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Y’all, it's finally here! After years of planning and procrastination, I finally have started my 4ft tank! Every single step has taken way longer than planned, but I think I have done enough now that I can actually start a journal. It’s About Time!

Tank: 120x50x50cm, 79 gallons/300 L Hydra Aquatics Tranquility aquarium

Filtration: Two Eheim 2217s (Classic 600) with prefilters, extra sponges, and a spray bar outlets.

Light: Chihiros WRGB2 90cm suspended - Yes, a 90cm light on a 120cm tank.

Substrate system: mesh bags with a mixed substrate of raised bed mix (pine bark fines, sphagnum moss, with a small amount of compost) + Controsoil + my iron-rich native soil + Safetsorb + a tiny bit of dolomitic lime) with a cap of Caribsea Peace River and Caribsea Tornado Beach decorative sand
I am returning to a DIY substrate with a significant organic fraction. I did something similar with my first two tanks that I'm hoping to improve on, but it’s still fairly experimental. I will post about this mix in detail if I end up happy with how it performs, so fingers crossed.

Concept:
This build is my attempt to scale up and refine what I started with Biding Time. I am really happy with the color and plant diversity in that tank, but I never got the balance quite right. BBA was a persistent issue. I found it difficult to maintain the layout as I had imagined - the aquasoil got everywhere and I found it hard to stop myself from planting in any open area, so it eventually became overfilled with plants. I tried out a lot of stem plants, but once they were happy it was work keeping them a reasonable height in such a short tank. There are worse problems to have, but I want to do some course correction this time around.


Yes, I did do my plant layout by physically making paper placeholders and moving them around.

With this layout I have decided to feature a sunken beach. This will hopefully force me to have one open area in the front for fish and some dedicated sand for future corydoras and/or dwarf cichlids. If the cap migrates onto the sand some it should be much less visually obtrusive than aquasoil. I am planting the front half of the tank mainly with plants that should be kept 6” or less, so there should be a lot of open water above that for fish that prefer mid water and higher. I am still including stem plants, but long term they will be in smaller centralized patches. I mentioned that I have a 90 cm light on the tank and my plan is to take advantage of the gradient of light intensity that will result. Plants that need a lot of light will be in the center, and the periphery will be dimmer. The vast majority of my plants don’t need higher light anyway, even most of the stem plants, and I think it will help with algae management if there is a sizable shady area. I think some fish species will appreciate having lower light areas as well. I also like this from an aesthetic perspective - I think contrasting shadows and bright spots are much more dramatic looking than when everything is uniformly lit like a studio family portrait from the 90s. I’ve gone with a black background, but I hope it is mostly obscured by plants in the long term. I have some amazon swords and taller crypts back there that will hopefully do the job.

I am a fairly patient aquarist, so I expect this tank to take a year to grow in. There will be a lot more stems in the beginning to get that plant mass growing, and the crypts are going to take their time getting established. My light gradient idea will probably take some experimentation to implement properly. There will be other problems I haven’t anticipated (and I’ve already encountered the first one). It should be a fun ride.

I’ve got at least one more post until I’ve caught up with the present and after that we'll have to see what develops.