This page was last updated Saturday, April 10, 2004 12:51 PM
This page is intended to maintain a sort of online journal detailing the progress of my attempt at a "Natural" Planted Freshwater Aquarium. I expect to be posting a series of pictures showing the progress of this project over time. There will also be links to a few other things along the way.
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[Links] [Progress Log] [Large Progress Photos] [Other Stuff] |
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My tank is a 125 Gallon Nature's View with two
36" 96 Watt Coralife 6500K Power Compact Fluorescent light fixtures loaded with
Coralife 6500K "Freshwater" bulbs, as well as the original two standard 30 Watt
fluorescent strip lights. This puts me at ~ 2 watt/gallon, which is considered the
minimum for a planted tank. I am using a combination of filtration, including a Rena
FilStar XP3 and a Penguin 1140 powerhead running two BioWheel Pro 60's.
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| Unfortunately my digital
camera is quite old (> 5 years) and only takes about a 0.38 Megapixel picture. Yep -
good old 640x480, not even one megapixel. So - to get the whole tank in any kind of
detail, I have to take three overlapping pictures, and then try to 'blend' them together
in an image program. This is why the pictures will appear distorted if you look closely.
Still - the picture is enough to show the progress of the plants.
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I intend to update on a periodic basis. Each
update will show a picture on this page, so that viewers will be able to see the progress
of the tank easily and clearly. This is actually for my own benefit - in reading
various resources on the web before I started this project, one of the main recurring
comments was "Take Pictures! Otherwise you'll never be able to tell which
plants are growing well and which ones aren't!" Clicking on each progress
picture will bring up a page with a larger copy of the picture and more description of
what's happening at that time.
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Click each picture to see a larger version of the picture, along with a description of what was going on at the time the picture was taken. Or - just look at the pretty pictures! A note about the numbering of
weeks on this page - I take the picture and write the comments at the end of each
week - thus the picture and comment for "First week" was done at the End of
the first week, and the tank would be one week old. |
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New Tank! January 25th, 2004 The text behind this picture is long and involved - taken from a letter that I wrote to a few friends and family members explaining what I was up to. Feel free to read it or ignore it. Please note that I am not an expert, however I may sound. Anyone is welcome to the information as presented, but I do not pretend to be infallible - I'm presenting this information as I understand it, in the hopes that others may find helpful and/or interesting. More Info Here!
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First Week! January 30th, 2004 Lots of Growth - more than I ever thought possible - especially notice the plant behind the stump. The plant on the right has new leaves, and the one just to the left of center, a "Pennywort", also has many new leaves, although it hasn't gotten any taller. Remember - at this point, the tank has only been 'running' for one week! More Info Here!
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| Second Week - February 7th, 2004
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Third Week - February 13th, 2004 Things are really kicking off now - including problems. I added several fish over this week, and overdid it. The water has become slightly hazy. I did get lots of Otocinculus Catfish, and they're making major inroads in the brown algae. I've installed the C02 'reactor.' The plants are just exploding, especially on the right side of the tank. A new "Mystery" plant has appeared as well! We're approaching a danger zone - the one-month mark. If I'm doing things correctly, the plants should continue growing. But - if I'm missing something or doing something wrong, some or all of the plants will begin to run out of various trace nutrients and their growth will slow down or stop. More Info Here!
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Fourth Week - February 20th, 2004 Some things are still growing, others aren't. Nitrates are still too high, in spite of continuing water changes. I'm going to start doing bigger water changes and see if that helps... Ironic that the plants were supposed to *save* me work by providing better, more stable water quality - and yet this is by far the most work I've ever had to put into an aquarium. On the other hand, it's the most satisfaction I've gotten out of an aquarium, too. Mid-Week
Update! 2/25/04
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Fifth Week - February 27th, 2004 Geez, what a week! On the downside, start with Ich in the tank. Yank all the fish for treatment, and now the algae is running amok. To work on the algae, I added six good sized Black Mollies to the tank Thursday. The Mollies loved it! They went after the algae like crazy. Things are looking up. Friday, I get a freaked-out phone call from my roommate, who claims that there's all these 'little black things' swimming around the tank. Yep! One of the Mollies was pregnant! Dropped her whole brood, and evidently the other Mollies were so sated on Algae that they didn't bother the babies at all. Now I have a HUGE algae crew grazing around the the tank. Again - What a week! P.S. - the "Green-ness" of this picture is due in part to the algae, and in part to my fiddling with the settings on the camera, trying to get a better picture. Sorry 'bout that... More Info Here!
