# New Tank



## Rob Tetrazona (Jun 21, 2005)

This is my new 75G. It has a 2x54 T5 light & pressurized CO2 (Milwaukee components).










Here it is with some plants in it.










I moved all of the ananchris, ambulia, & rotala from upstairs, because they are fast growers. I also planted a bunch of glosso. :supz:

The amazon sword was dying back upstairs from lack of light. Go figure! However, I separated another plant off the rhyzome!

The pH is set at 6.5. The KH is 6. This puts me at 57ppm. I'm going to just let it cruise for a couple of weeks on a 10 hour timer with no fish.

Algae is probably inevitable, but it's fun starting w/ HO light, pressurized CO2, & dry ferts from the beginning w/o fish. I don't have any worries of sufficating my faves. Take that snails!

Basically, I thinned out my original 75G for the new one. Now I have room for more plants. Too bad I'm missing this plant meeting. I don't have any worries about either tank growing in quickly.

After the tank grows in and the CO2 comes back down to earth, I have about 100 or so Cherry Barb fry that I will be dumping into this tank. An assorment of Tetra fry will follow along w/ some cory cat & ancitrus fry. I can't wait! It's officially planted, so I'm happy!


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## MatPat (Mar 22, 2004)

I just did a massive pruning of my 75g tank today. I pulled one of those Rubbermaid shoeboxes full of plants out of the tank. I will be planting those trimmings in the 55g tomorrow if I can find room for them. 

Since you won't be at the meeting, I could send you some stuff if you're interested! I've got a lot of R. macrandra, a few stems of Limnophila aromatica from Oriental Aquarium, Rotala sp 'Vietnam' and probably a few others I can't think of right now. The R. macrandra would be good to get a little bit of red color in the tank  

If you read up on them, don't pay any attention to them being called "difficult" plants. They aren't that difficult as long as you keep your ferts and CO2 up. I have plenty and will have more in the future so it's no big deal if they don't make it  

I think this tank is off to a nice start but I would definately add more plants. I have plenty of Water Sprite and Hygrophila difformis that would be a bit slower growing than the anachris if you want to give them a try also. Just let me know and I can get some stuff out in the mail tomorrow afternoon!


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## Rob Tetrazona (Jun 21, 2005)

I guess I missed my chance on the plants, but I appreciate the offer. Oh well, I'm going to just stick it out like I did before. It won't be as bad this time, because I'm off to a better start. 

I also have Albino Ancitrus for the algae that grows on the glass and Rosy Barbs for hair algae. I didn't have these true algae eaters during my first algae outbreak. I won't add the fish until I need to and at that time I'll drop the CO2 levels back down to torerable for the fish.


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## ranmasatome (Aug 5, 2005)

Hi.. i think its a great tank..but you need more plants for now.. water sprite is very good for tanks just starting out.. you can remove them later if you dont like them or when the tank matures.


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## MatPat (Mar 22, 2004)

rwoehr said:


> I guess I missed my chance on the plants, but I appreciate the offer. Oh well, I'm going to just stick it out like I did before. It won't be as bad this time, because I'm off to a better start.


Nope, I still have the plants. Some are planted in the 55g some are floating. I wouldn't toss them with the meeting coming up, someone can always use more plants 

I think the experience of setting up the first tank will do more for the algae control than the algae eaters! You know what could happen now and are better prepared to deal with it! Do let us know if the fish help out though.


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## Rob Tetrazona (Jun 21, 2005)

I confused you. I meant that I missed yesterday's shipping date, not that you were pitching trimmings. Sorry.

I'm not too concerned about getting algae in my new tank. I want to see how well these fish can keep up with the algae growth. Once again, this will be another science experiment. Kewl!


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## MatPat (Mar 22, 2004)

rwoehr said:


> I confused you.


That's not too hard to do 



rwoehr said:


> I meant that I missed yesterday's shipping date, not that you were pitching trimmings. Sorry.


