hello all,

Been a LOOOOOONNNNNGGG time since I've posted here. Well, I am embarrassed.
I used to be quite the "stuck up Plant tank fanatic" until I had an
opportunity to get a 125 gall reef ready tank with all the live rock and
bells and whistles. Guess what people?! over there in sal****er land they
get algae too!! Lots of it! all new kinds of algae to fight with. Just
when I became a pro at my planted discus tank... now I've got diatoms, red
slime, and the worst of all yep you guessed it HAIR ALGAE. Hah! The thing
is in a reef tank you don't have the nice macrophytes in your corner to have
your back and kick the algae's @**. BTW guess what the new rage is in
marine world? Hooking up a second tank to your main tank to grow only
"macroalgae" i.e. using attractive algae to outcompete the lower algae.
it's called a refugium, and some of this macroalgae is wild lookin. Anyway
enough of that now for my questions.....

I've seriously neglected my discus 55 gallon. But the absence has kind of
had the "walk away from the painting" effect. Now I want to do something
cool but I want it to be lower maintenance. Slow growers. With the reef
tank I simply do not have the time to dedicate to pruning every third week.
I alrady have a full carpet of lilaeopsis, and a bunch of stem plants. Full
bed of flourite. I've got 4x 40 watt NO flourescents, fluval canister, and
DIY CO2. If I remember correctly when I was "psyched" about a year ago
people were getting into cork, attaching "barriers" to the corners inorder
to make shelves so that the gravel was at different levels. if anyone has
any cool links or pics that would be awesome! I am picturing something
along these lines. btw is that glossostigma?

thanks everyone,
Ben

sorry he something along these lines

http://www.aquabotanic.com/contest/2...lltankshot.jpg

I don't have any ideas but I sure do know what you mean by your salt
water tank. And to think that algae is your friend in there...lol.

Vicki

A year is a long time? Last year was about 15 minutes ago for me.

If you know enough to have a planted Discus tank, and you are screwing
around with Marine, how much else can we really suggest to you?

It's not neccessary to show off to us that you are doing Reef, keep in mind
that many of us here also read the Marine newsgroups, so your revelations
are not earth shattering.

As far as Links and Pics, just surf the web

"Benthic" wrote in message
...
hello all,

Been a LOOOOOONNNNNGGG time since I've posted here. Well, I am
embarrassed.
I used to be quite the "stuck up Plant tank fanatic" until I had an
opportunity to get a 125 gall reef ready tank with all the live rock and
bells and whistles. Guess what people?! over there in sal****er land
they
get algae too!! Lots of it! all new kinds of algae to fight with. Just
when I became a pro at my planted discus tank... now I've got diatoms, red
slime, and the worst of all yep you guessed it HAIR ALGAE. Hah! The
thing
is in a reef tank you don't have the nice macrophytes in your corner to
have
your back and kick the algae's @**. BTW guess what the new rage is in
marine world? Hooking up a second tank to your main tank to grow only
"macroalgae" i.e. using attractive algae to outcompete the lower algae.
it's called a refugium, and some of this macroalgae is wild lookin.
Anyway
enough of that now for my questions.....

I've seriously neglected my discus 55 gallon. But the absence has kind of
had the "walk away from the painting" effect. Now I want to do something
cool but I want it to be lower maintenance. Slow growers. With the reef
tank I simply do not have the time to dedicate to pruning every third
week.
I alrady have a full carpet of lilaeopsis, and a bunch of stem plants.
Full
bed of flourite. I've got 4x 40 watt NO flourescents, fluval canister,
and
DIY CO2. If I remember correctly when I was "psyched" about a year ago
people were getting into cork, attaching "barriers" to the corners inorder
to make shelves so that the gravel was at different levels. if anyone has
any cool links or pics that would be awesome! I am picturing something
along these lines. btw is that glossostigma?

thanks everyone,
Ben

whoa?!?!?!?!?

I don't know how my little blurb manufactured that kind of reaction. My
point was that I used to post here very frequently helping out people and
getting help.... I had a looooonnnngggg hard battle in the discus tank with
algae, finally after that (if there are any vets here they may remember)
smooth sailing. My point was when I tried a reef setup I was severely
dissappointed to find out that yes sadly they get algae over there too. And
I was kind of poking fun at the SW people b/c often they believe that it
doesn't get much more challenging than a reef tank yet..... they totally
borrowed the idea of the refugium from FW planted tank people.
Trust me I did not mean to gloat! I'm sorry if I came off that way. I was
kind of making a joke at myself.

