# 125 gallon Angel tank - HALF SOLD RESCAPE!



## monkE (Aug 4, 2010)

Hey BCA, been a while since I have spent any time on here... sorry that I've missed all the journal updates that you've all been putting up.

Last month my girlfriend and I moved into a larger apartment (now we don't have to be in the same room all the time!!!! lol) My 125 planted angel tank was quite the job getting it moved... luckily we didn't have to move it very far, but still not fun! Those of you that remember any of my previous tanks know that I usually go pretty dense on the plants, well when I set up the tank in the new place I decided to change it up a bit and go a little softer with the plants to open up more space for the angels. I also got my first DSLR camera - Nikkon 3100 - and am learning as I go with it.

I managed to do the entire move and didn't loose one single fish! oh yeah high fives all around!

I threw out all my old eco-complete (was a few years old anyway) and went with only sand for this new tank. I used holy rock and drift wood to create as much hiding places as i could while still trying to keep a natural look. I put the spray bar on the end of the tank spraying across and tried to mimic a sandy river somewhere, and used some vals and java ferns to add a touch of green... a large stock of pogostemon was thown in too just cause I love the look of that plant, but I don't expect it to do too well in the sand.

Current livestock:
Angel fish - assorted 
Bolivian Rams
Geos
Clown Loaches
Khuli loaches
Opaque Gouramais
Rainbow fish
Pearl Danios
Mystus cats
ottos
Tiger panaque
Silvertip Bristlenose
Royal pleco
Clown Plecos
+one leopard printed fish that i don't know 
Manny the betta

so here's the pics

































more pics to come...


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## target (Apr 21, 2010)

Nice looking set up. I like the vals. I need to get some for my tank.


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## mdwflyer (Jan 11, 2011)

That looks great! You are gonna need a bigger tank for when all those fish grow up :bigsmile:


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## Diztrbd1 (Apr 21, 2010)

No new tank too? lol Great to see ya back bud! Tanks looks great!


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## Fish rookie (May 21, 2012)

Nice, how did you move your fish and tank if you dont mind me asking?
I may move soon but I have never moved with my fish before?


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## JoeMc (Oct 14, 2012)

Great lookin tank. Love the wood pieces you used.


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## The Guy (Nov 26, 2010)

Nice looking new scape Mike, glad to see you back again.


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## monkE (Aug 4, 2010)

target said:


> Nice looking set up. I like the vals. I need to get some for my tank.


Thanks alot! I'd be happy to tear off a couple for ya if they show signs of growth in the sand 


mdwflyer said:


> That looks great! You are gonna need a bigger tank for when all those fish grow up :bigsmile:


oh i know, kinda got carried away when i had all the open space! lol


Diztrbd1 said:


> No new tank too? lol Great to see ya back bud! Tanks looks great!


Thanks John! not a new tank... yet... lol 


Fish rookie said:


> Nice, how did you move your fish and tank if you dont mind me asking?
> I may move soon but I have never moved with my fish before?


hey bud, i bought a big plastic tote from canadian tire, filled it with tank water, put all the fish in with some driftwood to feel safe, I moved the tote full of fish to my new place and put an aquaclear HOB filter and a heater on it - moved the fish the day before i moved the tank. 
As for the tank, i drained it completely, removed all the sand and substrate that i had in there and then moved the tank... i set it up and scaped it how i wanted, then filled it and let it run for a day - because i used the same filter i didn't need to cycle it completely, but i did dose some stability just as a precaution. 
there's lots of real knowledgeable and helpful guys on this site so if you get to the point where you have to move your tank I'm sure you can just start a thread and offer beer and hotdogs to anyone that will help and i'm sure you'll have a bunch of BCAers offer to lend a hand. 


JoeMc said:


> Great lookin tank. Love the wood pieces you used.


Thanks Joe! i can't get enough of that driftwood man!


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## monkE (Aug 4, 2010)




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## monkE (Aug 4, 2010)




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## Diztrbd1 (Apr 21, 2010)

monkE said:


> +one leopard printed fish that i don't know


that is known as a Leopard Ctenopoma & half a dozen other names Leopard bush fish - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
One of my favs :bigsmile:


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## monkE (Aug 4, 2010)

linkmaster strikes again! thanks John!


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## monkE (Aug 4, 2010)

The Guy said:


> Nice looking new scape Mike, glad to see you back again.


thanks buddy! good to be back!


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## Diztrbd1 (Apr 21, 2010)

lol have 2 myself, plan on getting a couple more when I upgrade the 75


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## sunshine_1965 (Aug 16, 2011)

Great looking set up. Great selection of fish.


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## rich16 (Mar 25, 2011)

Looking good, Mike. Miss the last set up tho...that was spectacular, and a lot of work!


