One year's journey - pic heavy

[Redtail84]

I've kept many different types of freshwater aquariums over the last several years, but planted tanks have always been my passion. I love watching the plants thrive, and seeing my ideas take shape. A little over a year ago, I rejoined the hobby with a 10 gallon tank. That quickly became a 20 long, and that is where my space (and wife) made me stop. This tank has changed several times, and after the most recent update, I'm very pleased with the results.

Tank: 20 gallon long
Filter: Penguin 100 HOB, AC 20 HOB
Lights: 2 x 20 watt LED floods in custom hood
CO2: DIY (upgrading to paintball tank soon)
Substrate: inert all purpose sand with root tabs

Current Flora: anubias nana, anubias frazeri, glossostigma elatinoides, crypt red wendtii, corkscrew val, java fern
Current Fauna: 10 neons, 2 ottos, 1 sunset platy, 1 tequila sunrise guppy, several nerites

10 gallon starter

20 gallon thrown together

Wisteria went nuts (I kind of liked this actually)

New substrate and VERY disorganized

Changed it up a little bit

Now today - I'm pretty happy with this one

Middle - waiting for the glosso to go nuts again like it did before the rescape

Under the hood. These floods are rated IP65, and sit a few inches above the water.

Night lights - only on for a little while


I really want to document the growth of the glosso and the vals in this. with my last set up, the vals were being choked out by the swords (no longer in this tank), and the gloss spread like crazy, but started growing up instead of out in some of the lower light areas. The LED floods seemed to really help the glosso's growth.