While by my tank's and inventory it would be apparent that I need no help,
that is only partly true! The science of the tank is solid... but I am
looking to give my 55 planted discus a fresh design and since I have been
away from the hobby I am just curious if there have been any new ideas /
trends in aquascaping? I am a scientist and not an artist and thus have
trouble with the latter.
Regards,
Ben

p.s. as far as a year being a long time... try thinking of the discus that
after two years of weekly water changes and the plants that were pruned bi
weekly and the yeast bottle that was changed monthly to all of that
happening monthly or even bi monthly and a year being a long time will make
more sense. :-(


"Zion Hill" wrote in message
...
A year is a long time? Last year was about 15 minutes ago for me.

If you know enough to have a planted Discus tank, and you are screwing
around with Marine, how much else can we really suggest to you?

It's not neccessary to show off to us that you are doing Reef, keep in
mind
that many of us here also read the Marine newsgroups, so your revelations
are not earth shattering.

As far as Links and Pics, just surf the web

"Benthic" wrote in message
...
hello all,

Been a LOOOOOONNNNNGGG time since I've posted here. Well, I am
embarrassed.
I used to be quite the "stuck up Plant tank fanatic" until I had an
opportunity to get a 125 gall reef ready tank with all the live rock and
bells and whistles. Guess what people?! over there in sal****er land
they
get algae too!! Lots of it! all new kinds of algae to fight with.
Just
when I became a pro at my planted discus tank... now I've got diatoms,
red
slime, and the worst of all yep you guessed it HAIR ALGAE. Hah! The
thing
is in a reef tank you don't have the nice macrophytes in your corner to
have
your back and kick the algae's @**. BTW guess what the new rage is in
marine world? Hooking up a second tank to your main tank to grow only
"macroalgae" i.e. using attractive algae to outcompete the lower algae.
it's called a refugium, and some of this macroalgae is wild lookin.
Anyway
enough of that now for my questions.....

I've seriously neglected my discus 55 gallon. But the absence has kind
of
had the "walk away from the painting" effect. Now I want to do
something
cool but I want it to be lower maintenance. Slow growers. With the
reef
tank I simply do not have the time to dedicate to pruning every third
week.
I alrady have a full carpet of lilaeopsis, and a bunch of stem plants.
Full
bed of flourite. I've got 4x 40 watt NO flourescents, fluval canister,
and
DIY CO2. If I remember correctly when I was "psyched" about a year ago
people were getting into cork, attaching "barriers" to the corners
inorder
to make shelves so that the gravel was at different levels. if anyone
has
any cool links or pics that would be awesome! I am picturing something
along these lines. btw is that glossostigma?

thanks everyone,
Ben

I am sure you have seen this site before, but this is the best place I
have ever seen for tank ideas. Hope it helps.

http://www.tropicalfishcentre.co.uk/Othertank.htm

Vicki

Some ideas re cork:
http://www.koedcandies.com/Cork.htm

I did some terracing with slate. Had to split it down pretty thin,
but covered the whole back of a 20g and have some plants in the wall,
similar to what you would do with cork.

If you want to slow down the tank, you can chuck the CO2, and start
reducing your ferts- you can go back to testing water macro parameters
while things are changing. And maybe chuck one of the light tubes if
you can- shooting for about 2wpg. Add some floating plants to shade
things a bit. Some peat in the substrate (lower quarter) would be
helpful- but that requires a lot of work (not an issue if you are
doing a major rescape). Replace the fast stems with crypts (XL if you
can find them), not all at once, some stems might still do OK. One
gentleman on the APD stopped his CO2, let his vals overgrow the
surface to shade it, and it worked great for him. The vals continued
to pearl, and the tank slowed enough to be low maintenance. Make sure
you have an algae crew (SAEs, Amano shrimp).

