My 50 gallon tropical community tank

Hey my first post here glad to have found another fish site. I am currently undergoing a test on my 50 gallon, I have pretty much stopped ferts and am using well fish poop hehe. I now only dose iron once a week right after my water change, and trace bI weekly.
Tank is c02 enriched 6.4 ph, 2.5kh, 3.5gh, 0 ammonia 0 nitrite 5 to 10 mg/l nitrate. With 3.7 wpg of 6500k lighting on a 10 hour cycle. And I only do a 5 gallon water change once a week to keep a healthy level of bio load for my plants and it seems to be enough to keep the fert levels up and the toxin levels at nil. I also run two filters each capable of running this tank on there own but back off there flow rate as not to over filter and remove all the nitrate etc.
It was set up july 11 of this year with mature filters and clipping from my 29 gallon tanks.

Here is it on my last day of full ferts
Aug 11 07


And 15 days later the only change I made was I added flourabase where the tennulus was planted to aid it in spreading and absorbing bio ferts from the water. And I trimmed the riccia and tied it down onto some rock caves on the far left. That whole area of riccia and java moss is tied to a system of caves for my corries to play in/
Aug 26 07


Sept 01 07 Photo taken early in the day so pearling was at a minimum. As, my tank was due for a prune so I wanted a before shot.


Sept 07 07 Photo taken early in the day so pearling was at a minimum. Again for pruning details.


With several very large prunes along the way.

Tank inhabitants are as follows.
18 Cardinals
10 neons
6 glowlights
8 zebra danios
3 pearl gouramis 1m 2f
my clean up crew.
4 peppered corries
1 SAE
7 japonica shrimp
unknown amount of snails hehe

and the following fish that will soon be going into my sons tank and will be replaced 7 more cardinals to bring there total to 25
2 white skirt tetras and 3 coloumbian blue red tetras

 

Wow, that is really superb! I wish I could have so many plants in my tank, I have like less than 1wpg I really like how you've aquascaped it, and the lighting is great.

 

Beautiful planted tank! I love all your cardinal tetras. How did you get them all to survive? lol.. they are such sensitive fish. You have done a great job with your tank..and have wonderful hiding places for the fish in all those plants. ;D
~ kate

 

I just made the pics a bit smaller hehe, I just noticed they did not resize on this forum and were massive.

And thanks to both of you for your comments, and as far as cardinals I find they are actually pretty hardy fish as long as your tank is mature (ie not in a cycle) and ph is low and kh is low. And in a planted tank, I personally think cardinals are one of the most attractive fish you can add, they just seem to tie everything together.

I also float them for a very long time before adding them, I usually take about two hours with a small hole cut in the top of the bag and I dip that hole in every 15 minutes to let some of my water in there bag before cutting it right open and letting them swim out on their own. I also never add more then 6 at a time. I added my 18 in three stages a week apart and did not loose any.

 

Wow! That's a stunning display. Very nice job.

Mike

 

And bill, I searched out your tank and its very nice looking as well, and just to let you know there are many plants you can grow in low light. I used to have a low light 29 gallon planted tank, with lots of bogwood with java moss, java fern, lace java fern and anubis. The nice thing about that tank is it was very low maintenance and did not require fertile substrate as they are all water filtering plants, and don't even get planted in the substrate, they were all tied to bogwood.

And yes I planted this tank with hiding and the fish in mind, the left hand side was all basically planted with corries in mind, its all find sand and hollow rock caves under the java moss and riccia. And the right hand side with the java fern and lace java is all planted on a knotted twisted pile of wood with the plants tied on about 3 inches up leaving like a mangrove of wood under them for the fish to swim through.

 

I started out with about 17 very young cardinals from a breeder that 10 or more of them were lost due to my own mistake. (The heater was left on too high.) After introducing them later on to the 55g, I bought four more. I lost two of them. I am now down to the six that I have had for awhile and hope they do ok. The water is at its best due to the sensitive discus I have there and hope that at some point I will be able to add more cardinals. I really do love how these little guys truly school together and they look so nice in a planted tank. Thanks for the advice on acclimating them! ;D I will try it out next time...
~ kate

 

Nice I hope all goes well with adding more, You are actually running the exact mix of fish that will be going into my next tank.
I am in the process of starting to build my next tank as I have a cnc router at work, so I plan on building a 8x2x2 240 gallon acrylic tank and two 50 gallon tanks for wet dry trickle filters (that will be hidden under it) for my theater room.

