This is my first "real" attempt at a planted tank, at least one I am going to take seriously. I set it up initially to keep shrimp and guppies, I had planted it heavily with Sagittaria and it maintained but did not really thrive; that and I had added a tiger/stripped crawfish which left the tank quite desolate. I removed the crawfish, did some upgrades to the light, added CO2 and now it's ready to be a real plant tank.
June 02, 2004 (before I planted that day) :
June 09, 2004 (one week later) :
The wood on the left will be more covered in riccia as it grows. I only had enough for a few good patches.
Substrate is "aquatic plant soil" (flourite), 2-4" thick tapering to the back of the tank.
pH: 6.8, CO2: 24 ppm, Alk: 6 dKH (107ppm). I still need to figure out my nutrient dosing routine but I've almost got it figured out and everything where it should be.
CO2 is a basic 5lb compressed setup going into a plain diffuser. Filter is a Whisper 1.
Lighting is two 20W 5000K, CRI 92, 850 lumen bulbs. (OD 4x)
Animals: Guppies, Ghost & Amano Shrimp, and a Banjo Catfish (Dysichthys coracoideus).
All of the Red Wendth appears to be aborting it's old leaves, but seems to be replacing them with new shoots, a good sign and hopefully it's just adapting to the new tank.
I lost one plant, there was some Wisteria in the back corner but it was not getting good light at all and I think that did it in. It was more than I wanted/needed in the tank, so it was either let it see if it would grow in the shadow or just toss it as I ran out of room.
The Hygro is going totally bonkers. Both types have all put on 4+ inches, I keep pruning it back, overall it's not really a good plant for a 20L unless you want to do a lot of pruning ... I knew that going in, so I just keep pruning it off and giving it to my girlfriend's taller (45G) tank.
The pyres are glossostigma, I got them from a friend who was not having luck with them, so I split up the tall bunch into seed plugs. I've already got small shoots crawling over the substrate.
Overall everything appears to be going well, a lot of adaptation to this tank, I've got some algae issues and not enough nitrate but things are going well to date.
It's been awhile since I added any pics, I was intending to do this every month or bimonthly but as the Summer progressed I ran out of time, and worse - I had a massive green algae attack.
I won the war, lost some fish in the process, but no plants ...
It's a total jungle now, I haven't done any trimming in sometime so it doesn't look very well planned out or anything now, just a huge mass of plants, but it's coming along.
That's it. I bought a couple off Aquabid awhile back, now two have turned into twelve. Stuff is pretty neat looking. I am going to seperate it and spread it out a little, with the way the sag is taking over it hides it.
That is Dwarf Sag, and a bit of chain sword hidden behind. It's taking over. I planted two originally in the front corner and now I've got some sprouting up in the back corner opposite. I'm glad it's staying short, I put some in the girlfriend's tank and it's over 10" tall now.. Dwarf my a**.
It's been some time since I updated this, anyway, here are a few new pics ..
This is a Sturisoma I got for Christmas. It's tiny, only about 3". When it grows up it's moving to my girlfriend's 90 gallon. Very unusual (IMO) color, white and black.
This is the entire tank as of Jan 2005. A lot has changed, mainly I no longer have any Guppies. I've got a breeding pair of Peakcock Gudgeons and some Ghost Shrimp for a clean up crew. I got sick of the massive growth of the Hygro and now I've got only just a tiny bit.
I had a bit of an algae issue because I was over fertilizing, so I ended up removing all of the dwarf sag except two plants as restarts - I removed 35 of them in all, insane. As well as 20 chain swords, and 15 Japonica which was rather dissapointing to have to throw it all away, I've got a little bit I'm nursing back. Surprisingly a bit of glosso I saved from someone else's tank is actually turning into a respectable size now, and everything is on the mend in general.
Other than substrate, I pretty much started over. Great thing about planted tanks is the ability to change if things aren't going like they should.
I love dwarf sag-- a friend gave me 7 plantlets a month ago-- and in a month I have over 30, and that under 2wpg with no ferts or CO2. My 20g is super low-tech. lol
Yeah I agree, once the wendth grows in on the left there will be less of a pocket there, as it is mid tank to the back; but I wish I had more bacopa. Only place that sells it locally is Petsmart, and you know how they are - if you don't happen to buy it the day it comes in, it turns to garbage within a week. They only had about four bunches that were buyable.
I'm real partial to using the bunch plants as walls, dunno why, I like it. I wish I had the same length of tank though and perhapes another four inches in depth to work with, would make my walls easier to manage.
didnt you have a 70g salt and it got turned into a planted fw?
anyway if you did i remember your sw was beautiful as was the planted if i remember correctly...anyway your "first" new tank is progressing very nicely..
Well done!
What a difference, did you switch bulbs? Lighting looks different, a lot less yellow.
I'm always surprised to see 20 long tanks, they look so much bigger than that in the pics. Especially compared to my 20 tall.
I like the new look, once that foreground grows in a bit it'll look great against that bacopa wall. Nice tank roud:
didnt you have a 70g salt and it got turned into a planted fw?
anyway if you did i remember your sw was beautiful as was the planted if i remember correctly.
Some new pics for February. It looks like I may be taking this tank down as a friend might be giving me a 55g tank and stand, so I will move/upgrade soon hopefully. This might be the last set of pictures. It has been a neat 8 months, I can't wait to work with a somewhat larger space .. the glosso is going nuts!
looks great. compare it to your first shots, and be proud roud:
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