# Setup Complete



## flashover00 (Oct 19, 2006)

Dicus arriving tomorrow morning, so i had to do a bunch of tank maintenance today.....took a few pics of my setup and equipment to share with everyone. Maybe tomorrow ill get to the other tanks that i have been putting off for far too long...

Tank specs: 
75 gal black silicone w/ glass tops

Filtration: 
1 x fluval 405 + 1 X fluval 305
1 Marineland powerhead









Lighting: 
2 x 48 inch coralife FW dual T5 strips (56 watts each) + 1 30 inch coralife FW dual T5 strips (36 watts) = roughly 2 watts per gal
3 Marina Led Moon lights w/ Hub


















Extras:
- 20lb Co2 cylinder w/ milwaukee regulator 
- 9 Watt spiral UV 
- Milwaukee ph controller
- Coralife power center (for lights and powerhead)
- Hydor 300 watt heater


























..and here are some quick pics of the aquascape


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## pioneer1976 (Jan 14, 2007)

i love your setup man i looks great


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## flashover00 (Oct 19, 2006)

pioneer1976 said:


> i love your setup man it looks great


Thanks....appreciate it! Just wait till tomorrow


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## ~Silly~Spy (Mar 12, 2005)

nice looking tank man!


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## piranha_guy_dan (Oct 4, 2004)

holy moly thats a professional set up if ive ever seen one. thats for all the live plants right?


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## flashover00 (Oct 19, 2006)

piranha_guy_dan said:


> holy moly thats a professional set up if ive ever seen one. thats for all the live plants right?


A lot of it is for the plants...but much of it serves a dual purpose so that i can keep the discus as well.


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## mike123 (Jul 17, 2006)

Nice set up, make sure to get some pics when you get the discus.


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## benJii (Feb 17, 2005)

Your setup appears quite nice. Looks like you have been doing you homework. That should make a good discus tank, I hope you take my suggestions on tankmates a bit more harshly, however. I still wonder why anybody gets common plecos any longer, who ever came up with the idea that they are 'cleaning fish' had to be smoking something potent. One thing that I haven't mentioned is that discus are one of the few fishes that will actually 'sleep', and having nocturnal tankmates (such as plecos) can be very stressing to them. One of the hard things about discus keeping I see is that too many people want to make a community tank out of them. Little do they realize that after a few months of keeping the discus, they will see that the other fish are a waste of money, water, and bio load, and do nothing but hinder the fishes actually.

Food for thought.


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## flashover00 (Oct 19, 2006)

Tibs said:


> Your setup appears quite nice. Looks like you have been doing you homework. That should make a good discus tank, I hope you take my suggestions on tankmates a bit more harshly, however. I still wonder why anybody gets common plecos any longer, who ever came up with the idea that they are 'cleaning fish' had to be smoking something potent. One thing that I haven't mentioned is that discus are one of the few fishes that will actually 'sleep', and having nocturnal tankmates (such as plecos) can be very stressing to them. One of the hard things about discus keeping I see is that too many people want to make a community tank out of them. Little do they realize that after a few months of keeping the discus, they will see that the other fish are a waste of money, water, and bio load, and do nothing but hinder the fishes actually.
> 
> Food for thought.


Thanks....i did my homework to a point. Like i said, it was really hard to not find conflicting information.
Im taking your suggestions more harshly....no worries.

LOL...you are so anti common pleco. My reasoning behind having them is this: When i was going through the troubling first few weeks of having my tank planted, i had algae growing like there was no tomorrow.....then i added one and watched him go through the algae on my swords like there was no tomorrow. I know they create a lot of waste and get big real quick, but they did actually help balance the alage growth in my tank until i could tweak my lighting and ferts.
Oh...and they are about 4 dollars at petsmart vs. 29 and WAY up for some of the nicer ones. Trust me, if i could, i would have went for a snowball (i love them)


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## therizman1 (Jan 6, 2006)

Looking very nice... I would spread that blyxa out even more though... I will try to find a pic of my tank when I first started, but when I did I didnt have more than 40 plants for the whole tank that were all tiny little things with no more than 10 leaves per plant and I just spread them out a lot and let them grow like crazy.

Cant wait to see some pics of those discus today!


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## BlackSunshine (Mar 28, 2006)

Wow! That is one impressive setup. Bravo!

As for your algae issue. I would really ditch that pleco and maybe swap him out for a team of Oto's they are much less aggressive and don't take to attacking fish. I had a pleco that would try and take on large cichlids. eventually he was gutted and scalped. But your discus aren't going to be able to deal with him and will stress. 
So a couple SAEs and 5-10 otos should handle most algae issues. without worry of hurting the Discus.


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## benJii (Feb 17, 2005)

There is no possible reason to be Pro Common Pleco. Adding a common pleco to your tank is equivlent to doing a quick swipe of an algae scraper, adding a large log, and throwing in double the food.

I've never seen a common pleco do a good job at cleaning algae. I've rarely seen ANY type of pleco do such thing. If I were you, and I really HAD to have a pleco, I would have gotten a Temminicki, they are usally around $10, they don't tear up plants, they are not aggressive in the least, and they are one of the only plecos that are known to do a good job at cleaning algae. Snowballs do not clean algae, I do not beleive, people need to get out of their heads that plecos are cleaner fish, seriously, there are hundreds of plecos, only a handful will do a considerable job at algae whatsoever.


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## black_piranha (Jan 12, 2006)

how big do otos usually get? im running a discus tank and have a royal pleco who cleans the dust in the tank but dunno about algae.


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## benJii (Feb 17, 2005)

black_piranha said:


> how big do otos usually get? im running a discus tank and have a royal pleco who cleans the dust in the tank but dunno about algae.


Otos get about an inch. They do a great job, once again, royal plecos are part of the majority of plecos that don't eat algae.

Flash, one thing I'm suprised you didn't think of is that common plecos are known for eating and ripping up plants, in a tank like that, thats not something that I would want to risk.


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## acestro (Jul 7, 2003)

Tibs said:


> how big do otos usually get? im running a discus tank and have a royal pleco who cleans the dust in the tank but dunno about algae.


know that royal plecos and some other plecos can eat away at driftwood. I had a bristlenose that made a huge driftwood reduce to half its size after a few years.


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## spinalremains (Nov 10, 2006)

That setup is amazing. And I thought marine tanks were enough work!


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## acestro (Jul 7, 2003)

I understand that aspect of controlling algae while the plants take hold. It's very interesting how plants dont quite win over algae right away. I really want to improve my knowledge of plantscaping, you've done a remarkable job.


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## flashover00 (Oct 19, 2006)

Tibs said:


> I understand that aspect of controlling algae while the plants take hold. It's very interesting how plants dont quite win over algae right away. I really want to improve my knowledge of plantscaping, you've done a remarkable job.


Thanks man....its not that hard...took a lot of reading and talking to some of the plant guys on p fury. Riz, Dippy BS and others all know their stuff. Its all a constant battle between algae and plants....and if you do it right, the plants win.

Im posting other pics of my discus under the other thread i have...they came out today and did a lot of exploring and eating.


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## mr.bearhasyourlady (Jun 1, 2004)

crazy setup!looks real sweet tho!man i thought i had a lot of plugs and what nots on my reef tank ahaha


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## flashover00 (Oct 19, 2006)

mr.bearhasyourlady said:


> crazy setup!looks real sweet tho!man i thought i had a lot of plugs and what nots on my reef tank ahaha


lol...thanks man. seriously, i had to put a plant in front of that corner of the room to hide all the electrical stuff


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