# 75 gal planted tank - complete revamp



## jiayaw (Jun 10, 2011)

As some of you might recall, I had a 75 gal planted that used to house my rams and angels. Fast forward a few years, and because of changes in personal life with a new job and etc, the tank was neglected. So I recently took 2 weeks off from work as a vacation and finally have time to completely revamp my tank. All inhabitants of the tank were actually given to relative as I didn't have time before to take care of them. So now I have the luxury to do a full revamp of thank without needing to worry about the fishes.

As a refresher, this is what the tank looked like before it turned into a big mess








Now I am starting fresh, with a new piece of driftwood that I bought from April's a few years back but havent had chance to use. keeping one smaller piece of driftwood on the right side as a dividing line between the foreground plants and background.
I am still using corallife 4xT5HO lighting setup, but currently just running two bulbs as the tank is still settling, and I don't want to brew green pea soup. Also still using CO2 injection with a pressured system with an atomizer.

Plants I bought 
- two pots of Aquaflora 1 -2 - Grow Staurogyne Repens for fore ground
- a pot of dwarf hairgrass as midground blocking the sharp cut of the driftwood that is showing 
- 1 pot Bacopa Australis as background
- 1 pot Hygrophila Siamensis as background 
- Echinodorus "rose" (one pot but in there, there was actually two plants) as center piece, hopefully will have some nice immersed red leaves growing once the plant settles in

Temp set to 82 degrees F as I will eventually want to add 4 adult discus as this will be a planted discus community tank eventually

Dosing regime - EI dosing

This won't be my final layout but basically just a general skeleton. Planning to add more mid ground plants to have some sense of layering (hopefully some red plants to add to the coloring)

Day 1 








Day 4 - Most of the plants starting to perk up, but some S. Repens started melting to the stem (I assume those were weaker ones from the pots that won't make it) but those that are doing well seem to have some growth already! 








Hopefully the tank will come out as nicely as I plan it to be. I will be adding a couple more plants, and do some trimming/replanting once these plants settle in


----------



## AquaAddict (Dec 4, 2010)

Great start to a beautiful tank and looking forward to more pics.

AquaAddict


----------



## jiayaw (Jun 10, 2011)

Day 6 - Aug 24, 2015
Unbunched Bacopa Australis on left side and replanted them to encourage growth and improve health between each stems. Trimmed top nodes of Hygrophia on the left, rearranged S. Repens, and tri out browning bits (lots of new growth in less than a week so its nice). 
Also added about 15 new stems of Stargrass and 4 stems of ludwigia repens that I got from a forum member.

Plants starting to fill in and grow, have three more plants on order that I would like to add to this tank and then I should be done in terms of plants, then it will be just trimming and waiting for everything to be the way I want it to be before I start adding fish to the tank.


----------



## jiayaw (Jun 10, 2011)

Day 7
The Stargrass and Luwigia Repens started perking up, but still looking a little sad at the moment, but all the other plants I planted last week are doing really well. Especially the Echinodorus "rose". Over night it actually opened up it's first submersed leaf... looking forward to more! 














Staurogyne Repens - aside from an old few which melted, most of them are starting to root and shooting out side runners







the Bacopa and Hygro are also doing great


----------



## jiayaw (Jun 10, 2011)

and here are pics of the star grass and the luwigia which are bouncing up since the initial planting


----------



## jiayaw (Jun 10, 2011)

Day 13th Since the last update, I have added 2 blue rams and today while picking up Echinodorus vesuvius, Alternanthera reineckii 'Mini' and ludwigia palustris from Aquariums west, I saw some nice silver angels for $5 each so I thought what the heck, I will keep them until I am ready to put in some discus in that tank. So i bought the 4 silver angels and they are gorgeous. the Bacopa Australis have been melting, not sure why but I've adjust the powerhead so that there's more flow to them and I've trimmed them to the healthy stems and moved them aside so that I could plant the Echinodorus Vesuvius in the back along with the Ludwigia Plaustris. The Alternanthera Reineckii "mini" are showcased in the midground on the right side.






