Claude & Gasp's 47G build

[Nyx]

Due to health reasons, mine and mostly my father-in-law's, we decided that we needed to cut back on our tanks as they were too time consuming, especially the 150G reef, when time is in short supply these days. So, we tore down and sold our reef a couple of weeks ago. We moved our 47G planted tank from the basement, where it was under-appreciated and a bit neglected, to the living room where the reef had been. We traded in most of the fish. We then tore down the 30G planted tank in my study and moved the fish and shrimp from there into the 47G. It's been a lot of tearing down and moving stuff around but it's all done and we're really pleased with how the tank looks in our living room.

The tank is a 47G column that measures that is 20"w x 18"d x 30"h. We bought it from another member as a set with the pendant MH fixture, a black stand, driftwood, plants, red crystal shrimp, fish, etc. about 7-8 months ago. Gasp had built a new stand, using only the glass door from the old one. We wanted a sleek column look. (I'm really pleased with how the cabinet turned out.) We changed the MH bulb to a 67k right after buying it, added CO2, fertilizer and the plants, which were already pretty full, really took off. The bolbitis has doubled and the anubias nana has increased by about 1/3. We also added some frogbit to help diffuse the light a bit. We added two red tiger lotus plants and some weeping moss to both the driftwood and the substrate over the weekend after we moved the tank.

The livestock right now consists of Endler's livebearers, dwarf chain botias, kuhli loaches, oto cats, crystal red shrimp, crystal black shrimp, sakura cherry shrimp, an orange Mexican dwarf crayfish and a 15 year-old candy striped pleco.







With just natural light from the patio door:


And a closer pic of the crayfish, checking out her new surroundings. Fortunately, these crays are tiny (just 1.5" full grown), very brightly colored, they don't hide much and they leave plants completely alone. That makes her one of our all-time favorite tank inhabitants




 

[daworldisblack]

Wow very nice! Its like a nano aquarium thats been magnified! Interesting scape but it really works. Especially like the wood coming out of the tank. Simple but looks great. Great job on the stand too!

[DrReefer]

Nice aquascape ! I like how to drift wood sticks out of the tank 

I must ask tho I see black tie-wraps on the wood , Is it holding plants for propagation ?!

[Nyx]

Thank you both! Yes, the black zip ties are holding some weeping moss in place until it latches on. We used fishing line to tie it down to 1" slate squares to hold down on the bottom until it starts taking off there, too. We're keeping our fingers crossed that we don't get too much die off.

[Thunda]

It's looking great, specially in such a short time.   I'm with the others.. the driftwood going right up out of the water provides for a nice effect.  The ~coconut~ tree helps with the look as well 

[pm]

Very nice 

I can honestly say that this is the most anubias petite I have ever seen in a tank. Great effect.

[Nyx]

The ~coconut~ tree helps with the look as well 

It does add a little je ne sais quoi doesn't it, Todd?

Thanks for the positive feedback everyone. The tank came to us with the driftwood like that and we decided to keep it. The anubias has been fruitful and multiplying a lot. What you can't really see is that in the back right-hand corner, there is a boatload of bolbitis that is also doing amazingly well. Adding the CO2 and changing the bulb as soon as we bought the tank helped promote a lot of growth. : ) We're hoping that the weeping moss we just put in and the phoenix moss that is hanging on for dear life take off soon, too.

[exv152]

I like the anubias, tiger lotus, tank and stand. What kind of CO2 system are you using?

[Gaspare]

We are using a Milwaukee regulator with built in bubble counter on a 5 lb co2 steel tank from Pyromateck.  We are very pleased with this set up.  Here is link to the type of regulator we are using:

http://www.water-testers.com/contents/en-us/d100_milwaukee-ma957-co2-regulator.html

Thank you to everyone who commented on the new setup.

Gaspare