2/27/05

I used about an inch of topsoil with about an inch of gravel on top and amended the soil with 8 cups of oyster shell. Added a gravel overlayer. Let it sit overnight, then changed out most of the water. It has two Penguin powerheads each pushing 170 gallons per hour through a foam prefilter. 100 watts of 6500K compact fluorescent light inside reflectors from the clamp on worklights... mounted on pvc and hung from the ceiling with chain and it's sitting in front of south windows.

 

Left Side. In the back, sunset hygro, radican sword, and an ozelot sword. In front there's mondo grass, bronze wendetti, and micro swords (Lilaeopsis novaezelandiae).

 

Middle: ozelot sword, giant hairgrass, and ludwigia I think. In front of the hair grass are some medium sized dwarf sag and in front of that more micro swords.

 

Right side: in back some unknown plant, amazon sword, wysteria.In front: micro swords, Cryptocoryne lutea and a bronze wendetti.

 

3/5/05 Drained the tank and added two more amazon swords, another of the oval leaved swords, more sunset hygro, more wysteria, and water sprite. Added the rest of the gravel and Added a bunch of floating plants: parrot's feather, salvenia, frogbit, duckweed. ammonia at 2ppm at midnite.

 

 

3/6/05 ammonia at 1ppm at 9am. Added a bunch of najas grass. My daughter rescued the bird dog in the pic last week. He was one big bag of bones, but is starting to recover.

 

 

3/12/05 Replaced the unknown plant in the middle of the tank with sunset hygro. Planted some najas grass behind the oval-leaved sword on the left side. Added some hornwort. Drained and refilled.

 

Emergent. parrot's feather, salvenia, duckweed, frogbit and not pictured water hyacinth.

 

3/20/05 Added java fern and Echinodorus tenellus. Ammonia and nitrIte has been at 0ppm for a couple of days. Acclimated and added the two new goldies, but they were stirring up bubbles from the substrate when they foraged in the gravel. After pressing down on the substrate to release bubbles, and smelling hydrogen sulfide, I removed the goldies back to the 20 long. I tried to press down on all areas of the substrate to release as much H2S as possible. That resulted in the water yellowing up, so I did a large partial water change. I hear that patience is a virtue. Anyhow, the plants are growing up a storm. I'll be glad when the topsoil gets used to being submerged.

 

Ozelot sword plantlets

 

 

4/5/05 The ozelot sword bloomed.

 

4/6/05 The plants are growing up a storm. I'll be glad when the topsoil gets used to being submerged.

 

6/8/05 It's been around 5 months since the tank was set up. The Endlers have been doing fine in it and breeding like there's no tomorrow. The plants are doing great. NitrAtes are only 20ppm, pH is 7.6 and ammonia was 0ppm... Still bubbling a bit from the substrate and the bubbles still smell like H2S. So I fished out like three quarters of the Endlers and moved the goldies in. Here are some pics.

 

Left side

 

Middle

 

Right side

 

The first day, they're having a ball... scrounging everywhere for food. Feasting on snails, etc. But... in the process they do piledrivers with their faces into the substrate. No problems at all with then getting to the soil, but the pressure on the substrate releases gas bubbles which go into their mouths. They appear to be spitting the bubbles out their mouths... and don't show any signs of stress. I test ammonia before I go to bed and it's up to .5ppm. ok that's not too bad given the pH. The next morning I get up and ammonia is still at .5ppm. I leave them there for several more hours till I see that everyone is breathing more rapidly than normal and seem lethargic... The big chocolate oranda (Coco) is just hovering a couple of inches below the surface breathing rapidly, so I put them back in their original tank. Today they're still acting a bit lethargic, especially Coco. I'm just not sure the natural planted tank thing is going to work for goldies. :(

 

7/30/05 a jungle. the dwarf sag isn't dwarf. Both the original ozelot and now the amazon sword are sending off runners with plantlets on them as is the unknown plant in the left foreground.

 

11/20/05 It's still a jungle even tho I've been pulling out maybe 200 sag subulata plants a month. All three large sword plants have runner with plantlets on them.

 

1/15/06 Decided to put the angelfish in the 125 and it's pretty clear he needed more swimming room, so I pulled up about a 4" strip of sag subulata across the entire front of the tank and planted some echinodorus tenellus which will helpfully stay short. I've added six more clamp lights.

 

8/4/06

I'm finally starting to get a foreground happening, tho the sag is seriously invasive and hard to tell apart from the tenellus until it gets taller than the tenellus. I haven't done any plant pulling-out for a couple of weeks now. Residents include two angels, 5 female ameca splendens (the male was too aggressive, so he's out in the pond), 3 skirt tetras, 1 flag fish, some swordtails, some rosy barbs, a flying fox, some cories and a bunch o Endlers and snails (mainly ramshorns and MTS).

 

Nov 05, 2006
Either the sag subulata or the vals were blooming today. :)

 

Here they are after they opened some more.

 

 

3/10/07

 

10/6/07

Plants include a huge amazon sword on the right, background is sag subulata, giant hairgrass and jungle vals. On the left is crypt wendetti bronze and some other sword plant. Foreground is e tenellus. Doesn't look like there are any fish in it.
but there are.
gazillions of Endler's Livebearers
female bettas
turquise rainbowfish
bunch o corys
featherfin catfish
dojo loaches
bn plecos
a flying fox
an ameca splendens who just won't be caught
MTS and ramshorn snails

 

2/8/09

It currently has around 180 watts of 6500K light over it.
Plants from L to R include: Bronze crypt wendetti, e quadracostatus, forground is e tenellus, behind the crypts is an indian red sword. R side is a big amazon sword. Background is sag subulata, jungle vals and giant hairgrass.
Current inhabitants include corys, 6 featherfin catfish, a common pleco, bristlenose plecos, 3 angels, a bunch of endlers, a female betta and two Betta cf. pugnax. There are supposed to be 3 dojo loaches, but I've only seen one up from recently. They're either staying out of sight or are snail food.
Filtration is two powerheads with foam prefilters.
300 watt heater

 

Oct 18, 2009
Sunlight is finally coming in thru the south windows and the 125 is magnificent! I so love this time of year.

These are with just sunlight. The tank lights aren't on.