I can still send them tomorrow if you want. They should get to you Friday or Saturday. Since you may be gone Saturday, I can send them on Monday, just let me know what you prefer if you want them.

Not sure how many at the meeting will be interested since not everyone is using CO2. I don't think the R. macrandra will do well without it. I've got plenty of Water Sprite and H. difformis (Water Wisteria) too if you're interested. If no one wants it at the meeting I will post it here for about the cost of my shipping expenses! I really need to get rid of this stuff 



rwoehr said:


> I'm not too concerned about getting algae in my new tank. I want to see how well these fish can keep up with the algae growth. Once again, this will be another science experiment. Kewl!


Algae is usually pretty easy to overcome, especially with higher CO2 levels and plenty of nutrients. Experiments are always fun, keep us posted!


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## Rob Tetrazona (Jun 21, 2005)

MatPat said:


> I can still send them tomorrow if you want. They should get to you Friday or Saturday. Since you may be gone Saturday, I can send them on Monday, just let me know what you prefer if you want them. !


PM'd you about bringing them to the Sunday meeting.



MatPat said:


> Not sure how many at the meeting will be interested since not everyone is using CO2. I don't think the R. macrandra will do well without it. I've got plenty of Water Sprite and H. difformis (Water Wisteria) too if you're interested. If no one wants it at the meeting I will post it here for about the cost of my shipping expenses! I really need to get rid of this stuff  !


Once, a wise GCAS member with the same handle as you advised me not to have the same plants in 2 different tanks. Having said that, I'm good on the Water Sprite & Water Wisteria, but I'll take about anything else. You've seen the latest pix of both of my planted tanks from the Overgrowth & New Tank threads, so you know what I have. I'd be happy to plant anything new.


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## MatPat (Mar 22, 2004)

rwoehr said:


> Once, a wise GCAS member with the same handle as you advised me not to have the same plants in 2 different tanks. Having said that, I'm good on the Water Sprite & Water Wisteria, but I'll take about anything else. You've seen the latest pix of both of my planted tanks from the Overgrowth & New Tank threads, so you know what I have. I'd be happy to plant anything new.


I do try not to keep the same plants in more than one tank but I still keep the ones I like in multiple tanks! Sometimes the fast growers are needed when you have two fairly new tanks though. I will package up some plants for you after Saturday's meeting and bring them to the GCAS meeting. I will omit the Water Sprite and H. difformis since you don't want more of them.


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## Rob Tetrazona (Jun 21, 2005)

MatPat said:


> I do try not to keep the same plants in more than one tank but I still keep the ones I like in multiple tanks! Sometimes the fast growers are needed when you have two fairly new tanks though. I will package up some plants for you after Saturday's meeting and bring them to the GCAS meeting. I will omit the Water Sprite and H. difformis since you don't want more of them.


Sounds excellent! :rock: Thanks!


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## Rob Tetrazona (Jun 21, 2005)

Well, the lack of plants and CO2 running at pH 6.3 / KH 11 for less than 2 weeks in my new 75G really made the hair algae take off as expected. Maybe even better than expected. I wish I had pix to show, but I will do my best to describe. The glosso patch in the front middle had a 1 sq ft fluffy, cotton-like patch of algae covering it. The anachris and ambulia had some big clumps of this too on the lower sections of the plants. At the tops of all plants are lovely, long strands of hair algae that are well over a foot long in many places. On the back of the tank, it looked like a gorilla's back with green hair that changes direction in the current of the filter. This covered about 3/4 of the back of the tank. 

I'm too lazy to keep pulling this lovely growth out of my tank daily, so I introduced 8 Rosy Barbs into the tank on 9/1, which I guess are about 5-6 months old. The next day I was inspecting the tank and the entire gorilla's back and about 1/2 of the patch covering the glosso were gone! I couldn't believe my eyes, so I watched closely over the holiday weekend. The patch over the glosso is almost entirely gone and lots of long strands from the tops of plants are noticibly gone.

