Kevin F.

That's one month! Things are still going good. We added 6 albino Corydon and 2 Hill stream loaches. No water change this week the city is flushing all the pipes. Tank tested Nitrate 25 Nitrates 0 Hardness 150 Buffer 120 Ph 7.6 Chlorine 0 Ammonia 0 Water temperature is 74°f Lights are on 9 hours a day, from noon until 9pm I'll be changing out and recharging the purigen today. I test using aquarium co-op test strips.

Yes seeing growth was quite a relief. Not knowing if a plant will live in your environment seeing it melt then all the sudden it comes back and flourishes really can make your day. I still don't know if the Scarlet temple will make it but it has roots and some new leaves so there is a chance.

Week 3 down. Pla ts are starting to grow, corkscrew val is sending out new plants so are micro sword and dwarf sagittaria. All the cryptocoryne are growing new leafs and the Tiger Lotus is really starting to take off. Algae has started ( green and hair) moved the lighting back to 8 hours a day. The scarlet temple has mostly melted away but a couple of stocks have so.e really tiny green leaves. The fish are all doing well. Not all 6 of the giant danios were giant danios. Two were peal danios. Water is Ammonia 0 Nitrate 25 Nitrite 0 Hardness 150 Buffer 120 Ph 7.2 Chlorine 0 These are numbers before dosing fertilizer. I am only going to dose half fertilizer today. After dosing all numbers were same except Nitrate it's darker than 25 but not as dark as 50.

Beautiful fish.

Im about 2 hours 45 min from Dallas off I44. I'm very limited on stores other than petco and petsmart and a places I won't walk in again there is one more to try this weekend. As for the crypts I really want to get a pink flamingo.

I really thought about driving up to Oklahoma city getting some large swords, but I've done a regular sword tank before. That's why there's only two red swords in here. I really like the way you have your tank, and I to live the satisfaction of putting in full grown plants. This time I wanted to watch them grow in. Aging there is nothing wrong with putting in a bunch of fully frown plants, it's instant gratification. I'm looking at the long run. Watching a system start from a bunch of small plants and grow in and spread. That said I am about to place another order of a couple more cryps, java fern and a stem plant of some kind.

The city water here is a blend. The well water has nitrates too high for human consumption (all the farming) so they mix it with water from a reservoir. The reservoir has really high dissolved organics. Wich in turn when mixed with chlorine produces trihalomethsnes. Once the tank has settled in this won't really be a problem. My dosing schedule right now is one time a week. Other than the one plant it seams to be working. Noticed 2 new vals and some new dwarf val growing yesterday. I do plan on adding more plants , I just wanted to see what would grow best here before I spent a lot on plants that won't.

The Tiger Lotus is growing great one large one medium and two small leafs in a week. I was really hoping the red sword s would grow faster but the are taking a while to adjust. I would love to just get a huge bunch of plants. But right now I'm seeing what will grow well in this water. It's really hard and has nitrate in it from farming. The val will fill the middle when it grows in. I like the idea of swords on both sides. I'll have to source them locally. It's way to hot for plants to get mailed right now. Mailman puts packages in his trunk and they may be there until after lunch. Thanks for the suggestion, anyone else got a thought?

Ya there are some just still really small. Behind the drift wood on the right are 2 red flame swords and left of it is a tiger lotus. They are just really small right now. The corkscrew val is starting to grow and the scarlet temple is just not doing well at all melting back to nothing. So I need a different stem plant for the back any suggestions?

I know I said we were going to wait for the fish. We'll last night we did a thing. 20 Halequin rasboras 6 Giant danios 3 Denison barbs

This one looks a lot better. I took the brightness down.

Just noticed my camera made a lot of the plants look more yellow than the really are.

Week one down. Everything is going well. I've added some more plants to the tank 1 Cryptocoryne Wendtii Green 2 Cryptocoryne Parva 3 Anubias Nana petite 1 Windelov Java fern it had one big plant and two smaller ones in the pot. The Tiger Lotus bulb had got knocked off last week but the plant is doing great three new leaves have grown. I put in a extra root tab for it. The Scarlet Temple is doing don't know if it likes my water though. Everything else is doing well. The tank over all looks a lot better. We arw thinking of adding some more fish. Next week we're adding 20 neon tetras. In the future (later this year into next) we'll add 4 Denison Barbs, 4 Reticulated hillstream Loach and 6 Giant Danios.

It really is. When I use to have multiple tanks I always wanted to plant this one, but never did. Now that we're in the new house and I can have tanks again the wife is encouraging me to do run with it. As long as she gets some of her fish in it. The micro sword is new to me also. Hopefully it does well.

Got the plants in Saturday. I still need more to finish it up, but I think it's a good start. I'll try and post a new pic every week. Not in this photo is a red sword behind the drift wood on the left. The substrate is 160lb of eco complete, filters aquaclear 110 with sponge and purigen with bio media on top, Emperor 400 with sponge and bio media. The heater is a marineland. The lighting is 2, 36 inche Nicrew skyled with timer. The lighting will have to be upgraded at some point. Dosing the water column with Easy Green and root tabs in the substrate. Plants are Tiger lotus, cryptocoryne wendtii, micr sword, scarlet temple, red flame sword, corkscrew val, dwarf sagittaria and pilot moss. The only fish at the moment are 10 zebra danios. Water 10 nitrate, 0 nitrate, hardness 300, buffer 80, ph 7.2, chlorine 0, ammonia 0.

In place just need to finish cleaning and wait for everything to show up.

I'm going to try and make a photo series on it as i start setting it up. The tank has passed the leak test, I've had water in it for a month. Moving it into its spot today. When we get it there I'll post the first pic. When I do that I'll move the rest of the post over to the photo, videos& journals section. Thank all of you for welcoming me to the forum.

For fish I haven't fully decided yet, but the wife has picked her two favorite fish. The reticulated hillstream loach and giant danio. For plants im keeping it simple right now. Corkscrew vallisneria, Amazon sword, micro sword, Java fern and an anubis of some type.

Yes. I've done planted in the past in a 75 and 55. After retirement the house we moved into was to small for all the tanks so sold all but 125. The floor couldn't support it so it went into storage. We recently move, so it's time to get back into the hobby.

Coming back to the hobby after 13 years. Love the forum and videos. Placed my order today for some equipment, hopefully will have the 125 running and planted in about a month.