I am learning a lot about planted tanks while raising a monster. I would love to keep this guy full term but I have put in a learning experience in with it. I am very interested in planted aquariums along with Large fish. This project will double as a first for the type of fish and a large planted aquarium (soon to be high tech). I will try to update this weekly to keep progression logged. The tank is currently running a Marineland 48" Plant LED with integrated timer. The filters are a cascade 1000 along with a Tetra ex70 Whisper HOB. The substrate is sand at the moment until I make the swap to Fluorite. The plants I will have to go through and get the correct names and common names to make it easier to identify for everyone. At the moment I have been dosing fertilizers along with Liquid Co2. My dosing is alternate on different stuff and some is dosed daily. I am trying to get it down to small daily doses vs larger every other day doses to be able to control the parameters better.
Pressurized Co2 is going to happen but time and money will tell.
These pictures are a few weeks old more to come....

A few more from today
Full tank shot

Left

Middle

Right

wow!!!! the pics are so nice and crystal clear.... I love the red & black sand and the different rocks that ya use.

He's removing the red sand...although now that I'm looking at these pics, the contrast between the red sand and the green plants really bring out the color in the bass.

That is a awesome start to that tank! I am assuming those are the Marineland LEDs, I cannot wait to see the growth it produces. That is going to be a Monster Fish! Is it speckled or Royal? Speckiled in the wild get up to over 3 feet in L and the Royals just shy of 2 feet... The are a GREAT looking species though!

Not to sure about the speckled or royal part. They say these get to 36". The light is the new marineland plant LEDs. The pictures are about 3 weeks apart so you can only see a little growth. I usually make a update of this tank on YouTube on Mondays.

I kind of like the red sand. It has a red velvet look to it.

Hey flip, I don't know if we can name drop other forums, but there's a forum out there you should look into (you probably already know about) with alot of threads about that same bass with real good pictures. You're about to have your hands full buddy.

Sure man put up the links. I would love to check them out. The red and black is staying but it will be fluorite red and black and Eco complete red and black. It looks a little Christmas like but once the green comes in the red will not be noticeable. The bass is my dog. That's why its my wet pet.

Ok here it is. These guys take it to the next level of insane. www.monsterfishkeepers.com ...don't forget a bib

Jealousy is setting in. Looks great man.

Thanks Ben, Your time will come! I have all the pointers you need to get you started on planting the 180 and stocking it with Cichla.

Nice tank flippercon

Just got redone last night, Thanks