Heres my tanks!
Updated: 8 June 1997
My display tank is a 135 gallon and is now lightly planted. Told you I had a brown thumb. I use a UGF, two Magnum 350's with spong filters as a prefilter. 4 40 watt florecent tubes and 2 175 watt metal halides left over from my reef days. 12 on/off for the florecents and 6 on for the MHs. I quit adding PMDD (Home made liquid fertilizer), but you can see a popular recipie in my links. I also quit adding CO2 via a DIY yeast mixture, thats in my links also. I quit "feeding" my plants because I wasn't having any luck, I'm sure I'll try again later. I also have two 15 gal hospital tanks for medicating fish, something I quit doing some time ago. I just learned self control, temp, and water changes & more water changes when the fish are sick. Works so far I havn't lost a fish in a long time. Sure they may turn dark for a few days, stop eating, or even hide in the corner for a day or two, but I don't panic and double up on the water changes and things turn out fine. I personally think alot of discus are killed every day by people with good intentions medicating fish that are not sick in the first place.
My grow out tanks are 56 gal, and 25% of the water is changed daily. I gave up on the bare bottom approach. The fish just seem happier with about 1/4-1/2 inch of fine gravel in the bottom and a Java Fern attached to a small piece of driftwood. When I do the water change I vacume the gravel for the nasties that collect on the bottom. I use a central wet/dry filter system, and have sponge filters with power heads in each tank.
Well that's about it for the tanks. I'll talk more about feeding and water changes on a different page