Moving/New Scape

[pdavis41]

So I am going to be moving in mid-July from an apartment to a house.

My tank is a standard 75 gallon that currently has 2 Rena XP3 filters.
Current substrate is eco-complete that is a few years old.
Current lighting is a Catalina T5HO 3 bulb fixture sitting 4 inches above the tank. Currently only using 1 T5NO bulb as I didn't suspend the light.
CO2 is a pressurized system with a atomic 60mm diffuser in tank.
Additional filtration/skimming provided by a CPR hang on back skimmer.
Additional flow provided by a Koralia Nano.

See attached pictures for current tank layout.

Stocking is:
~10 Black skirt tetras
~14 Neon Tetras
~6 Harlequin Rasbora
6 Bristle Nose Plecos
8 Cories of varied kinds
3 Chinese Algae eaters

Plants are:
Pretty sure the foreground is Dwarf Sagittaria
Back corner is cryptocoryne wendtii (brown and green primary. Some red too I think)
A few swords of some kind I got from Henry (dont remember the exact species)

Dosing:
Daily EI via a dosing pump based upon wets calculator

So that is the current state of my tank. I have had a fair issue with BBA lately, but since I got the CO2 running right and the surface skimmer running it has been pretty much in check.

When I move this is my plan. I am changing out the substrate. I haven't been happy with the Eco for a while now. I picked up the aquariumplants.com amazon natural substrate system. I want to eventually switch to a wet-dry but I figure that switching both the substrate and the filter at the same time will cause a complete cycle vs a mini cycle, that and money. My wife will kill me if I spend too much on the tank as we are buying and fixing up the house. The fish can live in a bucket for a day or two while the tank gets settled. I want to get as much of the crap out of the tank as I can, and get the better O2 exchange. I also plan on suspending the lights to get a better reading at the surface.

One of the things I would love to get from everyone here is some ideas on new scape ideas for the tank. I was looking at picking up some wood from Tom. Not sure what exactly, but I like the idea of a large tree on one side with some moss on it. I was also thinking about getting some Anubias of some kind for around the base and on the wood. I'm not in love with the large center piece of wood I have right now, and was planning on removing that. Any thoughts on ideas for the scape would be appreciated.

I will post pictures as I build the new stand and get the new setup for the tank going.

 

[pdavis41]

The first place I need to start is the hardscape. I was planning on picking up some wood from Tom to create a new focal point and give a overall flow/feeling to the tank.

These are the pieces that I was looking at:

#1

16

66

70

75

77

79

My biggest goal with the hardscape is to 1) Give the fish places to hide when they need it. Right now there really isn't anywhere for my plecos and cories to hide when the lights are on. When the plants grow thicker they can hide in them, but after a trim I can see they are stressed with no where to hide.
2) To create a cohesive feeling with the tank. This is one of the reasons I'm looking at a larger focal piece for the tank, rather than the collection of smaller ones that I have now.

I'm really leaning towards number 1 or 16 right now. With the two smaller manzi pieces I currently have in the tank I can use those as root pieces sticking out of the substrate under the larger piece.

 

[pdavis41]

Contacted Tom last night about this piece of wood:

He's going to find a few pieces that will look good under it to make a complete package. So hard scape is pretty much set.

My plans have slightly changed as I am not going to remodel the basement right when we move in, so some of my setup is going to remain the same until I decide to do the remodel in the future.

I will post some pictures once I get the wood.

 

[pdavis41]

So starting to plan things out for the future and I'm leaning towards the following products:

Aqueon 34502 ProFlex Sump Model 3 with the bio media addon to make a wet/dry
Eshopps PF-1000 Overflow Box - Single 1" bulkhead
Rio 20HF HyperFlow Water Pump - 1290 GPH

With rough calculations of head loss this should get me ~800 GPH. I'm pretty sure I'm going to split the return into two returns to give better flow throughout.

The other modification I'm thinking of is to change out the socks to foam blocks as I have heard the socks will clog up quickly.