Gargoyle’s Blog

So I finally get to have a larger tank! Due to budget limitations we get a 55 gallon Allglass Aquarium and a stand with a couple of glass tops. All of these pieces were sourced at different shops depending on who had the best selection and price for the item we were looking for. In this first photo the tank is set up with some of the old equipment from my 29 gallon tank. I had already upgraded the filter from an AquaClear 70 HOB to a Marineland Magnum 350 canister. Heres a pic…

Now after a couple of days of looking at this I decided that I really needed some new lights. So off to shopping I went. I found some very nice fixtures but the one I purchased was on sale and offers the ability to switch between 108 watts of output to 216 watts. To be honest with you once I saw what 108 watts of T5 HO lighting looked like I was very happy. My plants are probably very happy as well. Here is a photo with the new lights installed.

As you can see it is a very noticeable difference between the 40 watts of T8 lighting and the 108watts of T5 HO lighting. I am very pleased with this upgrade as I am the filter and tank size.

As far as acclimating the tank for fish I took a few steps to ensure a safe transition for the fish. I will go over what I have done at this point.

1. Moved all of the decorations (and whatever was growing on them)
2. Moved all of the plants (and gravel that came with them)
3. Moved my secondary filter with used filter cartridge.
4. Took out all of the bio media from my aquaclear 70 and placed it into my Magnum 350
5. Brought over a little mulm for the bacteria to eat up

So far from day 2 or so I have had a slight haze in the tank. I believe it is bacteria attempting to re-colonize this new tank. My readings have stayed at a very predictable zero on all counts and the PH has been steady at 7.6 and temp has been at 79. All looks good at this point. The fish are happily swimming along and I have no out of whack readings. I am hoping the cloudiness clears up soon and I start to show some sign of Nitrate’s so I can rest easy that the steps I took were successful.

Until next time… Happy fish keeping!

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 15th, 2008 at 9:19 am and is filed under Random Fish. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.