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New 55 gallon.

2K views 17 replies 4 participants last post by  kedi 
#1 ·
I purchased the Fluval 55 kit.
Managed to get it into the house unaided, after emptying every ounce of weight out of the box first. Just the box and aquarium was at the limit of my ability to handle alone. Weight, combined with awkward large size. Made sure the area was clear first, so my first lift would be the only one.

Location is in the middle of three rooms, on a sturdy island base cupboard. Can be seen fully from kitchen and dining room, top half from living room. The aquarium is 4 feet long, leaving 6 inches of counter at each end. About a foot wide, leaving almost two feet of counter in front. A nice fit. One of the three cupboards underneath will be devoted to aquarium supplies, tools and filter. Right now, most things are scattered about.

I started with 30 Kg of Marina gravel, it is black, grey and white. 3/8 inch and smaller bits. Rounded off edges. Now, I find the white bits to be a bit too bright. I would prefer a darker bottom. I used 2 1/2 of the 10 Kg bags.

Three natural looking, but fake decorations. Spaced end to end, they leave several inches between them and the sides. Now I find that I only really like one of them. I am considering buying two more of the same one, and positioning them differently. Remove the other two.

I cycled the tank for a week, using the included chemicals. Got API test strips. Things looked OK. Time for plants. I looked up information on tough plants that grow easy. Decided on Elodea and Amazon Swords. Got three bunches of each. Wasn't sure about media requirements, so I got some soil as well.

I split up the Elodea to go at each end of the tank. Decided to try and anchor the Swords, one to each ornament. I cleared an area for the Elodea and put soil down. ( tank is full of water ) I pre wet the soil, but it still produced massive clouds. It was hard to corral the gravel and soil where I wanted it. I ended up planting the Elodea in pretty random media. From just gravel, to much soil. As advertised, it does not care and is growing like the weed it is. After less than a month, many have reached the surface. Branching and dropping roots.

The Swords were some trouble. Word was to tie them onto the decorations. That is a slippery, somewhat frustrating proposition. One ornament worked out not too badly. It was floating several inches above it, looking silly. Held it down and poured a bit of gravel onto the roots. That made it just cling in place. Trying to tie the other ones on was too pathetic. I still had a lot of soil left. So I decided to cement them on. Mixed up a thick mortar of soil and glued the plants on. So far it is working. Two Swords have put out runners. All three look better than when I got them. But.... Of course I have changed my mind about the whole plant landscape. I will be making one end heavily planted. Large, tall, rock decoration, off center towards the other end. A little bit of plant on the other side of that.

So all the plants are in and doing fine. Water tests good. Time for fish. Type in the usual "Hard to kill.....". I get five of each, Neon Tetra, Blackline Tetra, two Cory cats, one Pleco. Did not read enough about Plecoes. You're going to need a bigger boat, I mean, tank. One Neon Tetra began getting pale and bloated. Didn't take any chances. Removed it. After a couple weeks, all the fish seemed happy. But I decided to upgrade the filter. Went from the included hang on back C4 to a Fluval 306. Just because it was working fine, is no reason to not install more power. ARGHhh AHaHahh.

Just added more Tetras, to bring each species up to school of eight. They seemed to like that. The two species get along fine. Mingling, separating randomly. The Blackline Tetras seem to like upper level more than the Neons, especially in low light. Oh. I don't like the included light either, of course. Will go for an adjustable one soon.

The kit worked fine. I will just keep on messing about, changing out things. Soon have enough extras to start another tank I suppose. After about six weeks, I have a happy planted tank with nineteen fish. And about one snail a day. The snails are not happy for long.....
 
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#3 ·
looks pretty good to me anyway
 
#4 ·
Trying 3 different ways to plant my Amazon Swords.
All three were doing OK attached to fake decorations. But the decorations were each one third of the tank in size. So I detached two swords. Removed the decorations. Both had sprouted runners with four sprouts on each runner.
I planted one fully within the pea sized gravel. About 2 inches deep. I pinned the runner down to the surface of the gravel with three rocks.
The other one, only partially in the gravel. Half the bulb lightly covered in gravel above. I cut off the runner from this one. As the other one's sprouts will hopefully take root nearby.
So I have three types of planting for Amazon Swords. I shall see which ones do best.

The sprouts on the runner are taking root.
 
