Social Feed

Inspiration, Goals, & Considerations

I've had an interest in aquariums since a young age and had my own aquarium with fish like Angelfish and Mollies around middle school. Growing up, my dad had a bigger tank with Blood Parrots and Silver Dollars. Over 10 years ago, I had a low maintenance 55 gallon planted tank. I was pretty proud of it, but always envied the high tech tanks I saw on forums/social media and told myself when I broke that tank down that the next time I set up a tank, it would be like what I envied. At the end of 2024, I set up a small low tech 5 gallon planted tank to help scratch my aquarium itch, which really only reaccelerated my desire for setting up a high tech tank. And now, here we are!

The size of the tank was mostly dictated by the space. I originally planned on something around 30 gallons, but my LFS had the UNS 75P in stock and after measuring and discussing with my wife, we agreed it would work for the space. The tank is between the kitchen and living room, which is essentially a play area for my son, so lighting needs to be adjusted to make sure he's not blinded by the light when looking up at the tank.

Generally, I'd like to have a visually pleasing aquarium with lots of fish and plants that's peaceful to enjoy. I'd like to automate / reduce as much friction as possible and I realize there's still plenty I need to learn, so I'll need to have patience when things go wrong. I want to keep away from anything that's hard to get out of the tank once it's in (duckweed, moss, pest snails, etc). I felt like sharing prices below might give value to anyone in the future that's looking to start where I did with a high tech tank.

Specs (prices include sales tax)
Tank:

Lighting:

Filtration:

Co2:

Inflow & Outflow Pipes:

Substrate & Hardscape:

Fertilization:
Battery Backup & Power

Other Misc Equipment:
Chihiros CO2 Drop Checker
5 x Oase ShutOff Valve 16/22
Inkbird WiFi ITC-308 - $38
SwitchBot Leak Detectors - $15 each

"Stand"
Because the guts are located in a kitchen cabinet, I didn't want to screw directly into it and damage it. I was also concerned silicone would not be able to dry and outgas properly when sealing the edges. I opted to line the cabinet with contact paper. It's essentially a giant sticker, so I lined the sides, bottoms, and a second layer over the bottom edges/joints. I built a 3 panel "stand" inside of the cabinet so I could house everything and screw into the plywood without any concerns. I used 1 sheet of 3/4" Maple plywood and coated 1 side with a latex primer followed by a layer of latex white paint. This is mostly for water resistance and not necessarily water proof. I placed a silicone cabinet liner under the right side equipment. I made a shelf to place the EcoFlow on so if there's a catastrophic leak it's off the bottom.

One consideration I hadn't thought about was how "cramped" the cabinet would be since I placed the EcoFlow on a shelf with a "wall", which essentially made the work area much tighter.

Cable Management: Raceway and cable clips
Water
Express Water RO5DX - $160
55 Gallon Brute Trash Can, 44 Gallon Brute Trash Can, 32 Gallon Greenmade Trash Can, and 2x dollys.
Plants (all UNS TC)

• Homalomena Sp Sekadau South (babysitter)
• Hydrocotyle Tripartita (potentially babysitter)
• Alternanthera Reineckii Rosanervig (initially planned as babysitter, but may keep some in long term)
• Hemianthus Callitrichoides 'Cuba'
• Rotala Rotundifolia Blood Red
• Anubias Nana Petite
• Micranthemum 'Monte Carlo'
• Alternanthera Reineckii 'Mini'
• Echinodorus Rose

Livestock:

Coming soon

• 25x Red Neon Blue Eye Rainbow
• 7x C005 Corydoras pantanalensis
• 3x C123 Yellow Cory 'Rio Nanay'
• Aphyosemion bivittatum 'Funge' Pair
• 5x Stiphodon rutilaureus Goby
• 1x True Siamese Algae Eaters
• 1x Bamboo Shrimp
• 8x Amano Shrimp

Finally a journal.

I’ll soon be setting up two new tanks, a UNS 90p and a 50c. (Not so!) Patiently awaiting tanks and stands delivery.

They will both be middle energy tanks. I have lengthy periods of busy time and travel that mean the tanks need to survive without human intervention here and there. So plenty of automation is needed, and slow and steady wins over high energy. Or in BBQ smoking terms: low and slow.

