I finally got a chance to put (a single) picture of my 135 gallon tank up.

Take a look!

http://hometown.aol.com/brucekgeist/...e/profile.html

-Bruce Geist

Hi Bruce,

Your 135 gallon aquarium is a beautiful masterpiece. I keep playing with my 90g,
adding plants, removing plants, moving plants around but I thing it just all
requires an artistic touch which I don't have :-(

Post more pictures soon,
Marvin





"BruceKGeist" wrote in message
...
I finally got a chance to put (a single) picture of my 135 gallon tank up.

Take a look!

http://hometown.aol.com/brucekgeist/...e/profile.html

-Bruce Geist

Marvin,

Thanks for your comment. -Bruce

Bruce,

Your tank is really lovely! Where did you get your plants? Looks a lot like
the plant assortment I got from TrueAquariumPlants.com...

What kind of fish are those, too?

And I concur with Marvin...post more soon!

Erica

Erica,

Thanks.

I have collected most of my plants from several fish stores in the metro
Detroit area. But also, I have found a really terrific fish store in Buffalo,
NY (called the "Fish Place" if you are ever in the neighborhood..) Good
plants, and a phenomenal fish collection--- they are always well stocked with
stuff I simply cannot find in the Detroit area.

In the tank currently, I have three Angels, 9 Congo Tetras, 7 SAEs, three clown
loaches, a dozen or so ottos, 10 or so Rosie barbs (a fish I recently aquired,
and really like for its dark plum coloration, but was always unjustifiably
scared off by expectations of "nippiness"), various rainbows, 11 rummy-nose
tetras, 5 cardinal tetras, 6 Rasbora Heteromorpha. (harlequin fish), and 6
fancy Serpae tetras.

-Bruce

Beautifully lush! Nice mix of colors and textures, too.

Is the grass-like plant Vallisneria? It seems like a nice height. (How deep
is your tank?) What kind of Val is it? I've been looking for a shorter Val
for my tank. The V. spiralis that was supposed to stay under 22" turned out to
get longer...*much* longer. :-/


Leigh

http://www.fortunecity.com/lavender/halloween/881/

Beautifully lush! Nice mix of colors and textures, too.

Thank you, and thank TMG.

Is the grass-like plant Vallisneria?

Indeed it is.. and it is V. Siralis (at least to the best of my knowledge it
is). I just took a whole pile back to the LFS-- it grows very quickly, as you
know. My tank is 24 inches deep, though probably it is only 21 inches or so in
actual water height. I am constantly trimming.. It is not uncommon for one of
the Vals to flow fifteen inches along the surface of the tank (before
trimming) for a total approximate height of 30 or 35. I.e., I think 22 inches
is defnintely not the top height for that plant.

-Bruce

Is the grass-like plant Vallisneria?

Indeed it is.. and it is V. Siralis (at least to the best of my knowledge it
is). I just took a whole pile back to the LFS-- it grows very quickly, as
you
know. My tank is 24 inches deep, though probably it is only 21 inches or so
in
actual water height. I am constantly trimming.. It is not uncommon for one
of
the Vals to flow fifteen inches along the surface of the tank (before
trimming) for a total approximate height of 30 or 35. I.e., I think 22
inches
is defnintely not the top height for that plant.


So that's the trimmed length. Drat! I was hoping you had discovered a species
of Val that didn't grow too tall.

I don't mind trimming, but the leaves eventually die when you cut them. They
grow back fast enough, but the dead leaves are unsightly -- and hard to reach,
at the back of the tank where I keep most of my Vals.



Leigh

http://www.fortunecity.com/lavender/halloween/881/

Leigh,

Does your valisneria die after trimming?

I am not sure the best way to handle Val. I trim leaves, I think to no serious
dilatarious effect.

However, I will be on the look out for what happens to a trimmed leaf. I
assumed it simply quit growing for a while, and another leaf replaced the old
eventually. I don't really have a tremendous amount of die back after trimming
--- at least as far as I have observed anyhow. (I do take out dead leaves
during weakly cleanings though..)

Seems like you gotta do something like trimming with Val, because it seems to
take over otherwise.

-Bruce

Does your valisneria die after trimming?

No, the plant itself doesn't die. Just the cut leaves.


Leigh

http://www.fortunecity.com/lavender/halloween/881/

Dead Jealous, My 100 Gal setup has never even resembled that. I blame the
Severums I used to have. Anything remotely green was food to them. What
lighting are you using?, I'm going to try acheive something like your tank
money permitting.

"BruceKGeist" wrote in message
...
I finally got a chance to put (a single) picture of my 135 gallon tank up.

Take a look!

http://hometown.aol.com/brucekgeist/...e/profile.html

-Bruce Geist

Thanks!

As for lighting, I initially purchased two 110 watt All-glass compact
flourescent fixtures; after my plants grew in, I found this was really not
enough light. I made three additional 55 watt compact flourescent fixtures
using the AH supply kits (see http://www.ahsupply.com/). So now I have a total
of 385 watts CF lighting. Wayne Jones, a frequent contributor to this news
group gave me good advice on this.. Chuck Gadd undoubtedly gave me good advise
on something realted too.. his whole website is really terrific. (See
http://www.csd.net/~cgadd/aqua/).

I also installed some incandescent strip lighting under the canopy for moon
lighting the tank in the evening hours. It works very well when we have guests
over to the house and the regular lighting has gone off for the day. It is a
neat affect. I put this strip lighting in with sticky tape inside the canopy,
and bought a dimmer switch for the lights for next to nothing (at home depot).
The lights unscrew from the dimmer switch, so that when I need to remove the
canopy, that is easy to do.

I think my current setup seems to provide good coverage-- no shade anywhere
and the lighting seems to have good penetration. I would like to get a
waterproof light meter just to measure the actual light delivered, but have not
done this. The 2-4 watt per gallon rule seems more suited to mid range tank
sizes. My belief is that my lighting is on the high side, though the watt per
gallon rule puts me at a more medium lighting level. I think there is a krib
article describing a more rigoras way of calculating lighting, but I don't have
that reference..

I use the GE 9300K bulbs-- they produce a beautiful white-blue color---not as
blue as a 10000K (obviously)--- but more of a white blue. I really like it. I
have tried 5300K, which I thought too yellow. I might like the 6400K color
since its whiter, but I decided not to experiment (since that can be
expensive). I guess I got used to the bluer end of the spectrum. Of course,
you can use any CF bulb in these fixtures.

I have to special order the GE bulbs from a lighting company around here.
Getting them from the LFS is way too expensive. For some reason, the GE bulbs
cost more than other brands. I so liked the color, and disliked a 5300k bulb I
bought, that I just went for the GE bulbs even though they were a bit more
(approximately 10% more than AH supply's 10000K bulbs, and much cheaper than
the LFS).

The kits from AH supply are quite nice, with a good deal of variety in lengths
and wattages. I feel you probably get more lighting for your money with these
kits. They are really good on the critical stuff-- like their reflector and
ballast. However, I also very much like the All-glass fixtures. The only
negative with the All-glass fixture was the rectangular profile reflector. One
thing I wish AH supply would consider putting in their kits is a push-button
on/off switch. I have thought about adding such a switch, just so that during
water chagnes and such, I can easily turn some or all of the lamps off if
required. Obviously, this is not terribly critical.

Good luck; hope this is helpful to you.

On 20 Oct 2002 17:58:26 GMT, oSpam (LeighMo) wrote:

I don't mind trimming, but the leaves eventually die when you cut them.

Doesn't ever happen in my case. I trim all of mine, and they
definitely don't die.


Chuck Gadd
http://www.csd.net/~cgadd/aqua