# Nerbaneth's 90-p Journal - Please Critique!



## Nerbaneth (Jun 30, 2009)

Hi!

I just started tore down my 20gal and started up my new ADA-90p!

Unfortunately, my lights haven't come in the mail yet and so I am putting my lights from my 20gal on it. I ordered two 36" coralife T5 dual bulb NO - so there will be 4 t5 NO bulbs total.

The substrate is flourite black (not the sand) mixed with ADA Aquasoil. I am still considering adding root tabs to the mix, but I want to see how this works out. I'm not sure how much aquasoil it is because it came from another tank next to it. I would have to guess that it is maybe one liter of it. There is 3 bags of flourite black.

I have DIY CO2 on it, but soon will be pressurized co2. My current mixture for the yeast and sugar is set so that I have a LOT of Co2.. hopefully it is enough to fend off algae until I get the system.

I am also waiting on a Ez-clip for my eheim 2026 which is why the aqueon HOB is on it 8-[

I use EI style dosing. Tom Barr's method is awesome! It works every time.

Here's a picture:









I have some pics from the setup but have yet to go through them and pick out the interesting ones.

Tell me what you think!
-Danny


----------



## Nerbaneth (Jun 30, 2009)

I went through my pictures and picked out the ones that might be interesting or informative:

When I first got the tank I put it in front of the place it was going to go (where my 20 gallon was). Of course I decided to measure incorrectly before going out and buying it. It was too big! This was especially interesting because my walls are lined with aquariums and I didn't have a place for it anywhere else. After a LOT of measuring with my girlfriend's bright pink fabric tape measure, we found out how to do it minimizing the amount of aquarium moving while still making both her and I happy.









During the move we had this aquarium set up on the floor.









the nervous moment when you fill up a rimless tank for the first time. Is it going to break??!! After a day or so you feel better about it.









This is the tank it will be next to and on the ground you can see a green bucket that had my girlfriend's peacock mantis shrimp! That thing was fun to move because the bucket we originally intended for it to go in was apparently too small. It kept jumping out to go carpet surfing. It seemed to like this bucket.









The hardscape. Luckily I have these rocks right outside my door. I just walked around and picked up about 3 times what I actually needed, cleaned them off and then moved them around until I liked it.









Ah yes.. flourite... even though I washed it out really well, it still does this. I hear that if you wash it, let it dry and then fill up the water, it somehow doesn't cloud.









After 3 or 4 water changes I was finally sick of it and decided that this was good enough!









I made the bathroom messy. Hey look! There is my eheim that isn't in my tank!









I didn't have to go far to find trimmings...









Softscape? Unfortunately a lot of my plants came from my 20 gal and I didn't have as much as I had hoped for.









Ally the peacock mantis shrimp is OK!









This is the latest picture! It is still a little foggy and things need to grow in, but I think I like it.









Tell me what you think!
-Danny


----------



## Tex Gal (Nov 1, 2007)

Love that shrimp! Looking good.


----------



## wicca27 (Oct 13, 2008)

looks good from that view.


----------



## Nerbaneth (Jun 30, 2009)

Thanks for both of your comments!



wicca27 said:


> looks good from that view.


Should I take some shots of different angles of the aquarium?

Should I go with a white or black background?

Thanks,
-Danny


----------



## wicca27 (Oct 13, 2008)

from the look of the pic it is eather straight on or looking up from the bottom edge. i was wondering what it looks like from like looking from the top edge down. not like over the top of the tank just at an angle. as for back ground i dont really know. i would thing that white would put more light in the tank but i myself dont have but one background on a tank at the moment and it is a moss wall a friend made me. i have started a diy stone background and will start a log in photobucket soon


----------



## Veloth (Jun 25, 2008)

Nice looking tank! How about a light blue with a fade to white closer to the center for the background


----------



## yungreefer2410 (Jul 14, 2009)

mantis shrimp i thought where only saltwater dwellers? i know ppl with that same shrimp in reef tanks. also they will eat your fish


----------



## hydrophyte (Mar 1, 2009)

I like it. The only thing that I would change would be to slide that center rock either to the left or the right--it's right in the middle now and equidistant from the other two rocks in front.

It should look real nice when those stems grow in a little more.


----------



## Nerbaneth (Jun 30, 2009)

yungreefer2410 said:


> mantis shrimp i thought where only saltwater dwellers? i know ppl with that same shrimp in reef tanks. also they will eat your fish


That is my girlfriend's mantis shrimp that was moved from the location that my tank is now. Ally(the mantis) went through a pretty hard time including some carpet surfing during the move across the room, so I figured I would post a picture showing that she is doing alright now 



hydrophyte said:


> I like it. The only thing that I would change would be to slide that center rock either to the left or the right--it's right in the middle now and equidistant from the other two rocks in front.
> 
> It should look real nice when those stems grow in a little more.


:twitch: I can't believe I missed that! The rock _is dead center_. I put a rock directly to the right of it that is pretty small to compensate for that weird area, but it is obviously too small. I think shifting it to the right will look much better. I also noticed how much of a shadow that rock has, but I think that will be fixed when I get my lights in the mail.
Thank you!

A note on my lights:
In previous orders, innovativelights.com has been wonderful with fast shipping and customer service. Recently they are not reliable at all. I hope they change back to what they used to be. I placed the order a week ago and they never even charged my card or shipped it! I have sent out 3 emails with no reply.. very frustrating! My last email was to cancel my order 

I am now considering other fixtures than the coralife t5 NO. If anyone knows of a good fixture with 4 t5's in it for around $150 I would be interested. I found a 4 t5 light for $120 at fishneedit.com but they aren't going to be in stock until September! I might wait. 2 bulb t5HO fixtures for around $60 or $70 would also work.