Advantages are few water changes, no fert regime, no constant pruning
and replanting.
Disadvantages are a less forgiving tank to mistakes, difficulty in
balancing and keeping algae in check. But then, there’s a
reason the CO2/high light/fert thing got popular, no? ;^)

James

Hello james!

terracing now that was a word that I was thinking of.
I don't really know if I want to do cork along the walls but am definately
looking the add some kind of "dimension" to the bottom. I am thinkingof
going 96% with a carpet plant and let em really grow in thick. Then
possible have one maybe two slow growing showpieces (anubias or something
similiar). And have the focal point be rockwork with only 2-3 big rocks.
BTW where can I get REEEAAAALLLLYYYY cool rocks? Like petrified wood or
something.
Basically I am looking for a way to give shape/layering to the bottom. I
mean if it's not reinforced gravity will just pull it down and flat
eventually.
thanks again,
Ben

"elwood" wrote in message
m...
Some ideas re cork:
http://www.koedcandies.com/Cork.htm

I did some terracing with slate. Had to split it down pretty thin,
but covered the whole back of a 20g and have some plants in the wall,
similar to what you would do with cork.

If you want to slow down the tank, you can chuck the CO2, and start
reducing your ferts- you can go back to testing water macro parameters
while things are changing. And maybe chuck one of the light tubes if
you can- shooting for about 2wpg. Add some floating plants to shade
things a bit. Some peat in the substrate (lower quarter) would be
helpful- but that requires a lot of work (not an issue if you are
doing a major rescape). Replace the fast stems with crypts (XL if you
can find them), not all at once, some stems might still do OK. One
gentleman on the APD stopped his CO2, let his vals overgrow the
surface to shade it, and it worked great for him. The vals continued
to pearl, and the tank slowed enough to be low maintenance. Make sure
you have an algae crew (SAEs, Amano shrimp).

Advantages are few water changes, no fert regime, no constant pruning
and replanting.
Disadvantages are a less forgiving tank to mistakes, difficulty in
balancing and keeping algae in check. But then, there’s a
reason the CO2/high light/fert thing got popular, no? ;^)

James

Check out
Bob

"Benthic" wrote in message
...
Hello james!

terracing now that was a word that I was thinking of.
I don't really know if I want to do cork along the walls but am definately
looking the add some kind of "dimension" to the bottom. I am thinkingof
going 96% with a carpet plant and let em really grow in thick. Then
possible have one maybe two slow growing showpieces (anubias or something
similiar). And have the focal point be rockwork with only 2-3 big rocks.
BTW where can I get REEEAAAALLLLYYYY cool rocks? Like petrified wood or
something.
Basically I am looking for a way to give shape/layering to the bottom. I
mean if it's not reinforced gravity will just pull it down and flat
eventually.
thanks again,
Ben

Benthic wrote:
If I remember correctly when I was "psyched" about a year ago
people were getting into cork, attaching "barriers" to the corners inorder
to make shelves so that the gravel was at different levels. if anyone has
any cool links or pics that would be awesome! I am picturing something
along these lines. btw is that glossostigma?


I think what NetMax did here is quite appealing ... if I ever get a big
enough tank, I may try something like it:

http://www.csd.net/~cgadd/aqua/art_o...tmax_styro.htm

-Dennis

"Benthic" wrote in message
...
hello all,
snip
I've seriously neglected my discus 55 gallon. But the absence has kind
of
had the "walk away from the painting" effect. Now I want to do
something
cool but I want it to be lower maintenance.
snip
I was "psyched" about a year ago
people were getting into cork, attaching "barriers" to the corners
inorder
to make shelves so that the gravel was at different levels. if anyone
has
any cool links or pics that would be awesome! I am picturing something
along these lines. btw is that glossostigma?

Artificial structures
http://cichlidinspiration.net3servic....asp?category='Co
nstructions%20-%20Background'
http://www.malawicichlidhomepage.com...ackground.html
http://www.malawicichlidhomepage.com...o/invent1.html
http://www.goddijn.com/aquarium/index.htm
http://www.thekrib.com/TankHardware/janne.html
http://www.african.uklinux.net/phpBB...26&forum=8&153

Inspiration
http://cichlidinspiration.net3services.com/
http://www.aquariumdesigns.com/aquariums.html
http://www.livingcolor.com/
http://showcase.aquatic-gardeners.org/
http://www.saltvandssiden.dk/birger_kim_rylander.htm (marine, Danish)
http://www.aquariumdesigners.com/gal...ir=./Aquariums

cheers
NetMax

thanks everyone,
Ben