The Planted Tank Forum banner

55g Planted

5K views 30 replies 19 participants last post by  chowdan 
#1 · (Edited)
Hello everyone!!! This is my first post and have been planning to start up my 55g tank again (haven't had any aquarium setup in 4 years). I want a semi low-tech planted tank and something that would look nice. I made a rough sketch of what I want to accomplish with this tank.

Setup so far
-55g tank
-Emperor 400 filter (may change to canister filter)
-Dual 48inch T5 HO lighting fixture 6700k and 10k bulbs
-Subrate is going to be Eco Complete and PFS
-Fish (?)
-Plants (??)


Here is the design i came up with

-The black is going to be "Eco complete substrate"
-Green will be plants (to be determined what plants)
-Log looking thing will be driftwood
-The line is going to be a retaining wall i will try making out of plexiglass with some nice stones/pebbles siliconed together with (trying to find a DIY)
-Middle is going to be some whiteish sand possibly PFS



Any suggestions or anything i should look into while putting this together? I will be taking pictures/logging it as i put it together.





 
See less See more
1
#3 ·
I would make the white smaller. White tends to come toward the viewer, and looks larger. Black tends to retreat and look smaller. So make the white smaller, and it will be in better balance with the black.

The 2 sides of black do not have to be the same size. The area with the driftwood should be a bit larger, IMO. Or were you going to try to find more driftwood so both sides has some? Make them different sizes, if you do that.

Black and white is a strong contrast.
Look for what are sold around here as 'Mexican Beach Pebbles' as a divider. They are available in almost pure black with some silvery spots, or a sort of subtle purple. The black ones would work really well. Whole tank could be a study in black and white.

EC is a good substrate for plants. Add some slow release tablets under it.
 
#4 ·
Too much white - make a very narrow path if you are going for that. Personally I don't like paths because they demand attention whereas your plants should instead.

There really isn't anything wrong with eco complete - just personal preference. Saying that it 'causes algae' is a dumb comment because algae can grow with any substrate given the right conditions. I use eco complete in 3 tanks and it's fine.
 
#7 · (Edited)
Alright update time! Last night i went out and got some rocks and plastic landscaping edging to glue my rocks to. This is how she turned out. And i did make the sand part smaller!!! I used 100% silicone (aquarium safe) and hot glue. I will take more pictures as the build goes along and try to figure out what plants/fish i want to go with. Any recommendations? I want to go for a community tank and not huge maintenance.

 
#10 ·
Update for today!!!!!! :bounce:
I picked up sand and had to pick up another bag of eco complete today. I put the substrate and the driftwood in and filled her up with water. Now I will let it run overnight and verify everything is in good working order then go to the LFS and try to find plants/fish I want. Does anyone recommend any fish/pant combos?

Here are today's pictures.

 
#12 ·
Thanks!! Took me a while to put the walls together, I ended up using some plastic landscaping edging and found rocks that i thought would look nice. I used 100% silicone and hotglue to glue them to the edging. IMHO the edging is perfect for the application because it is very stiff but when warmed up with a heat gun i could bend it with ease and had a nice thick base to silicone to the bottom of the tank.
As far as the too much white goes I think I will be throwing in some black slate rocks and hopefully getting some type of plant that can cover the "transition area" between the black and white part.
 
#17 ·
I was thinking about doing the same set up like yours in a 40b because it has more room to work with, 55 is only 12" 40b is 18" deep.(roughly) I'm definitely going to make my river a lot smaller and put a diy 18" h x7"w x 8"l sand fall at the focal point over to the left.
So however as the sand falls is going to be the size of the white river.
From just the pictures ,you have really good depth and the and the rock barrier, well that's just awesome!! Great job.
Can't wait to see more Pic's.
 
#18 ·
The scape dosen't look natural enough for my liking (a personal preference of mine). Everything looks placed. The rocks are different types and the path dosen't look like a path. Some of the plants are in rows. It looks more like someone's garden. Sorry to be negative because if you like it that is all that counts.
 
#19 · (Edited)
Thanks for the comments everyone!! I like the idea i had but I can not arrange things to my liking :( I think maybe i need some different/more plants or a different layout of the plants I have. Any suggestions of layout or plants to add or what not would be appreciated. Right now I am just going to let the plants grow while i try to get a good layout planned. I realized that I didn't really plan the whole layout properly ahead of time and turned into this. Oh well!!! Can always change it.

Here are a couple more pictures.
These plants are growing soooo fast compared to my past setup. I do about 25% water change every monday and dose Flourish and change out one of my DIY co2 bottles(have 3). The co2 is ran to the intake of my Rio+ 600 pump. I am still researching/learning and figuring out my goal for the tank and will 100% go with pressurized co2 in the near future and if budget allows change to a canister filter.

2 of my SAE's laying on the plant together
 
#22 ·
I think u made the focal point the sand when in most scapes u want the main focal point to be the plants and hard scape. In my opinion i would have made s thin mabe 6in semi strait sand path. =) looks good but for some reason it doesnt seem to flow but as long as u love it thats all that matters =)
 
#23 ·
what if you removed some sand in the front, so that the white path is actually a branching path, and maybe had something like hair grass or just a patch of some small carpeting plant on the front part that you'd change to be planted
 
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