More pictures coming soon,
-Danny


----------



## bratyboy2 (Feb 5, 2008)

i like the goldfish tank!!!!!


----------



## Nerbaneth (Jun 30, 2009)

> i like the goldfish tank!!!!!


Thank you!

It is my girlfriend's tank. She is very proud of her goldfish - each of them have names and personalities to match  I traded her that 90gal for her 20gal that the goldfish were in because I wanted a smaller tank to aquascape in. Now the 20gal is empty (isn't it horrible to own a tank that isn't full?!) and the 90-p is in it's place!

Breaking News:

I ordered my lights for the tank - finally - after a week or more of debating 'tek? current? coralife? metal halide?! retrofit?! ah supply?!?! DIY?!?!? 10k?!?! 67k?!?!!?! t5? CFL!!!?!' I decided I wanted 4 t5ho on my tank. Deciding between tek, current sundial and fishneedit.com lights took a while. Considering I have already spent $500 on this setup as a college student (eep!) I went with the fishneedit.com lights. I hear nothing but good reviews online of these lights. The only people that say anything bad about them are the people that have never given them a chance.

Two 2x39w t5ho lights are in the mail for $129. 2x6700k bulbs and 2x10000k bulbs.
and I never want to think about lights again.

I think I am finally going to take some pictures of my tank in a few minutes. I have to plant a couple stray pearlgrass strands and then I will have some pictures to show everyone!

-Danny


----------



## Nerbaneth (Jun 30, 2009)

some updated pictures from more angles:
I forgot to clean the glass... heh... of course I noticed this after I took 30 pictures.





































Any requests, questions or comments are gladly appreciated.

News Update:
My lights will be in Thursday! It will be nice to finally have some decent lights - hopefully it is not too much. I found a 5lb co2 tank, regulator, needle valve, diffuser and electronic solenoid for 100 bucks... I think I will be purchasing that on Sat or Sun. I just hope a 5lb tank lasts a 90 gallon and 90-p at least a month!

Thanks,
Danny


----------



## Nerbaneth (Jun 30, 2009)

*Re: Nerbaneth's 90-p Journal - Now with real lights!*

Just got my fish need it lights in the mail. I am very impressed for the price I paid. They make the tank look amazing by intensely lighting it up and they don't look cheap. They even have really awesome venting holes shaped like a fat fish.

I took a picture accidentally with flash on, and there is was so much light being pushed out of the tank that the flash didn't effect the photo. (even my MH is effected by flash)









you can see the difference between t5HO and t5NO comparing the 90 gal to the 90-p. Both tanks have 4 t5's on them.



















-Danny


----------



## Travis.808 (Apr 2, 2009)

Nice tanks! I originally wanted to have goldfish in my planted but was told they'd eat all the plants and uproot stuff. Have you guys had any problems with this?


----------



## Nerbaneth (Jun 30, 2009)

They get a bad name because comets, koi, shubunkin, and commons (the long bodied goldfish) do eat plants. The round, fat, reverse-evolution style goldfish usually will not pick on plants. There is always going to be a plant that for some weird reason they find incredibly delicious, but there will be many more types of plants that they won't touch. The only real complaint I have about them is that they uproot plants that haven't rooted well to the soil- you would benefit from a deep substrate to shove the plants into. 

Rules are meant to be broken I guess...

-Danny


----------



## Nerbaneth (Jun 30, 2009)

Update:

I just bought a CO2 setup in Tucson for $10 :shock:

It came with a 10lb tank, dual gauge regulator and a solenoid. Yay for craigslist! Anti-Yay for gas supply shops not being open on sunday.

-Danny


----------



## hydrophyte (Mar 1, 2009)

Hey that looks great--really nice and simple but effective. 

Nice score on that CO2 system.


----------



## Nerbaneth (Jun 30, 2009)

I took some new pictures today. I've trimmed a couple times just to thicken or reshape plants that I did not like how they were growing. I'm pretty sure you are not supposed to trim as much as I have because some of my plants have dead leaves next to where I trimmed. I moved a couple rocks around, added one rock. There is still a lot of growing in to do. Its getting there.

Pictures:

































I just did a little trimming and moving around last night and added baby tears so there is inevitably some trimmings at the top and my water is a bit cloudy.

Tell me what you think
-Danny


----------



## Travis.808 (Apr 2, 2009)

Nerbaneth said:


> Pictures:


 :twitch:

Not sure why but, I couldn't see your pics the only one that had a correct url was this one:








for some reason it didn't show either:twitch: Anyway, looks great!


----------



## Nerbaneth (Jun 30, 2009)

I used a different server to host my pictures this time.. I thought I was going to have some problems! I switched it back to the server I normally use. Does it work now?
-Danny

<---
New pics are on page 2


----------



## Travis.808 (Apr 2, 2009)




----------



## fishaquatics (Aug 2, 2009)

The tank looks amazing! What type of plant is covering the gravel? 
-Ian


----------



## barakainus (Jun 11, 2009)

I'm so excited seeing all the ADA 90 tanks' scapes since I bouth one for myself. Trying to find a scape I'd like but that is also different from any other. Your is one of those. I like the stones straight up.

May I ask, do you use both of the light fixtures? Isn't it too much light. I have just one 2x39 T5 and I worry about the coverage but don't want to have too much light and fight algea or suffocating fish from too much CO2.


----------

