Distractions

Well, things have been a bit hectic around here, what with the holidays and all. We had some of my family and some of my wife's family over for Thanksgiving, so the 120 got bumped down on the priority list. We hadn't really decorated much since we moved in, but Thanksgiving was kind of our hard deadline to have the house in presentable shape. That required staining and polyurethaning of furniture, hanging pictures, and multiple, extensive honey-do lists from my better half.

The week after Thanksgiving I allowed myself another minor distraction: an ADA 60-P.

I purchased this tank before our move from the west coast, but like the 120g, it required some patience. Again, like the 120g, I purchased a custom cabinet for the stand but I stained this myself. The stand is made from maple and stained with a Jet Mahogany.


Equipment for this tank includes:

• Eheim Ecco 2236
• Coralife 2x55w PC fixture
• Bulbs:1 GE 9325k, 1 AHS 7800K
• ADA Aquasoil Amazonia I
• 10 lb Pressurized CO2 with Milwaukee pH controller
• Coralife 6x Turbo-Twist UV Sterilizer
• Hydor ETH 300w Inline Heater
• DIY Inline pH probe and CO2 injection

The  pH probe was my only real DIY on this, aside from the piping. It uses a simple PVC tee, Heyco liquid tight cordgrip for the pH probe, and an irrigation drip connection for the co2 injection.

The plumbing looks like this: 

It's pretty simple, but gave me a good opportunity to get back in the swing of things before I dive into the 120g.

A quick shot of the hardscape:

And then we move onto the scape.

 

It's rough now. I threw it together because I wanted to get things cycling.I got pretty much all of these plants from Phil Edwards. He's moving to Dallas and is doing a bit of restructuring of his own. I needed to get these into some water/light/co2 so no time to waste on some pretty scape.

It's been a long post, and if you made it this far, I apologize because there's no good full tank shot to be seen. I'm not ready. I need to tweak the scape a bit. Give me a few days and you'll be rewarded.