125g planted project

[jscurrier]

Well, its about midnight..all planted. I envisioned something a bit less chaotic. The worst part was removing the old substrate and cleaning. The water is still a tad cloudy from the sand. I'll take pics tomorrow and try to put a before and after. Tired......gnight.

[jscurrier]

Here is my stock list for my tank:

1 Synodontis catfish (already established)
3 Red Gold Honey dwarf gourami
3 Powder blue dwarf gourami
12 Congo Tetra
6 Panda Corydoras
4 Super Khuli Loaches
6 Super Red Longfin bristlenose plecos
8 red cherry shrimp
6 Zebra Nerite snails

What do you think? My filtration is a Fluval FX6 and an AC 110 along with an AC 50 that I use on the quarantine tank when I need it.

[Slaphppy7]

Shrimp may be eaten by the congos or gouramis, and with only 8, you'd probably never see them in a tank that size, anyway

That would be ALOT of bioload from those plecos, and I'm not sure if they'd have territory/fighting issues, as well...I'd try for 1 male, 1 female...they might even breed for you

You could do many more panda corys, I'd start with at least 12

[jscurrier]

My thought on the plecos is that I have 3 pleco caves and a fair amount of mopani wood, plus the rocks and plants. There is good circulation and foam covered filters at or near ground level. I do 50% water changes weekly as a routine and good filter maintenance. I thought I would breed them eventually in my dual purpose 20g.

But, with that said, I had to scrap the live bearer tank idea. The plecos really are the focus and with that bioload, I will be at a good level. My LFS would be more than happy to take a couple off my hands should it come to that.

[jscurrier]

I'm not sure if this will work. I downloaded an app to resize photos.

These are the photos of the tank before the upgrade

[jscurrier]

Here are the photos after

[jscurrier]

I still need to replace the background and replace the rubber connectors for the filter outputs. I will be moving a few things around and adding a bit of spider wood. I also ordered a really nice piece of new Mopani wood and will need to decide if I want to add it...or replace some older pieces. Work in progress yet. My rock walls didn't turn out as I had hoped, they kind of got buried. Not sure I want to mess with that as I added root tabs etc.

[Slaphppy7]

Looking good so far....

[Boundava]

Agree, it looks good. Just a word of caution with spider wood, that stuff grows bacteria like nothing I have ever seen. Within a week it will be encased in a gel-goop, even when I boil them it still happens. They also take a while to sink. I like the wood but sometimes it's better to wait until there's fish to eat the bacteria before getting it in the tank. Mopani may do that but to much lesser extent, plus it sinks immediately, and I love the tannins it gives off. Lol I had so much mopani in my 125 that the water was black as night and I had to do a double 90% water change to get to sepia.

[RiversGirl]

I tried to upload photos of the progress, but I cant get it to work from my phone.

Glad you got the photo aspect figured out. It is really nice to see your transition. I've used Tapatalk in the past to get photos from my phone into this forum successfully.

Well, its about midnight..all planted.

Tired......gnight.

A huge congrats to you! I know it was a lot of work, all time-crunched together. It was worth it!