Can't wait for everything to start filling in
The rams are looking happy


----------



## jiayaw (Jun 10, 2011)

The Alternanthera reineckii 'Mini' along with some Echinodorus vesuvius plantlet (the mother plant is on the other side of the tank) with some Ludwigia Repens and Hygrophila Siamensis in the background







Here are the four angels








So far all the plants except for the Bacopa Australis have been doing really well, there have been some melting with the Staurogyne Repens, but most of it are flourishing and with the melting stems, I see new grown stems and leaves coming out of parts of the stems under the substrate so looks like it is establishing itself nicely. I have a feeling the Bacopa Australis might have started to melt cuz of how I used excel initially in case there was going to be an algae outbreak. Hopefully things with the bacopa will improve and hope everything will fillin nicely.


----------



## jiayaw (Jun 10, 2011)

The inhabitants are really loving it! Thinking of adding some rummy nose tetra and ottos next!


----------



## Xenon (Aug 9, 2015)

Like your Angels!
What happened to your UV Sterilizer from Day 1?


----------



## jiayaw (Jun 10, 2011)

UV sterilizer was there a few days just in case there was going to be green water as I dug up everything as I did all the planting!


----------



## jiayaw (Jun 10, 2011)

Since adding the plants on Monday, tank started running on 4 bulbs, 2 of which are on for 10 hours with a break in between and another two on for 4 hours while the other two is on. The star grass and luwigia are both pearling by end of each night


----------



## jiayaw (Jun 10, 2011)

picture of tank taken yesterday, day 19







I might have to just get rid of the bacopa eventually as I finally found out what caused the dying of the leaves ... the rams wouldn't leave it alone and kept on chewing on the soft leaves!
Secondly, my angels wouldn't leave my staurogyne repens alone so I have a few stems where the leaves were all bitten on ... hopefully the staurogyne will still grow and flourish... ive had success with Staurogyne and angels before.

I've also went ahead and unbunched the alternanthera reineckii mini into single stems and replanted them now that they grew to a larger size so they wouldn't be choking themselves. As soon as I did that, they are now looking better than ever







I also did the same for the staurogyne repens and I find that it helps them grow better if their root system is not as dense. The hard part is preventing the angels from pulling the plant out when they want to nip at the plants


----------



## jiayaw (Jun 10, 2011)

Day 20 
starting last night one of the 4 angels (the smalllest of the 4) started hiding in a corner of the tank for most of the day. It will still come out for food and chase fish away when they enter its "area" but it wouldn't swim around with the others anymore. Maybe the other three were bullying it. It still looks healthy, hopefully everything will be alright,

Also added some fish today from Canadian Aquatics, now the tank is pretty much fully stocked
I've added 24 farm-raised rummy nose tetra (sadly 1 died not long after I was done the dripping and putting it into tank, and another one is looking a bit stressed right now but rest of them looking fine), 10 ottos, 1 BNP, and 3 wild rams.

The wild rams are not as colourful as some of the tank bred ones at the current size, but I am sure once they are acclimatized in my tank and mature, they will look great (managed to get a picture of the larger one of the three, the two other smaller ones look a little rough but so far so good in terms of their activities in the tank)

Here are some pics I took today after I dripped the fish


----------



## bigfry (Apr 21, 2010)

Nice going! Can't wait to see the plants fill in more.


----------



## jiayaw (Jun 10, 2011)

feeding frenzy. 2 casualties with the RNT but everything else doing fine


----------



## inuudo (Sep 23, 2012)

You take amazing photos! I especially like the one of the rummynoses.


----------



## jiayaw (Jun 10, 2011)

Thanks! I try my best to do my fish and my tank justice haha. I am almost done soaking the piece of driftwood for the Fluval Ebi. Just waiting for the CO2 system I ordered for it to arrive then I will be setting that up in my bedroom!


