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Well! The tank survived a year! No mishaps. No floods. No tank killing algae. Cool!
I would have posted sooner, but we have had house guests, and tank things had to wait.
Hardware
I had some work to do before I made it to the 1 year mark. I wanted to finish all my under the stand stuff. So I bolted down my second Ocean Clear filter that had been loose before. And I did a thing I had really been dreading… moving my water depth sensor.
I haven’t posted the technical details of my setup yet, but suffice to say I have an auto water change rig that does not require any floats or sensors in the tank. It detects a “full” condition with a water pressure switch in the stand that gets water through a bulkhead hole in the bottom of the tank. And so that little critters don’t crawl down the hole, in the tank it’s covered with a somewhat unsightly filter sponge. If you have noticed the patch of crypts to the front left of my tank, it’s there to hide the sponge.
Well I wanted to create an open area to the left of the tank, and that meant that I had to push those crypts further back and to the right a bit. But that exposed the sponge, so I had to unscrew it from the bulkhead, cap off the bulkhead, and screw it into a different, better hidden bulkhead. That’s a real PITA with a tank full of water and three inches of sand in the bottom of the tank. And none of that describes all the hardware I had to move under the tank. Anyway, maybe you can see why I procrastinated. 
I’ve got a few additional changes to make, with the hardware waiting in the wings. But I don’t need any of it yet, so I figured there’s no harm in crossing the 1 year threshold without doing that too.
Now that the tank has been up a year, there are a number of long-term maintenance things to start doing. Like changing the carbon filters that strip the chlorine out of the water as I add it each night. And changing the UV filter light. And - though I don’t like the cost - the HQI hologen bulbs need to be changed. Drat! This is going to add up.
Fauna
Been a lot of changes this year in fish. My school of Green Neons (P. simulans) has lost a few fish. It’s getting pretty small now - no more that 30 I’d guess. And I recently added six juvenile cockatoo dwarf cichlids that are doing quite well. And my small school of Otocinculus catfish has gotten smaller. I think I’m down to less than 10. But that’s OK, they can be tough on discus sometimes.
But my shrimp are doing great. I’ve still got quite a few Amano’s. I’m guessing 25 or 30. They are hard to count in a planted tank. And I’ve got no idea how many of the orginal 100 ghost shrimp purchased for this tank are still around. But it’s a bunch. Every week I find a new one or two on the floor in front of the tank - or so it seems. But at that rate they should be almost all gone. But they aren’t and I don’t think they are breeding because I never see any juveniles. Either way, I’m glad they are still around because they are great at eating excess discus food.
And as for the discus, they are fine. Or at least I assume that since they are still breeding like rabbits. I have at least two pairs breeding every couple of weeks. Maybe three pairs. I have to admit I don’t pay much attention since all the eggs are toast in a tank full of neons, dwarf cichlids and shrimp. But knowing that they are breeding is my way of knowing they are reasonably healthy and stress free.
Flora
I’m going into the second year for this tank with something that I’m not really happy to call an aquascape. IMO it’s a little lousy looking - closer to what I refer to as JABOP, or Just A Bunch Of Plants. But I’m still working through the set of plants that will tolerate my ultra soft water and the warm water temps that discus need. And having somewhat low maintenance plants is also an important criteria they must all pass.
So another real aquascape is coming. But not yet. Crossing the 1 year mark I ripped out a lot, trimmed a lot, and moved a lot of plants around. So I’m letting things settle a month or so before I go messing with stuff. And just to manage expectations… my aquascapes are not set up to look good in pictures. They are set up to look good in person. For instance, the open area on the left is that way to attract and hold fish. The tanks right side is in a corner of the room. So that keeps fish closer to where the people watching them are. But it does not always make for the best looking aquascape in photos I’m afraid. Sorry.
Conclusion
It’s been a pretty good 1st year for the tank. Algae pretty much under control, even if it did take too long. Fish are fine, plants healthy, and that tank hardware pretty much installed and complete.