And my planned stocking is discus and probably about 200 cardinals both of which are easily my fav two fish. I am sure hydro is gonna love me for keeping that tank at 81 degrees hehe
I plan on building the tank into the screen wall, and having a drop down screen for my projector over it, so while watching movies the screen will cover the tank as my screen 120 inch so 8 feet wide. So it will cover the tank perfectly and the light from the projector will not bug the fish while movies are on, and while the screen is up I will have a even better screen to view (the fish)

 

love the tank - sounds like we have another DIY guy here at fishlore.

 

Nice I hope all goes well with adding more, You are actually running the exact mix of fish that will be going into my next tank.
I am in the process of starting to build my next tank as I have a cnc router at work, so I plan on building a 8x2x2 240 gallon acrylic tank and two 50 gallon tanks for wet dry trickle filters (that will be hidden under it) for my theater room.

And my planned stocking is discus and probably about 200 cardinals both of which are easily my fav two fish. I am sure hydro is gonna love me for keeping that tank at 81 degrees hehe
I plan on building the tank into the screen wall, and having a drop down screen for my projector over it, so while watching movies the screen will cover the tank as my screen 120 inch so 8 feet wide. So it will cover the tank perfectly and the light from the projector will not bug the fish while movies are on, and while the screen is up I will have a even better screen to view (the fish)

That sounds wonderful! And I love the idea that the fish will be behind the screen and not bothered by the lights. Do you plan on having the speakers near the tank? I know now that the fish hear very well and hope that any surround sound will not bother them too much?
~ kate

 

wow 200 cardinals that will look stunning i

 

THat is a wonderful tank I wish I could have one like that

 

Hey hey, betta yes I am a DIY junkie I love to tinker, even my projector in my theater room was DIY, I built it from plans from lumenlab they are a amazing website for that type of thing my current one is 1280x1024 but I plan on building a 1920x1200 and forcing it to 1920x1080 for a 1080p unit.

And Kate yes there will be speakers in that room, but I am framing the tank into that wall with 2x6 framework and will insulate it then a layer of styrofoam sm, so there should be no problem with noise to the fish. I am doing it that way for noise and for heat issues, I want to be able to insulate the tank as much as possible for minimum heat loss. The tank will be flush with the wall, so only the front face will have heat loss issues.

 

Oh and again thanks for all the kind words, and bosox, going planted is actually fairly easy and the fish love it. You just have to decide what level to do it at, at lower light levels you are limited to what you can grow, but you can grow stuff very healty, just much slower which can be a very good thing. Some plants in high c02 and light will grow several inches per day, and become a trimming nightmare hehe.

 

That's awesome...I am defiantly getting more neons.

 

Also I don't see anywhere on these forums for swaps or giveaways, so if there are any Canadians looking for plants I will have the following from my tank around sept 15, I am doing a trim today but I will need those trimming for other spots. But I will have roughly the following amounts on my trim next week.

PLANTS AND AMOUNTS: About 6 to 10 twelve inch stems of Ludwigia mullertiI (red ludwigia) and a substantial amount of riccia (probably enough to start about foot square plot of riccia)

CURRENT TANK SETTINGS: They are in a 6.4 ph 2.5 kh tank with about 3.7 wpg tank atm, and grow extremely strong fast and algae free, but I do have snails if you are concerned about them, I personally like having them in my tank.

Basically if anyone want any of those plants, let my know and I can ship in Canada as you can't ship cross border. I have stryo lined fish boxes that I will put the bags into and ship away, you pay the shipping and they are yours.

The riccia really required high light and c02 to survive, but if you have those it will grow and pearl like mad. The ludwigia stems will do just fine in lower light, they just will grow slower and not be as red.

 

Wow, that is an amazing tank.
Tom

 

Your tank is beautiful, everything looks so healthy!! I am curious about your comment that you only change 5 gallon water weekly, and I ask because I am preparing to set up a 55 gallon tank ( must mention I won it, and it is my first community tank, so you know I am inexperienced)..and I am fretting about water changes since we are on a well, and must haul water. I was thinking 25% once a week is a lot of hauling, but 5 gallon is so manageable...would that work with a tank that has both live and silk plants??

Val ???

 

Well the 5 gallon change per week is basically a test I am running to see if fish bio load (I am currently a fair chunk overstocked, but dual filtered and each one can run my tank on its own) can feed my plants my macro's ie stop ferting my npk etc. I have been doing this now for exactly a month tomorrow. Before that, I changed 10 gallon of my 50 gallon weekly with a normal stocking and had to heavily fert my macros to feed my plants. Now I only dose Iron and micros and let the fish well poo my macros. I am going to slowly turn my filters down and watch my water parameters very carefully until I find a perfect balance of fish feed the plants, plants filter the tank level I am hoping.

