Journal 90p 6yr (D)evolution

[BagOcroW]

So this is my 90p that I started back in 2016. This tank was often ignored over the years. At times I used it for growing out plants for my 125g and other times I gave it plenty of attention and tried to make it look good. I don't have any pics from 2021 because it was in my garage and didn't even have a filter running for a couple months. I set it up for low maintenance when I moved back in March of this year and earlier today I was thinking of changing it up again. Scroll down and start at the oldest if you want to see it in chronological order. Anyway, hope you all enjoy it.

 

[Art]

Hey, thanks for sharing. It's a beautiful tank and I love its history.

I have a few questions:

• You said had it in your garage. I assume Southern California weather will cause a garage to really heat up. How did you manage that?
• It looks like it's sumped! I love it! It's 48 gallons of aquarium. Tell me about the sump. I love seeing how people use them.
• You seem to have had good success with fast and slow growers in there over time. Very healthy even if you say you ignored it for a while. Any learnings? I'm somewhat embarrassed and amused to say that some of my tanks have looked better when I left them alone...

 

[ayman.roshdy]

So this is my 90p that I started back in 2016. This tank was often ignored over the years. At times I used it for growing out plants for my 125g and other times I gave it plenty of attention and tried to make it look good. I don't have any pics from 2021 because it was in my garage and didn't even have a filter running for a couple months. I set it up for low maintenance when I moved back in March of this year and earlier today I was thinking of changing it up again. Scroll down and start at the oldest if you want to see it in chronological order. Anyway, hope you all enjoy it.

Kudos if this is your side hustle tank, it looks wonderful

 

[GreggZ]

Beautiful set of pics and nice depiction of the evolution of the tank.

Now we need to see the same for the 125G!

 

[BagOcroW]

Hey, thanks for sharing. It's a beautiful tank and I love its history.

I have a few questions:

• You said had it in your garage. I assume Southern California weather will cause a garage to really heat up. How did you manage that?
• It looks like it's sumped! I love it! It's 48 gallons of aquarium. Tell me about the sump. I love seeing how people use them.
• You seem to have had good success with fast and slow growers in there over time. Very healthy even if you say you ignored it for a while. Any learnings? I'm somewhat embarrassed and amused to say that some of my tanks have looked better when I left them alone...

So the sump is very simple, I used a 20g tall aqueon tank. I siliconed in one 6" piece of glass upright and parallel to the back wall to hold the filter sock. I added a little ledge along the back wall to hold the other edge of the rectangle filter sock. Then I just added some 20 ppi sponge, a bog of biohome mini ultra, to finish off the filtration. The design came from conversations with Tom Barr who kept trying to convince me to keep it simple. I have to say he was right, I have all the filtration needed with this method.

I have a heater and two pumps in the sump, one pump for the return and another to run a closed loop on the Co2. I run with around 15-20g in the sump so the water level is generally pretty high so long as I keep it topped off. So paired with the mini bean-animal overflow this keeps it nice and quiet.

As for the temperature, that was constantly a problem to deal with when it was in the garage. Not so much in the winter but the high heat definitely made it tough for some of the fauna at times. I would say it was in the house about 1/2 the time over the last 6 years so it wasn't always outside. Most of the pics above are from when it was indoors or during the winter. In the summer it was very overgrown most of the time. At one time, 3/4 of the tank was comprised of a mass of java fern. with the rest being anubius mini and other hardy plants.

So my key to success when I began to ignore things for months at a time was to slow everything down. I significantly lowered light level, kept Co2 running but slowed that down a bit as well, and all but stopped dry salts andjust relied on the fish waste and AS to provide what little nutrients were needed.

 

[BagOcroW]

Beautiful set of pics and nice depiction of the evolution of the tank.

Now we need to see the same for the 125G!

Thanks Gregg, I'll work on that one. I have so many pics that it takes a bit of effort to get a good timelapse.

 

[Art]

Beautiful set of pics and nice depiction of the evolution of the tank.

Now we need to see the same for the 125G!

So love sumps and how you deployed it works just fine. I think Tom is completely right with keeping things as simple as possible. A sump is a wonderful tool but it can become a time sink if you overdo it.

I love how you used a CPR overflow. Did you ever run into any breaking of the siphon issue? Any backup just in case?

On the filter sock, how often were you changing it? This is a huge issue for saltwater as they try to keep nitrate and phosphate down. Less so in our tanks as extra nitrate is most welcomed by our plants. Still, it does clog up relatively fast.

I love the Griggs reactor. I wonder what every happened to him? How does/did it work out for you?

What was your top off automation? Or were you the automation?