This next year I’m going to have to redouble my efforts to get this to a nice looking aquascape. I like a challenge, and that will certainly be one.
Two days after this picture was taken my tank will have been up for one year. And that pic was taken two days ago. So today makes 1 year! Yippee!!!
But this isn’t the anniversary photo. Maybe I’ll take that tonight. There have definitely been changes in the last two days.
It’s been a stable year for the tank. But a disappointing year in some ways too. And a year of learning.
The fish have been healthy. I did have one case of bloat in one of my discus. And I thought that I had lost most of my Ottocinclus catfish until I tried to put some Rotalla wallichii in the tank, and I caught them eating the tips. So I guess they are just hiding in the plants unless there is something really tasty to come out for. Same with my amano shrimp (cardinia japonica). I thought they were gone too, but when I did a big trim a couple of weeks ago, I found dozens of them. Hiding too I suppose.
I’ve struggled with algae in this tank. None of the bad varieties. Just green spot (GSA) on the plants and green dust algae (GDA) on the tank walls. Lots of “experts” will tell you that GDA in particular just means you have a healthy tank. But lots of people don’t have it at all. I don’t mind a little. A minor wall cleaning every week or two is fine. But in a 180 gallon tank, any more than that is work. And I’ve been working.
I’ve flirted with a number of fertilization dosing regimens, and have settled back on the one I started with: letting the N an P in my tap water supply those macros, coupled with that being produced by plants, excess food, and biological breakdown of plant matter, supplemented with daily potassium and limited daily micros. That seems to both keep my plants healthy, and keep away the thread algae that wants to appear in any of my tanks that have sand substrates coupled with Phosphates over 1.4 ppm.
Ultimately I think the reason why dosing normal levels of N & P did not work for me in this tank was that my plant mass to animal mass ratio could not sustain it. The ammonia excreted by the discus was not being utilized by the plants fast enough. The plants were being dosed good levels of nitrogen in my dosing regimen, and the ammonia (NH4) was not being used fast enough and was triggering algae growth. Not that you could measure any ammonia in my tank. But it doesn’t take much to encourage algae.
For the sake of my plant health - which keeps the algae at bay -I’ve had to make a compromise that really hurts. I’m adding small daily doses of baking soda (NaHCO3), Epsom Salts (MgSO4), and Calcium Chloride (CaCl2) to raise my KH and GH. I’ve gone to great lengths to make this tank as low maintenance as possible, with a reasonable degree of success. One major goal has to been to be free of daily maintenance - with the exception of fish feeding. But if I’m away, anyone can do that for me.
To accomplish that my ferts are injected automatically, and my water changes are done in small, daily, completely automated cycles. To that end I’ve tried to let my plants adjust to the extremely low KH and GH of my tap water, and it just hasn’t worked. They don’t thrive without more calcium and magnesium than my tap provides. And the baking soda helps keep the pH stable. So I’m stuck adding this stuff daily. So much for no daily maintenance. I’ll just have to figure out a suitable way to automate this too.
And finally, I’ve finally finished all of the technical changes to the equipment that supports the tank. I’ve not posted info on it yet, but a pretty elaborate setup support the tank. A year ago I still had an additional pump and filter to install, a few improvements to make to the plumbing, and I needed to move the “water depth sensor” tube to a different bulkhead opening in the bottom of the tank. With that last labor intensive item done this weekend, there are no more planned changes to the equipment under the tank.
So I find myself at the end of a moderately successful first year of this tank. The hardware supporting it is finished. I’ve got the algae under control. And have finally found plants that work well with these lights, at these fertilization levels, at the warm temperatures discus require.
On the down side, I’ve got to figure out a way to automate my daily GH/KH boosting. And I’m not happy with the aquascape. That will - no doubt - be the focus of my efforts this coming year.
PS - If you see the dark discus that appear to be sulking in the right corner, they aren’t sulking. They’re OK. They are just tending their eggs.
