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We are kicking of 2024 with a return of our Tank of the Month series! January 2024's Tank of the Month is @Unexpected's second-place finishing "The Second Hand of Carew", a beautiful Dutch aquascape! Please see the winning work at the AGA 2023 Aquascaping Contest - The Second Hand of Carew.

Introduction​

My name is Michael Miller, and I was born in Lakeland, Florida. I guess this is where my aquarium journey began because I have memories of riding my bike down to our local ice-cream shop located in a small strip mall. Next-door was an aquarium store, mostly salt water, but it was enough to catch my interest and I would spend a lot of time there just daydreaming about having a saltwater aquarium. I’m sure I nagged my mother for some time before she finally gave in and let me buy an aquarium. I still remember getting a 20 long tank home on my Schwinn bicycle.

In 1989, we moved to Tampa, Florida and my parents built a new home in Tampa Palms. They let me design my room and I asked for a wall cabinet that was strong enough to hold aquariums. I used my allowance money on a 55 gallon and set up my first saltwater tank. Next to it was that old 20 long I used for freshwater. I can’t remember what fish I had, but I did add some Anubis and Banana Plants and had decent success with both tanks and was able to maintain them until it was time to go off to college. I gave everything to my best friend who to this day keeps freshwater tanks. What’s amazing to me, he still has the Anubia from my 20 gallon. That sucker is nearly 30 years old, just crazy!

Now the important part, my buddy Chris also caught the bug when I gave Brian my tanks, and for decades kept freshwater tanks. I was living in Denver at the time, but visited my parents and my wife and I stopped by Chris’s house. Holy cow, he had a Black Water tank worthy of a magazine slot. I was immediately addicted to the look and said to my wife, “we are getting a tank like this.” My wife is awesome, and the second leg of this journey began. I failed at black water, but I added some easy plants and it was obvious where the tank was going to go. I had a problem though, why is my pH so high? How do I lower pH? The internet kept telling me not to chase pH, but I wanted too anyways. Why is the internet not wanting me to learn how to achieve the numbers I want? This is when I found the Holy Grail, Gregg Zydeck! I consider myself fortunate, I was able to read his journal several times before the “Great Purge” and everything came full circle. I now know how to set these numbers and learned so much from him and his journal. My AGA entry was never possible without him.

I’m sorry for the rambling, but as I’m sitting here typing, I’m realizing just how fun this journey is/was. How all these little things came together to get me here today. Cool stuff really and I’m proud to play a small part in a niche group. It’s super cool!

System Profile​

1. Display Tank: Innovative Marine Nuvo SR Pro2 120
2. Lower Iron Glass
3. APS Stand
4. AIO (All in One aquarium)
5. CO2 via a 10lb tank and Alan Le (@Alanle) regulator with flow meter passing through a Yugang Reactor
6. 10 times turnover flow rate (might be a bit over 10x)
7. 3x MightyJet 538GPH DC pumps with controller (each pump has split adjustable nozzles) and the return filters the water through 2x 14 inch 200 micron sucks
8. 3x WeekAqua P600’s on a DIY black steel hanging rack
9. Dosing is Estimative Index and Joe Harvey (@Burr740) Micro’s (tank is kept at 30,10,40 and .45ish Fe as proxy
10. ATO is a 5 gallon Aqueon tank controlled by a tank controller
11. Recent change to BRS 300watt heaters on an Ink Bird controller on my tank controller for redundancy
12. CoralVue tank controller

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Water flow and circulation​

My goal here is to have good turnover while not blasting the plants and fish. The nozzles allow this high turnover yet to divide the flow evenly throughout the tank. My plants have visible sway like a soft coral saltwater tank but a bit less. Fish are comfortable and do not work hard to swim around the tank. The nozzles are aimed towards the surface for agitation and bounce off walls to reach the lower areas.

Water Parameters (Macro’s front loaded)​

1. Temperature 74.7 to 75.5
2. PH 6.2/6.4 to 5.15(under CO2 load)
3. NO3 30ppm
4. PO4 10ppm
5. K 40ppm
6. Fe .45is as proxy Joe Harvey (@Burr740) Micro’s
7. RO/DI water mineralized to 24ppm Ca and 8ppm Mg and .6dKH (I’ve recently had to add some KH as my pH was reaching 4.4 and the fish were not happy that low (strange mystery after changing the plants out)
8. TDS 166

Dosing​

I pretty much immolate Gregg’s (@GreggZ) dosing and see how it affects the tank. Having followed his dosing for several years now, I can now see the subtle changes the plants go through. I’ve now settled on the 30,10,40 as the plants seem fuller and healthier. They also grow faster in this soup. This is something I need to see so I can learn the recovery rates from trimming. I need to be able to time plant recovery to have them all at peak for the final shot. As for micro’s, this rabbit hole I leave for Joe Harvey as I’m not willing to make the jump!

Substrate​

Ace Hardware Pool Filter Sand (hey, it’s cheap). At some point I want to try BDBS (also Cheap). I do not use root tabs. When I tried them in the past, it was a disaster and as such, will never use them (I’m open to try them for difficult plants, but I don’t like fooling around with difficult plants so...)

