75 gallon planted tank journal.

[fishhead0103666]

Well this project is moving excruciating slowly to my dismay but it will keep on slowly continuing. I’m going to implement 2 new ideas. One is a hanging light diy that I’m going to do myself and the other is a diy filter to sit behind the tank kind of. The idea of the filter is to get a large planter box and have it so that water is pulled in one side and pushed out the other side but it will not be a filter in reality, it’s just going to be more space for plants to grow. I’ll explain more tomorrow, I got the idea from the king of diy where he explained how to filter 2 tanks with one diy filter for $7.
Anyway I did get 2 more plants, neither of which were on my original plan. At this point until I can get the plants I truly want I’m going to simply put experiment with house plants I can get from Walmart and other places. I bought a arrow head plant
Excuse the lid and multiple canister filter tubing, this isn’t a display tank.... yet...
I also got a mystery plant which I personally liked, the name is in the picture on the little tab.

 

[fishhead0103666]

One last note before I go, I’m thinking of eventually doing away with the hang on back filters because they take up so much space on the back that my bamboo won’t be able to sit flush against the back of the wall. That is where the diy filter comes in, it takes up minimum space on the rim of the tank itself except the intake and outtake tubes. Hopefully I’m making sense but even if I’m not I shall explain everything tomorrow so enjoy .

 

[MrsE88]

Your plan is very interesting and I will enjoy watching the process!

I’ve been very intrigued by bamboo for a couple years now but was initially under the impression that it only looked good while it slowly died. Lol not sure why that’s what I thought.
I’ve been seeing more and more pictures of bamboo sticking out of aquariums and I love it!
I have a 25” tall tank I’ve been trying to figure out how to plant....

Your Anubis wall also sounds very interesting. Are you worried about creating a dead spot behind the wall? Or maybe the wall doesn’t enclose the back like I’m picturing in my head?

 

[fishhead0103666]

Ahh, about the Anubis wall. The Great Wall is Anubis nana is currently a no go. Turns out my silver dollars like it more than I thought so it looks like I’m going to try it sometimes again in the future when the project is further along. Most likely when I’ve finished collecting all of my bamboo.
As for the wall itself you’re picturing it correctly and I hadn’t thought about it creating a dead zone so thank you for bringing it to my attention. I might put in a power head (those can be stuck to the side of the tank correct?) to circulate water behind the bamboo and Anubis nana wall.
As for your tank bamboo is the way to go. Tall bamboo can do wonders for a tall tank.

 

[MrsE88]

I think a powerhead would be a good solution. I’ve never used one but have seen them stuck on the sides of tanks.

I’ll be looking more into bamboo. I’ve had plants grow really well in this tank, but it has been being used to growout goldfish, koi, and my pleco that is too much of a problem in my other tanks. Unfortunately all these guys eventually ate and killed all my beautiful pond plants I was wintering last year and I haven’t been able to keep any plants in there since. But bamboo should be safe right?

 

[fishhead0103666]

If my silver dollars won’t touch bamboo the I can guarantee you that goldfish won’t eat them either. A very large koi determined to eat it may do some damage to it but your average goldfish I’d bet my pinkie that he wouldn’t hurt the bamboo.
I personally prefer curled lucky bamboo and lotus bamboo which is much thicker then lucky bamboo.

 

[MrsE88]

Since these guys are just babies it should be fine then. The pleco I feel a bit iffy about. He is on the bigger side 13”+ but I can’t imagine he’d like the taste of it.

It could be awesome to grow out in my ponds come summer too..... I’m getting all excited. Haha

I’m very curious about your dark mystery plant too. It has a nice look to it.

 

[fishhead0103666]

I’ll get some better pictures of the dark mystery for you then
As for growing the bamboo, I bought 10 pieces of 24 inch or 18 inch curved lucky bamboo about a year ago. The difference in measuring between straight and curved lucky bamboo is that with curved lucky bamboo you only measure up to the curving part. As a result of that a 24 inch curled lucky bamboo may be 27” at the top of the curve and 32” at the top of the leaves. Now that you know that I shall continue. After roughly a year ( I think (I’ll give you the exact date when I get home) ) the tip of the leaf on my tallest plant is roughly 56”-60” if I remember correctly which is an about 30” growth! It’s a shame that it was cut because only the branches grow now, if the stem hadn’t been cut then the stem itself would probably be about 4 feet long.
Hopefully I didn’t leave anything out.

 

[fishhead0103666]

I drew a rough draft of my idea for the diy lighting system and diy filter. It’s poor quality at the moment since I didn’t think I would be posting this so I didn’t bother going slow and making it look nice. I’ll walk you through the picture.
On the left picture is more or less a front view of it. The lines inside of it are boards that are meant to make it stronger, think of it as a book case. The one that says “hold diy filter” is going to be the shelf that holds the diy filter.

The right picture is a side view basically. From top to bottom we have;
The hanging light
The diy filter box
The tank
The stand
And finally the legs that I’m going to add so the whole thing doesn’t tip forward onto the tank.

I’ll rewrite it so it looks much better.

 

[MrsE88]

I’d love to see more pictures. And that is a lot of growth in a year!
I think I’m pretty set on getting some then. I love plants so much. Haha

I think I get the design you drew up. That should work out well. I look forward to seeing the end result.