----------



## jiayaw (Jun 10, 2011)

Day 22! It's been full 3 weeks since I revamped the tank and happy to say that the tank should be stabilized now, no more casualties with the rummy nose tetra.







out of three wild rams I got, the two smaller ones are females and still looking a little scrawny... I will take pics of them when they fatten up. I however got some really nice pics of the male who is dominating the tank now (the two other wild plus the two domestic bred ones are all females)


----------



## jiayaw (Jun 10, 2011)

Day 26







One of the 4 angels seems to be always hiding because it is constantly being bullied by 2 of the other angels. Debating on whether I should add a couple more angels just to even out the aggression. Aside from that I did some rearrangement with the plants in the tank after I took some trimmings out to put into my nano tank.

After the water change, I saw this guy lurking out, and I quickly snapped a pic of him with my cellphone. By time I got my real camera, it went under the piece of driftwood again


----------



## jiayaw (Jun 10, 2011)

Day 33 (excuse me for feeding of the zuchinni) but we can see the plants are all filling in nicely. The Ludwigia Palustris are liking their new location much better in the tank!


----------



## jiayaw (Jun 10, 2011)

On Sunday one of my blue rams thrashed all over the tank and eventually died. Everyone else are doing fine though.
After visiting a friend at Surrey today, I dropped by Roger's and came across these two gorgeous black zebra lace Angel. They blend in well with the silvers I got now while providing good contrast.














And this is an updated pic of my beautiful bnp


----------



## jiayaw (Jun 10, 2011)

Day 36! Everything filling in nicely! The next pic will be what the tank looks like under moonlights


----------



## jiayaw (Jun 10, 2011)

Day 41


----------



## Xenon (Aug 9, 2015)

Really enjoy looking at the close-ups of your fish! What camera, lenses, settings, etc. do you use? Are you a photo enthusiast as well?


----------



## jiayaw (Jun 10, 2011)

Xenon said:


> Really enjoy looking at the close-ups of your fish! What camera, lenses, settings, etc. do you use? Are you a photo enthusiast as well?


Yup I am also into photography. For most of the close ups, I use my Nikon D610 and my 105mm Macro lens (only fish I didn't shoot close up with with this set up would be the BNP as it is so shy that the camera would scare it away, I was only able to sneak some close ups of him with my cellphone)

As for the pic of the whole tank, I just use my Olympus Em10 and mainly the 12mm lens


----------



## Xenon (Aug 9, 2015)

How long have you been into photography? I'm just starting to get into photography (two expensive hobbies concurrently:roll eyes.
Do you use a tripod? Macro focusing rail? Flash?
Sorry to hear about the blue rams. They were very nice fish. RIP.


----------



## jiayaw (Jun 10, 2011)

Oh with regards to the blue rams, thank god only one of the smaller one died, I still have four atm. I don't need to use flash or tripod, that's the beauty of modern DSLRs. If interested I got some pics that I shot at the Vancouver Aquarium on my gallery if you want to check it out. https://jiayaw.smugmug.com/Wildlife/Aquarium/Vancouver-Aquarium-2015/ it has all the exit data so you can learn from it.

I find that flash tend to make the pics unnatural for aquarium pics unless if the flash is shot from above. With my tank being in high-lighting category, I find that I can get away with shooting ard ISO 1600 and be fine. Before when I had a DSLR that didn't have quite usable ISO 1600, I would use fireless flash and have the flash off camera shining from top of the tank.


----------



## jiayaw (Jun 10, 2011)

Day 43


----------



## Xenon (Aug 9, 2015)

Awesome pics at the Vancouver Aquarium. You're very talented.
Thanks for sharing and mentioning the settings.
I just purchased the Canon 7D Mark II and some decent lenses.
Going through a learning curve right now as I think I want to shoot every style!
Doing some intensive reading and youtube tutorial watching:big smile:.


----------



## Reckon (Jul 25, 2012)

Really coming along! Very nice! 
What plant is in the front left corner?


----------



## jiayaw (Jun 10, 2011)

Reckon said:


> Really coming along! Very nice!
> What plant is in the front left corner?


