Mike's 45 gallon long (48"x12"x19") planted tank

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
I intend to get a couple Blue Rams, and the acclimation kit is just a cheap one from DrsFosterSmith.com - http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod_display.cfm?pcatid=16100


I bought it a while back, and it's just been sitting around so I figured why not put it to good use by acclimating the Blue Ram lol. As for acclimating fish; It's advised to slowly acclimate any new fish to your tanks water parameters before adding them to the tank, even better if you have a quarantine tank to house any new fish for 2 weeks to monitor them for any disease or parasites. But I really don't feel like setting up a bunch of tanks just for that, I'm good with my 100 gallon tank, 45 gallon long tank, and my Fluval Edge 6 gallon tank...
 
Really cool man, I asked specifically about the ram because I saw a yt video someone made about acclimating their ram, and the guy introduced small amounts of tank water into the petshop bag over like 2hrs!
 
I acclimated my Blue Ram in just 30 minutes, and he's still going strong & active. But he's going to moved from my 45 gallon tank, into a new Fluval Spec V I just picked up for $80 at Petsmart. I plan to make the Spec V a low tech planted tank with the Blue Ram, couple of snails, and some ghost shrimp!!!

I like the little acclimating kit I got because it lets me control the flow of the water, I can do a slow drip acclimation, or I can do a fast stream acclimation.
 
So I took the Fluval Spec V back just because I wanted to pick up another Blue Ram for the tank, and I got Red Texas Cichlid!!!! The Red Texas is being housed in my Fluval Edge at the moment, just because I plan to swap everything over. Meaning the Red Texas Cichlid will go into the 45 gallon tank, and then the Blue Rams will go into the Fluval Edge tank tomorrow once I get it situated with moving the plants, some of the substrate and stuff.
 
I read the first part of your last post and thought "oh no, did someone at the lfs tell him a Red Devil and Ram would go good together?", lol. I'm glad you've got plans for separate tanks. I'd still get the Ram a mate tho, if it were me. It sounds like you got some good plans, I look forward to seeing them come to fruition. The tank you got now is looking good, the plants are growing nicely. That didn't take long at all. Soon you can cut and replant and fill the tank out more, if that's your plan, or plant the cuttings into the new tank. I find that the most rewarding part of planted tanks, supplying my other unplanted tanks with new plants from cuttings. I started out with a 15g planted, and now have that and 2 10g's planted, and a 30g about to be started up with about 60% of my plants from the other tanks. And all that came from free clippings. Good stuff. Anyhow, enough of my ramble, I'll check out your progress again in the future. Nice work with securing a new tank and fish!
 
Aside from boiling water, for a big piece I used in an old tank, and for when we have a lot of them, you can just put them right in the dishwasher lol. Will get out most of the tannins, and kill anything in the wood.

Lol, no way am I putting wood in my dishwasher!

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Well the first Ram killed the second one over night, so I just decided to take him back to the shop I got him from so he can get adopted out... I mean the Red Texas cichlid only cost me $8 but once he's fully grown he'll be worth an easy $100, plus Red Texas cichlids are a rare find here in Colorado so I jumped at the chance to snag the only one I could locate here in the state.
 
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