These guys are really doing a great clean up job! It's quite satifying to sit and watch these fish pull a mouthful of algae and swallow it down. Every couple of inches each one swims, a bite is taken at hair algae. It appears that the rate the algae is being eaten is greater than the rate of growth. The Rosy Barbs will win this battle in the short term.

Did I mention that I have yet to feed the Rosy Barbs fish food since introducing them to the new tank? This is a major contributor to their appetites for algae!

I also noticed a different type of algae growing on the front glass which I am yet to identify. It doesn't look like anything I've had before, but then again, maybe I am just noticing it earlier this time around. I introduced a pair of albino ancistrus this weekend, again with no intentions of feeding fish food until their job is done. I have read that they are good at keeping the glass clean. Hired! I'd like to see if this fish can get me out of scraping the glass with razor blade. Wouldn't that be nice!

Experiments like these get more enjoyment out of the hobby for me. I had the luxury of setting up this tank with no rush to have it up and going. No rush to fill it with plants and fish or water for that matter. Since this was the first time I completely set up a CO2 system, all the way down to tightening the regulator onto the cyclinder, the 2 week burn in period gave me time to make sure the CO2 system was working properly without having to worry about killing any fish. Had I not done this, I probably would have killed all fish introduced to this tank due to excessive CO2 levels. Once I felt the CO2 levels were stable enough (about a week), I dropped the CO2 level and in went the Rosy Barbs! 

The Rosy Barbs are working out so well that I will breed them for the group, if there are any interested parties. I'll do it for free, but I don't see me having these fish mature enough to breed, conditioned, spawned, and the fry raised to a size big enough to give away until about the beginning of the year. Not too long to wait for free fish.

At the moment, this appears to be a science experiment gone well, so I thought I'd share. It's nice to witness things first hand that I have only read or heard about (algae eating fish).


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## MatPat (Mar 22, 2004)

Whoa! That is a ton of CO2 in the tank! 

I always talk about manual removal but it looks like the Rosy Barbs are doing a fine job! I'll bet Jim is interested in getting a few from you! I've never had much luck with fish actually removing the algae so congrats on the experiment! Let us know how the ancistrus do also...

With the ample amount of food you are providing for your barbs, I'll bet they grow fast and get to spawning quicker than you expect! 

Things move so slowly in planted tanks that is can be nice to actually see something working.


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## Rob Tetrazona (Jun 21, 2005)

MatPat said:


> Whoa! That is a ton of CO2 in the tank!


Yet just another experiment to see if it could be done!



MatPat said:


> I always talk about manual removal but it looks like the Rosy Barbs are doing a fine job! I'll bet Jim is interested in getting a few from you! I've never had much luck with fish actually removing the algae so congrats on the experiment! Let us know how the ancistrus do also...


It's truly amazing to witness it first hand for the first time. I sure do hope the ancistrus like to do windows! 



MatPat said:


> With the ample amount of food you are providing for your barbs, I'll bet they grow fast and get to spawning quicker than you expect!


That would be nice for me, the breeder, and any fry recipents. Since I have put the Rosy Barbs in this tank, I can actually sex most of them.



MatPat said:


> Things move so slowly in planted tanks that is can be nice to actually see something working.


I hear that. Good thing I have fish breeding to distract me while the plants grow.


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## Rob Tetrazona (Jun 21, 2005)

MatPat said:


> Whoa! That is a ton of CO2 in the tank!


Correction. My KH is 6 and my GH is 11. Big difference!


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## ranmasatome (Aug 5, 2005)

wow.. so whats the ph? i was shocked to see a ph of 6.3 and kh of 11!! any fish would just die in those conditions..lol..


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## Rob Tetrazona (Jun 21, 2005)

ranmasatome said:


> wow.. so whats the ph? i was shocked to see a ph of 6.3 and kh of 11!! any fish would just die in those conditions..lol..


The KH was corrected in the previous posting. The pH was 6.3 @ 6 KH. Now it is at 6.7 pH @ 6 KH with fish.


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