrum) on 12hrs
Filtration:jebo odyssea cannister and penguin 330
Temp 78F, ph 7.6, kh 10, gh 12
No co2 yet, dosed with 1 capful of excel a day. 1 capful is the suggested dose for a 50g tank.
Fertilized with flourish products. I add in everything but nitrate. Some things not in the full dose flourish says but it works so far. Only algae is a bit of spot algae and the occasional piece of thread algae that likes to grow in the moss.
Plants: cork moss wall with xmas and weeping moss just starting to grow in, red and bronze wendtii crypts, red lilly plant(walmart bulb), anubias, 2 crinums, 2 jungle vals(not growing and too short to see over the decorations), 2 amazon swords in the back corners, 4 leaf clover for ground cover, and some floating hornwort that was suppose to be temporary.

Full light:


Red lights only:




I also found a larger piece of driftwood I want to add. The guy at the lfs said the wood their driftwood is made of doesn't sink very well and the piece has a hole through the middle that I'm afraid a fish or 2 might be at risk of getting stuck in. To solve both problems over the top hole I stapled and siliconed on a piece of plastic mesh that I'm going to stick a plant on to cover it up. Then I can drop rocks down into the middle to make it sink and seal up the other end with something. I might have to see if I can get more mesh or find a rock that fits tight and silicone it in place.
What I think should be the front of the piece:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v244/aqh88/fish/90g/P1010016.jpg

Back with top hole:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v244/aqh88/fish/90g/P1010017.jpg

Bottom hole:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v244/aqh88/fish/90g/P1010015.jpg

But where to put it and what to take out to make it fit?

Why do my links change colors when I edit a post?

Last edited by sham at 12-Dec-2005 23:26[/font][/font][/font]

The easy answer is that you should choose a different color for your links under your profile or change the color of your backgound. Your favorite color is blue?

Second, the hole in your driftwood is a perfect spot for an ancistrus, cory, ram or any of a dozen other species to seek out for a refuge or a breeding spot. Leave it open for those species to make the most of the opportunity.

I like your choice as the front of the piece. Use a tall narrow lance leaf plant or tall stem plants at the right (high) side as background plants. I would follow the line of the wood with background plants that are slightly higher than the wood to accentuate the angle. Your cork and moss will provide a great background. You may need some bright greens and reds to make the plants stand out from the moss. The clover will be great in front of the wood, then nestle the nymphea into the cleft of the wood.

Your bronze crypts appear to be maturing well and they should grow to 16 or 18" tall and as wide. They might be perfect behind the wood on the left (lower). The swords may be a problem as they may overpower the aquarium. Of course, that depends on the sword type. From your pictures, your swords appear to be amazons.

Suggestions for tall plants would be crinum, cryptocoryne balansae and bacops. Angle the wood so that the tall limb is in the back right corner with the lower left limb in the front left corner. Oh, dward is dwarf in the picture.

Bob Wesolowski attached this image:


Last edited by Bob Wesolowski at 13-Dec-2005 00:43[/font]

__________
"To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research."
researched from Steven Wright

Hi sham,

I agree with much of what Bob said. I like the first view of that DW piece, I think it's a great piece for an aquarium that size.

Just a few more things... you noticed that some of your plants aren't growing well. You have mostly heavily rooted plants in your tank it seems. Looking at the tank again it appears you have only a little substrate in there, maybe an inch of a little more. heavily rooted plants like swords and crypts and even the jungle vals will do much better with mroe subtrate if that's possible. It'll allow them to put out a larger and stronger system which will allow them to grow and spread. Also, a thicker substrate could be of use with your DW, as you'd be able to bury a bit of it under the substrate which will go a long way towards keeping it down. Just my 2 cents

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Back in the saddle!

Sham,

Yes, first one is the best, and you have literally thousands of options on what to plant on and around it, how exciting.

Just a word of caution: If the LFS says the wood doesn’t sink very well could mean that it is not driftwood after all. It might be wood that has come into contact with a river etc. at some point, but was most likely out of the water for most of the time. This means that there could be all kinds of things living on and in the wood.

I think in various threads in on this site we talk about what would have to be done to “treat” the wood so it would be tank ready.

One of these links is [link=Here]http://www.fishprofiles.com/files/forums/Aquascaping/63086.html" style="COLOR: #ff6633[/link].

Hope this helps,

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

I did change my link color! I changed it to purple and it comes out purple until I edit my posts. Then it turns to blue for some unknown reason. It's getting kind of annoying because most posts I edit are to fix the links but instead they nearly dissapear into the background when I try it.


The driftwood shouldn't carry any critters. They had 100s of pieces of this same wood with most mounted to slate so I'm pretty sure they are manufactured or collected and treated just for aquariums. The lfs employee said he had trouble making his sink but he didn't do anything special to it. Just soaked it in a bathtub for awhile then ended up attaching some heavy rocks before putting it in his aquarium. Unfortunately they only had about 5 pieces over 8" to choose from and the 2 biggest ones would have taken over my entire 90g. This piece looks like it will take up a fair amount of space but still leave lots of room for fish and plants. The only problem is it has no flat side to attach to slate and I think if I don't fill it with rock then it won't sink. The wood does feel pretty light. Although the hole would probably be great for my clown plecos but I'm not sure if my big royal plec would get himself stuck or not. It just seems better to go ahead and fill it up now before finding problems.

I attempted to put 1" of eco complete in the front sloping to 3-4" in the back but it didn't want to slope very well. I spent 3 days just trying to make it slope evenly. The right side with the crinums slopes fairly well but the other side keeps flattening out. I might buy 1 more bag of EC and dump it along the back.
However if you think those crypts, swords, and crinums won't grow in thin substrate your wrong. I grew those all out in my 55g with 1" of eco complete. Also those aren't even the main plants I started with. When I tore the 55g down to setup my 90g I cut off dozens of baby crypts and swords and then sold the motherplants. It looked like way too much work to try to replant those huge things. I had to put the big sword plant in a garbage bag to take it to the lfs. With the money I bought the moss for the moss wall and then planted the biggest of the baby plants in the 90g. Those are still little baby crypts compared to their motherplants that were taking over my 55g.

Moving the plant in front of the taller driftwood with the holes might prove a bit hazardous for the plant. It sent it's roots into the crack between the slate base and the wood. I'm not sure how much of it is attached to the wood by now. I'd have to pull it out and see but the more I look at the pics and the actual tank the less I like that piece of wood. It just looks too shaped and slightly unnatural or out of place compared to the other wood.

I do want a few more crinums and I agree they might look nice behind the taller side of the driftwood. The crypts definitely need to move back. There's a very very nice anubias plant being blocked off by the crypt on the right but they were half that size or less when I planted them in the tank a couple months ago.

I think one sword would look fine and a big amazon sword has always been the favorite plant for my fish. The gourami and emperor tetras hide in it and the congos always tried to spawn over it but got chased off by the gourami. I was debating leaving 2 in the tank though. Considering the size and root structure the motherplant got to 2 swords might be too much.
If I get snowed in by the storm coming tonight I'll start some work on the tank tomorrow. Maybe even get the new driftwood in there. Otherwise I have to wait until the weekend.