Plans:

• Injected CO2, but less than 30ppm
• Inert gravel
• Tidal HOB filter and partial UGF plate.
• Less than EI ferts, but more than PPS pro.
• Tap water (my tap is 50 TDS and only 10ppm Ca) remineralized to 30ppm Ca and 3-4 dKH.
• Lower light levels: Week aqua L on 90p and Chihiros wrgb 2 slim on 50c.
• Easy slow growing plants, and a few fish. Thinking the 50c will be a shrimp tank.
• Some hardscape but nothing crazy

My last tank has had a rough year. Hurricane Helene meant two weeks with no electricity, and much longer without decent water changes.

Then last summer the tank developed a slow leak while I was out of town (ugh!). Had to fly home for a week to triage. Fish and plants have been in temporary tanks. Plants are struggling. Photo is when they had already been in temporary bin for over 6 weeks, I was surprised it didn’t look like an algae infested swamp.





Sooo ready for my new tanks! These are my first really nice tanks, I’ve only owned petco specials before.

For the new tanks I'm planning on over ordering plants since my surviving plants are clearly pretty weak at this point.

It will be tough to get away, but I have managed to finagle enough coverage for the weekend, so I did it! I have my ticket! I figure why not? It’s actually not that far from me. Daichi Araki from ADA is teaching an aquascaping masterclass on Saturday morning. Also interested in the ADA Shizuku workshop.



Juris Jutjajevs previously announced he will be attending the Jersey show.

I have never been to an Aquashella, so don’t entirely know what to expect, but I presume it is much like any large convention exhibit hall experience. Any ‘Crunchers thinking of attending the Jersey show?

Welcome to ScapeCrunch, @jeffkrol!
We would love to get to know you. Please tell us about yourself. What tank do you have?

Hello everybody im opening this topic since i cant get rid of the algae and im getting a little tired of it

I have a Juwel Rio 350 liter
3x onex daytime 2x colour 1x plant
At 100% 186 par at the bottom (tank is 66cm high)
I have a 1.5 hour build up and 1.5 hour build off 5 hours full light (90% atm because of the algae)
I moved the timing a little earlier yesterday since i tought it may be on to late (22:00) and not getting enough fully darkness for the plants to recover so it goes out now at 20:00

My co2 goes on 2.5 hour before lights go on and half an hour before lights go out
Ph drop of 1.4-1.5 (dropchecker 30mg/l limegreen/yellow)

Filtration: tetra ex 1500, oase biomaster 750 thermo (both with a spraybar creating a roll over), eheim skim 350 and a marine 6000 wavemaker that goes on every hour for 5 minutes (from 12:00-20:00) to distribute loose dirt so the filters will suck it up and keep the plants more clean

Waterchange 50% a week on monday with only RO. Apt sky to a gh of 8

For fertz i use Apt E dosing 6ml a day (keeping the no3 stable trough the whole week from the strategy of Dennis)
I have tried higher dosing aiming at 20mg/l no3 to now leaner dosing.

My plants are not super healthy. The fast growing stems have healthy tops but bad old growth. Even when replanting the healthy parts they turn out the same way.

They are also not as deep red as they should be with 186 par and look like they lack light in the bottom of the tank. My theory is that the 66cm depth is filtering a lot of the spectrum especially red.

The soil is now 3 months in the tank and is 4 months matured if you include priming the soil in a big bucket for bacteries (darkstart)

I had algae before the soil change and still have it now. I tought the soil would be the cause.

I dont know what else i should try or what could be the problem

Thanks in advance for your help and reading this big text

Welcome to ScapeCrunch, @JZet!
We would love to get to know you. Please tell us about yourself. What tank do you have?

This tank was a Dutch-ish tank before we moved 2 months ago. This was one of its last pictures, very overgrown I know.



This time I want to make it a true Dutch, so anyone can chime in and help me.

