My 50 gallon tropical community tank

[COBettaCouple]

welcome back! sounds like quite a grueling work schedule.

Originally Posted by MrWaxhead

Wow just realized how long I have been away, been real busy working 7 days a week 10 to 12 hour days. Just noticed the date, I will have to take some pics tomorrow when its lit if I get home from work in time, as its been a month since the last update on this tank.

[Jim]

Originally Posted by MrWaxhead

Hey Jim I have had my tanks on timers now for about 2 years and it have never had a problem with it at all. Just makes things much smoother, and gives me more time to enjoy and take care of my fish with one less thing to worry about being that my life is usually pretty busy for the most part.

Oh and theessigs I too run my tanks on dual filters, each one that could run the tank on their own. The reason I started doing it was because a few years back one of my filters died on a tank, and when I replaced the filter and used some mature floss it still mini cycled. Now I could change a whole filter out and still have a mature one running with no worries. I also can swap up my filter cleaning and always have a nice dirty bacteria filled one on the go.

OK, you have 2 filters also? Are they back filters? The reason I ask is I'm concerned that I have too much surface movement in my tank, which I'm sure you know can help CO2 escape from the water and i don't want that. At the same time, I don't want to run out and by a canister if I don't need to. I plan on hitting the LFS later for a planted aquarium test kit. I saw one the other day, but didn't have the $$$. I'm going to try and calculate the CO2 before I decide what to do.

FYI, I know how you feel at work, we're in the middle of our busy festival season, and it's been 6-7 day workweeks 10-11 hour days... the paychecks are nice, but not if you're too tired to go spend them! lol

[MrWaxhead]

Yes Jim, both mine are HOBs, I would like to eventually switch to wet dry sump and cannister but atm my tanks are all HOB. On my 50g its a whisper 30-60 with two sides with two different chambers for media. That one seems to set deep enough in the water as to not cause a mass surface agitation.

The other is a aquaclear 70 which very much churned the surface. What I did on that one was drilled a small hole on either end of the outlet and stuck a small branch across the mouth of the outlet with java moss tied onto the branch. Now the water comes down mouth slide and hits this moss stick and slowly and very broken up filters through the moss and into the tank with next to no agitation. Its amazing to, just how much extra stuff I see trapped in the moss that gets past the filtration, I take that stick out and give it a rinse and a trim on the weeks this filter gets its cleaning. As I rotate the weeks my filters get cleaned.

[MrWaxhead]

Update time, its a cruddy pic as I just chopped off tons of riccia a week before to give to a friend. But everything is still going well, I really have to cut back alot of the lily again though, as its pretty much covered 3 feet of the surface of the water at this point.

Aug 11


Sept 11


Oct 11


Nov 14


I am going to pretty much cut all the lily on the surface right off this weekend as there is tons of new sprouts starting up again. I pretty much let it overgrow, until the next batch starts to come in strong. The biggest change has been the crypts, they have pretty much doubled in size in the last month. And its a little messy and loose as I have not had much time to fart around and trim things as of late other then the horde of riccia.

[Jim]

Originally Posted by MrWaxhead

Yes Jim, both mine are HOBs, I would like to eventually switch to wet dry sump and cannister but atm my tanks are all HOB. On my 50g its a whisper 30-60 with two sides with two different chambers for media. That one seems to set deep enough in the water as to not cause a mass surface agitation.

The other is a aquaclear 70 which very much churned the surface. What I did on that one was drilled a small hole on either end of the outlet and stuck a small branch across the mouth of the outlet with java moss tied onto the branch. Now the water comes down mouth slide and hits this moss stick and slowly and very broken up filters through the moss and into the tank with next to no agitation. Its amazing to, just how much extra stuff I see trapped in the moss that gets past the filtration, I take that stick out and give it a rinse and a trim on the weeks this filter gets its cleaning. As I rotate the weeks my filters get cleaned.

BRILLIANT!!! I have my favorite LFS trying to ge me some Java moss right now. If I can get enough to spare some, I would love to borrow that idea, if you don't mind.

[COBettaCouple]

that tank's really looking great!

[Neil]

Looks fantastic !!! whats the growth to the left thats next to what looks like Anubias?

[melawii]

looking at your substrate... what does it consist of actually? I see sand, then flourobase, then almost a small gravel and pebbles. How do you keep them all from mixing? I'm thinking of doing a multi substrate in my 50g once I set it up, but I don't wait it all to end up mixing. I love your tank btw!

