# 55gal New setup Journal



## rohape (Feb 7, 2005)

Well I FINALLY got to set my El Natural tank up!! I'm so excited. It's been weeks since I started preparing with my bottle test, airing out the soil and waiting for the right time.
The soil is el cheapo from Lowe's, with some crushed shell mixed in. It's about 1-1.5" deep. I lined the edge of the tank with gravel. I trimmed my plants a lot so when they fill in I can have more control where and how they grow, plus it's always nice to watch a tank grow and fill in. 

Plants from left to right: Spiral val (one leaf, long story mistake), Hygrophila Difformis, Ludwigia Ovalis, Hygrophila Corymbosa, Dwarf Sagittaria, Red Melon Sword, and Bacopa.

Fish to be added: 1 Flying fox, 3 Celeste Rainbowfish, ~7 Neons, 3 Cherry Barbs, 8 Otos, 5 asst. Cory's, 2 large Mystery snails.

Fish to buy: 3 Hill stream Loach's, 4 Flying fox's, ~6 neons.

Any comments or suggestions would be great. Suggestions that don't require me to redo any of the substrate.  Don't want to do that again for a VERY long time. 









Before filling, obviously.









I know it looks dim, but it's just the shutter speed. It's 130 watts beaming down.

I will update probably weekly. With more and better pics when there is noticeable change.
Thank you to all for the help on my posts leading up to this point, and for all the help on my posts after this point.


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## Jimbo205 (Feb 2, 2006)

Rohape, I can't wait to watch it fill in and develop. I like your 6500/10,000K.
I am not familiar with JBJ. What does that stand for?


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## treesmcdonald (Mar 14, 2006)

Looking good so far. My only suggestion would be to get some floaters since you are starting with a low plant mass. I like floaters because when the tank settles in you can remove them without ruining your scape. Just don't take out too many at once. A mistake I made once and won't repeat.


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## rohape (Feb 7, 2005)

Jimbo205 said:


> Rohape, I can't wait to watch it fill in and develop. I like your 6500/10,000K.
> I am not familiar with JBJ. What does that stand for?


I don't know what it stands for, just the company name. 



treesmcdonald said:


> Looking good so far. My only suggestion would be to get some floaters since you are starting with a low plant mass. I like floaters because when the tank settles in you can remove them without ruining your scape. Just don't take out too many at once. A mistake I made once and won't repeat.


Thanks for the tip. I will NEVER get duckweed again though. What a pain to clean up!


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## ed seeley (Dec 1, 2006)

> Thanks for the tip. I will NEVER get duckweed again though. What a pain to clean up!


I'd recomend Amazon Frogbit. Quick growing, nice leaves and mine has even flowered in the past! Dead easy to remove too.


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## DataGuru (Mar 11, 2005)

or hornwort, najas grass, anacharis, water lettuce

have you tested for ammonia and nitrIte yet?


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## rohape (Feb 7, 2005)

I have been testing and did a water change yesterday for the ammonia. It got up to 3.0. It was down to .5 after the change. Today it is below .25. 
Nitrites are 0. 
I took your advice dataguru from another thread I had and added crushed shell to my soil, I also added about 1 cup to the top of my gravel. I'm still waiting for that to kick in.

I got some hornwort and water lettuce today. 

As far as progress goes there is a new leaf of Spiral Val popping up, and a new leaf of my Red Sword. The val's leaf has actually grown since this morning! No signs of struggle for any plants yet. I added some neons to test the water today, if all goes well I'll add the rest of the fish tomorrow, and buy some next weekend. 

So far so good!! Again, Thank you all for the help!


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## rohape (Feb 7, 2005)

A question I thought of tonight. Right now I'm running my filter with biological filtration only, and thick pillow batting just to remove debris. Do I just run this till everything starts growing better, and do I just remove it all at once or in stages?

I'll update with photos tomorrow!


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## rohape (Feb 7, 2005)

As I said, here are some updated photos! There is new growth all around, everything is looking great. The fish aren't gasping...yet. 
I will start removing pieces of the bacterial filtration throughout the week, maybe do 1 stage a week. So far still very happy!!

NPT 19feb07 - a photoset on Flickr

If your not familiar with Flickr, when you add a comment you can place a note actually on the picture! Just click on the "Add Note" icon at the top of the picture, where all the other little option icons are. If I hover on the photo I will see the notes for certain areas of the picture. Try it! I'll post one.


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## littleguy (Jan 6, 2005)

rohape said:


> Right now I'm running my filter with biological filtration only, and thick pillow batting just to remove debris. Do I just run this till everything starts growing better, and do I just remove it all at once or in stages?


