Swiss Army

[Easternlethal]

Hi All Greetings all the way from Hong Kong!

I'd like to introduce myself and put up some pics of my build. This has been going for one and half years and undergone several minor rescapes. It's my first large tank and I call it Swiss Army because I only have space for one tank where I live, so it serves as a home for shrimp, fish and multiple scape philosophies (natural, dutch, even biotope). In short it's all things to everyone (but doesn't do any one of them particularly well )...

Here's the setup...
You can just about make out the aluminium tslot frame I assembled myself, along with the led lighting (also diy)
below it is my old tank..

Frontal...

Ah now the sand... Why do all beginners like the sand/soil combinations? They are such a pita.... ha ha
I used corrugated plastic as dividers...

 

[Easternlethal]

Add plants, water and voila!

sorry for the poor quality pics..

Specs
Dimensions: 90x40x40
Co2: Cerges
Filter: SunSun 704b + Eheim 2217
Ferts: EI
Fish: neon tetras, guppies, rasboras, otos
Inverts: RCS, Amanos, Nerites
Maintenance: 60% WC weekly + trimming/replanting. 2-3 hours per week in total..

Would love to hear suggestions

 

[Easternlethal]

I like looking down over it..

 

[Easternlethal]

But actually something interesting happened along the way..

I suffered a horrible bout of clado/hair algae which took over my parvula! It was horribly difficult to remove, especially with all the shrimplets in it.

What a depressing sight! It's enough to start anyone thinking about tearing it all down.

But wait! Thanks to the advice from this forum (namely, how to get good flow and co2) the problem is more or less licked.

Easy as pie (not really).

Still a few straggly bits of bba which will be taken care of at the next trim.

 

[Jamie McGrath]

Tank looks great.

 

[rebel]

Your LED enclosure is very nice. Care you show off more pictures of how you have set up your LEd?

Tank is chuggin along nicely. Still early days with the diatoms which will pass.

 

[Easternlethal]

Your LED enclosure is very nice. Care you show off more pictures of how you have set up your LEd?

Tank is chuggin along nicely. Still early days with the diatoms which will pass.

This tank is 1.5yrs old! I'm still fighting bba though because can't figure out a way to properly remove organics.

Here's a close up of my lights. I just add whatever i need whenever i need.

 

[Ryan12345]

Hey, love your tank and the layout is really nice, sort of dutch style and the plant colours look amazing EI is really doing well for your plants.
As you said, you have rescaped your tank a few times over the past year, that could be one of your issues with algae as your existing plants have never really settled so algae would be the only thing available to soak up nutrients.
I found that reducing feeding to once every 2 days and feed the same amount as u would daily (so reduce feeding by half effectively). You are doing 60% wc which is plenty, could even go 50-40%, may help stop any swings of elements in ur tap water.
2 flow bars at the back working together facing the front of the glass is perfect, Is the spray able to hit the front glass panel?
I also found that manually removing algae never worked, its something that works its self out.
Please keep updating this, Would love to follow.

 

[rebel]

Have you got some SAE? Sometimes they are the only answer to the 'late' BBA which plagues some tanks.

 

[Easternlethal]

2 flow bars at the back working together facing the front of the glass is perfect, Is the spray able to hit the front glass panel?

Thanks for the compliment. Yes it's able to hit the front glass panel. But not strong enough to reach the substrate at the back. It travels along the sandy path and cleans the bit in the middle but I just can't the flow to reach the left and right bottom corners. There are plants there and it's hard to vac without also sucking up the plants so I have a feeling that's where all my organics are hiding/building. The other things I'm going to try are: more biofiltration (interesting read here: http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/forumapc/filtration/75400-excited-word-about-filtration.html), adding more airstones at the back and purigen.

Have you got some SAE?

I have one SAE and 3 amanos so I could add more..