46g Planted: Killed Before Its Time

As I mentioned earlier, a few months after I started improving the 45g I was lucky enough to acquire a 46g bow front tank. My wife's coworker was moving across the country, and was not able to take this tank with him. For over a year this tank was the bastard child. It received all the left overs that the 45g didn't want. It got the Rena XP3 instead of the Eheim 2128. It got left over, used bulbs. All the while it was doing all the work, growing the pinches of plants I picked up here and there, waiting until I had enough to scape the 45g. This tank really did not fill the love.

And then I was ready. The "leftovers" from the 45g eventually included a 2x96w Coralife PC fixture, another Eheim 2128, 4" of Flourite Original,  and a 50 ft piece of tubing running from the co2 tank on the 45g. I placed a quick order from manzanita.com, built a custom intake and spray bar, and assembled an inline co2 reactor. Then, the scape. I spent two days tearing this tank apart. I remove the fish and the monstrous amounts of plants. Everything down to the substrate and began my work. And in April of 2009, this was the finished product:

Unfortunately, this tank never reached maturity. It would have been amazing. When my wife and I found out we were moving, this was the first sacrifice. At that time, I had four tanks setup and knew that I wanted to downsize to just two(a brand new ADA 60-P and the 120g which is the subject of this blog) so hard choices had to be made. I sold this tank off, and it left me just as it came, a bastard.

The real tragedy was that these, of all plants, were the ones I kept during the move. And unfortunately none survived. All those Anubias, A TON of Bobitis(not pictured), crypts....all so wonderful, and they all perished. I was truly upset.