In my last journal post I said that I’d keep my hands out of the tank until the end of the month, when I passed the one-year mark for the tank. Well, those intentions were great… but I could not help myself.
Most of the stem plants were at the water’s surface, and I don’t want them to get too “leggy”. I’m not a good aquascaper, but if I have to hang on to stem plants to keep this tank healthy, I’d at least like them to be bushy and thick. So they were getting a bit too tall and I cut them.
Because I’ve been fighting excessive Green Dust Algae (GDA) on the tank walls for a number of months, and because it has been MUCH better in the last month or so, I’m worried about pulling too much plant mass out of the tank. So I took metal weights and wrapped them around the tops of the stems I trimmed, and sunk them back into the tank. So hopefully they’ll keep growing and plant mass will not be too adversely impacted by the trimming.
In the pic you can see that the Ludwigia repens to the left is not doing well at all. When I let it grow to the surface it is thrilled. But even nine inches lower than the surface and it starts to really suffer. Now, where I have it growing is not directly under the metal halides. This plant needs high light to thrive. But I’m hard pressed to believe that being 18″ from a 150 watt HQI lamp is not enough light to thrive. I just don’t buy it. Instead I think that when it gets really, really close to the light that the photosynthetic rate that results somehow gets beyond what ever else is holding it back.
I can’t be sure, but I suspect the problem is temperature. My temps fluctuate from about 81.5 to 83.5 during the day. And Ludwidgia - a native of North America - is a cool water plant. But supposedly it can tolerate warmer water. This is kind of my test.
Anyway… the some of the other stem plants I inserted to help with the GDA - Wisteria (Hygrophila difformis) and Green Temple (Hygrophilia corymbosa) - seem to be dealing with heat just fine. Since I’m personally fond of Ludwigia’s, I’d be really tickled if this gets healthy too.
This is a shot of my tank from yesterday. I’m approaching the 1 year mark for having this tank up. By that I mean plants and fish in the tank. That day was May 27th, 2007. I keep really detail records on my tanks (something I heartily recommend to everyone), so I know that is the correct date. Yet I am frustrated by the fact that I STILL don’t have an aquascape that I’m happy with. But I’m going to have to just chill on that, because I’ve stated on some forums that if I haven’t gotten control of the algae I’m battling by the one year mark, then I’m scrapping the aquascape and starting over.
Well, as it turns out, the algae is reasonable right now. But it’s only been “OK” for a few weeks - apparently due to a radical change in my fertilization regimen. So while I’d love to rearrange plants so that I could say that I crossed the 1-year mark having achieved a satisfactory aquascape, I’m going keep my hands out of the tank for the next couple of weeks. If the algae remains under control as it is now, I won’t scrape the tank, but will merely rearrange it to a more esthetically pleasing arrangement.
If you saw my AGA 2007 post, you will see that I started this tank with anubias all over the driftwood. Those anubias got (and continue to get) green spot algae (GSA) on old leaves like nobody’s business. So I ripped those out and tried to replace them with other plants - primarily crypts of various forms. You will also note that I removed all the lovely lotus plants I was growing. Those were sending roots into the sand and causing what seemed (to me) to be unhealthy conditions in the sand. So I ripped them out. I never intended to have plants rooted in sand. All the plants you see right now are either not rooted in the sand, or they are in shallow pots of ADA Aquasoil covered with sand.
From the primarily anubias and lotus arrangement I moved to a (shallow potted) ’scape of various rosette plants. Those all suffered from the intensity of the 2 150w halogens. The algae it created on their leaves caused constant trimming until the plants were just dim shadows of the huge plants they started out as.
And next I filled the tank with stem plants as an algae fighting measure. The tank you see today is a reflection of that.
There are a number of urgent aquascape changes that need to be made to this tank . But I’m gonna let it cross the 1 year mark before I mess with it in a major way.
IMO a planted discus tank does not do well with hard tinkering or rapid changes. If it is balanced, leave well enough alone. Or tinker very slowly. So keep posted. A better tank is coming. I hope. But it will take a month or so.
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.
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