jeremoose

Hey all, first off a picture of a 30 gallon that I just bought new substrate for, I wanted to go heavily planted with it right from the start. Sitting on top of it is my new LED light setup (Beamswork Power LED 400). I have a ton of plants sitting in a bucket waiting to go in, once they're in I'll be adding some inert sand on the surface since I heard my Flourite Black Sand is bad for my Cory's barbels. Anyways, here's the tank half-way through the substrate switch: Next we have my CA/SA Cichlid tank. It's a 50g currently housing 4 Convicts (all female), 2 Firemouths, 1 Jack Dempsey, and 1 Severum. I realize it will be overstocked in the future (the JD will be getting a 50g of his own, the Severum will be hitting a 60g with my Angels, and I'd like to keep the Firemouths and Convicts together in this tank). Anyways, my wife has been getting increasingly frustrated seeing the eyesore that this tank had become.. We couldn't use any live plants since they just eat/uproot them all and we hadn't taken much time to really aquascape it. After a little research we decided to go with some silk and plastic plants from Michaels. Here's the finished product: Thanks for looking! I will be updating this thread with the progress of the 30g planted once it clears up enough to aquascape.

Thanks very much for all the replies! I purchased mine at Aquatic Exotic in Edmonton, was really surprised to see it there. I will post back as soon as I get an idea what it's doing for my 30g planted tank. Keep us posted too jvision! Also, I'm really pleased to hear that they're working well for you Hackerberry, I couldn't find much information on them online and I'm just hoping it'll be a good upgrade for my tank.. Now I'm sure it will be!

Hmm, yeah, that's what I turned up too. I can't make heads or tails from the specifications.. Can anyone help me out with this purchase? Worth a shot or no?

Hey all, I just bought an LED setup for my freshwater planted tank, it's the Beamswork Power LED 400. I can't seem to find any real information on it. The box doesn't even give any specs on the setup, does anyone know anything about it? I'm inclined to think that it's a 10000k setup, will this be okay for a freshwater planted tank? Thanks.

Definitely go with the 33g, or better yet grab a 50g. The larger the tank the easier it is to take care of (more stable environment inside the tank).

I would add more shrimp without blinking, they're so tiny they hardly touch the bio-load at all. I have a planted 10g with probably 60 RCS and the colony is thriving.

Good idea! Are the hot and cold lines meant for a washer/dryer setup? That's what I'm currently running off in my basement but never thought of running the hot and cold together into a single outlet to regulate the temperature better.

Hey all! I have a couple Cichlid tanks that absolutely SHRED live plants and they're starting to look pretty boring so I decided to look into some silk plants. I remember someone on here saying they've used silk plants from Michaels before. Anything I should look out for, or WATCH out for? Also, let's see some pictures of your fake planted tanks! No neon colors please, hehe.

I've seen some decently planted Fluval Chi's, just make sure he has it near a window then he won't have to worry about upgrading the lighting (it's amazing what a little natural lighting can do for a planted aquarium).

Possibly Panda Corys??

I do small clean-ups with water-changes everyday of about 5% and never warm the water up. If I were to do large once-a-week changes of 35%+ I would definitely get the water temp up before I topped off my tanks though.

Oh crap.. Is it recommended for 6'+ tanks to be moved with suction cups? It's not cool to just throw a dude on either side of the tank and give 'er?

Sorry to resurrect this thread but: can we get an update and maybe some pics of him? Thanks!

I had a similar problem recently with my Angelfish.. Just randomly started losing them, now I'm down to four. I hope someone can help you!

Love it. Looks fantastic!

Gorgeous. I should run to my African tank and see if I have any room..

Sounds fantastic! Make sure you update with pictures.

I also had a similar experience with amanos and my angel. They weren't full adult sized amanos , they were more around 1 1/2" but I dropped in 12 and I stood there and watched all 60$ worth of shrimp get eaten in a minute. After that I don't trust adding anything shrimpy to my angel tank. I was also worried when I added my Rummynose school as a couple were a little bit smaller but they seem to be doing fine. They got chased for the first few days but the angel didn't eat any. Now they are fine together. If you want angels I suggest buying 2 that are already paired or buying a group of 5-6 and letting them pair up themselves and removing the rest. Just putting 2 angels together will probably result in one getting beat up. This is exactly what I'd do, leaning towards buying 5-6 juvies and letting them pair off. I'm biased though since I really enjoy raising the fish from being small to adulthood.

I've had the opposite experience (although I'm not sure what is considered a FULL grown Amano Shrimp), my Angel's immediately started picking at the Amano's I added and by the next day I couldn't spot any at all.

I currently have a 10g setup exactly the way you're describing to raise guppy fry. The sponge filter is the perfect filter for a fry grow-out tank and no additional filtration is necessary. You will want to keep up on vacuuming out excess waste however, since sponge filters are poor mechanical filters. EDIT: A bare tank would work fine but a couple of simple, low-light plants would go a long ways towards a healthy, clean tank.

Angels are nearly impossible to tell females from males, most of the time you have to wait for them to pair off to tell the difference. I prefer koi Angels and the black velvet ones you're talking about. And yes, the Angels would leave the ottos alone!

2 Angels in a 35 should be fine, in a 60g you could keep 4-5 Angels so I'm sure your 35 would be fine for 2 (maybe even a trio). I've currently got 4 Angels growing out in a 30g and once I get a pair they will be moving to another 30, they're about 2.5 inches across and no aggression problems yet.

The danios would be nice along with a pair of Angels!

A couple pics of them: P. Saulosi Strawberry Peacock

My money is on an African cichlid tank, Lake Malawi cichlids in particular. I'd go with 6-10 Pseudotropheus Saulosi's (the dominant males look like Demasonis and the females are yellow like Electric Yellows) and 6-10 Strawberry Red Peacocks. If you want color and personality, this mix gives you yellows, blues, and reds. Additionally you get all the interesting behavior that goes along with these little guys. Oh and maybe a common pleco for your clean-up crew (kids tend to love the sleek look of plecos, I know my daughter does!). Hope this helps.