Aquascaping Style and Objectives​

Well, it’s Dutch. For whatever reason my brain has an affinity for the look. I love all the styles and amazed at what people can do, but for me, Dutch is home. My goal is to try and reproduce that classic Dutch look but going forward, I’d like to try and bend the rules but maintain the classic look. We will see if I can pull this off next year. My strategy is simple, get the plants in and get them growing. I use too many at first just to see if they like the soup I'm serving, then eliminate those that aren’t doing well. I will then study how they grow and try trimming them in different ways. Can I get this plant round, does this one grow up or out, does this one grow straight or want to fall over? Each plant is a puzzle piece that has a place in the bigger picture. I must find those places while maintaining interesting contrast. Here’s the challenge, contrast of color while maintaining leaf shape differences. It’s not easy for me with such a limited plant selection. I don’t have access to a specialized plant store like some have. Once I have the pieces together, I start learning trim times. Do I trim or top and replant? After memorizing the times, I then let the tank come to peak and start looking at shadows. Are they interesting? Is there enough, is there too much? I feel that every great tank is great by the shadows the scape creates. One last trim, a return to peak and the photo is then taken.

Lighting​

I chose WA mostly on power to price point. They push a lot of PAR and the colors look good enough while being on the cheaper side. I wish I had gone with the 900 size but I thought the 600 size would cover the tank. It didn’t though so I added a third. I haven’t tested PAR with a proper device, but using an app on my phone, my current PAR was 160 at the substrate. I’ve since reduced this to about 100. This was the right move as the tank was struggling and I’m seeing a big improvement after the change.

Filtration​

I use Marine Pure bio balls and Seachem Matrix. I just purchased some 30ppi sponge and will be adding a ton of it. I’ve had a lot of problems recently and I’m beginning to wonder if I’m lacking in this area. A lot of cloudy water any time I rinse my media so I’m adding more just in case this is a problem. My fish are growing, and I have a high bio load.

Maintenance​

I clean the filter socks weekly and do a 70 gallon water change. I will wipe the glass down if it needs it both inside and outside. I don’t get mulm in this tank, but I do wave my hand around below and around the plants just to lift particles up into the water column before draining the tank. The tank is about 120 gallons (about 454.25 L) empty, and I figure it’s around 85 gallons with sand and equipment.

Inhabitants​

I’ll refer you over to the AGA site with this information. It’s too much honestly and lost points for sure.

• 11 Melanotaenia Praecox
• 14 Trigonostigma Heteromorpha
• 15 Rasbora Einthovenii
• 9 Otocinclus sp.
• 3 Melanotaenia Kamaka
• 3 Melanotaenia boesemani
• 9 Corydoras sp. CW010
• 2 Melanotaenia Trifasciata
• 10 Hyphessobrycon Pulchripinnis
• 9 Hyphessobrycon Amandae
• Assortment of Bladder Snails

Note: Rainbows love eating Cherry Shrimp!

Regrets with stocking​

For sure I have way too many fish for a true Dutch tank. At the end of the day, this is our home tank for my wife and I to enjoy. She loves larger fish and I love smaller fish hence we have both. Going forward, as fish age and fall off, I might move towards minimal fish in a school to meet Dutch rules but for now, these are points I will lose.

What Do I love most about this Hobby?​

I love being in a small group of people worldwide doing things with aquariums few expect to see when I ask them if they would like to see my tank. I think this is just so cool. It’s an instant conversation starter and just watching them study the tank while asking questions just makes my day. The most asked question, “Is this real.” I just love this question. I also love my pets; I talk to them and worry about them unnecessarily.

Who was responsible for getting me into the hobby?​

For sure the fish store next to my favorite Ice-cream shop. But Chris for getting me back into aquariums.

Who inspires me the most?​

That’s easy, Gregg Zydeck (@GreggZ). I’m a fan boy if you can’t tell. When I saw his tank for the first time, I was like, “wow”. And I still say wow when I see his updates.

What is my dream tank?​

Hmm, probably a wider tank but around 150 gallons. Maybe some Euro Bracing and a sump.

What is the biggest challenge with this tank?​

Great question, getting visual depth in just 18.2 inches and planting with just 14 inches of height.

What is the most valuable piece of equipment used with this setup?​

That would be my CoralVue tank monitor. I love it. Having an eye on the tank sounding alarms when problems arise is well worth the money spent. Overkill, probably, but worth it in my opinion.

Any future plans with this tank?​

I’m working on the 2024 AGA now. I’ll keep at it until I win it!

Any special tips or advice to share with others?​

This is mostly for newer people in the hobby. But chase numbers. You here so much not to chase them, but eventually you learn to set those numbers and what those numbers mean. This leads to relaxing over those numbers. Hope that makes sense. Also, be careful where you get your information from. There’s a whole lot of bad information out there. Find a tank you love and try to immolate what they do. Try to make sense of what they are doing and if you don’t understand something they say, study it so you do. This will shorten your learning curve by quite a bit. This is how I’ve been successful so far.

Closing thoughts​

Sadly, I was quick to change the tank to start getting ready for 2024 so I don’t have more pictures of the tank. I’ve added a few shots just before the final photo so It will look different than the final photo. I’ll also show you the guts of the system and the reactor design. I will warn you; I don’t follow NBAT rules for these other areas. It looks like a disaster zone. But also, tearing the tank down plant wise was a disaster. I’ve been fighting a GDA problem for months now so don’t do this if you have a stable tank with high plant mass. Hopefully, you will get a chuckle of how bad the below tank looks.