So far even on my weekly change I have no signs of ammonia, nitrite, and have a healthy level of 5 to 10mg/l of nitrates for my plants. So basically I am going to push and see how low I can run my filters and how little I can change before my plants can't maintain a healthy cycle and bacteria load.

For this to work, you need a heavy plant base, and basically not vacuum your substrate and let mulm build up and use the fish to feed the plants and plants to clean the tank. I have a good friend that is doing the complete natural approach and he does not even have filters on his tank, and he only does a water change every few months. He started reading Diana Walstad's book, Ecology of the Planted Aquarium and decided to try those methods, and his tank is doing very well. I am kinda trying a hybrid approach to that may or may not work in the end. But I have a few understocked tanks that I can rehome my fish into if this approach does not pan out in the end. So far its working great, I am getting better growth then when I was full on fert dosing my tank, and I have not had any signs of stress on the fish, bad water or algae at all.

 

GRRREAT LOOKING TANK !!! l

 

wow that tank is amazing...you must of spent along time designing that...wow that's amazing......the fish must just feel like there still in the ocean ..nice job

 

OK this picture is going to look very odd, as its right after a big prune and a odd use of riccia, I took my riccia trimming and put them on a fan in the left of the tank. Riccia always looks very odd when you first tie it down, it takes a few days for it to start growing out of the netting or string. Within a few days it will look like the rest of the pearling riccia mounds, its very fast stuff.




I basically had to put the pic up today as its the 2 month bday for that tank hehe. I got it from my wife on July 11 for my bday, and set it up that day hehe. I had two filters, sitting in other tanks mature ready to go and it never missed a beat. Its been planted and stocked since the first day it started up, and has never had a minI cycle or dropped its cycle. The filters were very mature and I loaded in a very similar stocking to what they had been running so they kept on ticking.

 

Oh and I have a question too, how often do you all watch your tanks. I personally try to set aside 15 minutes twice a day on feeds, and the last 20 minutes of the tanks lighting for the day, and the first 10 minutes of moonlighting. It just happens to be right after I put the kids to bed (the joy of lighting on timers hehe). The last 30 minutes are my favorite too, as everything is in full pearl and the fish seem to know the lighting are going to go down as they all have a routine of where they go hide ou t for the night, and the last 10 minutes of light they just start to vanish, its very cool to watch. That is minus the ones that like the moonlight, I have a diy blue LED moon light that is on for 3 hours after lights out, and my corries and shrimp come to huge life in that period. Its a very neat transition of night to day life.

 

Wow. The moonlight setting sounds awesome. I have one on one of my small tanks, but it's set to the same timer as the other one. > So I must switch it on manually.

 

Ya I like having the moonlight as it makes a nice transition to total tank darkness so there is not a major snap from light to complete darkness. I run a few different timers, one for main lighting , one for my moon one and one for my red LEDS that comes on before my lighting kicks in (my sad attempt as sunrise in my tank, looks more like **** then sunrise though hehe, I should probably try amber LEDs instead) and another for my c02 as I like to run my c02 a bit longer then my lights it comes on 2 hours before lights on and stays on during lights and runs for one more hour after lights outs, balances my ph better that way. I also have my filters hooked up to a ups unit, so if my power ever goes out my filters will keep running for a while to keep my bacteria alive. I have a gen in my garage that I plug the whole tank into if the power ever stayed out longer then the ups can run the filters. I have only had to do that once so far (knocks on wood).

 

I'd love to add moonlighting to all our tanks and setup a master time for them all.. gonna take some money and the MTS is always calling for more tanks. :

 

Took a couple pics to show the riccia fan growing in after 72 hours of planting.
Front on, its tough to see new growth as its mainly filled out.



Bit of a angle to see the thickness increase. It was completely flat from the hairnet 72 hours ago.



And just a kinda neat pic of neons and cardinals.

 

its so green and red

Peace Out Callum!

 

Very beautifully, so how do u vacuum the bed when its mostly covered?

 

I don't I let the plants eat the poo, it goes very fast.

 

Still running with next to no ferts iron and trace only and things still seem to be growing well under bio load.

Photos taken today Sept 21, I had to retie down a major clump of riccia as it got so heavy with oxygen bubbling it was tearing the java moss right off hehe. You can see its starting to happen again on the clump left of the anubis, I will have to tie that one down again real soon.



Side shot to show the riccia fan fatten up even more.

 

your tank

Your tank looks great!

 

I'm very impressed with your tank. I enjoyed reading through your progress in your thread very interesting. Your tank is very pretty, though when I look at it, I'm instantly drawn to the left side with the bright riccia. Is that one of the species of hornwort next to it, or is it cambomba (I think that's the name, have been getting away from planted tanks), looks more like cambomba from the pictures.

