Hey guys, well I joined this forum a long time ago, when I had my planted 29 gallon, but never made a post. Did tons of research for the tank, and things were going well...until I had to go away for 3 weeks, coming home to a tank that was way past saving, and with a busy school schedule, decided to just go back to fake plants.
Here is a pic of the 29 when I had it all going, with diy CO2 and all. To be honest, I dont remember all the plants I had in there even. Just a quick shot from looking at it, i think there was Anubias Nana, Corkscrew Vals, I think the one with some red coloring is Ludwigia, but don't remember clearly, some Wisteria in the back, Java Moss on the wood, and some hairgrass in the front. Granted I may not be correct as it has been a few years since I've had the tank up and running with plants.
Well I'm now in college, and things are going smoothly. I'm ready to get back into the planted side of things a bit, but only going with a 2.5 this time, as I don't have the space for the 29 anymore (which is at my dad's).
So, I recently went with my roommate to petsmart (which is 30 mins. away) so that I could give him advice on fish for his 10 gallon. Well, while we were there, I saw the 2.5's for like 10 bucks, and my desires got the best of me, so I got it. I already have a Red Sea Nano filter from back in the day that I'm using, and bought a cheap desk lamp from wally-world with a 27 watt bulb.
I saw some of the ADA tanks, and rimless ones on here and decided that I would remove the plastic pieces and clean up the silicone a bit.
Well upon doing this, I got a little rambunctious, and cracked the glass--DOH! But with a little silicone I was able to mend it up. Since this saves me a 30 minute drive and another 10 bucks, its good enough for me. Here's a shot
And the view looking out
As you can see the light sits up about 5 inches above the water so I hope that I won't have problems with algae because of it being 27 watts.
I have a few things leftover from when my tank was planted before, including all my testing kits (all basic color chart dropper kits), some Flourish Excel, Some Flourish Root Tabs, and all of my dosing stuff from GregWatson.com. I'm not sure if anyone still uses his stuff, or if he is still around, but I have the powdered forms of KNO3 (Potassium Nitrate), KH2PO4 (Mono-Potassium Phosphate), and Plantex CSM+ Boron. Now, I dont remember exactly what all these are, nor do I remember how much I dosed, but I do still have them I need them in my 2.5, granted I will have to make really large solutions if I want to get the concentrations down to where I can dose 1-2 PPM.
Right now, I have some basic aquarium gravel that I was planning on using that is light brown in color, but it seems as though every person on here uses that ADA Amazonian stuff. Haha when I had my planted 29 gallon, no one was talking about ADA products, so I've just now been reading about them.
Took a basic PH and KH test of the tap water and looks like we're dealing with a PH of around 8, and a KH of about 5-6.
For this tank I will probably be doing a DIY Jello CO2, but don't really know about the macros/micros. Guess I should look over some of the old printouts I have and threads I use to be involved in.
So, since I'm tired of typing for now, what do you guys think I should do about substrate, plants, dosing, etc. I havn't started any hardscaping due to the fact that I have nothing to hardscape with :P. I will either try to find some stuff around here like at the lake, or I may get stuff from members on the site. If I'm able to, I will definitely be ordering my plants and stuff from fellow members to help support others in the hobby, though this tank need remain moderately low cost.
Sorry about the long winded post, essays and papers and such have plagued me with an ability to keep going and going and going. Much like the energizer bunny :P.
With this, I will end with a picture. Let's call this "Stage 1"
