Jaykit

Very cool pictures! Looks like it was a great time.

Great progression pictures! :thumbs: Too bad the saltwater didn't work out for you.

Wow those are some great looking fish!!! :drool:

I've been having issues the last couple weeks with some algae as well. After searching up some info and trying to find out how to win the battle, i found that if you have BBA(Black beard algae) that means that your phosphates are low in your tank. I know that it takes more than a couple weeks to concern the battle and bring a tank back into balance. I'm unsure if you dose ferts, light schedule, or other details so general based suggestions are: 1. Keep on top of removing the "infected" areas, together with daily partial water changes for 4-5 days to bring your levels back even with each other. Then return to 2. Try the black out method. 3. Bleach. 4. Test and dose ferts to balance out the missing macro nutrients. 5. Algae eating fish or inverts. (amano shrimp, chinese algae eater) Try any or all of the suggestions, one may work for someone and not for another person. There is lots of other methods that people have posted online as well as a tonne of information on all types of algae if you still can't beat it.

Great looking photos! Looks like a great time.

Great looking pleco!

2nd that! :thumbs:

Great looking set-up. Plus you can never go wrong with another tank for your birthday

Great looking set-up!

I was over there today at harolds picking up some other fish too and they are great looking discus! Too bad i dont have a set-up for them.

Great looking tank! If the bulkheads are on the bottom of the tank how do you keep the substrate from flowing through your filtration system? (sorry, new to closed loop systems)

A quick easy search on google will reveal everything you need to know on them: http://www.seriouslyfish.com/profile.php?genus=Puntius&species=gelius&id=173

Pretty sure howard(fairdeal) on the site here sells a variety like these. They are great looking fish.

Okay so here's my thought, its a little crazy but it could be done. These are bottom dwelling fish so why not maximize the area of your 180g. If its 2x2x6 then you need to buy 2 - 2x5 plexi sheets and built a horizontal sump style tank. Therefore you've got yourself 16x2 of "bottom" surface area while still maintaining 8" height clearance on each level with 1' on each end for water flow. Then you have your canister intakes at the bottom corner and outputs at the very top portion. If needed extra powerheads can be added at the end of each level to increase water flow as well. This could easily give you 3x the amount of dwarf cichlids in your tank.

Great shots!

Everything i've read about freshwater clams is that they die of starvation and should never be kept in tanks. Does that mean that you shouldn't or that its impossible to, i guess that's up to each person. Without a ton of research i would probably steer clear of them. As for shrimp, your basic cherry shrimp would probably be the best bet to go with. Although with your rainbow sharks as they increase in size, any shrimp are going to look like tasty treats.

Thats so awesome! Who knew that oscars could be just as a great as a dog. Now you just need to teach him to fetch and bring in back.

Thats truely weird. Good luck with that, very interesting atleast.

Are those columbian or irridescent sharks? That'll be pretty sweet when you get that tank all stocked up.

Wow that is one great looking tank!

Great shots.

Beautiful!

Very ingeneous idea, i like it!

Great shots and good looking set-up!

I highly recommend surfing around the web and reading all that you can about co2 and planted tanks before you get too far into this. You'll want to make sure that you've got enough light over your tank to make co2 worth while, also if your adding co2 then you also will want to look into fertilizers as your plants are going to grow at a faster rate and use up all the nutrients in your tank. For Co2, I think pressurized would be the only way to go on a 180 gallon tank. On my 180 gallon planted tank I have 1 - 10lb tank or you could even do 2 - 5lb tanks. I have the regulator off the tank, then a splitter (T connection), and then a needle valve on each side. Then each airline runs to a mini filter (placed near the bottom of the tank) that works amazing as a cheap diffuser and really chops up the bubbles. I have both of "diffusers" located right below my 2 canister filter outputs to help circulate the co2 even more, which are located at about 6-8" from either side wall. I have it set-up so that the co2 comes on with my first bank of lights so that 1 hour later when the rest kick on there is enough co2 in the system to be effective. And then the co2 turns off when the main lights do so that for the last hour the remaining co2 gets used up. As for substrate i went to home depot and got 3 bags of play sand, washed it and filled the bottom. Its about 1 1/2"ish deep with a slight slope from front to back.