250G High Tech Tank

[Consigliere]

Here it is before the first attempted auto-water change procedure.  Still pretty cloudy and tea stained from the soaking wood.  Still have a bit of scaping on the gravel to do to create the profiles I want.  The water was too cold to do it before.  I've got all my old heaters in there going 100% to get it up to at 75.

[Shawn84]

Looking awesome so far. Can't wait for the plant. Do you know what your gone a plant so far?

[Consigliere]

Generally slow growers will be going in.  Lots of crypts, ferns.  Maybe one stem species for the back.

[Consigliere]

I got energetic on Sunday afternoon and decided that I would do my first round of planting, despite having a million other things to do. I couldn't resist. Before I could start planting though I had to build a mini scaffold for me to stand on to work in the tank. Using a chair just wasn't cutting it. Here's my makeshift scaffolding:



I cleaned out most of the crypts at the best LFS in town. There are a bunch of ones in here: anubias bartera, java fern (normal), crypt parva, crypt poderfolia, crypt wendtii (red and green), crypt retrospiralis, crypt balansae, crypt abilda and apongeton crispus. A few of the crypts aren't in the greatest shape but they were reasonably priced so I figured I would give them a shot. Before putting them in the tank I soaked them in a very, very mild peroxide and water solution to try and at least hurt some of the algae that may be on them. Here's the plants before going in the tank:



Planting a 3 feet deep tank while you are standing 3 feet in the air is not the most comfortable scenario. *Luckily I have 12" tweezers to help and very long arms. *This is the shot during my first break to give my back a rest:



I had to finish up the planting before I got everything in. I ran out of super glue for attaching the ferns and anubias so there are a few of them that still need to go in. Here's a bunch of shots of different areas:



The start of the parva lawn, about 1/4 of the way there after planting 10 pots worth:



Balansae and ponderfolia sections:



Apongeton crispus and more balansae



More balansae, retrospiralis and abilda. The retrospiralis and abilda are on light support a bit so you can't see them very well.



A section of wendtii green:



and after refilling the tank:







After this planting session and getting the tank refilled I was hurting. Sore back and tired but worth it. The green really pops against the wood and brown soil and dark background.  After a night of planting I would have to say that the Netlea substrate is very nice to work with. It is easy to plant in, doesn't make a big mess when disturbed. Areas that were underwater were an absolute breeze to plant in. All the planting that is shown was finished in about an hour and a half. Once you get the hang of using 12" tweezers they are an absolute necessity for planting in a tank this deep. Overall I'm very happy with the progress. Lots of plants left to go but a good start. I figure this will be about 1/4 to 1/3 of the total plant biomass that I'll plant in here. The general theme will be the same though. Slow growers, crpyts, anubias, ferns etc. Don't want a high maintenance tank. I feel like I may go with one select stem species behind the anubias barteri but I will have to wait until I can get some shipped in the spring time for that. The Canadian winters aren't to friendly to plant shipments.

[daworldisblack]

Planting a 3 feet deep tank while you are standing 3 feet in the air is not the most comfortable scenario. *Luckily I have 12" tweezers to help and very long arms. *This is the shot during my first break to give my back a rest:

Lol i was out over the weekend and was at the local dollar store when I stumbled upon one of this:



First thought? I thought of this thread! Hahaha.. Thought this would be helpful in your planting adventure believe it or not. This shows where my heads at.. haha.. funny thoughts.. but obviously you've got the proper tools for the job but I thought I'd mention this haha.

Looks good now though! The apotogen is a nice addition and I love how most of your plants will be crypts! I can see this growing nicely into a nice set-up!

[Consigliere]

Because I needed an excuse to have another beer before bed...here's the tank 24hr after planting.  There a bunch of new plants needing to be put in their permanent home but I am waiting to do that until the water needs changing for clarity again.  The wood is leaching less tanins now but will need a big change again in a day or two.



Ordered a bunch of plants from the LFS that they normally don't carry today as well.  20 more pots of parva on the way, some java narrow leaf, java windelov (red apparently but now that I'm reading up on it it will be green submersed), anubias nana petite and a new crypt I forget.  Should be here in 2 weeks.  Will work out nicely for another big water change and that should be the majority of the planting done.

[Consigliere]

Thanks.  Those tools would've been handy had I not planned for this early.  I got my stuff from ebay for a really good price.  I have 12" curved scissors, straight scissors, bent tweezers, straight tweezers and 18" scaping tools.  I don't think they're top quality but they work and haven't rusted on me yet. 

I'm going to be on the lookout for some rarer crypts now.  The LFS in Kingston has a pretty decent selection to order from but they are so hard to distinguish when you are looking at 1"x1" photos.  Any recommendations on some good species? 

[Consigliere]

Can't wait to get those brutally ugly rocks out of there too.  How long does manzanita wood usually take to get fully water logged?

[daworldisblack]

Any recommendations on some good species? 

This is my go-to and there are some pretty sweet pics there: http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/forumapc/aquarium-pictures/browseimages.php?c=11&userid=&t=

[charlie]

Coming along nicely Dave, i`ll be taking it all in, great job.

[Cheebs]

2 years later it's finally full of water, and it looks really good so faR!

[Peekay]

I can't get over how spectacularly ambitious this whole build is!  You could almost put on your swim suit and jump in there to work on the planting!   

Can't wait to get those brutally ugly rocks out of there too.  How long does manzanita wood usually take to get fully water logged?

I have no idea, but right now it makes the wood look like an angry octopus lurking in the tank! 

[charlie]

Some folks report it takes about 4-6 weeks.

[Fishnut]

Nice job on the tank!  I'll be honest, I skimmed the messages until I saw pics, then I read  Amazing job on the whole system!!