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## monkE (Aug 4, 2010)

rich16 said:


> Looking good, Mike. Miss the last set up tho...that was spectacular, and a lot of work!


Thanks Rich! I do miss the last one too, but like you said, it was a ton of work.. with this new setup i can sorta just worry about the fish and the filter and let the plants do their own thing  plus i really like the pure sand base, first time i've gone all sand


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## jobber (May 14, 2010)

Some nice close shots of your fish. Amazing how you're able to get them in mid-swim. 
I'm liking this new rescape, it looks very natural and nice choice of substrate colour.


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## monkE (Aug 4, 2010)

jobber said:


> Some nice close shots of your fish. Amazing how you're able to get them in mid-swim.
> I'm liking this new rescape, it looks very natural and nice choice of substrate colour.


the new camera certainly makes it easier to get nice shots! my iphone would only get a decent picture if the fish weren't moving.


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## monkE (Aug 4, 2010)

so they're right back at it again! one month break after the move and the angels are right back at it, first spawn in their new place, check it out.. 

























I don't think i'll disturb this first batch, i'll just let the others in the tank pick them off over the next week or so, but once these two get back into a regular breeding schedule i might just throw a breeder box in there and try to grow them out.... we'll see


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## jobber (May 14, 2010)

Very nice. Hope you get videos of them spawning in the future.
Are you dosing CO2 into this tank or you just keeping it simple?


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## monkE (Aug 4, 2010)

jobber said:


> Very nice. Hope you get videos of them spawning in the future.
> Are you dosing CO2 into this tank or you just keeping it simple?


no CO2 in this tank, like you said, just keeping it simple.


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## monkE (Aug 4, 2010)

Made a small change to the tank this weekend, just swapped a couple of the driftwood peices, but it was a good enough excuse to take a bunch of pictures and put up an update! lol I think moving the driftwood around really opened up the middle of the tank and the vals really stand out with nothing in front of them! also i pointed the power head down and it made a cool sand dune that the rams seem to enjoy going in and out of the current

So far it looks like the Pogostemon and the Vals that I have in the tank seem to be doing quite well in the silica sand. I'm pretty suprised that they would. No co2, no excel/metricide. Just strong lighting and the odd capful of Flourish comprehensive. Might try to add a couple other plants at some point and see what else grows. Anyone have experience with plants in silica???? I've also added a couple catfish I bought out of a display tank at IPU in richmond... Garner told me what they were but I can't remember their name... if someone can ID them I'd appreciate it. Never seen them before so figured i'd have to buy them! lol

here's some pics


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## charles (Apr 21, 2010)

Porthole catfish.


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## monkE (Aug 4, 2010)

thanks charles!


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## charles (Apr 21, 2010)

I have a few more if you need  They are like big corydora... $15 each and buy 1 get 1 free.


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## monkE (Aug 4, 2010)

charles said:


> I have a few more if you need  They are like big corydora... $15 each and buy 1 get 1 free.


lol i was just looking at your inventory and saw that! your around today i guess??? can i stop by and have a look around?? pm me your address plz it's been a while since i was over there


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## The Guy (Nov 26, 2010)

Love those Clown loaches, probably my favorite freshwater fish. Nice looking tank Mike.


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## monkE (Aug 4, 2010)

The Guy said:


> Love those Clown loaches, probably my favorite freshwater fish. Nice looking tank Mike.


me too buddy! why'd you even change your name from clownloachlover anyway?!? that confused the crap out of me when i got back on here after being away for a while! lol


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## Bien Lim (Apr 21, 2010)

lovely tank!! believe it or not I've always want something like this, change the water every week then sit back and enjoy!! maybe a big sword plant would like nice too.


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## monkE (Aug 4, 2010)

Bien Lim said:


> lovely tank!! believe it or not I've always want something like this, change the water every week then sit back and enjoy!! maybe a big sword plant would like nice too.


thanks bien! they get a 50-70% water change every week... and there's a huge Ehiem pro3 filter on there I love having the sand bottom... in hind sight i probably should have waited to get some 3M quarts instead of the silica sand, but it came out quite nice anyway. i thought about putting a sword in, but not sure how it would do with the sand only substrate


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## Emily (May 4, 2010)

monkE said:


> So far it looks like the Pogostemon and the Vals that I have in the tank seem to be doing quite well in the silica sand. I'm pretty suprised that they would. No co2, no excel/metricide. Just strong lighting and the odd capful of Flourish comprehensive. Might try to add a couple other plants at some point and see what else grows. Anyone have experience with plants in silica????


