Journal 1000 Gallon High Tech Planted Tank

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I am curious about this tank being in a public aquarium. How are people responding to it? Do you get feedback? What kind of information is presented about it? The aquariums that are local to me have nothing like this at all, so it's hard to conceptualize. (Their focus is almost entirely on natural ecosystems, so it's out of scope for them, I guess.)
I have been told by several co-workers they hear a lot of compliments on the tank. A lot of people I see like spending a good amount of time just looking at the tank. Some people don't care too much because it's just small fish. I've noticed this is one of few exhibits here outside of the 100,000+ gallon tanks that have a lot of people taking pictures with it. I've heard a couple of guests say it's the nicest tank they've seen there. Overall I think people really like the tank and I'm happy it's been received well.

The tank isn't in a main exhibit area, it's located in a resting/restroom area away from everything and it doesn't have information presented on it. So unfortunately most visitors do miss seeing this tank.
 
Some people don't care too much because it's just small fish
Perhaps visitors to a public aquarium expect to be presented animals, like it being under water zoo. So they may look for the most exciting experiences, the large predators (sharks, stingray, etc) and most colourful (marine fish and corals), and this seems a reasonable staring point for a day out with the kids. Many of these "zoo" visitors may not be programmed during that day to go and see a planted tank like @RickyV 's, or appreciate that this is a stunning tank.

When checking out hobbies in the US, as many as 23% of respondents are into gardening and plants. Let's say 50 million people in the US alone. One could argue that planted tanks are the solution for those who don't have the space for a garden or greenhouse, don't have the warm climate, or don't have the stamina and time. But how many gardeners ever think of an aquarium as a solution for them, rather than dismissing it (consciously or unconsciously) as a small pool for keeping pets?

For our hobby we may want a display at a botanic garden (or a featured article in a magazine for gardeners, or bonsai lovers), where visitors expect to see plants and gardens. Some of them may be inspired by the slightly unconventional idea of an underwater garden, that is not primarily for keeping pets?

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Yes those suckers look FAT. They will eat plants, I could never keep moss or h. Tripp because they decimated it when they were in my tanks in the past.
 
Teaser...
Will update on what this is in a week or so.

Tank update 7/30/24
The tank has mostly been doing fine, however recently my frogbit is been doing very poorly and I'm not sure why. It's weird because the red root floaters are doing great while rhe frogbit is slowly melting away and growing slow/staying small. I don't think I've changed any dosing recently to have done this. It might have started after getting the new lights, frogbits in dim sections look a lot better. So perhaps the new lighting is revealing a deficiency that wasn't so obvious before. I dose 8 ppm NO3, 1 ppm PO4, and 18 ppm K, 5 ppm Mg after 30% WC once a week. Micros are 0.20 ppm Fe EDTA from CSM+B and 0.20 ppm Fe Gluconate total weekly, but split into a daily dose every morning. 20240730_142942.jpg
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The newer leaves dont look as bad but you can see the beggining of what the older leaves look like. So perhaps a micronutrient? It can't be NO3 because the red root floaters are very green, PO4 sits at around 2 ppm in the tank so I doubt it's that. Surely I have enough K. Mg possible? pH is 6.3-6.4 during phtoperiod. 7.7 -7.8 Lights off. KH 2-2.5 GH 6-7

In the tank most of the plants look fine except the amazon sword, and the anubias do have some interveinal chlorosis suggesting magnesium deficiency. Newer leaves on the anubias
as you can see don't have the interveinal chlorosis. Do you guys think it is Mg deficiency?
Anubias20240730_154211.jpg
Amazon sword20240730_154144.jpg
Other plants below20240730_154233.jpg20240730_154258.jpg20240730_154248.jpg20240730_154150.jpg
I'm guessing I have a combination of Fe deficiency and Mg. Thoughts on this? I am considering just getting some aquasoil to bring the pH down to help with nutrient availability. It will also help the new softwater fish we're getting. Though the tank is so big I'm not sure if aquasoil will make a big enough effect on pH/KH. But the tank isn't that hard at only 2- 2.5 KH.
 
The longer I'm in the hobby, the less I believe I can spot a specific deficiency. My go-to process is doing a large water change, probably 2 or 3, to reset the water column and then make sure I'm properly applying the fertilizer based on my math. The IFC Calculator helps me keep track of this.

This process usually will fix whatever nutrient deficiency I had or thought I had. You will notice that the older leaves will still show the deficiency but new leaves are fine. So, patience.

That said, I have had trouble using CSM+B in the past. I'm not sure what it was but I was told that it could be bad batches given that it is mass produced and breaking it out into smaller batches can cause some nutrients to be missed due to poor mixing or settling before being parceled out. I switched to @Burr740's micro mix and I've never had a problem.
 
That said, I have had trouble using CSM+B in the past. I'm not sure what it was but I was told that it could be bad batches given that it is mass produced and breaking it out into smaller batches can cause some nutrients to be missed due to poor mixing or settling before being parceled out. I switched to @Burr740's micro mix and I've never had a problem.
Interesting, I may have to give @Burr740's micro mix a try.
 
No suggestions for your potential issues, just wanted to say your tank is still stunning even with this small thing going on!

How many of these mysterious softwater fish are going in?
120? :)
 
No suggestions for your potential issues, just wanted to say your tank is still stunning even with this small thing going on!
Thank you!
How many of these mysterious softwater fish are going in?
120? :)
Possibly a little more... They will be in quarantine for a few weeks before being introduced.
 
The new fish have arrived! We got 300 rio amaya pencilfish! Just need to wait a few weeks in quarantine. I'm super excited! I think this will be the biggest school of them in any aquarium.

Something interesting I've noticed is they're really attracted to black surfaces. They just hover over them like hummingbirds.
 
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