#5 ·
Amazon swords should be fully planted, not attached to decor such as you would do with Anubias or java fern. Swords are heavy root feeders and will spread their roots throughout your substrate. Will be interesting to see how the one attached does.
 
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#7 ·
OH!
I have been operating with Java Fern and Amazon Sword information swapped. Read through a bunch of different easy to grow plants before getting the Swords. Then treated them like Java Ferns. Surprised they have done so well. Tough plants indeed.
 
#8 ·
Five months in.
Things are going surprisingly well. Have 24 fish. All are happy and healthy.
I have gone through 3 major changes in the tank decor. I removed the three separate decorations, with improperly attached Amazon Sword plants. Got a very large fake rock decor. It was very realistic and had no negative problems with it. But it did not have much in the way of caves and hiding places. It also contained a large amount of stagnant water within it. This bothered me, but did not seem to bother water parameters. My two types of moss were growing okay on it. My three Amazon Swords were doing better when properly planted.
I decided to divide the landscape up a bit. Took two thirds of the gravel out and replaced with light colored sand for the left two thirds of the tank. A decor wall separates sand and gravel. Moved two Amazon Swords to right third of tank in 2 inches of gravel. Removed Elodea and replaced with Vallisneria grass in the right corner behind the Amazons.
Made two slanted hideaways with Black Rundlestone rock. And attached two Magnatural tree fungus decorations above them in the sand area. Attached Christmas and Weeping moss on top of the Rundlestone.
The Amazon Swords are thick and over a foot tall now. The Vallisneria grass is growing great.
The fish are taking full advantage of the more varied terrain and difference in shade and light. They are more varied in their movements and spending various amounts of time in the different areas. It seems to have stimulated them quite a bit.
I have been very lucky in a constant good water quality. No unintentional fish losses. Two were removed early after purchase due to suspected illness. Fish have been very tolerant of my messing about with their home.
I also had a bit of good luck with water currents.
I was concerned about keeping sand clean. It is a bit fussy for vacuuming. But it seems the water flow is shifting the mess into one convenient corner. Accidental bonus.
 
#9 ·
So at 5 months, in spite of initial mistakes and abuse, the Amazon Sword plants are full width of the tank and just reached the surface at over 16 inches tall. The Tropica fertilizer capsules seemed to give a big boost to growth. The grass type plants that I put in to replace the Elodea are doing well too. A few have reached the surface after only a month. They are propagating a lot. Veriannas ?
Fish are doing very well. Just added 3 more YOYO loach, 4 total now. The original YOYO is a bit miffed.
Water quality has been very stable and good.
Having great luck.
 
#12 ·
Not sure if I am worthy or allowed to post in the "What did you do with your tank today" thread, as it is under the Betta folks domain.
So.
I cleaned out my Fluval 306 today.
Done it several times. But today i also flushed all the tubing. The flow seemed a bit low, and I have a fair number of snails. So I wondered if they were in the tubing.
They do collect on the intake side of the filter. But don't seem to make it through the foam pre filter area in any great numbers. Don't see them in the actual ceramic media baskets or at the final polishing fuzz packs. Been a month since the last filter cleaning and the snail numbers seemed quite reasonable on the intake side.
But this is the first time in 5 months that I have flushed the pipes. The end pieces, intake and spray bar have been cleaned about monthly. There was a lot of slime and stuff in the pipes! Hot water flush cleared a ton of gunk out. The flow rate is back to like new levels. No snails flushed out of the piping. Guess the flow was still fast enough to keep them from setting into the pipes.
Hopefully the 3 new YOYO loaches added to my other one, will start snacking on the snails more. They certainly are active.

It is funny that I never knew they made clicking noises. I began hearing it when I added the 3 new ones. What??? My tank never clicked before? I was wondering if the seams were letting go. Or the lighting was doing something weird. I reread the YOYO articles. The fact that they make loud clicking noises seemed to only be an afterthought added at the end of the articles. Never noticed.
 
#13 ·
Wow, your tank certainly looks different! But awesome at the same time!
I gotta admit, I had a good laugh when I saw the magnaturals. I have similar ones in my hermit crab tank! I guess they good for a varied of purposes?
 
#15 ·
Gave up on sand.
I suppose it might have worked if I had done daily, meticulous, vacuuming. But I found that I could not get up some of the crusty stuff that grew after a few days of sitting unattended. The sand came up, but not the crud. Or both.