Surprisingly it's stargrass...in my nano tank it grow tall but in my 75gal it stays low and grows like a bush which is interesting and unexpected!


----------



## Xenon (Aug 9, 2015)

Reckon said:


> Really coming along! Very nice!
> What plant is in the front left corner?


Hey, Reckon. What's going on with your 60P? Looking forward to some pics!
(Sorry to hijack the thread).


----------



## jiayaw (Jun 10, 2011)

Individual pics of my angels
Largest of the four silver angels, shows pairing behaviour with second one. Excellent body shape but the second bar is incomplete when it shows (parts of it is lighter than the rest of the bar)







Second silver angel, the one that is showing pairing behavior with the first one. Excellent pattern, body shape and speckles on body... only thing is there's that small kink on the feelers







Third silver angel, smaller than the first two, but has excellent body shape and pattern (no speckles though) and larger than the runt







The forth one is a runt of the group. All four of them were the same size when I first got them, but now the others at least doubled in size while this one is growing but at a slower rate and right now just size of a toonie right now (probably also slowed down growth with the time when it was hiding and not coming out to eat anything but bloodworms and had white stringy feces) I fixed that problem with feeding everyone metro in their food. Now it comes out to eat NLS flakes, NLS pellets, FDBW and FBW... only thing it won't eat is frozen brine shrimp, he spits it back out but no more white stringy poo


----------



## jiayaw (Jun 10, 2011)

Zebra lace that is showing pairing behaviour with the other zebra lace I got







Second Zebra lace shown with the third silver angel


----------



## jiayaw (Jun 10, 2011)

Individual Pics of the four blue rams in the tank, first one being the dominant male which was one of the wild caughts that I got from Charles. Showing his colours all the time and impressing the ladies as he is the only dude in the tank







Female Domestic blue ram that I got from Petculture (previously PJ pets in richmond), seem to be only female that can put up with the male so she'd show nice colours too. Might possibly pair with the wild male (I've seen them swim together for many times without fighting while both of them would chase the other two rams around)







Second female domestic ram that is very docile and just runs away whenever she is chased by the other fish and won't chase the smallest ram in the tank







The last one is the wild ram that I got together with the dominant male. She is a lot smaller than the rest and is very docile. She always hide from the other rams but there are enough plants and hiding spaces in the tank to prevent her from stressing out too much. She will still readily come out and enthusiastically eat during eating time








Lastly, I would like to mention that lately I've notice that a couple of the angels have been coming up to the surface of the tank to "gulp". I've reduced CO2 injection but it looks like it is not making too much of a difference. It doesn't look like an infection or parasites as the fish all act normally when during feeding time, and they look fine (does not look stressed). Funny thing is, I only see them do it when the lights are on, and there are floating CO2 bubbles on the top of the tank from the atomizer. I am just hoping that they are just being fooled by the bubbles thinking they are food and trying to gulp them down. They don't look like they are breathing rapidly or anything when they do the gulping. It looked really casual.I'll keep close eye on them but for now, I don't think any medication is warranted, as that might just stress them out even more when they could just be thinking there is food. I don't see them doing that at all when the lights are out (I have moonlights on for a couple hours at night, so I can check out the BNP at work and how the fish are doing at night) and I would assume they'd be doing that at night as well if they were out of oxygen or have parasites.


----------



## jiayaw (Jun 10, 2011)

Fed them freeze dried black worm today


----------



## Xenon (Aug 9, 2015)

Plants are looking good in the youtube vid. Nice Rummynose Tetras. When I used to have them years ago, their noses weren't as red and the tail patterns weren't as well defined as yours. Where did you get them?


