# Finally...substrate and lights



## SeedlessOne

I trimmed the hell out of my tank, changed the substrate and added t5 lighting. It looks sooo bare....it will be back to normal in a short time though.


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## MiGsTeR

What are those things on the right? the slightly yellow stuff


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## SeedlessOne

MiGsTeR said:


> What are those things on the right? the slightly yellow stuff


It is dwraf hairgrass...yeah i noticed how yellow it looked in the pic. Hopefully in a short time the right side will be a nice carpet.


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## MiGsTeR

Ahh.. Lol I thought they were fishes.. Am like wtf..


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## lo4life

I think it looks good Seedless! Fish look great also! If you want to see a bare tank I can post a pic LOL


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## MiGsTeR

It does look good. You got a old pic of before you did some trimming so we can compare?


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## sapir

your tank and shoal both look amazing


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## SeedlessOne

Thanks for all the kind words....

Ill see if i can dig up an old pic. LOL kinda hard to see my whole shoal in the pic. There are actually 12 pygos in there. 10 caribe and 2 reds.

Dont have any recent pics before trimming, but this is all the trim and plants I removed.









Its for sale in the classifieds...


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## DiPpY eGgS

Looks good!
Fish look great too!
As for the yellowing hairgrass.. Hmm, do you add extra iron to the water column? I know some of my plants turn white-ish if I don't dose extra iron.

Seems like the hairgrass should be taking off in there..

Where did you get your substrate? Cost? -thanks


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## lo4life

Looks like you still have some in the bottom of the bin also. I think I would have took a weed eater to that tank lol.. It should be back to normal in no time expecially with all of the light that the plants are getting since you trimmed them.


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## SeedlessOne

DiPpY eGgS said:


> Looks like you still have some in the bottom of the bin also. I think I would have took a weed eater to that tank lol.. It should be back to normal in no time expecially with all of the light that the plants are getting since you trimmed them.


Yeah there is still a lot in the bin. I just grabbed as much as I could in one hand. Yeah to say the least it was kinda getting outta control!! LOL, that hygrophila could probably grow outta water.

Thanks for the kind words....will post pics in a month or so to show the difference. I should be running Co2 by then also....Does anyone have any plant suggestions?? I would love to hear some....


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## lo4life

Where did you get that colorquartz at?? I really like the look of it.


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## SeedlessOne

You can find a supplier locally if you search in 3M's website. I picked mine up locally for 27bucks a bag. Or you can have it shipped to your door for 36bucks from these guys http://www.ramrfq.com/. i spoke with them and they are very nice and said they have tons of people order this stuff for aquariums. They ship it in a 5g bucket. Not a bad deal.


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## superbee

Looks great!!!

And thats a painted black background??


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## SeedlessOne

superbee said:


> Looks great!!!
> 
> And thats a painted black background??


It looks painted doesnt it. I actually use regular old black vinyl aquarium background. Most of the time these are used there are always air bubbles, flaws, and generally a PITA to work with. Ive found that if you apply it with cooking oil it comes out perfect. Easy to do, no bubbles and couldnt ask it to look any better.


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## maknwar

very nice. I think someone is ready for some harder to grow plants.


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## SeedlessOne

maknwar said:


> very nice. I think someone is ready for some harder to grow plants.


 ^^^^Any suggestions??? Cant wait to see what Co2 will do.


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## robert69

Your fish have amazing colors. I'm envious


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## SeedlessOne

robert69 said:


> Your fish have amazing colors. I'm envious


Thanks for the comment. I think the best colors come out when you feed pellets as their staple diet.


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## DiPpY eGgS

Plant suggestions are very personal, because everyone likes something different.

But I could point you towards looking at different types of Cryptocorynes, Limnophilas, Rotalas, and Ludwigias. There are other cool plants, But check those out to get you started


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## MiGsTeR

I got a question. What kinda lights do you use?


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## SeedlessOne

^^^^Im using 4X39 T5 Lighting now but was using 2 4ft t12 fixtures


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## ryanimpreza

LOOKS LIKE THE BOMB. SEEDLESS. YOUR FISH HAVE GREAT COLOR. AS FOR YOUR HAIRGRASS MOST LIKELY IT WILL GROW IN BUT IT WILL TAKE AWHILE AND THE YELLOW PORTION MIGHT DIE OFF. oh crap caps was on. Anyways the tank looks great I would leave it and let it establish then start re locating plants around. CO2 will make a good difference plants will be stronger for sure. Keep posting those pics I need to post some soon. Ryan


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## SeedlessOne

ryanimpreza said:


> LOOKS LIKE THE BOMB. SEEDLESS. YOUR FISH HAVE GREAT COLOR. AS FOR YOUR HAIRGRASS MOST LIKELY IT WILL GROW IN BUT IT WILL TAKE AWHILE AND THE YELLOW PORTION MIGHT DIE OFF. oh crap caps was on. Anyways the tank looks great I would leave it and let it establish then start re locating plants around. CO2 will make a good difference plants will be stronger for sure. Keep posting those pics I need to post some soon. Ryan


Thanks....I cant even say enough about your tank.