After we moved, it ran low-tech with just a few tissue cultures until this week when I finally had time and materials to finish setting it up. This is what it looks like now:



I know there’s some bubbles showing in the vinyl cling. I’m having trouble reaching back there to smooth it out. I’ll have to think about how to fix that, although when the plants grow in it may not be visible anyway. I did read that you can have 1 rock in a Dutch scape, so I kept one. I may put Monte Carlo on it again, I haven’t decided.

So, details…

Tank: UNS 90U, 68 gallons

Light: Week Aqua P900 Pro, current settings R 40%, G 51%, B 20%, UV 0, Fan 100, Power 51%.
8 hours of light with 30 min ramp up/down
Par—no idea

Filtration: Fluval Fx4, currently running at 75%. Any higher blows the fish around. I expect to be able to increase it when the plants are grown in.

CO2: Yugang stainless steel reactor, 370 mm long, working really well. I had to turn down the CO2 a bit today because the drop was more than I expected (from degassed 7.4 to 5.9). I’ve already changed the end cap to the medium setting, but I think I’m just going to make further adjustments with the regulator. Call it laziness, but since there aren’t any double taps available for the Fx4 tubing that’s going to be easier for me. Anyway, I really like it. It’s completely silent and does its job well.

Substrate: Aqua Natural Galaxy sand, with a few Aquarium Coop root tabs.

Other: Oase CrystalSkim 350 skimmer, Kactoily 6-in-1 water quality monitor

Fertilizer: Until today I’ve just been using Easy Green. Today I installed the Chihiro’s dosing system with PPS-Pro, 6 ml macros and 3 ml micros daily. On water change day, I’ll add another 2 ml macros. I’m currently changing 20% of the water once a week. I’ll increase if necessary.

Parameters: Ammonia and Nitrite 0, Nitrate 10 ppm, gH 6, kH 2, TDS 222, 70-74 F

Plants (mostly from @Burr740 thanks!):

Leopard Val
Echinodorus Aflame
Hydrocotyle Tripartita (coming)
Penthorum Sedioides
Crypt Wendtii Sindoor
Lobelia cardinalis mini
Bacopa colorata
Rotala (? back left corner)
Limnophila wilsonii
Nymphae Peru Puerto Maldonade
Rotala macrandra Kochi
Nymphoides Taiwan

I’m not sure I like the Leopard Val in there. Should I put it in my 125 gallon instead, and move the Limnophila wilsonii to that spot?

Fish:

1 Honey Flame Gourami
4 Ember tetras
8 Otos
2 Pygmy sunfish
4 Red neon blue-eyed rainbowfish
9 Pygmy Cory catfish
9 male Lime Green Endlers
1 Leopard Danio (last of a group)
A few random Amano and Neocaridina shrimp and snails

The fish list will change as I get more tanks set up. I would like to end up with just the gourami, Otos, Rainbowfish (but more of them), and Pygmy Cories.

Well, that’s a start. Thanks for reading!

ADA has recently released the ADA Japan Denim Tool Pocket as a campaign-exclusive.

The pocket is made from denim fabric produced in Kurashiki, Okayama, one of Japan’s most renowned denim-producing regions. Handcrafted for both functionality and versatility, it provides a convenient way to organize and carry your aquarium maintenance tools, while also being designed for use in a variety of everyday situations.

If you are a gear-head like me, this is exciting news and I'm already trying to see how I can get my hands on this.

Filed under the heading, "Do I need it? No. Do I want it? Yes."

Time to start a new thread.

I’ll fill in some details later, but I’m working on the hardscape now. Any and all criticism is appreciated. The vision is nothing more, and nothing less, than something appealing to the eye.

90cm x 30cm x 30cm Lifegard Aquatics ultra clear bookshelf tank. Buce and anubias on the hardscape, stems towards the back and center, mid to front carpet with some changes in shade and texture down to a flat grade on the right side of the tank.

Lily pipe inlet and skimmer will be in the back left corner with the outflow in the front left to hopefully achieve circular flow. I’ll be running an in-line diffuser. Light will be the P600 Pro that I regrettably did not upside to 900. Oh well. I’ll mount it high and hopefully it’ll have enough spread.

I have some dragon stone and red lava rock rubble I’ll use at the base to blend into the substrate, as well as some stratum I may or may not cap with.