Substrate: #3 gravel, mixed with "First Layer" laterite.
Heating: 150 W Ebo-Jager
Lighting: 30W Triton, 30W x2 ZooMed Ultra Sun, and 30W Coralife Trichromiatic. Ballasts are Coralife E-Z ballasts. The lights are on separate timers, with one set coming on 15 minutes before the other and going off 15 minutes after. One half of the canopy is painted flat white; the rear half uses polished aluminum flashing.
Filtration: Eheim 2213 canister filter, outfitted for biological filtration only (see RTR's article), and Aquaclear 200.
Fish: 10 Harlequin Raspboras, 1 angel fish, 3 clown loaches, 1 pearl danio (3 leapt to their demise), 3 ottos, 3 SAE's.
Plants: A. Nana, Crypt. Affinis, C. Blassi, C. Cordata, C. Wendtti, E. x. "Apart", E. Tenellus, Egeria Densa, H. Polysperma (sunset), Ludwigia repens, Java Fern, Nymphea Lotus (red), Rotala rotundifolia, Sag.subulata, Italian Val
DIY CO2 (two rigs, changed alternating weekends); PMDD (what the hell is that?), 10% weekly waterchange. Temp 77*, pH between 6.8-7.0. [For more PMDD info (including ordering info.) click here]. The CO2 is run into a reaction chamber (sorry no pics yet) made of 2" ID clear acrylic pipe sealed at both ends with PVC. The top of the chamber has a hole in it into which the end of the filter return is insterted. There is a hole drilled 1/2 the way down the chamber to allow water to escape.
Additional Notes:
1) Okay,okay, I admit it. My cabomba grew great, then I got greedy and it ended up thinning out and then dying.
2) I ended up trading all of my Amazon Swords back to the LFS because they just got too big in my tank (that's a good thing, sort of, right?). However, not before I was able to get three of them to produce daughter plants, so I guess I came out a little bit ahead.
3) I originally ran the CO2 through the Eheim, with terriffic results, but then one day came home to find that there was an air pocket in the filter that had basically caused it to stall out. Due to my heavy fishloads, this was not an option. Thus, the reaction chamber.
4) Scraps, mostly of Hygro, are lopped off and dropped into my "scrap" tank, a 10G tank left over from my previous set ups. It has it's own CO2 source and 30W of light. It's patrolled by a molly who is lightly fed to encourage foraging for algae.
Substrate: gravel, mixed with Schultz Clay Soil Conditioner and First Layer Laterite. Peat moss mixed in with lowest layer.
Heating: 75W Ebo Jager
Lighting: 20W GE Fresh and Saltwater, 20W Phillips Daylight.
Filtration: Aquaclear 150 (modified to reduce surface agitation), Hagen 204 Powerhead (with Tetra Brilli sponge pre-filter)
Fish: 10 Neon tetras, 6 Glowlight Tetras, 6 Gold Barbs, 2 ottos, 2 cory Juli. cat, 1 Melini cory cats, ?? Amano Shrimp (started with 8, but I can only see two from time to time).
Plants: C. affinis, medium val., java moss, Anubius, java fern, sag. subulata
DIY CO2, PMDD (no KNO3), 10% water change every weekend. Temp 77*, pH 7.0-7.2.
CO2 is run through a cylinder into the powerhead.
Notes:
1) As of 3/01, this tank is badly infested with thread algae. I'm currently trying to find a natural way to combat it. No "amano" shrimp were available, so I'm trying Ghost Shrimp, but they seem pretty uninterested in the thread algae. If no shrimp can be located, the following fish will be tried: (a) American Flagfish (b) Gold Barb (c) rosy barb. However, due to the small fishes that occupy this tank, none of the fish are particularly attractive options at this time...
2) As of 5/01, both Amano Shrimp and Gold Barbs are being used on the thread algae. While not eliminated, it is certainly at an acceptable level (manual cleaning once a week, and no longer choking out plants). While the Gold Barbs initially seemed interested in it, they've already become more interested in fish food. If they pick at it now, it's only occasionally. Oh well, my wife likes them so they're not a total loss.... The PMDD was also altered to include KNO3, and algae was reduced. Now, since I'm carrying a very large fish load, I'm cutting out the KNO3 entirely to see if the natural NO3 is enough (if not, I'll probably bring it back in smaller dosages).
3) As of 7/01 Success!!! Thread algae is gone. The tank is in a very good balance--I only have to clean the front glass once in a while (not every week, like I'm used to on the 38). I've stopped dosing NO3, as the nitrate level is between 12 - 25ppm (I suspect 80% of this is due entirely to the Barbs, who have become absolute pigs...they even dive after shrimp pellets if I drop them in for the cories with the lights on).