Hopefully the hairgrass will pull through, like I said it sat in a bag for 2 weeks. I am going to post a better pic tomorrow. This pic does no justice for my shoal....


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## SeedlessOne

Just a few quick pics I snapped of the tank...its been a few weeks and have already seen a lot of growth.


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## maknwar

very nice, and everything looks like it is growing great. Doesnt look like you have any algae, those T5's must be the trick.


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## lo4life

Pretty clutch Seedless.. Cant wait to see your tank when that hair grass takes off.


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## superbee

Right on man!

I hope i can do my 125 just as nice...Looks great!


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## ryanimpreza

looks great. very nice fish also good color.


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## SeedlessOne

Thanks for th replies...

Yeah that HG is very hard to keep planted with 12 pygos during feeding time. Hopefully its finally established some roots to hold it down. Ive lost about half of it.


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## ju5tin95

SeedlessOne said:


> Your fish have amazing colors. I'm envious


Thanks for the comment. I think the best colors come out when you feed pellets as their staple diet.








[/quote]

what kind of pellets do you feed them? Hikari Cichlid gold? and did u feed them anything else? how long did it take to get them to eat the pellets?

right now i feed mine shrimp soaked it zoe, but ur caribe are super red =)

my oscars are really red too from the Hikari...


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## SeedlessOne

ju5tin95 said:


> Your fish have amazing colors. I'm envious


Thanks for the comment. I think the best colors come out when you feed pellets as their staple diet.








[/quote]

what kind of pellets do you feed them? Hikari Cichlid gold? and did u feed them anything else? how long did it take to get them to eat the pellets?

right now i feed mine shrimp soaked it zoe, but ur caribe are super red =)

my oscars are really red too from the Hikari...
[/quote]

90-95% I feed bio gold. Then everynow and then Ill buy some shrimp, tilapia filet, etc.


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## FEEFA

Cleanest looking setup I've seen, I cant wait till I find some Caribe.


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## ICEE

nice setup seedless, really impressive


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## SeedlessOne

^^^ Thanks guys.....My tank got all F'ed up and looks like sh*t now.....








I had to break down the tank for an emergency at like 1Am. Took several hours and to say the least a lot of plants got messed up....


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## maknwar

what happened? It was going so well.


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## lo4life

You have a sump problem??


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## SeedlessOne

Kinda long story. I was doing a water change and talking to a guest at my house. I can normally look at the water line and tell if my sump is filling up. Well I had about 2 inch before my sump started filling so I keep looking over to check the water level. Well after a little while I noticed the water level had not risen so I was like







. Well I walked over to see my overflow box sitting at a nasty angle therefore letting water in the sump much much earlier than is suppose to. I open the stand door to find a sump overflowing with a sh*t ton of water. And of course it then leaked under my stand down to my carpet. Well I left it for 2 days to see if it would dry out underneath the stand. It was still really wet so I had to break the tank down. To say the least it was a huge pain to do by myself. Not to mention I started at like 1am. So to make a long story short my plants got fawked up during the break down and my carpet is screwed as well.


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## maknwar

that sucks man. Canister time.


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## lo4life

Damn that sucks really bad! Everything going alright though?


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## SeedlessOne

lo4life said:


> Damn that sucks really bad! Everything going alright though?


Yeah everything is cool now. Ill have to snap a little aftermath pic. Give me a few hours and Ill show you the damage done.


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## Knifeman

Your tank looks great, of course it sounds like you will need a recovery period for a couple of weeks to get things back in order again.

That substrate you are using looks like black sand, but you mentioned it doesn't compact the same. Can you shoot a close up photo of it? I have always loved the look of black sand, but avoided it because I heard it compacts and also that it was so fine that you need to vacuum almost daily if you have big P's like I do. I am guessing that could be both good and bad for me, because the obvious fish poop would help me to stop procrastinating my water changes. On the other hand, if you do go a couple of weeks without a water change/vacuum with black sand, does it end up caking it up really bad?

The cost that you mentioned that you paid for the 3M stuff doesn't bother me, but are you saying that it looks similar to the sand, but is much easier to maintain?


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## SeedlessOne

3M CQ is nothing like sand. Its colored quartz. Its great substrate IMO. You should try it out. And you should not be going a couple of weeks with out changing water. But to answer your question is 100times easier to maintian than sand. Sand as a substrate blows IMO.


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## Piranha Madness

I was trying to set up my #2 135's with 3M cq and the company has sold out LOL, I didn't know we had that many members needing substrate ....Well I'm on a *WORLD WIDE HUNT* for this stuff thinking about 150 pounds will do both tanks...???? LW


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## SeedlessOne

You will need 150lbs per 135g tank. I wouldnt go with anyless.


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