[MrWaxhead]

Hey Neil I assume your talking about the crypts that are starting to grow out from behind and poking through the anubis.

And Melawii you are pretty much bang on with what you pointed out, the left of the tank is sand with hollow rocks on it with riccia and moss growing on them, leaving a large cave system under the plants (my corries spend alot of the day in those caves). The entire center is florabase base (for any of my plants that root), and the right is all plain gravel and larger pebbles with a massive bunch of roots coming out of it with lace and regular java fern tied onto the roots about 2 inches off the floor so there is a shaded root system for the fish under the plants.

I keep my substrate divided with hardscape, if you look in the very first pic from aug 11 you can see large pieces of wood that go right to the bottom of the tank to keep substrate from spilling over and to stop the grass from growing outside the area I wanted it to grow in.

[offminded]

wow...looks awesome!

[MrWaxhead]

Well I have not updated this tank in a few months due to being really busy and working way to much (6 to 7 days a week) , mainly due to another baby due in April

So needless to say I have not had much time to post or do much work on my tanks. That being said, I have really cropped back on this tank due to the massive amount of work the riccia took to keep tied down and clean looking. And I have pulled alot of the stem plants and lily shoots as I wanted the tank to be a little more maintenance friendly. I pulled the riccia pretty much right out and left the moss behind over the rock cave system, and I now only give it a light trim every so often.

I put most of the riccia in a 29g nursery tank to keep it growing as I want to reuse it in my 75g tank once I have more time to tend to it. And the 75 should give me alittle more room to work with then this 50. As it takes over pretty fast.

So basically its looking alot different the it was last time I posted but the fish are still happy so I guess all it good hehe.
(Feb11/08)


At its peak of riccia madness (oct11/07).


The start of the fert test I was doing, which btw I still am not using any macros on this tank, fish poo only, I am only using micros and iron. (aug11/07)

[Rbacchiega]

brilliant....beautiful tank MrWaxhead

[Jim]

Wow, I love the new pics... and I could use some advice. Here's a link to my bowfront, which I rebuilt last month.
http://www.fishlore.com/fishforum/me...wamp-tank.html
Mostly everything is doing awesome... My water is really soft, slightly acidic, and I'm running my lights about 4.0 WPG or so, and even though I donb't know the exact CO2 levels, my plants have O2 bubbles just boiling off them, and my Java moss has so many hundreds of tiny bubbles it looks like a christmas tree.
What I could use some help on is my Riccia, which is tied to rocks on the left near the front of the tank. It's not doing too well. It's either growing really slow, or I'm maybe doing something wrong. I could definitly use some help if you could think of anything.
Thanks, and again congrats on your killer tank!

[pinky93]

Nice tank! I love the aquascape.

[Narcicius]

I read the part about 200 cardinals and wow it seems like you'll sell your house to feed those guys, not to mention worries about disease and stuff. Good thing you know what you're doing and btw I love your tank I wish I had one big enough to scape like that. Just know that you're admired at this point.

[MrWaxhead]

Thanks all, and Narcicius, the 200 cardinal thing have been delayed due to another kid on the way.

Its going to be most likely late summer or fall of this year before I am up and running on that tank, was planning on building a 240g 8x2x2. But now most of my side job money is filtering towards baby savings. One I am sure I have put enough away I will get back on the tank and room to house it. As its more then just the tank, I have to build the room too, as I am converting my garage into a room for it so that is a large portion of the expense. I am half toying with the idea of going with 480g now that its been delayed, as I have came across some more cell cast acrylic (would take 3.5 sheets instead of the 2.5 sheets a 240g would take). Thinking 8' across x 2' in depth x 4' front to back depth, to maximize acrylic as I can't go any deeper then 2' with 1/2 inch cell cast or it will bow to much even with euro style bracing.

[MrWaxhead]

Oh and Jim here a handy little site for figuring our c02 levels based off your pH and kh levels in your tank. Just enter your ph and your kh levels and it will give you a PPM value for c02.

http://www.csd.net/~cgadd/aqua/art_plant_co2chart.htm

I find for the most part getting to 25 to 30ppm of c02 your ph tends to drop on average a full point. IE if you were 7ph before c02 you will usually be about 6.0 to 6.2 ish once you get to 25 to 30ppm of c02. Its very worth while checking or buying a drop checker that stays in your tank. As unstable c02 ie low levels tends to encourage algae and over 30ppm is harmfull to your critters.

