Unexpected
Member
Truth be told, I'm pretty nervous to start a journal here with such "big gun" hobbyists at ukaps, but I guess nothing ventured, nothing gained or so they say. I'm pretty new to higher energy tanks so I'm definitely in a steep learning curve at the moment but I'm learning quickly and feel pretty confident I can get this new tank to competition level (at least an entry level).
This tank was started just shy of 2 months ago and is the largest aquarium I've ever worked with. It's an AIO aquarium designed for reefers, but I bought it strictly for a planted tank. I didn't want to deal with canister filters and visible equipment. I had to sacrifice some width for the length, but being so long and shallow makes up for it in my mind. This does make creating depth more challenging and hopefully I can pull it off. The tank is 177cm long , 61cm wide but the display is only 46cm, and height is 40.6cm. Total volume of about 450l.
The original plan was to step away from the more demanding stems and move towards a natural style with wood and rocks. I'm not a good aqua scape planner/ designer and as such the scape was just mundane. Here's what we set originally.
Here's the first round of planting and it quickly started not to look good.
Round 2 planting.
In my mind, this looked all too ugly.
I failed to get a 2022 AGA Dutch submission because of a few mistakes, and this failure has weighed on me for 5 months now. I've decided to try again and I should have enough time to get the tank in order. I've stripped the hardscape, ordered plants I want to try, ordered 2 Weak Aqua P600's and I'm just waiting on the V3 Bluetooth to arrive. I'm hoping this next week everything should be set up and going. My goal right now is get the plants healthy (I live in a terrible area for underwater gardening and I have to order plants online), and start propagating while reducing my plant specie count. Here's the tank this morning. I've just placed things around to ensure good flow/distribution through the plants.
Another necessity I needed was no wet equipment outside of the tank. My 20 inch Cerges reactor looked ridiculous sticking out of the overflow chamber and I needed an alternative injection method. Wouldn't you know the answer was right here on the forum. @22802 Horizontal Reactor, I now call the horizontal reactor, was the solution. It works perfectly right now and I'm about to put it through a good workout.
I will say the flow in this tank is Superior and as such, the offgassing is challenging to manage. I hope I've included enough surface area to meet the demand when I start cranking energy up. We will soon find out!
Thanks for reading my rant and hope some follow me along with this journey.
Currently dosing (front load) 24N, 4P, 31K, .4Fe as proxy (CSMB) and .1Fe 11% DTPA.
5.2dGH at 3:1
1dKH. I may go back to 0dKH
Pool filter sand substrate.
This tank was started just shy of 2 months ago and is the largest aquarium I've ever worked with. It's an AIO aquarium designed for reefers, but I bought it strictly for a planted tank. I didn't want to deal with canister filters and visible equipment. I had to sacrifice some width for the length, but being so long and shallow makes up for it in my mind. This does make creating depth more challenging and hopefully I can pull it off. The tank is 177cm long , 61cm wide but the display is only 46cm, and height is 40.6cm. Total volume of about 450l.
The original plan was to step away from the more demanding stems and move towards a natural style with wood and rocks. I'm not a good aqua scape planner/ designer and as such the scape was just mundane. Here's what we set originally.
Here's the first round of planting and it quickly started not to look good.
Round 2 planting.
In my mind, this looked all too ugly.
I failed to get a 2022 AGA Dutch submission because of a few mistakes, and this failure has weighed on me for 5 months now. I've decided to try again and I should have enough time to get the tank in order. I've stripped the hardscape, ordered plants I want to try, ordered 2 Weak Aqua P600's and I'm just waiting on the V3 Bluetooth to arrive. I'm hoping this next week everything should be set up and going. My goal right now is get the plants healthy (I live in a terrible area for underwater gardening and I have to order plants online), and start propagating while reducing my plant specie count. Here's the tank this morning. I've just placed things around to ensure good flow/distribution through the plants.
Another necessity I needed was no wet equipment outside of the tank. My 20 inch Cerges reactor looked ridiculous sticking out of the overflow chamber and I needed an alternative injection method. Wouldn't you know the answer was right here on the forum. @22802 Horizontal Reactor, I now call the horizontal reactor, was the solution. It works perfectly right now and I'm about to put it through a good workout.
I will say the flow in this tank is Superior and as such, the offgassing is challenging to manage. I hope I've included enough surface area to meet the demand when I start cranking energy up. We will soon find out!
Thanks for reading my rant and hope some follow me along with this journey.
Currently dosing (front load) 24N, 4P, 31K, .4Fe as proxy (CSMB) and .1Fe 11% DTPA.
5.2dGH at 3:1
1dKH. I may go back to 0dKH
Pool filter sand substrate.
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