Journal 75 Gallons of Bliss!

Well, hopefully it works out that way.. I am not convinced there wont be some “Blood, Toil, Tears, and Sweat” along the way. A common saying during WW2 in Europe was that the road home went through Berlin…


The stand is built and moved in to the bedroom. I have completed Spring cleaning the bedroom and rearranging furniture in the room.


I moved my 2 tier fish tank stand across the room. This frees up space by my recliner. Puts the CO2 tank between them so I dont need to route the hose in front of the door, and gives me much nicer access to my closet.
I like the extra room by the recliner. I feel much less cramped and it gives me better viewing of the 29 gallon across the room rather than next to me.

Thats my Grandfathers Grandfather clock. He built it in 1976. He passed 12 years ago at 96. I remember him building it. My parents gifted it to me as the chiming kept my mother awake. To me the chiming is soothing and drifts me off to sleep at night..



Power strips mounted on the cabinet side out of view. The strip closest to the front will power the Inkbird, canister filter and any other in tank electrical devices added. 1 switch to flip shuts off power to all in tank conductors before sticking my hands or tools in. And the lights will stay on…

All the wires will be coiled and have tie wraps to prevent wire spaghetti on the floor. And if I spill water on the floor I wont have to worry about it getting into the power strips..


I mounted a magnet strip on both doors. Now I just need to find the rest of my Aquascaping tools and maybe I can avoid misplacing them again…



Also nice storage for magnet scrapers too…


I bought some storage bins…

And filled them, organizing fish meds in one, equipment in another, testing supplies by themself, cleaning supplies in another. I just need to make some labels for the bins..

I have never been this organized in my life…

I am hoping Petco has a half off sale on tanks for March..

I plan to update this journal as I progress with the build…

 

[Pepere]

Seeded the tank by cleaning out a cannister filter in the tank water last Saturday and dosed 2 ppm ammonia, then lights out and let it do its thing testing daily. I saw initial response with 2 days of ammonia dropping some and a hint of nitrites and some nitrate being detected. Then everything halted for 3 days. Tested Ph at 6.0 with API, and KH never changed with first drop of reagent, so, less than 1 degree. Archae can metabolize ammonia at lower ph, but it replicates much slower….

I dosed tank 2 degrees KH and next day had noticeable ammonia reduction and noticeably increased nitrites and nitrates. Today 0, and 0…

Draining tank and refilling right now. My tap is 2 degrees KH. I will dose and additional 2 degrees on top of that and continue with daily testing.

 

[Pepere]

Getting awfully close…




24 hours after dosing 2 ppm ammonia……. 9 days after initial seeding of filter squeezings…

 

[Pepere]

Well. March 31, I was awfully close to having the tank cycled. After above photo was taken in prior post I drained the water to substrate as Nitrates were through the roof. I refilled the tank, added some baking soda to raise kh to 4 degrees, added calcium and magnesium and dosed it with ammonia again.

And apparently I forgot to add the dechlorinator, cause that tank sat for 3 days at 2ppm ammonia and 0 nitrites…

So, I added dechorinator and cleaned out another canister fikter in the tank. And I made very certain to dose dechlorinator every time I did a water change after that putting the bottle and measuring spoon on the stand before getting the siphon…

16 days later I was able to dose 2 ppm ammonia and see 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites within 24 hours…

Today I transferred some plants and trimmings from other tanks and transferred some livestock.

It feels good to see some life and movement in the tank. This tank takes center stage view from my recliner..



No attempt at scaping here, just planting in groups and starting to grow plants until the tanks works it way through its awkward stage while things balance out. I figure I will start structuring things and get more plant species in about 2 months,




Lighting Photo A




Lighting photo B. The white splotch on the right are reflection from my bed where sunlight was hitting it.



So, 1 photo is of the tank with over $500.00 of Chihiros wrgb2 pro lighting.

The other photo is with $40.00 of LED Shop lights.


Yes. The Chihiros make a difference, but the basement 75 gallon cold water tank will be getting the shop lights on a wifi timer…

 

[Unexpected]

I can't wait to see this completed. Hopefully this will be a Dutch tank so the cabinet and the scape becomes one.

 

[Pepere]

Hopefully this will be a Dutch tank so the cabinet and the scape becomes one.

Hmm, maybe I should get some potted plants outside the tank for top and sides too….

I will be giving the tank a few months to settle in before really getting all new plants and getting serious about scaping it…


Then I can change my mind every few weeks rescaping it before settling on something… and then changing my mind again….

 

[Phish Tank]

I'm always afraid I'll forget dechlorinator. Sorry that happened. I think i need to get in the habit of putting it out where I can't miss it when connecting my python to refill.