----------



## jiayaw (Jun 10, 2011)

They were from Patrick from Canadian aquatics. Got the farm raised ones


----------



## jiayaw (Jun 10, 2011)

Day 54 - Rearranged some plants (swapped the placement of the Ludwigia Palustris with the L. Repens as they are taller and will get more light, and moved the Ludwigia Palustris to were the Bacopa Australis were (behind driftwood, will show when it is taller). Got rid of the Bacopa cuz the angel fish just wouldnt stop eating it bare. Separated all the plantlets of the Echinodorus Vesuvius and replanted them in the corner of the tank (started out with one parent plant and now including the ones in my nano tank, I got over 30 echinodorus Vesuvius) so that they are a lot neater now. Mowed down the star grass and just replanted some tops (as it got too thick and it is melting the leaves under. Additionally because of how the AR mini is so slow growing that some leaves started getting spot algae, so I went and trimmed each plants so that only new leaves are left, to hopefully encourage growth on the younger new leaves. The tank looks a little bare at the moment, but I am confident that it will fill right in again in a couple weeks!


----------



## jiayaw (Jun 10, 2011)

Day 55 -







I added Downoi to the tank today (planted them in the front left corner of the tank and moved the stargrass all to the background on right side)







Pic of the downoi closeup







Pic of best looking angel in the tank with others surrounding it. Nice orange crown developing, and excellent body shape


----------



## jiayaw (Jun 10, 2011)

Updated pic of the same angelfish


----------



## jiayaw (Jun 10, 2011)

Day 60 update














Update close up of the angels in my tank, first up the two zebra lace


----------



## jiayaw (Jun 10, 2011)

now for each of my angels


----------



## jiayaw (Jun 10, 2011)

My Downoi have all been eaten by my angels, so now I've moved some dwarf hairgrass over to the bottom left corner. Couple weeks ago, an oto and a rummy nose tetra died so now i have 
6 angels, 9 otos, 21 rummy nose tetra, 4 blue rams and a silver tip BNP in the tank before I added 4 bolivian rams today. The 4 new rams were hiding when I took the pic, but here are some updates of what my tank looks like as of today (day 96 since the revamp)







picture of the two angels that spawned 














closer look of the male







and here is the other male that haven't found a mate yet


----------



## jiayaw (Jun 10, 2011)

One of the four blue rams in the tank


----------



## jiayaw (Jun 10, 2011)

From my cellphone, pics of the bolivian rams while they were floating in the tank while I did my tank maintenance
Bought these from April's. I always had a spot in my heart for Bolivians even though blue rams are really pretty. Hopefully these will get along with the blue rams I got in the tank already.


----------



## jiayaw (Jun 10, 2011)

The Bolivian Rams started swimming out and about now


----------



## mysticalnet (Apr 22, 2010)

very cute rams


----------



## jiayaw (Jun 10, 2011)

Bolivian rams starting to settle down nicely


----------



## jiayaw (Jun 10, 2011)

Picture of the male angelfish that spawned last time


----------



## jiayaw (Jun 10, 2011)

Day 103














Trimmed off some of the Ludwigia Repens and palustris, and well as the hygro as they got too tall and lanky and just showing bare stems with roots. Sold some of the hygro and L. Repens trimming to a BCaquaria member. I then went to thin out the dhg carpet I had as it was getting too thick... and distributed more evenly in smaller clumps instead of having big thick clumps of DWG


----------



## Chronick (Apr 27, 2010)

Looks fantastic!


----------



## jiayaw (Jun 10, 2011)

Some updated pics of the tank and the residents


----------



## jiayaw (Jun 10, 2011)

Some more recent pics of my tank














and the next two pics are of the two wild blue rams that I got from Charles a while back


----------



## jiayaw (Jun 10, 2011)

updated pics of the bolivian ram


----------



## jiayaw (Jun 10, 2011)

Update on the tank
Video of the tank 




and two pics 
one of the bolivian ram







the parents of the angelfish babies I've been raising


----------



## jiayaw (Jun 10, 2011)




----------



## jiayaw (Jun 10, 2011)

Updated pics of the tank and it's inhabitant
Everything is going strong, and just did some major trimming with the tank (still lots of Echinodorus vesuvius floating around waiting to be sold haha)


----------

