55 Gallon Blog, Only My Second Tank

Hey there, I have a 20 gallon planted tank and wanted to expand. Someone on Facebook a few miles away was selling a 55 gallon tank, with heater, dual outlet air pump, lights, fluval 306 canister filter, and a stand for $50! I went and picked everything up and came home to set it up. The lights that came with the tank were marineland 11 inch light bars that I read don't really cut it for planted tanks so I bought a 48 inch fluval 3.0 plant light. I didn't want to spend alotilon substrate so I bought black diamond blasting sand, washed it thoroughly and put it in. The media in the filter was pretty rough, so I bought new foams and a 50 micron pad to put on top of it all, and then I got 4 lbs of Biohome Ultimate media (also being used in my 20 gallon) . I took about a 3rd of the media from my 20 gallon and put it, along with the pre-filter sponge in one tray, and filed the other tray completely with more biohome. I will post a picture and then continue with my aquascape and plants thus far shortly.

 

Hey there, I have a 20 gallon planted tank and wanted to expand. Someone on Facebook a few miles away was selling a 55 gallon tank, with heater, dual outlet air pump, lights, fluval 306 canister filter, and a stand for $50! I went and picked everything up and came home to set it up. The lights that came with the tank were marineland 11 inch light bars that I read don't really cut it for planted tanks so I bought a 48 inch fluval 3.0 plant light. I didn't want to spend alotilon substrate so I bought black diamond blasting sand, washed it thoroughly and put it in. The media in the filter was pretty rough, so I bought new foams and a 50 micron pad to put on top of it all, and then I got 4 lbs of Biohome Ultimate media (also being used in my 20 gallon) . I took about a 3rd of the media from my 20 gallon and put it, along with the pre-filter sponge in one tray, and filed the other tray completely with more biohome. I will post a picture and then continue with my aquascape and plants thus far shortly.

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Moving on! I went for a hike near a lake by my house and got a lot of rocks to put in. I ended up placing them arounf the tank and making a nice stack so the fish have somewhere to search and hide. I went out today and bought airstones and hoses as we as a nice piece of spider driftwood. The old media helped and I'm already reading nitrites, as to keep my ammonia going I added 5 harlequin rasbora and my gold Gourami from the other tank. In my other tank, everything is growing really well, except for my anacharis and my swords, so I moved them into the new tank, and also moved a stem of bacopa and a bunch of water Sprite, and Java moss, because I have so much of it. Eventually I will move my Java fern as well, because my current one is sprouting planlets. I have a list of plants to get, it that Wil come in time as I get more money to spend on it. So this is the most recent photo from today and as things change, I'll post more about it. If anyone has any suggestions or recommendations, please feel fee to let me know!
Thanks for reading!
Mat

 

Nice find!

 

Nice find!

Thanks! I couldn't believe it! I was very excited. Haha

 

Your tank is going to look amazing once its filled in with some live plants. It looks great already. And I agree nice finds on the rockscape. Great placement!!

 

Your tank is going to look amazing once its filled in with some live plants. It looks great already. And I agree nice finds on the rockscape. Great placement!!

Thank you! More coming now actually!

 

Alright, so, I got my plant package from liveaquaria. They sent me so much! I got anubias nana, chainsword narrow, undulata cryptocoryne, ozelot sword, Amazon sword, micro sword, balansae, Java Fern, Ludwigia broad, rotala indica, chilensis, wisteria, myrio green, and moneywort. They sent me a lot of everything so I have some restructuring to do, but it took me hours to get this far and by the end I just wanted to get everything in.

I moved my gold Gourami, and blue Dwarf Gourami to the 55 gallon. I also got 5 harlequin rasbora, and 4 giant danios, and 2 praecox rainbows as well.

If you have any recommendations please feel free to share!

Thanks!