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Rise (ADA 90p)

VarunA

Member
Joined
1 Feb 2022
Messages
83
Location
Canada
Hi everyone,

After months and months of searching and scouring the internet, I have finally acquired used/old but new equipment to build my dream tank. It is the biggest aquarium I have ever had and an exciting endeavour in this hobby. The tank is new but the stand is at least over 15y old (back when ADA used to sell black metal stands). It arrived with a slight amount of rust which I lightly sanded and spray painted with a fresh coat of black paint. It is still amazing to behold the craftsmanship and quality of a big ADA tank. The silicone work on the 90p is immaculate and the glass is absolutely crystal clear. Love it!

Tank: ADA 90p
Stand: ADA Garden stand black
Filter: Superjet ES600
Light: UNS Titan 1

I have been always inspired by some of the amazing builds from other UKAPS members : ADA Cube Garden 90P Build ; River/stream Iwagumi - 90P ; ADA 90P river/stream 2.0 ; Garden standing around…

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In terms of the scape, I now realize the size of hardscape required to fill a tank this big. It is truly mind-blowing and wallet-melting to fathom the amount of rock/wood required to fill a big tank. Fortunately, over the past few years, I have hoarded some hardscape that was way too big for my 60cm tanks. This particular rock was imported as Frodo stone, but I think it is named something else now. I didn't order any of the choice pieces in the shipment and only got some of these flatter and leftover pieces at a bargain price. I immediately saw something in the side profile of these stones that reminded me of Adam Paszcela's ADA Idea Studio.

I practiced my scape in the living room in the carton of the 90p (and annoyed the heck out of my wife after I made her stub her toe on one of the big rocks). This is what I liked best :

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The three main stones weigh 50lbs and the top-most stone is 12lbs. It was really scary to have it in the tank and I was worried about it cracking the tank if it slid off the 3 support stones underneath. Thanks to some advice from our local aquascaping group members, I glued the heck out of it with construction glue to make it a big 35lbs single structure. I feel much more confident in it as a solid piece that conveys the uneasiness and moody environment.

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I am currently playing with the details, but here is a picture with details added. The depth this dimension of tank offers over the 60p is just incredible.

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Let me know what you guys think.

Best regards,

V
 
Both the stones and wood are amazing. This said I kind of feel that the wood is somewhat distracting and takes out some of the stone's presence. If it was me I would instead try incorporating smaller branches at the back and perhaps at the front as well so that the stones can shine. Obviously this is just my opinion and there is no right or wrong way in doing this.
 
Both the stones and wood are amazing. This said I kind of feel that the wood is somewhat distracting and takes out some of the stone's presence. If it was me I would instead try incorporating smaller branches at the back and perhaps at the front as well so that the stones can shine. Obviously this is just my opinion and there is no right or wrong way in doing this.
love this one
 
Thanks! The problem with this is it becomes an iwagumi (almost) and I found that long term I don't get as much satisfaction from a scape like that compared to my DOOA H36 which is wild and has so many elements incorporated into it. But, I'll work on it a bit more. I am going to add the substrate system today and play with it a bit more before deciding to glue the wood.

Both the stones and wood are amazing. This said I kind of feel that the wood is somewhat distracting and takes out some of the stone's presence. If it was me I would instead try incorporating smaller branches at the back and perhaps at the front as well so that the stones can shine. Obviously this is just my opinion and there is no right or wrong way in doing this.
Thanks for the feedback. I understand and I have gotten similar feedback from my wife as well. haha! I will experiment with it a bit more to make it more subtle.
 
Three weeks of dark start later, the tank has done pretty well. I just saw some diatoms in areas which were exposed to light bleed from neighbouring tanks. This is the first time seeing such dense diatoms.

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Here is the planting completed:

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Now starts the process of letting the plants settle in a bit before moving this fish. The future residents are eagerly awaiting their new home

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Looks amazing I really love the rock work.
I think it will look beautiful when grown in!!
You obviously don't have kids with an open stand like that 🤣🤣
 
Thank you so much. I'm really happy with it. It has been doing well after planting for a week and adding some pure red line shrimp and amano shrimp, but the Felix aquarium controller that I am using for this tank has been a nightmare and kept the light turned on for nearly 10hours. as a result, I have now started seeing green dust algae all over the glass and stones. I'm also going away on a vacation today so it will be interesting to see how the tank fares while I am away. I added one horned nerite from the 60F so will have to wait and see if that is able to keep the GDA at bay. lol

haha! yea. no kids and no pets running around. it might happen in a year or two...so might have to reconsider everything then. For now, the garden stand has been Wishlist item that I had to acquire at any cost and I am glad I was able to snag one used.
 
Here was the tank after my vacation. It wasn't too bad: The Amano shrimp and cardina seem to be doing okay and keeping the diatoms at bay. Although I did see quite a bit of green dust algae covering the rocks and glass. I am sure that can be taken care of once I add in the otocinculus and nerite snails.

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After cleaning (basic glass clean and 50% water change), I finally added the 20+ fish from my old 60F into the tank. I first tried 10 fish the night before and monitored them for 24h prior to adding the remaining fish. Almost immediately I feel the fish started exploring and exhibited brighter/more contrast in their colours. While I understand this could be also due to the light spectrum difference, the body language of the fish indicated that they immediately acclimatized as they were chasing the females trying to mate with them. This was awesome. It just made me think how crazy it was of me to have such a large group of fish in my 60F. I am so glad that they have such a big space. They are exploring between the wood and stones and schooling well.

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Over the next few days, I am going to monitor the fish and keep dosing with bacteria to ensure that the filter can cope with the increased bio load. I am confident that with such an increase in overall vol (7 gal to 45gal) and a fully cycled filter (over 1.5 months?), the livestock shouldn't have any issues.
 
Here is an update: Suffering with a steady increase in the thick staghorn-type algae. I upped my water change, despite of which I keep finding staghorn everywhere. I have tried using H202 to combat it, but it seems to be all over the tank.

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However, the thing I didn't realize is how clogged the filter is (Haven't done a filter maintenance since setup)
Whatsmore, I forgot adding filter floss to it. It is really impressive that the iwaki pump in the ADA superjet handled it like a champ. I didn't even feel any decrease in flow. It kept chugging along like normal. Any other filter (especially Eheim classics) would have choked long ago.

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After a thorough clean

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Ughhhhhhhhh that superjet is very very nice
Thanks! haha! Yea. TBH...the ES-600 is a bit louder than the ES-300 V2. The pump also gets slightly warm to the touch. I also need to use it with a transformer to convert the voltage to 100V. It is also a heavy beast. However, it is totally worth the cost so far. It is also important to note that it also comes with the lily pipes + clear tubing which add to the value. Furthermore, while people say the flow of the ES-600 is not enough for the 90p, I find it otherwise. The flow is significant to move the leaves in the opposite corner of the tank.
 
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