The pea gravel is easy to clean. But I wanted something finer in the non planted end. So the Loaches can dig around if they like. Which they do.

The only thing I found that was small grain size and in large fairly reasonable priced bags was a National Geographic brand. Black. I like it. The Loaches can move it about. It is not sharp. Best of all, it is a bit heavier than the various things I want to vacuum up. There are some smaller grains that do get drawn up, but that is okay. Over time they will separate out. I have the Eheim battery powered vacuum. The smaller particles that do get sucked up, seem to pass through without much problem. I can stir things up and get a good cleaning done. Most of the gravel is 1 to 4 mm in size. A few bigger pieces. Not round particles. Various shapes. Looks quite nice. Not shiny. A happy balance. I am not sure if it comes in any other colors.

This substrate fits in well with my once or twice a week cleaning. The sand was developing areas with a surface scum. Particularly where algae tablets had been. This scum would not vacuum up, unless I took large amounts of sand with it.
 
#16 ·
Freeze dried shrimp.
I have 1 Molly, 1 Platty, 1 Swordtail, A bunch of Tetras, 5 Cories, and 4 YOYO loaches.
I bought a can of freeze dried shrimp. When I opened it, I was surprised at the how large they were. Not so shrimpy compared to the freeze dried blood worms I also have. It is a bit funny to see the Tetras eat the blood worms. They love them, but have a hard time getting them down. Swimming about with them hanging out of their mouths.
I didn't even try to feed the shrimps for quite a while. But finally tried them tonight. I broke them up into thirds. Even then they were quite large chunks. At first, they were totally ignored. As is most food. Fussy fish? That still amazes and confounds me. Just what the hell are the culinary expectations of a fish, that the half dozen food types that I offer are almost always, spit out at first taste. Should I serve wine with it?
But about 15 minutes later, not a scrap of shrimp was to be found.
I did see the Molly and Loaches take a good chew on them at first, but abandon them. I suspect that they came back later and finished off every speck. Have to watch longer next time and see who really likes them.
The Tetras really piss me off at meal time. Taste and spit. But it is funny in one way.
I turn off the filter when putting the food in. Letting it float for some time. Molly, Swordtail and Platty snack a bit at the surface. A few of the Black Tetras too, if they are really hungry. The Neons never seem to notice food that much.
After a while I turn the filter back on. The foods starts to churn into the water. The Black Neons go wild! Live food!!! Kill it and eat it! They come out like a pack of Piranhas. But still spitting most of it out. The Neons get more interested at mid level of the tank.Actually eating. Molly seems to like to grab a lot more too.
When stuff hits the bottom, the Loaches come out and try some.
Seems my Cories, are only interested in algae wafers. But now have competition from the Loaches. Need to feed double the wafers now.
The single Loach did not put a dent in the snail population. I had to keep it in check. But was falling behind. The three additional Loaches seem to be eating a fair number of snails. But better than that, they have included the original Loach in their games. I have to build a few more Loach cervices for them to chase each other away from. They are fun to watch. Alternating in playing and chasing away from territory. Totally three dimensional in the water. There is no up or down for them.
 
#17 ·
Swordtail.
My Pineapple Swordtail is probably my most laid back and quizzical fish.
No fear. Always right in there to take part in whatever is going on.
When I stick in various tools to clean, scrape, suck up, whatever. He is right there.
I often hit him with the tool, because he is tracking it an inch away. Everyone else heads for the vegetation. He is right there supervising whatever operation is underway.
He always notices if I am taking a close up look at the tank. He will often track my finger on the glass, while the others take cover.
He is always swimming all over the open water area of the tank.
Very dominant. But never bullying any of his tank mates.
 
#18 ·
My Platy died.
Cherrybomb.
From fine to dead on the bottom in a day.
So strange. No visible damage. Looked great. Was fine the day before. Everyone else is fine. Water parameters are great. I purposely culled 2 fish in the 7 months I have had the tank running. This is the first death. Of course it happens. But it was so surprisingly fast and without obvious cause.
My Molly, Blackbird doesn't have his BFF anymore.
I won't be replacing Cherrybomb. I am going to let my current community run it's course and change the mix as it becomes practical. But I am sad to lose him.
 
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