Emmanuel's 100gallon tank

[emmanuelchavez]

They're growing quite rapidly. They're all starting to realize that I'm the 'food guy' so they come up to me when I enter the room now.

[crackal]

wow!!! it looks great. but its gonna look even better when the plants fill in and your discus grow.

[emmanuelchavez]

The tank is finally scaped, and I got some discus from pancak82 and mtun. I did a copy and paste from what I wrote on my journal on another forum... so I'll probably come back a bit later to fill in some gaps.

People wanted pictures, so I'm giving pictures. Prepare for picture overload!!!

Let's start with a picture of the tank as it stands now. Some plants need to fill in more.



Left side... you get a preview of some of my discus here.



Center.



Right side.



Angelfish. It's grown so much. It was about 1.5" when I got it.



Another one. He's such a great looking koi angelfish, IMO.



The other angel. I like the vertical stripes. You get a preview of one of the juvy discus. It's almost 1.5"



Now on to the discus! I can has bloodworms burger?



Another juvy discus looking for some more grub. The bigger of the juvy discus have taken a liking to the beefheart now.



Another of the larger juvy discus.



More juvy discus. I like the vertical bars on the second one.



Probably my favorite, and biggest, of the juvy discus



I seez yuuu!



Which brings me to my favorite of the discus! The Red Melons!!! You can get a rough estimate of their size by looking at the full tank shots.



I love you red melon discus!







On the prowl for some grub. They didn't seem to like the beef heart. They ate some brine shrimp, but went crazy for their afternoon bloodworms.



You can see the size difference between the bigger guys and the bigger of the juvies in the background. The juvies are growing rather rapidly as well, except for a couple of the finicky eaters that won't touch the beefheart or brine shrimp, and only eat a couple of bloodworms...



Introducing some blue colbalts!



Sometimes a few of the juvies will school with the big guys... I'll see if I can get one of those pictures.



The blue colbalts seem more partial to the bloodworms, but will sometimes eat a bit of beefheart or brine shrimp.



With flash to show the colors a bit better.




Luckily they're all eating some new life spectrum food as well, until I can replenish my tetracolor bits. I love discus!

[emmanuelchavez]

I found another image of my tank. This is what it looked like before I started to pull it apart.

I need to find time to start scaping... this weekend, I'm hoping.

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[emmanuelchavez]

I think the floating manzy pieces may finally have sunk. I've been sick for the past week though, so I haven't tried scaping. Hopefully by next weekend. Classes start this week so i may not have much time during the week.

[Complexity]

Looking nice! I like the way the driftwood curves down. Reminds me of a hand with long, boney fingers. Eerie feeling.

Most people with planted tanks love to scape. It seems the process of scaping is what's most fun for them. I'm weird in that I actually hate the process of planting, trimming, etc. I hate scaping. But I love the look and feel of a real planted tank. So my scape will never really change.

You clearly have the scaping bug. Keep playing with it and take pictures all the way. It's fun to see other people's designs.

[emmanuelchavez]

Hehehe, I keep changing my mind about the plants and their placement before I even start scaping it.

For now, here is a picture of the tank as it stands. Only two of the pieces of driftwood are waterlogged, they're two of the original ones I had in there - they're holding down the buoyant pieces. It only took my first set of manzy dw about a week to get waterlogged... these are taking their sweet, sweet time.

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[Complexity]

I'm thinking/hoping the next one lasts longer. I'm thinking it should, if I use slow-growing plants, right? Haha.

No, it won't. It doesn't matter what plants you use. It'll change as often as your creative spirit feels like it.

[emmanuelchavez]

Oh my. Now I feel like I have to make sure the next scape is epic.

That last scape only lasted roughly 4.5 months... I feel like I have ADD, constantly changing it around. :P
I'm thinking/hoping the next one lasts longer. I'm thinking it should, if I use slow-growing plants, right? Haha.

[wesleydnunder]

i love that style tank. I think a school of some sort would be a must for that tank. Great job!!

Mark

[FIREFISH]

What a peaceful looking tank! Looks Great!

FF

[emmanuelchavez]

Thanks! :)
I was actually thinking of getting rid of the tetras, and just having the rams and angels.... Those tetras are bigger piggies than the other fish. I've had a few jump out of the tank from excitement of getting fed, a couple were saved... and several weren't :(.

[Darbex]

Very nice need more tetras

[emmanuelchavez]

I could list livestock and hardware for the meantime. In my infinite wisdom, I saw that I could weigh down the floating driftwood pieces with the already waterlogged pieces until they're all ready... I was going to take a picture of the current mess... but I've misplaced my memory card... the parental has a habit of taking things that aren't his out of my room... we'll see where it's gone.

Hardware.
Tank is 60"x??? Dang. I Forgot, but it is 100 gallons. I'll remeasure when I get home later today
Coralife 48" 4x65w bulbs. 2x 6,500K and 2x 10,000K. I really like the combination of the two, as I find pure 6,500K to be too yellow, and pure 10,000K too white/bluish.
2x Marineland 350 canister filters.
CO2 injected.

The next rescape will consist of manzanita driftwood and river rocks. I was going to place the manzy so it looks roots coming into the water.

Livestock:
??? neon and green neon tetras - I'm considering getting rid of them
2x German Blue Rams - they used to breed frequently, although none of the eggs ever made it. They haven't bred since my original 100g tank cracked last January...
5x Bolivian Rams
3x Angels; one koi and two blacks.
1x Bristlenose Pleco
9x "Mystery" Snails
3x Olive Nerite Snails
2x Displaced female bettas

Planned flora:
Anubias Barteri var. Nana "Petite"
Anubias Barteri var. nana
Anubias Barteri Coffeefolia
Anubias ??? It's pretty big
Cryptocoryne Wendtii
Some type of Lotus... maybe a couple more, depending on whether or not I have room.
Hygrophila Corymbosa Augustifolia
Rotala Indica???
Blyxa Japonica? (I found a couple of small stems that were hiding in between the anubias)
Possibly keeping some e. tenellus for a foreground until my nana petite multiplies enough to create a foreground. Anubias plants have grown pretty quickly for me, so maybe in a year I can have a foreground of it. :)

[thomas]

beautiful hand. Good job on the tank. I am waiting for other specifications.