My 125g Planted Native Tank

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aaron7353

Gambusia
MFK Member
Feb 24, 2013
138
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16
Iowa
I'd like to share my setup with everyone. I have a 125g tank (72" x 18" x 21"). It's filtered by an FX5 loaded with two trays of biomax and matrix and one with 500mL of Purigen as well as a Penguin 350 with matrix and filter pads. I'm using PFS for substrate. It's planted with Cabomba, Java Fern, Jungle Val, Rotala Indica, Amazon Swords, Rosette Swords, Anubias, Crypts, Microsword, and Saggitaria Chilensis. The lighting is less than I'd like, but I will soon be doing a huge rescape and changing everything. Now for the native part. My Stocklist is:
1 Green Sunfish, 1 Bluegill, 1 Marbled Florida Bullhead, 1 Brindled Madtom, 1 Speckled Madtom, 5 Eastern Dollar Sunfish, 4 Pumpkinseeds, 4 Orangespotted Sunfish, 4 Banded Sunfish, 2 Northern Longears, 1 Logperch, 2 Redbelly Daces, and one Rhino Pleco (only non-native fish).

image.jpg

I will soon be doing a huge rescape of the tank. I will be replacing my substrate with Eco-Complete, upgrading to a 3 or 4 bulb T5HO fixture from Catalina Aquarium, replacing the center and left pieces of driftwood with one big awesome piece, and painting the background black instead of having a crappy cling background that doesn't look good. I'll be totally replanting the tank to look much nicer, and hopefully the black substrate and heavier planting will make fish show true colors. My ospots, bandeds, logperch, and Daces will be rehomed to a 29g for a school project. My final Stocklist for my 125g will be 1 Green, 1 Bluegill, 1 Marbled Florida Bullhead, a stonecat, 2 Warmouth, one or so yellow perch, and my 4 Pumpkinseeds. I'm debating keeping my eastern dollars in here to displace aggression or starting a 75g for them to avoid overstocking the 125g.

Any comments or suggestions are welcomed and greatly appreciated.

image.jpg
 
I think it looks great. I was going to do live plants as well but I stuck with fake plants for now.

It's possible, depending on size, the stone cat may be a meal for the Warmouth at some point and time, I had my madtom in with my Warmouth at he survived for the time I had him till a crawdad done him in. The bullhead, again depending on the size will attempt to eat smaller fish, even if he can't, he will try. I had this problem recently with my 15" bullhead trying to take down longears bigger than he can swallow. He left nasty marks on the longears. Again, all depends on the size and attitude of the specific fish.
 
Thanks MasterB, I love what you're doing with the 210. I would definitely say adding live plants to it would be awesome, but expensive nonetheless.

Anyways, that is one thing I'm trying to monitor carefully. My bullhead is very reclusive and seems to scavenge at night for food. That's not to say he won't become predatory, but his growth rate has been very minimal so far in comparison to my sunnies. How large do stonecat get? I was under the impression that they're large enough to be safe from predators, but I might be mistaken.
 
aaron7353 said:
Thanks MasterB, I love what you're doing with the 210. I would definitely say adding live plants to it would be awesome, but expensive nonetheless.

Anyways, that is one thing I'm trying to monitor carefully. My bullhead is very reclusive and seems to scavenge at night for food. That's not to say he won't become predatory, but his growth rate has been very minimal so far in comparison to my sunnies. How large do stonecat get? I was under the impression that they're large enough to be safe from predators, but I might be mistaken.
Click to expand...

My Madtom was about 5", but they are long and skinny so a warmouth, etc. with a large mouth can easily make an attempt and since they madtoms, etc. swim fast, it may excite the warmouth to start chasing them. Depending on what kind of madtom you have, it may reach 12" but that's on a rare occasion I assume, typically in the 4-8" range according to Ohio DNR http://www.dnr.state.oh.us/tabid/6770/Default.aspx
 
Great looking setup! Very cool looking pieces of driftwood. Looking forward to seeing pics of it once the re-scape is complete.
 
I think I'll do a video after the rescape. I'm not happy enough with the current setup. Honestly, are fish keepers ever totally content though? Haha.

Also, thanks MasterB for the info.
 
aaron7353 said:
I think I'll do a video after the rescape. I'm not happy enough with the current setup. Honestly, are fish keepers ever totally content though? Haha.

Also, thanks MasterB for the info.
Click to expand...

You are right, at least I know I'm never content with what I have. I'm always thinking of something different. :)
 
aaron7353 said:
Thanks MasterB, I love what you're doing with the 210. I would definitely say adding live plants to it would be awesome, but expensive nonetheless.

Anyways, that is one thing I'm trying to monitor carefully. My bullhead is very reclusive and seems to scavenge at night for food. That's not to say he won't become predatory, but his growth rate has been very minimal so far in comparison to my sunnies. How large do stonecat get? I was under the impression that they're large enough to be safe from predators, but I might be mistaken.
Click to expand...

stonecats will eat at night, but I found growth to be comparable to most medium sized sunfish; how are you feeding your stonecat they prefer foods on the bottom of the tank (worms, frozen food that sinks, and sinking pellets)?
 
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