Planted 3g Build - Amano Inspired

[Jarek Strzechowski]

I threw this together last week. Freshwater 3g planted pico. Just wanted to share I've got a pygmy gourami, 4 neon tetras, and 1 small Nannostomus pencilfish. I HAD a beautiful actinic blue and red male double tail betta until he went carpet surfing sometime last night through a hairline opening on the top But all the other fish are absolutely thriving and the plants are beginning to sprawl out. I'm pretty proud of it Oh, there's also a 20g long mostly artificial plants and gravel, one live plant. Inside I've got a golden panchax killi, an orange platy, and an angel. The panchax was gonna stay in my pico but he harassed my neons way too much. Peaceful my a$$. The platy was too active for it and was gonna tear it up. What's left to do: I need to find some dwarf hairgrass at one of my lfs to complete the bed of my amano inspiration. Also pick up one or two pea puffers from my lfs. These puffers are feeding on flake (I watched them) and they are with other small fish like the ones in my pico and she said these ones are out of their fin nipping stage so fingers crossed.

My tank today 2/6/2013



My Nannostomus today 2/6/2013



My Pygmy Gourami today 2/6/2013



My tank on 2/2/2013 before my stunning betta went carpet surfing



Pachypanchax playfairi killifish, harassed my neons too much, moved to the 20g



The baby angel in the 20g



My orange platy that was moved to the 20g. It was too active for my pico and was gonna tear everything up and it was bothering the other fauna.

[JerSaint]

Looking good so far! Keep it up, and post more pics as it progresses.

[GMYukonon24s]

Nice tank!

[alipper]

Great start. Nice to see another Polska ha.

[acitydweller]

very very healthy plants! Would you consider smaller plants to help scale the tank better?

[Jarek Strzechowski]

Thanks guys, I appreciate it!! So here are some recent pics


acitydweller, Yes, that's what I've been thinking. I'll be getting some smaller ones and a bunch of hairgrass seedlings to get a nice carpet soon. I'll try and get them at the same time I get my pea puffers and dwarf cory, maybe blood or ghost shrimp or african dwarf frog (definitely not clawed - lookup difference) too.
Here is a video i made of it.
http://youtu.be/ixewkoKRVeA

[dbot]

Nice tank! You did a gat job planting with the fluval substrate! Any tips?

[Jarek Strzechowski]

Thanks! Ugh lemme tell you, planting was a pain. This is my first freshwater tropical tank let alone planted. Every tutorial I've seen and read has told me to aquascape first, then plant with like an inch to half an inch of water, then flood it and cycle. My lfs told me to cycle it then plant it, which I did (bad idea). Planting in a pico without any water would be difficult, let alone filled with it. I also didn't have quite enough substrate to plant everything super deep so they were constantly uprooting. Basically I pushed everything in to it's proper depth, then poured rinsed fluval over the base. Don't rinse the substrate on initial setup for the fertilizers and nutrients etc. but any additional substrate once its running rinse unless you want it to get all muddy and cloudy. I now have everything anchored down pretty well.

[aokashi]

nice tank
what's a pico?
I've been calling my 1 gal and 2 gals nanos >.>

[Jarek Strzechowski]

Thanks! Pico is short for picotope. It's any aquarium less than 3 gallons

[aokashi]

heehee
then all my tanks are picos!
where did all this terminology come from anyway?

[Jarek Strzechowski]

I believe it has something to do with the metric system? dunno

[Jarek Strzechowski]

Went to the lfs today Pictures of acclimation and fts tomorrow morning to come!!!
- Pygmy pea puffer pair
- Clown killifish pair
- Panda guppy pair
- Baby leopard pleco

[assasin6547]

Ooh nice tank! I was about to plant my aquarium after it cycled, but then I read this thread. So what exactly is so bad about planting with water inside?

[Jarek Strzechowski]

Originally Posted by assasin6547

Ooh nice tank! I was about to plant my aquarium after it cycled, but then I read this thread. So what exactly is so bad about planting with water inside?

It's just very difficult based on tank size and tools available. If it's a large tank that you can stick your arm in without it spilling over and you have deep enough substrate to just stick it in and it'll stay, then you should be good. But in a very small setup you need to use forceps and it's difficult to navigate and get things anchored and positioned where you want them.