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Sixth Week - February 27th, 2004 Sweet Mother of Jefferson Davis! Pictures, Pictures, Pictures! The new Plant Collection arrived today, and as I type this update, I'm also working on the new aquascape in the tank! Note the incredible reduction in algae from last week! The black Mollies have just done a stunning job. Regular fish are still in the "Hospice" tank - I'll start moving them back over during the week. The picture above is the "Before" picture (taken around 3:00pm). I had put the 'stump' back in earlier this week - I've cut a hole in the top so it'll act as a planter. Here's the "During" picture (taken around 5:00pm or so):  Most of the lights have been taken off the tank, which is why this picture is so dark. The collection came in a surprisingly small box, but is now 'fluffing up' and filling the tank amazingly. Next, here's the "After" picture - taken Saturday morning:  The picture from Friday night was very murky and glaring due to the kruft I'd stirred up from the gravel. This one is much clearer. I'm using a different camera this week, and it took a while to figure out the flash and exposure settings. I finally gave up on the HOT Magnum for primary filtration - it just wasn't quite up to it, so I dug up a big canister filter and that's running now. The BIO-Wheel PRO's are still running - connected to the powerhead in the upper left.. The rocks are back, but in different locations. Most of the plants in the tank have been moved. Only five of the original plants are still where they started - can you tell which ones? (I know - unfair question...) Sunday Update! I've worked up a layout map of the new aquascape! More Info Here!
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Seventh Week - March 12th, 2004 We're definitely seeing growth here. I've even seen little instances of pearling again. Unfortunately, the plants I thought would grow really tall (and therefore put in the back of the tank) have pretty much just sat there. The plants I thought would be about average size have really shot up - obscuring the (now) shorter plants in the back. The tank clarified last weekend, which was a tremendous relief. I was afraid it would never be really clear ever again. More Info Here!
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Eighth Week - March 20th, 2004 Evidently I'm doing something right. I don't even need
to talk about growth, just look at the difference between this picture and the one
directly above it. Almost everything is doing very well. One small clump of the
blood stargrass (rotala indica) has kinda died off, but most everything else is
doing well. The Lily on the stump is looking really nice now. A side note:
The color in this picture is much closer to accurate than the picture above;
the digital camera tends to try and correct the color by adding a lot of blue - it
evidently can't believe there's that much green in the shot. . This week I've
actually corrected the color to something more like reality, and - yes - the tank really
is that green. More Info Here!
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Ninth Week - March 27th, 2004 It has only been a total of nine weeks time since I started this tank. I won't claim to be any kind of aquascape artist - but I'm still astounded at what this tank has become and how fast it happened. I'm not quite done yet - I really don't have much in the way of foreground or midground planting, mainly since most of the plants that were supposed to be foreground or midground either died off (the blood stargrass) or shot up like crazy (Limnophilia Sessiflora and Hyrophila rosanervis). One change I've made this week is to switch the canister filter output to a spraybar on the left end of the tank, rather than just a outlet. This should allow me to fill in that 'hole' in the left end of the tank, above the stump. More Info Here!
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| Tenth Week No picture for this week - my apologies. It just never quite got done. Nothing much happened, anyway... More Info Here!
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Eleventh Week - April 10th, 2004 Last week I 'topped' a lot of the plants, and moved a couple things around a little bit. The red tiger little on the left is getting taller, and putting out more leaves. The color of the lily on the stump is just gorgeous. The two Ozelot swords are doing wel, and one of the adventitious shoots that I cut off the bigger Ozelot is settling in and starting to put forth more leaves. The two others aren't doing so well, but I'm still watching them. The curious blank spot in the middle of the tank is actually a reflection of the wall behind me. More Info Here!
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Here's a list of links to various sites that I've been using as references. I want to thank the maintainers of these sites (some of these have been running for years!) for their time and effort. Without the information these individuals and groups provided, I probably would never have attempted this project.
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| Contact Me
Here: mosdhorton@yahoo.com Please note that I have Yahoo's Spam Filters turned on, and they may 'lose' your email, for which I apologize. (This account does about 800 spam a week and about four 'valid' messages in the same period. Argh!) |