I would remove all biological filtration. Plants will take up the ammonia/nitrite/nitrate as well as a bio-filter, in my experience. Plus, I don't see the point is spending a few weeks cycling a filter, only to remove it. It is doing nothing for the tank while it cycles except hold back the plants, at a critical point in their lives. Unless it's already cycled from another tank? Even then, the plants will do just fine, probably better, without bio filtration.

Tanks looking good!


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## littleguy (Jan 6, 2005)

I should add, bio-filtration would be helpful in an el natural tank if the fish are producing more ammonia than the plants can take up. You can monitor ammonia for a while to see if this is the case. If there's room to add more plants, I would go that route rather than adding a bio-filter though.

One thing about your tank - I can't tell - but are some of those plants part of the background? If so, then I'm having a hard time telling how many plants you actually have in there LOL


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## SKSuser (Mar 20, 2006)

littleguy,
If you look closely at his picture captioned "Before filling, obviously."
you should be able to see that the picture is of a heavily planted tank. It appears that he has a largish sword looking plant on the right side, and some lower growth on the left.


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## rohape (Feb 7, 2005)

Yes the background has lots of plants. It's an old one, but the wife likes it. I would rather get an all blue background or painted it while I had the tank down, "What's mine is hers" addage. 

New news. It was a successful first night with all the fish. I noticed today the hornwort seems to be in a constant state of pearling. Not in the sense that bubbles are bubbling up all the time but that there are constantly air bubbles tight in the leaves, and small air bubbles stuck on the surface of the water where they released from the hornwort! In all 4 years of fish keeping I have never had successful ipearling. It has always been after a water change, or if a stem broke. I have done the CO2 (not pressurized, DIY), strict fert dosing regime. I am so happy!!! And, I can finally take out that stupid air stone!!!!!

Thank you Diana for your hard work and research, and thank you all here at APC for all your help and suggestions!!!   

I get my new fish next Thursday. 3 Hill stream loaches, 4 upside down catfish, and at least a dozen neons!!! I'll update with pics, if I don't update sooner.


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## rohape (Feb 7, 2005)

YAY UPDATES!!! hoto: =D>

One week into this. I had to add my airstone, all the fish were gasping at the surface. I attribute this to just not having enough plants yet.

Everything else is going great though! All the plants are doing wonderful! New growth everywhere. 4 new leaves on my Melon Sword. That's the fastest I have ever seen it grow. It's usually about 1 leaf a week. I now have 4 total leaves on the spiral val. I have added some plants for contrast. Here are some new pics, you may not see a huge difference, but it's nice to see pics. 
Feel free to browse my few other pics too. 

25feb07 - a photoset on Flickr
If you would like to see a better shot of any of the plants just let me know, I love taking photos! hoto: hoto:
Once again, I get my new order of fishies on Thursday!! :bounce:


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## 01krisp10 (Feb 18, 2007)

I agree, remove the filtration. Maybe replace it with a AquaClear powerhead with a quick filter if you still want filtration? 

Watching planted tanks take off is amazing!


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## rohape (Feb 7, 2005)

I think littleguy was just referring to the biological filtration, not the actual filter. Besides it would seem such a waste to remove such a nice filter and a UVS, and then spend money on something else.

Yes, it is nice to see something work out good...finally.


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## littleguy (Jan 6, 2005)

rohape said:


> I think littleguy was just referring to the biological filtration, not the actual filter.


Correct.

Glad things are working out well, after all the planning!


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## treesmcdonald (Mar 14, 2006)

YAH! Grow plants grow. Soon the plants will cover up your background and all you will see is real plants.


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## rohape (Feb 7, 2005)

treesmcdonald said:


> YAH! Grow plants grow. Soon the plants will cover up your background and all you will see is real plants.


[smilie=l: That's what the spiral val's will do. They used to go all across the back of the tank, but in the transition I made a booboo, and lost all of them but that one....long story.

Thank you all for the comments. I will keep updating as things change.

On another note, I forgot to add some baking soda at the beginning to give my tank a jump start on the KH. I added some this morning, I took a reading tonight and my KH is at around 50ppm, and my PH is around 7.4. Things should be looking very good in the next week now. For those of you that don't know, I had a KH of 0 before.


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## rohape (Feb 7, 2005)

Well I'll probably stop updating since things are slowing down and being normal. So it's not all exciting, but I thought I would post a some pictures of then, and now. Kind of neat to see the growth.  Thanks again to everyone for their help.

19 Feb 07








6 March 07


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## SKSuser (Mar 20, 2006)

Cool!
Good luck with it.


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## Jimbo205 (Feb 2, 2006)

I am very glad that you posted some photos on your thread. I could not see the ones on flickr. 

I am glad that everything went so well.


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