[Johawk]

That is an absolutely amazing tank. I can only hope that someday when I have the time and money, I can do something like that. Gorgeous, absolutely gorgeous.

[Blub]

Hi!

Love the tank! I really need some Java moss for my bogwood. Come on plants - grow up for once!

[Jim]

Originally Posted by MrWaxhead

Oh and Jim here a handy little site for figuring our c02 levels based off your ph and kh levels in your tank. Just enter your ph and your kh levels and it will give you a ppm value for c02.

http://www.csd.net/~cgadd/aqua/art_plant_co2chart.htm

I find for the most part getting to 25 to 30ppm of c02 your ph tends to drop on average a full point. IE if you were 7ph before c02 you will usually be about 6.0 to 6.2 ish once you get to 25 to 30ppm of c02. Its very worth while checking or buying a drop checker that stays in your tank. As unstable c02 ie low levels tends to encourage algae and over 30ppm is harmfull to your critters.

Wow, very cool little tool, thanks. And check it out, I just FINALLY found the RedSea regulator kit for a paintball CO2 canister. Hehehe, I'm all hi tech now! Seriously, it's very nice, and it came with a little gizmo that sits in the tank all the time and supposedly monitors the CO2 levels. So far it's been right on at about 2 bubbles per second, and my plants look like they're boiling, if you know what I mean!
As for my pH, remarkably it's remained quite stable at around 6.8. I did some reading and tried an experiment about 3 weeks ago. I am running a Marineland Magnum 350 canister, and instead of using charcoal, I have a both peatmoss and crushed coral in seperate nylon stockings, seperated and surrounded by Biofoam in the charcoal canister. Around this is a blue floss filter. And my CO2 is running directly into my filter intake.
Result Peat is an acid buffer, coral an alkaline buffer. They seem to work with each other or cancel each other out, and the pH remains stable. It sounds a little weird, but it's definitly working.

[MrWaxhead]

Been a while since adding any progress on this tank, I have been playing around with more stuff from river trips, I am still not sure on everythings final placement but here is a pic where I am sitting at the moment.



sorry for the dark picture, I snapped it real quick before the lights kicked off, just to get perspective from a lens eye and not just my own, to see what should be moved. Any ideas or minor move placements of wood etc, would be gladly taken as well.

[seedy]

Hi
If it was mine , I would not change a thing.
Awsome tank !!!

[Tumbleweed]

Nice tank. I have no idea on what could or should be moved. Looks Great.

[Mr. Greg]

What a great tank, I particularly like the new look.
Awesome stuff

[Ryno]

Obviously the tank looks great but I would move the piece of wood on the top left a little more left and have an open spot to the right of it in the middle left of the tank.

Did any of that make sense?

Great tank, I hope to get somewhere close with my planted tank some day.

[suer]

This tank is absolutely stunning don't change a thing.

[COBettaCouple]

I can't think of anything to change, unless you wanted to go with a 'waterfall' and 'river' in the center of the tank. It's such a beautiful tank already though.

[Jim]

Originally Posted by suer

This tank is absolutely stunning don't change a thing.

I agree, go with the old saying:

Iif it ain't broke, don't fix it!

[slizard]

MrWaxhead,
Your aquarium is a work of art. Congratulations on your success. You are a master.

I have always been interested in having a live planted aquarium, but it seems very complicated. I suppose it's like anything else, complicated until you learn it, then once you do you find that it's not very complicated at all.

Would you consider doing a favor for myself and other interested readers by listing the basic essentials of what's needed to have success with plants, and possibly a favorite reference book you have relied on in the past?

There is so much equipment available out there that to me at least, it fuzzes what you may actually need to support a system, and is perhaps scaring people away from taking the step to live plants. No doubt you find your creations very rewarding, as you should.

I see you mention Co2 which I have heard about, and seems to be a key component. I have a 20 gallon newly set up tank which I would love to evolve onto something even remotely like yours. I would sell tickets, hea hea.

Thanks for your consideration and a job well done,

Slizard

[Isabella]

Oh wow ... it looks even more LUSH and beautiful than it was before . Wonderful job Mr. Waxhead, as ALWAYS .