[porksnorkel]

just documenting my tanks progress, so please enjoy the pics.

DIY 125g stand and canopy w/ marineland 125 tank

filtration.....twin emperor 400's and fluval fx5
lighting.......twin 96W AH Supply PC's on single ballast w/ 10,000K bulbs
cooling.......DIY mini fan from Skycraft Surplus
heaters......twin Stealth 200W's
timer/pwr....Coralife single digital and Leviton power strips
backround...exterior black paint
substrate....white play sand from Home Depot
rock...........Tennessee river rounds from Pebble Junction
wood..........grapewood and unknown

flora..........Jungle Vallis [to be planted]

fauna[current]........2 angels
9 silver dollars [8 in QT]
5 silver hatchets
2 marble hatchets
1 clown pleco [to be removed if possible]
1 whiptail cat
2 spotted coris
1 glass cori
1 bolivian ram
2 ghost shrimp

fauna[to come]......1 whiptail cat
3 to 4 glass coris
6 bolivian rams
2 discus
10 to 15 small tetras of some sort [may not have room]

 

[HONDO]

looks real good. very nice job.
what kind of paint did you use for the bcakground?

 

[D-007]

Very interesting setup with the rocks at the front of the tank

Will you be adding any live plants?

What did you put under the play sand (the brown stuff)?

 

[jcushing]

i was wondering the same thing, im thinking its peat? (making that guess based on the color of the water)

tank looks good so far, its a big tank so for now it looks a bit empty with no plants but i know your just setting it up.

 

[ArcticCatRider]

Yeah, porksnorkel used peat moss under his sand.I read this from one of his previous posts.

 

[porksnorkel]

ty guys.

hondo...rolled on exterior paint. couldn't spray indoors, and there was no way i was getting 2 tanks back outside to paint! veeery heavy!

d-oo7...live jungle valls, should be ordered in the next few weeks. apparently the silver dollars are going to destroy them though, so they have to go i guess.

yes...peat moss under the sand.

jc...the valls will fill the rest of the tank out. all areas w/ no rock will be planted. may pull a few midsize rocks back out though. see how goes.

 

[BlackShark11k]

Very cool 8)

 

[firebird68]

Play sand??

 

[Fishbguy]

the sand used in sandboxes...looks really nice.

Love the tank...a little too many rocks for my taste...looks too africanish.

The silverdolalrs will make salads out of any live plant you put in IME.

 

[porksnorkel]

yes firebird...play sand from home depot.

ty artemis and fishb.

i have been informed already about my silver dollar problem, so they will have to go back to the lfs. but...that leaves me room for a nice school of small tets. i wanted cardinals, but i think my angels may give them a hard time, so i'll keep looking.

as for the rocks...i agree. a bit overkill, but i wanted to put them all in and see what i had, before doing anymore arranging.

 

[mithesaint]

Personally, I'd go for less rocks and larger/more pieces of driftwood. The tint of the water is nice, but looks sorta funny with the rocks. If you keep the rocks, I'd try for a different arrangement, it looks artificial at this point.

Canopy and stand look great! Let me know how the AH supply lights work out. I have a 135 that I'll be setting up very similar to yours in the near future.

 

[porksnorkel]

ty for the input mith. i am in agreement on removing some rock, but not much. it will become less drastic w/ some very tall jungle val.

the AH supply kit is awesome. easy install, and good light. i'm actually ordering another kit for my malawi tank, as my canopy doesn't allow clearance for the current home depot set up, and that kit isn't very bright.

 

[VT4Me]

You shouldn't have any problems with the cards and angels. I've seen plenty of tanks with this combo and cards can grow to a good size for a tetra, 2" is possible. Make sure you get a shoal of at least 15. I once had 30 and they looked great. You could also do with more cory's. I don't like to see less than 8, and a shoal of 10 or more looks great.

You definitely need to lose most of the rocks, add more wood, and I would suggest some Echinodorus amazonicus.

 

[porksnorkel]

ummm...i meant a few rocks,not most,lol. ty for the input though. i will try the cards if i can find some a bit larger than what is available here.

 

[VT4Me]

If you don't change the aquascaping much then you won't have a true Amazon tank. The species will be SA, but the look will not be. However, this is not a criticism, it's your tank after all.

 

[porksnorkel]

no prob mon. i am open to critique and suggestions. i do however like the rock and the bulk of it will stay. sides...if i wanted a true biotope, then we wouldn't be able to see anything in the tank at all. perhaps i should change the "name" from Amazon to one of it tributaries or something more rocky.

 

[VT4Me]

Unless you can be positive about where each species is from, I would just stick with 'South American'. This leaves the door open to pretty much everything then. But who cares what it's called!

 

[porksnorkel]

i shoulda thought of that before i titled this dern thread. i would have called it "pork's tank", but i wanted some folks to actually see it,lol. anyways...ty for the input...check back in a few weeks, as i should have the vall in there, and some new fish.

 

[porksnorkel]

picked up 5 more green cories. they are in Q right now. sorry bout the crappy pic, but i can't get a good shot in this tank for some reason.

also added 3 hydor nano pumps for 600+ more gallons of circulation.

 

[porksnorkel]

ty guys. i have rearranged things, as i felt the set up was to cluttery, and left little room for plantings. much of the rock has come out as well as the wood. not sure how i feel about the last piece of wood at this point. i'll have to see it w/ the plants in.

as u can see, there are some nice cory and ram caves. hopefully some will be convinced to spawn at some point.

i have added 2 more angels and the 5 cories that were in Q. also picked up 17 rummy nose tets, 8 scissortail tets, 4 bolivian rams, and 3 more panda cories. all the later are in Q.

on a different note, the last of the clown plecs was traded in, as well as all the silver dollars.