PupChow's Neglected 65g tank

[PupChow]

I read some great tank threads here and thought I'd also add a thread and document my second wind with my 65g tank. My tank is seriously lacking in comparison to some posted here, but I thought some people might appreciate a tank from us normal folks.

 

Originally my aquascape goal for this 65g tank is column rocks, this is also why I went with a 36" length instead of a 48" to get that extra height. However, halfway through the process green hair algae struck, and red flatworm right after. I was completely devastated by the one-two punch and just left the tank running by itself after trying many different "fixes" and found other ways to burn my money and took a break.

 

Strangely, after leaving the tank alone for half a year doing nothing but topping off with just tap water (I was using bottled water), all the problems just went away, no trace of HA or RW in sight. Now I have a tank full of green tree leather and frogspawn. With my recently torn ACL I have been sitting home and staring at my tank everyday and I am hoping to complete the process of building the 3 columns, mainly extending the middle column and introduce a new rock structure on the right side extending all the way up to the powerhead. I am hoping to use this thread to document the progress.

 

A little about my humble system:

 

65g, HOB refugium, no sump

teklight t5 6x39w

water pushed by 2 seio (i think 620?), trying to pick up one or two maxijets to replace burned out one hooked up to a wavemaker

 

livestocks:

 

pair of false perc clown, female has been with my for 7.5+ years

pair of yellow watchman goby + pistol shrimp

tiny hippo tang (very recent addition)

 

cleaner shrimp

pair of sexy shrimps

 

 

 

 

 

Interesting bits:

 

My Rose anemone and Purple LTA were literally touching at one point, instead of forcing one to move I decided to just wait and see what happens... they didn't sting each other and they continue to live dangerously close.

 

My female false perc is seriously bullet proof *knock on wood*, she has been through two tank crashes with my old 30g that wiped out the entire tank but is still with me today! she is my pride and joy.

 

I have attempted bigger swimming fish in the past, mainly to combat hair algae problem (yellow tang, rabbit fish x2, hippo tang), but for some reason they never lasted more than 2 weeks and half of the time body was never found... The YWGs have no issue at all and are thriving. I wonder if it has to do with the two anemones.

 

Until next time!

[amos]

Pupchow- Looks great! I was thinking of columns for aquascaping too, so I'll look forward to when you get those in place. Thanks for sharing.

 

Jon

[jason the filter freak]

Tank looks fantastic for being "neglected"

[Larry Grenier]

Funny how sometimes "Mother Nature" fixes things we can't.

 

How do you plan on doing the "Columns"?

[PupChow]

Thanks guys! ;-)

 

Ideally I'd be able to hunt down naturally big pieces of LR, but the typical big ones I have found are only about half the tank's height. I might experiment with drilling multiple LRs and using an acrylic rod / eproxy to attach them together. Might be cool to create some ledges this way too!