Davemonkey's 125

[kwc1974]

Dang. Could have swore that Porto Velho. You are going to have to hook me up with some trimmings

The reactor is a aquamedic 1000

[nhung]

I always wanted to tried mineralized topsoil. What did you used as the starter soil?

[davemonkey]

My topsoil recipe:
I collected a couple buckets of soil dug from an old crop field that's been fallow for awhile. I dug only 6 inches deep and the soil was high in clay content. Since it's been out in nature since the beginning of time, it's already mineralized, but I did the wet/dry sequence a few times just for good measure and it actually helped with getting clumps broken down. I picked out as much grass, roots, stems, etc... as I could by hand.

Once the tank was ready, I put down 1.5" of the soil, and capped it with donated Aquasoil and EcoComplete to a total depth of 4" at the back sloping to 2" at the front. You can cap it with pretty much anything you want, but with plain sand I would recommend a shallower depth.

That's it.

[HookTheBrotherUp]

Nice Dave'. I may try something like that, or maybe not. Do you think Amazonia substrate would acheive the same results as a mineralized bed? The reason I ask is because I went into Fish Gallery the other day and they were tearing down tanks and had some Amazonia that they were getting rid of. I did not know how much I would need, so I brought all four 5 gallon buckets for $100. Anyway, I will not do this soon, but I did not want to pass up the Amazonia at that price.

[davemonkey]

Nice Dave'. I may try something like that, or maybe not. Do you think Amazonia substrate would acheive the same results as a mineralized bed? The reason I ask is because I went into Fish Gallery the other day and they were tearing down tanks and had some Amazonia that they were getting rid of. I did not know how much I would need, so I brought all four 5 gallon buckets for $100. Anyway, I will not do this soon, but I did not want to pass up the Amazonia at that price.

I think Amazonia would be a fantastic substrate without any topsoil. Just keep an eye out for potassium deficiency or others as you would with any set-up. Dang, that is a GREAT price for 4 buckets of Amazonia!!!!

As far as the amount you need...a 5-gallon bucket, in theory, holds 5 gallons of substrate, or 231(in3 per gallon) x 5 = 1,155 cubic inches.

If you have, for example, a 125 tank with a 72" x 18" footprint and want a 3" overall depth, then you need 72 x 18 x 3 = 3,888 cubic inches of substrate. 3,888/1,155 = 3.36, so you'd need 3.36 buckets of substrate.

Just remember, length x width x height for the volume you need, and 231 cubic inches per gallon. Then you can easily calculate the substrate amount needed (provided that you have the substrate in amounts of gallons rather than pounds). When substrate is sold in liters, you just convert the liters into gallons first.

There are 3.78 liters per gallon. So, if Amazonia is sold in a 9L bag, you are getting 9/3.78 = 2.38 gallons per bag. For the same tank above, you needed 3.36 of 5 gallon buckets = 16.8 gallons of substrate.
16.8 divided by 2.38 gallons per bag = 7 bags of Amazonia (in 9L bags) for a 3" overall depth in a 125.

[davemonkey]

Bumping to give an update before I tear it all down. I wound up going filterless on this tank, using only powerheads for movement and letting the plants do teh filtering. This was good for most of the water quality needs except clarity...the plants don't filter out floating bits of sediment which I had alot of in this tank (I'm assuming from the soil). The best lighting that I settled on was 4 36" bulbs, the Geisseman Middays. Keeping the light low allowed my to also remove the CO2 and the tank was largely low maint. excpet for having to do wekly water changes (to get out the sediment I mentioned).

Anyway, as my family grows larger, my time for aquariums dwindles and this tank has to go. (All proceeds will go to buy diapers. )

[AquaticAddict]

Very nice!

[davemonkey]

Before I tore teh tank down, I decided to enter it in the AGA 2011 contest.
TADA!! I didn't win, but it was fun and I feel honored just to have the picture on the AGA website. :)

http://showcase.aquatic-gardeners.org/2011/show64.html

By the way, if you are wondering where I came up with the name...I figured "New Beginning" sounded cool, and then I figured, "since all the plant names were in Latin...why not the name of the scape?".

[Tetranerd]

Congrats. Tank looked great.

[Complexity]

Beautiful tank, Dave! I love the scape; gives a very serene feeling.

[HookTheBrotherUp]

Congrats Dave. Great work!

[davemonkey]

Totally forgot all about this scape being entered into any contest...it's been a year since I last knew anything of it, but when it was entered into AGA it got submited automatically to ADA's world-wide contest. Well, yesterday I get THIS is the mail:



Out of 2,021 entries from around the world, this one ranked 618! That may not sound all that great to most professional scapers...but to me, being well within the top third WORLDwide with a low-tech, filterless, no-CO2, El Natural tank is pretty darn good!!! Thanks to Kevin (kwc1974) who played a major role in scaping this...and getting me the hardscape. And thanks to Houston Area Aquatic Plant Society for this tank possible! :)

[kwc1974]

Davemonkey's 125

Congrats. It was a great tank and fun to scape

[AhKwaB]

Awesome!

[tls2death]

Any working links to the pictures of this tank?

edit: this http://showcase.aquatic-gardeners.org/2011/show64.html is the only one I could find and wow. Great job