May 9, 2008

The home built Big Clear Kahuna tank - with the 2006 discus aquascape - met an untimely end. It had a massive failure of a seam. Can you say “75 gallons of water gushing onto my wooden floor!” ? My wife can.

I’ll post later on how I built that tank, and how you can avoid the mistake that I made on that one. It’s easy. But for now I’d like to share my submission to the Aquatic Gardeners Association (AGA) 2007 Aquascaping Contest. I got a new tank - this time a 180 gallon - and named it Son of Kahuna, after the dear departed.

These pics are pretty early in the tank’s life. It did not remain this way. The lights were just too bright for the anubias, and they had to be replaced. The green spot alage (GSA) they kept getting on their leaves was driving me nuts. But this is what the tank looked like in the fall of last year at photo submission time.

Technical Info

Plants
Amazon Sword (Echinodorus bleheri), Anubias Barteri Round Leaf (Anubias barteri v. Round Leaf), Anubias Nana (Anubias barteri v. Nana), Anubias Petite Nana (Anubias Pygmy Nana), Bronze Crypt Wendtii (Cryptocoryne wendtii v. Tropica), Red Rubin Sword (Echinodorus v. Rubin), Red Tiger Lotus (Nymphaea zenkeri), Tawain Moss (Taxiphyllum alternans)

Fish/Animals
100 Ghost (Glass) Shrimp (Paleomonetes sp.), 25 Amano Shrimp (Caridina japonica), 5 Singapore Flower Shrimp (Atyopsis moluccensis), 5 Swartz’s Cory Cats (Corydoras schwartzi), 5 Zebra Loachs (Botia striata), 15 Oto Cats (Otocinclus sp.), 50 Green Neon Tetras (Paracheirodon simulans), 9 Discus (Cobalt and Leopards) (Symphysodon spp.). And if you look hard, you may see a single miscellaneous white tetra. It’s not consistent with the aquascape, but it came to my family, desperately needing a home.

Decorative Materials

25 ft. driftwood, secured with ADA Woodtight, 1″ ADA Bright Sand. Sword plants and crypts are planted in shallow pots of ADA Aquasoil over ADA Powersand.

Background
black acrylic sheet

Lighting
2 x 150 watt HQI MH, 10,000K

Filtration
Ocean Clear 340, Eheim Pro II 2026, Lifegard 25 watt UV. System flow rate set to 2.8x tank turnover / hour.

Additional Info
This tank and aquascape were designed to provide a visually pleasing planted environment for discus, while still requiring relatively low maintenance. The plants, fish, crustaceans, and systems supporting the tank, all work together to keep tank maintenance requirements low - currently one weekly 45-60 minute maintenance session. Multiple, small, automated water changes each night yield an equivalent of 50% water change every 3 days. Three tank outflows are plumbed thru the bottom of the tank, with two returns over the top. Pre-filters on outflows and return nozzles are obscured by plants. No equipment was removed for photos. CO2 in-line injection with Mazzei venturi. CO2 kept at 45 ppm by pH controller. Daily micro fertilization with 9 ml ADA Green Brighty Step 2. Potassium dosed to keep tank at 25 ppm at the beginning of each day (prior to uptake). Nitrogen and Phosphate are found in the tap water used in water changes, keeping the tank at 8 and 0.9 ppm respectively. Neither is dosed.

I went kinda “all out” on the technical aspects of this tank. I’m sure someone’s got a more technical setup somewhere, but I’ve not seen it. It certainly makes keeping a planted discus tank this size visually appealing (no equipment in the tank), and easy to maintain. I’ll post more details on that later.