Been forever! But starting up a NEW tank!

I've been out of the picture for quite awhile, but long story short: I'm pregnant and will be having my husband's and I's first child (a boy) in April. I decided to make our 75 gallon tank into a really pretty Tropical Freshwater Community tank. I want to get started before the little guy gets here since I will be pretty busy once he arrives.

I am planning to use about 30 fake plants, some driftwood and natural stones for aquascaping with a kind of arc of greenery and fairly open in the middle of the tank towards the front.

I've got a Marineland Magnum 350 (if I can get it running again...) filter, a 48" PC light, 2 200 watt heaters, and had a Koralia 2 for water movement, but it's going to have to be replaced....

I am planning on having about 7 Pristella Tetra (Pristella maxillaris), 6 Scissortail Rasbora (Rasbora trilineata), 5 Panda Cory cats (Corydoras panda), 1 Candy Striped Pleco (Peckoltia vittata) and the show piece will be 5 Bosemani Rainbows (Melanotaenia Boesemani).

I'm planning on keeping the temp at 75 degrees F, and pH of 7.0................

So what do ya'll think? The plan is low maintenance, nice color and movement.... Questions, comments, suggestions?

Congratulations !!!!
Sounds good to me post picts soon please
Thanks

Congratz!Welcome back!Post some pics when you can!

Here is the completely empty tank...



I also have a matching canopy for the tank, but it needs repair. I got the stand for $47 (originally $549) and the canopy for $22 (originally $379) brand new, on clearance about a year ago.... I almost wet my pants I was so excited! Both pieces of furniture are beautiful, but the light is so bright you can't see the stand in the picture.

Nice !

you put the water in before the gravel?

That was my husband's doing... he had trouble letting the tank sit there empty so before I knew what had happened, he had filled the whole thing up. So, in this case, yes, I guess we did. But the good news is, I got the Magnum 350 canister filter working again! Gravel, driftwood, a few flake plants, now in... pic to come.

Here is a pic of the tank as it stands now....



I've got more plastic plants to come. I had some larger pieces of driftwood, but it is apparently DRIFTwood and refuses to sink.

woo hoo! I love getting and setting up new tanks!

lookin good

Looks like a brand new tank. CONGRATS on the new edition to be to your family(no I do not mean the kid) lol JK.

Your fish selection looks good...might have to warm it up a bit for the rainbows they tend to like it 80+ and up the pH a little. Should be a very nice community tank

Well, if the pH goes up any then the candy striped pleco (Peckoltia vittata) will do poorly, and the temp is turning out to be better suited at 77 degrees. These are the only parameters where all the fish can live in what they might live in naturally. Melanotaenia Boesemani (the Rainbows) are found in waters with a pH ranging anywhere from 7.0 to 8.0 in their native habitats, depending on which area.

good looking setup

Congrats on the little one! Welcome back.

Men and patience, get some fishing line and tie the driftwood to rocks till it stays sunk on it's own. I put large stones on mine for 4 weeks then check to see if they will stay down.

I was going to do that (weigh down the driftwood) but then we were concerned about maxing out our weight limit on that floor. It's a pier and beam house and I don't feel comfortable adding too much more weight to that tank. (The house was built in 1920s) Considering just how massive the driftwood is (picture a 15-20 lb showpiece that is very dense) it would take a lot of weight to keep it down. I may be wrong, but I'd rather rethink my aquascaping then replace the wooden floors, beams under the house, etc. It's only a slight inconvenience this way.

Boy how true. Replacing a floor can get expensive,

I love my concrete floors.

Yup, lol!

hatman wrote:

I love my concrete floors.

I miss mine.... they were nice!

There have been some developments... my well meaning sister tried to cheer me up by bringing me some corydoras she got at Wal-Mart. She comes in with a bag and says I brought you fish! (Insert hand slap to forehead) So her "gift" then brought the "opportunity" for me to buy a bunch of stuff to fix the impending ammonia spike. $25 later the tank has dropped it's ammonia level from 1.0 to .5, Nitrite has gone up from 0 to .25 and Nitrate is still zero. So the bottled bacteria is working. It dropped the Ammonia overnight. The 5 little cory cats are still happily swimming. I'm sure that living in the septic Wal-Mart tank prepared them for this.... so now that there's fish I had to hurry and fix the canopy to keep cats out. And this is what it looks like now:

I'm hoping not to have any more "help" with this project for awhile and things will go a lot smoother!

I love "help" from non-fishie people.

Tell me about it! I have completely stopped offering to ask my hubby on fish preferences because it just leads to long "discussions" on why you can't keep small goldfish with oscar and other similar topics...

That's why you give them a choice of 3 or 4 fish that will work in the tank. It give them a feeling like they are helping-----------Hon, I can't decide on these fish can you choose one for me? -----------

Well 48 hours after dosing my tank with Microbe Lift Special Blend, Microbe Lift Nite-Out II and Microbe Lift Substrate and Gravel Cleaner and keeping the tank light off, my water parameters went from:

Hour Zero: Before dosing
Ammonia- 1.0, Nitrite- 0, Nitrate- 0

12 Hours In:
Ammonia- .5, Nitrite- .5, Nitrate- 0

36 Hours In:
Ammonia- .25, Nitrite- .5, Nitrate- 10

48 Hours In:
Ammonia- 0, Nitrite- 0, Nitrate- 5

And this is what it looks like:


I didn't think it was possible to cycle a tank that fast with such low swings in Ammonia and Nitrite, but it worked! It's hard to believe, but WOW! Yay!!!