On your question, I glance at my fish in the morning when I wake up before I go to school and make sure everything is in order. When I get home after sports I check on my fish first thing for about five to ten minutes per tank. I do my homework and studying in my room which is next to one of my tanks and I am able to watch it most of the night. I will also spend about ten minutes watching during feeding time and before I go to bed. So I usually incorporate at least a half hour total, usually more for observing my fish a day.

On your expierment, my tank isn't quite the way I'd like it but I have figured out a cycle in which I let my plants use up most of my fish poo and only do a small water change per week in my 29 gallon low light tank. I shall be interested in following your progression in your expierment and your new tank that you hope to build.

 

Thanks very much, and yes the riccia is a bit overpowering, especially in photos where it catches the light so strongly, in person its not as overpowering. Every thing is still going very well on this experiment, I have yet to see any signs of deficiency on this tank. But that could slowly start to change if the plants are living on there reserves, but as of yet, any new growth has not started to canabalize the the old growth, and everything is still growing very strong healthy and fast. I still have all my old N P K ferts if I think I need to spike certain nutrients, but as of yet I have not.

And yes that is cabomba, I basically start all my tanks with a fair pile of cabomba and hornwort, until the other plants take hold and start growing strong. That little clump is basically the tail ends of it, I will be replacing it on Oct 11, the 2 months date of the fert test if all is still going well. Its a good fast grower that oxygenates very well. But with the riccia pearling like it does, o2 is not a major concern atm. Basically everything in this tank pearls, but the riccia is the strongest at it. It is in full pearl 4 hours into the light cycle, where everything else really only pearls in the 6 to 8 hour stage of lighting, and not nearly as stong.

I am thinking of replacing the cabomba with some green indica, I have some of the red variety in Rotala rotundifolia in one of my 29 gallon tanks. But I think I already have a very large start red area, so I will be going with its green family member. My only concern is again its a very strong pearling species, so that end of the tank will be a 02 bubble fest, I may have to change things around abit.
here is a pic of the red version in my 29g, green indica looks the same but well green hehe.

 

Ah looks very nice. yes cambomba does grow rather fast.

 

Awesome tank....hoping to have a 40-50g someday which is fully planted like that.

 

What type of filters are you using ? You mentioned two of them. Also what type of substrate did you use.

 

This tank has a Aqua clear 70 on the right, and a whisper 30/60 on the left. Basically spare filters I had on old 29 gallon tanks. I will also be taking a old 29 gallon tank of mine and housing it under the tank in the cabinet as a wet dry trickle for added filtration and to up the water content of the tank as the fish start to mature to make sure they have ample clean water.

My substrate is as follows, regular sand on the left under the riccia and java moss cave system, and the center section of the tank where all my rooted and plants are is redsea flourabase. And the right of the tank is all plain gravel with larger rocks with a large twisted knots of wood that the java fern and lace java fern tied on about 2 inches up off the substrate, to leave a mangrove effect under the plants for the fish to take shelter in if they don't want to be in the light.

My corries tend to play in the root mass or the cave system in the day, and hit the center of the tank through the moonlight phase of lighting, and my cardinals etc, do the opposite, they spend the day in the open and slowly head to the shelters at night. Really fun to watch the transition.

 

I am pretty stoked as well, my wife was out garage sale shopping today, and found a 75 gallon 48Lx18W20T tank with stand for free today. I just finished taking it apart and cleaning it up and re silicone of the entire tank (I was just going to redo the upper seals, but upon inspection I noticed the side seals had some lift to them, minor but I really don't want 75 gallon of fish and plants on my floor hehe). I am going to load test it mid week and get it going as soon as possible. Have to take it slow though as the wife is pregnant again so she would not be to happy if I drop a bunch of money on fish atm hehe.

LFS has a great deal on cardinals atm too, $1.25 a peice when you buy 50. So I think this tank will be getting cardinals too hehe.

 

This tank has a Aqua clear 70 on the right, and a whisper 30/60 on the left. Basically spare filters I had on old 29 gallon tanks. I will also be taking a old 29 gallon tank of mine and housing it under the tank in the cabinet as a wet dry trickle for added filtration and to up the water content of the tank as the fish start to mature to make sure they have ample clean water.

A wet/dry trickle filter like the old saltwater tank use to have (with bio-balls)? Is your tank drilled, or will you be using a external overflow box ? This is interesting to me because when I purchased my Ehiem 2227 wet/dry canister filter for my saltwater tank, they said it was good for planted tanks also !