I've been growing giant hygro, jungle vals, crypts and some other unknown plant in silica sand with awesome results. Like you, no C02 but decent lighting (not even what I would consider "strong") and the occasional dose of Flourish. I also added root tabs though and I really think they made a big difference as I can see some really good root systems when I look at the bottom of my tank. The silica sand is great because it is small enough in diameter for the plants to anchor themselves well but not too small that the roots suffocate which seems to be the case with really fine sand.

Your tank looks really good, I am jealous. If you ever come out my way I have some giant hygro that would grow awesome in your setup and it would look really good


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## bonsai dave (Apr 21, 2010)

The tank is looking great Mike. Keep up the good work. I use 3m sand in my wife's tank and the plants are growing well. I 'm not using co2 just root tabs, I started to use metricide but I killed off my val's I had. I'm having issues with bba. Good Job with the pictures.


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## monkE (Aug 4, 2010)

Emily said:


> I've been growing giant hygro, jungle vals, crypts and some other unknown plant in silica sand with awesome results. Like you, no C02 but decent lighting (not even what I would consider "strong") and the occasional dose of Flourish. I also added root tabs though and I really think they made a big difference as I can see some really good root systems when I look at the bottom of my tank. The silica sand is great because it is small enough in diameter for the plants to anchor themselves well but not too small that the roots suffocate which seems to be the case with really fine sand.
> 
> Your tank looks really good, I am jealous. If you ever come out my way I have some giant hygro that would grow awesome in your setup and it would look really good


Thanks you very much for the kind words Emily... I will certainly take you up on that offer next time I'm out in N.Van!



bonsai dave said:


> The tank is looking great Mike. Keep up the good work. I use 3m sand in my wife's tank and the plants are growing well. I 'm not using co2 just root tabs, I started to use metricide but I killed off my val's I had. I'm having issues with bba. Good Job with the pictures.


Thanks Dave! the wifes tank looks great man, i was reading through that thread and real impressed with both of them. I have had trouble in the past with metricide doing exactly what your talking about, melting the vals... also it doesn't act well with Aponogeton species i've found. So for now, i just want a real low tech, low maintenance tank... starting up my salty one so i'll have enough work ahead of me with that! lol


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## monkE (Aug 4, 2010)

so just because everything is up for sale is no reason to have an ugly tank right??? After most of the wood and half the occupants have been sold over the past week, my tank has looked terrible! plants floating around, rocks scattered, well this just wont due! 

Had some time to play with it today.


































Remember... everything is still up for sale!

http://www.bcaquaria.com/forum/fres...ds-25/f-s-my-entire-125-community-fish-35733/


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## jobber (May 14, 2010)

Opened up a lot of space and thinned out the bioload.
Sad to see this tank getting shutdown, but excited to see what you have in start as a reefer.


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## enzotesta (Dec 20, 2011)

You still have the 125? If so what you asking for it?


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## monkE (Aug 4, 2010)

yup pm sent


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## dabandit1 (Dec 6, 2010)

That was a gorgeous tank,almost makes me want to go back to fresh....almost lol You have a good eye for scaping.
How on earth did you get landlord or council to let you have 120g in an apartment


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## monkE (Aug 4, 2010)

dabandit1 said:


> That was a gorgeous tank,almost makes me want to go back to fresh....almost lol You have a good eye for scaping.
> How on earth did you get landlord or council to let you have 120g in an apartment


Thanks a lot man... I always try to make them look as natural as possible.

Im on the ground floor and when I moved in it was only a 55 gallon! Lol they dont ask and I dont tell 

Sent from my SGH-I747M using Tapatalk 2


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## The Guy (Nov 26, 2010)

Hey Mike how is your 20 g reef doing and what size are you going to for the new tank?


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## monkE (Aug 4, 2010)

The Guy said:


> Hey Mike how is your 20 g reef doing and what size are you going to for the new tank?


hey bud, just put up an update on the 20 journal earlier today... it's going great so far! click on the link in my signature to check it out... lots of new pics up today

Im probably going to stay pretty small for the new tank, under 100 gallon anyway.. probably a 4 footer


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## The Guy (Nov 26, 2010)

YYa Da! I found your update just hadn't looked far enough in the postings. I think staying under a 100g is smart, it's quite easy to find a reef ready in those sizes as well. I'm very happy with the 90g, big enough for me. cheers


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## Diztrbd1 (Apr 21, 2010)

This still up and running Mike?


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## monkE (Aug 4, 2010)

Diztrbd1 said:


> This still up and running Mike?


ya not many fish left... but still running! lol havn't taken the time to sell in the last while

need anything??? i'm going to be shutting it down real soon


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## Diztrbd1 (Apr 21, 2010)

lol @ "half sold rescape" Well it still looks good......Im starting to think that if you keep this around much longer we may see another rescape with a marine theme lol 
I'll have to check out the sale thread if it's up to date and see what you have left.


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