I’ve been long overdue for an update on my tank.
But before we get to that I have to say that the collective knowledge available here on Scapecruch is the best I have seen in the hobby. When we started this site we weren’t sure what it would become, and it has exceeded my expectations. We have some of the best brightest minds in the hobby, and thanks to all who have joined and participated. I hope you have found this site to be a friendly place to hang out and discuss all things planted tanks with others who share the same enthusiasm for the hobby.
Now onto the update. As some may recall I moved the tank about 5 months ago to a new home. Since that time I have been consumed with home projects and turning the new place into what I thought it could be. But boy that takes a LOT of work. In my last house the tank resided in my den on the first floor, and now sits in the finished basement of the new house. Moving a tank takes it’s toll as it takes a little while for things to stabilize and get back into a rhythm. Got past that phase and things are pretty close to auto-pilot now.
I’ve made some changes over the last few months and thought I would summarize them here.
First is that one of my old Rena XP filters finally bit the dust. I think I bought them back around 2010, so was a pretty good investment at the time. They were discontinued a while back so I loaded up on parts to keep them going. Well the parts finally ran out and now they are nowhere to be found.
So I searched around and ended up buying a brand I have never heard of on a whim. The model is the AQQA 35w-581GPH. I figured for about $125.00 worth the risk and why not give it a try.
I have to tell you I very happy with this filter. Easy to clean, comes with a spray bar which I really like, primes quickly, runs quietly, adjustable flow….all in all a good value for the money. So much so that I ended up buying two more and now have three on my 120G tank.
Next I added a dosing pump for micros. When the tank was in my den on the first floor I would wander over there with a cup of coffee in the morning and dose micros. Now that it is in the basement I only remembered less than half the time. So I searched around and ended going with a Kamoer X1 Pro 2 WiFi Bluetooth Dosing Pump. I found an open box unit on ebay for $50 and figured it was worth a shot. Set up and calibration was super easy, and it’s been running flawlessly. It’s something I should have done a long time ago but just never got around to it.
Another change is that now that it is in the basement, it’s near an outside wall and stays cooler than when it was upstairs. So for the first time in a long time I bought a heater. Since I am happy with their filters decided to try an AQQA 800W Aquarium Heater. It has a digital read out controller that mounts in the cabinet which is nice. It also turns off if the water level gets low. I am keeping the tank at 75* and so far it has no problem keeping up.
I liked it so much that I added two AQQA 500w heaters to my RO holding tanks. They are on a smart strip and turn on Friday night for the Saturday morning water change. Again so far so good.
When I set up the RO tanks I realized that one of my circulation pumps was shot. So I purchased two really cheap Freesea 1050GPH circulation pumps. They have a nice strong magnet which made it easy to mount inside the storage barrels. I run them from midnight to 6am daily to keep the water circulating and dissolve the front loaded ferts.
While on the topic of front loaded ferts I have also made a change there as well. Some posts by our friend
@Dennis Wong got me thinking more about stability. I’ve tested my NO3 many times over a week cycle and they actually stay very stable. I believe my NO3 uptake rate is pretty similar to the amount of NO3 being generated by my Rainbow fish. So front end loading works very well for NO3 in my tank.
But I never really tested the PO4 on a weekly basis. When I did I found that while my NO3 was stable, my PO4 was decreasing as the week went on. So the tank is consuming more than it’s generating. To counter that I added some PO4 to my micro solution and am now providing a small dose of PO4 on a daily basis. So far so good seems to be working very well.
Other than that have had little time to do much in the way of scaping. Been keeping things pretty chopped down and only small groups of most plants just to keep them going. Kind of a minimalist approach for a while now. Plan is to start propagating more of what I have and fill it back in and get more serious over the next couple of months.
So here is where it is today. If you walked up to it and had never seen a planted tank before, you’d probably think it was pretty darn good. But I know what more it could be and plan to start working harder to get it there.
Thanks for stopping in and I hope everyone’s tanks are doing well.
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