Did you ever solve the humidity issue?  I have a 180 in my basement that is covered with tight fitting plastic and the 30 gallon sump is covered as well.  It's not even a heated tank!  We have a very efficient furnace which we thought would be able to take care of the humidity issue but it gradually got worse and worse.  My house got to the point where we couldn't see out of the windows any more and the air was very thick.  So we bought a dehumidifier and put it next to the tank and drains automatically into the floor drain.

What a difference!!

There will be a new DVD in the club's library, which will be unveiled at the meeting on Monday night.  You might have to race some other members to take it out first but it's going to be right up your ally!

[Consigliere]

Thanks for the comments.  Unfortunately I am in Kingston and can't attend the meetings.

So far the humidity hasn't been an issue but its still early.  I'm thinking we will get a dehumidifier for our basement anyways, winter time our house is always humid because its fairly new and they are sealed up so well now. 

[Consigliere]

Been working on and off on the tank of late. One of the first things to take care of was getting the CO2 up and running. After filling the CO2 tank I got everything hooked back up. The CO2 bubbles run into the intake of the powerhead that puts water through the UV chamber. The modded impeller is shown in another post. It's working really well. Can't even see the bubbles on the output so they are being dissolved 100% before being put back into the sump. Unfortunately the long layoff wasn't kind to my solenoid. It was full of dust and other junk and had to be totally taken apart and cleaned out. After putting it back together it still isn't working properly. It's passing CO2 with and without power. I still got it up and running and everything connected up but will have to get a new one I think. It's still clicking away when power goes off and on but will not stop the CO2 when there is no power to the solenoid. Any suggestions on how to fix it? I've had it apart a few times and can't figure out the problem.

With the CO2 in the next step was getting the sump sealed up. I had a bunch of acrylic lying around from some other old projects that I could use to create a cover over the open areas. With some cutting here and there I fit it around the plumbing. I used Tuck Tape to seal the edges of the acrylic sheets and around all the stuff going in and out of the sump so that it is generally air tight. Not 100% but pretty close. I put a small piece into the pump section of the sump so that I can break that seal and get at the pumps without having to take apart major sections of the cover. Is working well so far. Drop checker is nice and green and the couple of otos in the tank aren't gasping. Here's a photo of the sump all sealed up.



Another small thing that I had been planning was a self priming vacuum that I could connect to the filter system. This way I could clean the tank without any buckets and then would only have to clean out the filter, just like you would normally have to do. Here' s the apparatus I came up with. It's just a standard vacuum with an old Fluval ball valve hooked up to it. It's connected to a ABS cap that I can put on the drain system to self prime. Unfortunately, in practice it's much harder to use than I thought and I ended up putting a couple gallons of water on the floor....twice. I think I'm going to stick with the buckets for now, but it works as intended. Notice the scaffold in the picture doubles as a nice work station.



Onto the second planting session now. I got some new crpyts from the LFS; some more wendtii green to fill out some spots, some larger wendtii red I think, 3 more pots of parva (20 more are on the way) and the rest are left overs that I didn't get in on the first planting or have become unrooted and need to be replanted. Here's the lineup going into the tank this time.



A few hours later and we're ready to refill the tank again.



and about another hour later, the tank totally filled.



All the anubias and java ferns are attached to the driftwood using Loctite Super Glue gel. Works pretty well as long as the surfaces are not soaking wet. Hold the plant in place for about 15-20s and it will hold no problem . The open area on the front right will be filled with parva to finish out the "lawn". The open area on the left side will be filled up with more crypts and the wood will have some needle leaf java ferns, windelov java ferns and anubias nana petite going in. I think I have another species or two to come too but can't remember exactly which ones now.

I realized now the design flaw of not having access to hot water at the tank. You can't do a total water change without putting major stress on the fish. I lost a number of otos because of it on this round. I'll never be able to do a full drain and water replacement without bucketing in some piping hot water to keep the temperature at least reasonable. I finished this up at 3am and there was no way I was bucketing in the hot water so I lost a couple of the otos I had in there for algae control.

Here's the tank 3 days later.



Nothing really interesting to report since everything is slow growing in here. Lots of crypts melting off obviously, but have seen some small growth. Even have some plants pearling already which is a good sign. No algae to be seen yet either which I'm really happy about. The good CO2 is probably the key here. Based on some forum advice and personal experience I am only running 2 of the 3 lights for about 5hrs a day. When I've got all the plants in I'll introduce the 3rd light but it will only be on for about 1.5-2hrs a day for a good burst. Otherwise I'll keep the light cycle around 5-6 hours total until the plants are fully established and algae, if any, is under control.

Here's some of the pearling after about 3 hours of lights on.





On Friday I'm supposed to have the last shipment of the plants in. Will be getting them in over the weekend sometime and will have another update then. After that it will be getting fish in there and then, hopefully, watching everything sprout.

[daworldisblack]

Looking awesome! Cant wait to see it after the final plant shipment has been 'installed' and to see it a few weeks/months down the road. Sweet set-up so far!

[exv152]

...After a night of planting I would have to say that the Netlea substrate is very nice to work with. It is easy to plant in, doesn't make a big mess when disturbed. Areas that were underwater were an absolute breeze to plant in...

Gotta ask where or how did you get a hold of the netlea? I've been looking at getting either ADA aquasoil or this. Just bought a rimless starfire tank, ADA style, and love the look of the netlea granules.

[Consigliere]

Got it from aqua inspirations in Scarborough.  I have 3 bags (27L) left over if you're interested.

[exv152]

Thanks Dave, I was just curious because I'm beginning to setup the ada style tank but not quite there yet.  I think I'll try to get my hands on some aquasoil as my first choice, and if not, I'll let you know. How much are you asking for each bag?