The Planted Tank Forum banner

FastTimes 20long Journal

1K views 11 replies 7 participants last post by  tuffgong 
#1 ·
Well i've been lurking this site since i joined, but don't post much. Im really intrested in african cichlids and larger tanks. I kind of did this tank for my girl, but i pretty much took it over also.

Its a low light setup that has been setup for awhile now, No real aquascape, Im still learning.

Tank- 20 long
Lighting- Coralife 30" dual t5 fixture
Filtration- Rena Xp2
Substrate- Flourite blk sand
DIY co2, Red Sea CO2 Reactor 500
Fertz- Flourish excel, Flourish

Plants- Anubias barteri 'Nana' , Amazon Sword ,Java Fern

Stocklist- At this moment

3 Neon tetras
3 Rummynose tetras
6 Pristella tetras
3 amano shrimp
3 otos
Started with 20 rcs, don't know exactly how many i have now.

The beginning









Neglected. I had some rotala over 2' when i pulled them all out.



The most recent shots.







I took out all stem plants, because i didn't have time to trim etc..So now all i have is slow growing low light plants. It works for me. Im thinking of adding something else on the right side, any suggestions are welcomed, thanks for looking.
 
See less See more
8
#2 ·
The tank looks great! The only thing I would do is add some backround and forground plants.:proud:
 
#5 ·
JakeJ thanks,

It looks as though it's the bottom of the tank. You can see it in the last 3 photos.


Great looking tank, but I think I liked it better when you had stem plants in there! Do you plan on adding any, or was it just too much maintenance? +1 for foreground :)
He is right, its the bottom of the tank, the xp2 creates alot of flow for this little tank. At the time they were in there, i found myself to busy with working and other things to keep trimming them each week. I really like the stem plants though. As far as a foreground plants, i originally wanted to get a carpet of microswords going, but they never really spreaded just grew up a little. What are some suggestion for a easy foreground plant on a low light setup?
 
#8 ·
I really like your tank. I like the hardscape and I like your plants.
I do wonder tho if you are going to run into trouble because you only have slow growing plants in there.
IMO it is good to have a few fast growers in there along with slow growers because they can compete with algae problems that may arise.
I KNOW what a pain it is to have fast growers but I think it keeps the tank somewhat balanced to have both.
I would rather have to go in and trim my plants then have to look at algae in my tank.
 
#9 ·
thanks for the comment, yeah im getting back into the whole stem thing, i just got in about 15 stems of blyxa, and im on the hunt for a nice bit of hc. surprisingly algae is not a problem. i get a little bba here and there but no problem. I have a super cleaning crew.
 
#10 ·
cool.
I have pretty much all fast growing plants in my tank because I have a stingray that lives in the tank, so the stem plants take up less room, and are harder for the ray to tear apart by mowing over them.
Although I love a planted tank, I love my ray more.
Because he produces a lot of ammonia, I do a water changes every other day so why I am in there I maintain the plants which means snipping them every other day or so.
If I waited a full week the tank would be chaos.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top