Hi everyone,
As before, here is a journal that is pretty late (scape has been setup since November 2022). The tank has gone though a lot of changes since the start. As always, it isn't as easy as you would imagine it to be. You would see that my early vision was to have a nice clean layer of bright sand along with lots of hair grass at the back. However, the tank didn't do very well. I lost a lot of the fish and to mitigate some of the health issues in the livestock, I made multiple changes at once. Hence, it isn't necessarily obvious which change tipped the point from imbalance to balance. Regardless, I think the tweaked parameters were all important for my plants + livestock.
Tank: ADA 60F (used)
Cabinet: custom build bought used
light: ADA aqua sky 601 with mirror -> Twistar 600SA --> Ecotech radion XR15FW pro gen 3 (or 4)
Filter: Eheim 2215 fully cycled from my ADA 60p setup
CO2: 5lb CO2 with GLA regulator
Heater : Archea slim 10watt (died unceremoniously) --> Hydor inline 200watt heater
Stones: lava rock + pieces of ADA Koke stone
Substrate: Fluorite black , caribsea big grain sand
The build started with an intention to clear out my 60p that was already long in the tooth (nearly 4y+. It was setup in 2018). I bought the 60F used since I like the form factor and knew that they were discontinuing that size. I used it as a farm tank for my carnivorous plants. When the time came to set it up, I finally cleaned it out and the true beauty of this tank and its size was revealed. The old owner of the tank was fantastic with the tank and took great care of it. There were hardly any scratches (which couldn't be said for my 60p which had deep scratches and gashes at the soil line (due to me using a credit card to clean the algae off the glass and rubbing sand on the glass)) and it looked almost brand new.
Cleaned up
This is the scape I came up with. I got some help from the folks on the TAC on discord. I really liked how the lava stone looked so natural. Considering the stone was almost a sphere, it just sat in/settled perfectly to make it look super natural and dynamic. I love the look in the mirror.
Live stock was added pretty much right away. I moved the filter from my 60p which was at this time bare-bottom with some rock and mosses leftover from the old scape. As a result, the filter should have been the major component with bacteria. So the moment I moved the filter over, I moved the fish over into the tank. This is the first looks of the fish in the tank. While I love the light and mirror unit, asian rummynose are very skittish and paranoid. To prevent loosing them from jumping, I decided to switch back to my old twinstar 600SA with a dimmer extension that turns on the light gently.
I'll continue with the further phases of this tank below.
As before, here is a journal that is pretty late (scape has been setup since November 2022). The tank has gone though a lot of changes since the start. As always, it isn't as easy as you would imagine it to be. You would see that my early vision was to have a nice clean layer of bright sand along with lots of hair grass at the back. However, the tank didn't do very well. I lost a lot of the fish and to mitigate some of the health issues in the livestock, I made multiple changes at once. Hence, it isn't necessarily obvious which change tipped the point from imbalance to balance. Regardless, I think the tweaked parameters were all important for my plants + livestock.
Tank: ADA 60F (used)
Cabinet: custom build bought used
light: ADA aqua sky 601 with mirror -> Twistar 600SA --> Ecotech radion XR15FW pro gen 3 (or 4)
Filter: Eheim 2215 fully cycled from my ADA 60p setup
CO2: 5lb CO2 with GLA regulator
Heater : Archea slim 10watt (died unceremoniously) --> Hydor inline 200watt heater
Stones: lava rock + pieces of ADA Koke stone
Substrate: Fluorite black , caribsea big grain sand
The build started with an intention to clear out my 60p that was already long in the tooth (nearly 4y+. It was setup in 2018). I bought the 60F used since I like the form factor and knew that they were discontinuing that size. I used it as a farm tank for my carnivorous plants. When the time came to set it up, I finally cleaned it out and the true beauty of this tank and its size was revealed. The old owner of the tank was fantastic with the tank and took great care of it. There were hardly any scratches (which couldn't be said for my 60p which had deep scratches and gashes at the soil line (due to me using a credit card to clean the algae off the glass and rubbing sand on the glass)) and it looked almost brand new.
Cleaned up
This is the scape I came up with. I got some help from the folks on the TAC on discord. I really liked how the lava stone looked so natural. Considering the stone was almost a sphere, it just sat in/settled perfectly to make it look super natural and dynamic. I love the look in the mirror.
Live stock was added pretty much right away. I moved the filter from my 60p which was at this time bare-bottom with some rock and mosses leftover from the old scape. As a result, the filter should have been the major component with bacteria. So the moment I moved the filter over, I moved the fish over into the tank. This is the first looks of the fish in the tank. While I love the light and mirror unit, asian rummynose are very skittish and paranoid. To prevent loosing them from jumping, I decided to switch back to my old twinstar 600SA with a dimmer extension that turns on the light gently.
I'll continue with the further phases of this tank below.