Question on your Chihiros: do you use a kasa plug to automate it, or do you set up schedule with the lights app? Asking because I'm considering getting a fancier light (currently using nicrew ) but worry about the fancier lights losing their program/schedule whenever a power outtage happens, especially if it happens when I'm out of town.

The kasa plug seems pretty bulletproof, so I'd like to be able to use it with whatever light I pick.

 

[Pepere]

Question on your Chihiros: do you use a kasa plug to automate it, or do you set up schedule with the lights app?

I use the Chihiros app.

It usually takes care of itself after a power outage with no input by me.

In the 2 years I have been running them I have only had to reset them twice. I reset them by shutting off the power to them and turning it back on after a few minutes.

I run Kasa wifi plugs too and truth be told the Chihiros lights on the app are more reliable and require less resetting than the Kasa wifi plugs…

 

[Mr.Shenanagins]

Kasa plugs are great, they will automate a schedule for you. They will not, however, provide any dimming capabilities to adjust your lights brightness or intensity.

I have a separate single channel dimmer that can either work on WiFi or local Bluetooth.

I’ll have to disagree with Kasa reliability, I’ve never had issues.

 

[Kwyet]

I have had a couple of times since we moved that a Kasa Smart Strip had to be unplugged from the wall and back in to recover its WiFi connection. It still kept its programming though, I just couldn’t make any changes to it without recovering the connection. I’ve never had an individual Smart Plug do that though.

The other issue is that if there’s a power glitch at the time the plug is supposed to do something, it’ll just skip it until the next scheduled time to do something. I schedule multiple times for something to turn on/turn 10 minutes apart as a safety net.

For the tanks that have programmable lights, I use the lights’ programming, but use the Kasa Smart Strips for everything else. I have a couple of lights that don’t always turn off when they’re supposed to, so I set the Smart Strip to turn them off a little after the lights’ internal schedules are set to do that.

 

[Pepere]

I’ll have to disagree with Kasa reliability, I’ve never had issues.

My guess is that my problems with them has more to do with my wifi than it has to do with the plugs.

My wifi is quite unreliable requiring modem reset several times a week…

 

[*Ci*]

Are these plastic? They look like philodendron and monstera that would not survive being submersed like this.

 

[Pepere]

Are these plastic? They look like philodendron and monstera that would not survive being submersed like this.

Yes that plant is a silk plant. It takes up a lot of space and gives the fish cover and it was quick….

It is not there for the long term…

I will be getting back into the tank adding some more plants and spacing plants that have been put in already.

 

[Mr.Shenanagins]

Yes that plant is a silk plant. It takes up a lot of space and gives the fish cover and it was quick….

 

[Phish Tank]

I use the Chihiros app.

In the 2 years I have been running them I have only had to reset them twice. I reset them by shutting off the power to them and turning it back on after a few minutes.

Ok, that sounds encouraging. I might have to empty my wallet for a new light.

 

[Pepere]

View attachment 7981

I have no shame over it…

 

[Mr.Shenanagins]

@Pepere As my name implies, I have to make light of life

 

[Mr.Shenanagins]

Ok, that sounds encouraging. I might have to empty my wallet for a new light.

Something controllable is definitely ideal, especially being able to control all color zones. My Twinstar is sadly one channel for all colors, but my controller works so well with adjusting intensity and steady ramping I’ll ride it until it dies.

 

[Yugang]

Yes that plant is a silk plant.

We have a winner in the category "spot the fakes"
Congratulations @*Ci*

 

[Pepere]

@*Ci* and @Mr.Shenanagins will be happy to see I retired the fake plant in the tank.

They are all real living plants now, but most of them are simply placeholders for once the tank matures a bit more, but a few might stay put…

I was sending clippings to another member and sent them a photo of the fake asking them if they wanted a cutting, but I didnt have much hope of it propagating for them. They asked what plant it was and I replied that it was a “silk plant”. They proceeded to look it up before they got a slew of fake plants on their screen…


I added a second Oase Biomaster 350 as the 3’ 5” spray bar was a bit too much outlet for the flow of a single 350. The two filters feed opposite ends of the spray bar now, and I have an intake on both sides too. 1 intake is a glass lily pipe and surface skimmer, the second is the Oase supplied intake.

Mechanical filtration wasnt quite up to my liking either. I am looking forward to seeing the results over the next day or so. I just finished weekly water change and removing the fake plant…

 

[SkaleyAquatics]

They asked what plant it was and I replied that it was a “silk plant”.

Thats some gold right there

In other words tank is looking good. Keep it up!