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Main idea/inspiration:​

Since my main 150p aquarium is in our front room and is the first thing we and our guests see, I can't afford to experiment much with it. I also spent like $600 on aquasoil to fill it, so I thought I'd like to try something different.

This tank will be 100% BDBS substrate, no fertilized substrate. No root tabs (yet), no aquasoil. Only water column fertilization, to challenge myself to see whether I can grow plants well without aquasoil or not! Inspired by the @Burr740 BDBS journals and many other amazing inert-substrate aquariums out there. This isn't a dutch style, only a general "garden" style tank.

I have rarely kept journals for my tanks, mostly because I tend to not think about it until it’s too late. I have missed the jump on this one too, but as it has only been running for 2-3 months now I think it’s newish enough to start a journal.
Tank:
80cm x 45cm x 40cm (32” x 18” x 16”)
About 130L of water, or 34 US gallons.

I upgraded from a 60L tank that had been running for about 7 years, fairly steadily. I have always enjoyed smaller tanks and so kept this upgrade fairly modest.

Here is a picture of the tank as it is today:





As you can see, I suffer from collectoritis, and have definitely prioritised lots of plant species over ‘scaping’. One of the joys for me in this hobby is growing lots of different plants, so I tend to end up with jungles with many different stems.

The tank is just beginning to stabilise now, with the fresh soil finally not messing around with the water parameters so violently.
I use remineralised RO water cut slightly with tap water at the moment, as I find that ‘matures’ the soil faster in the beginning of a tank.
Below is the running sheet for this tank, which gives a good idea of the water parameters.

Hi all, I’m wondering if many use magnetic stirrers on their dosing pump containers to prevent concentrated mixes from precipitating or growing mold etc?
I am looking at the Chihiros ones, as I have their dosing containers, does anyone have one in use they can share a review on?
Or any other brands worth looking at?
Thanks!

I am planning my next tank and need some recommendations for a specific plant. I just don’t know enough and never really get the info I need from vendor sites. Any recommendations will be welcomed. Pictures of the plant in a/your tank would be awesome. Here is what I am looking for.

1. Height 2-6” (or easily trimmed to maintain that height)
2. Color, but not predominately red or predominately light green
3. Easier care is a plus
Tank will be CO2 injected

Anubias petite white is what I have in mind, but curious what else might be there.

OK, some of you brilliant folks need to develop this for our aquatic plants. According to the ad I just saw for this APP, not only can it instantly identify the plant, it can also tell you what specific mineral deficiencies the plant has just from the photo.

Picture This

P.S. Not sure I believe it works that well.

Hello everyone,

Excuse my multiple posts - I'm new here and trying to determine the best way to ask all of my questions!

As I have stated in a few other posts, I am starting a high-tech, 235g planted tank. Tank dimensions are 72" L x 30" W x 25" H.

I'm still working out many of the details, but for now I plan to make this a South American themed tank centered around a few Electric Blue Acara. And yes, I know they'll dig I don't plan to have a ton of red plants, if any, in the tank, but I do want a light that has potential in that I can use it in any situation should I choose to redo/rescape the tank a few years down the road.

My requirements:

1. Must be able to be mounted via hanging kit/pendant mount
2. Dimmable
3. Usable App for initial setup with customizable channels - I typically loathe preset specs.
4. Reliable
5. Budget - nothing set in stone - but I would assume somewhere around $1,000.00 USD would be sufficient.

I'm an old school T5HO fan, but I thought I would change it up a bit for this tank and see what I am missing out on.

My current top choice is the Week Aqua (version 3) P900 Pro x 2.

I welcome any input on these specific lights (is 2 enough?) as well as any other lights that would be comparable and fit the criteria noted above.

It seems to be official. After 10 years, Takashi Amano's largest work is closing to the public on June 30th. Honestly, I was hoping for it to be a permanent exhibit.

I was fortunate to go see it a few months back. Tremendous experience. If you have a chance to go see it, now's the time.

Gran Cubic Absolute AR Vision

I wonder when we'll see tanks with this glass in the U.S.

with planning my move over from my 110 to a 240 gallon, im assuming I prob need to replace the Eheim heater I've been running for the last 5-7 years. I keep going back and forth between what size and if I should run dual heaters. I do have the eheim on an ink bird and its been doing great but with the expanded size and the age of that heater; thought I would get a read of what everyone runs or what I SHOULD. its heavily planted and will be running 1 fx6 -most likely adding a second. thoughts?

Hello, starting up a journal for the second tank. It's totally for my fiance because she wants a betta fish, it's definitely not just a thinly veiled excuse to get a 2nd tank going. No way.

Originally this was planned on being a low tech tank. However I ended up receiving some money from family, so I decided to upgrade it to more of a mid tech.

Equipment:

• UNS 45U rimless tank
• Oase 100 Filtosmart Thermo, with an extra valve stop
• Chihiros WRGB Slim, set to roughly 33% overall power
• A poppy lily pipe and an inlet skimmer
• CO2Art Regulator & Solenoid

Plants:

• Anubia broadleaf
• Anubia (no clue what other kinds, small ones)
• Various Crypts of various types and sizes (I'll dig later in my email receipts to find the types)
• Creeping Jenny
• Limnophilia Heterophylia
• Hygrophila Angustifolia
• Red Root Floaters

Fertilizing:

• 1 pump of APT 3 daily
• Root tabs from Aquarium Co-Op

I wanted to make this a sort of island-ish setup, where the main focus would be the elephant stones and the large anubias. I knew that my other tank would be right next to this one, so I focused the stems on that side since they would be getting the higher light. I did have some challenges getting the stones and aquasoil into a proper shape, and fitting the huge anubias was an obstacle.

Overall I think it's in a good state, starting to get a few diatoms but not much, and I just added the CO2 today, so the tank is officially fully setup. Now, just waiting to cycle and mature a bit before I add in some shrimps, and then a month later, the betta.



Also, if anyone has advice on the placement of the Poppy Pipe + CO2 diffuser, that is appreciated. Part of the problem is that the Poppy doesn't send water in a straight current, it's just a flurry around it, so I cant just place it on the opposite side of the diffuser like I normally would. Where I have it now, it forms a current that manages to draw some of the CO2 bubbles in, but not all.

Final ask, if anyone has better fertilizer recommendations that is appreciated, specifically how much APT3 would be appropriate for this. So far I've been doing 1 pump/day.