[moneymark]

the experiment is to see if i can grow ANYTHING! my wife says i have the black thumb of death and i am here to prove her wrong! i have sucessfully kept fish for several years but never a planted tank. anything i ever put in a tank that was green and living soon became brown and dead. mostly i think due to the fact that when it came to plants i had no idea what i was doing. so after extensive research and and some severe tank envy here i go. i know my "aquascaping" is the pits but like i said i just wanna see if stuff will grow. trying to stick to plants and animals from the same general region.

flora:
java moss
1 java fern
1 crypt wendtii
dwarf hygro
water sprite
wisteria
val
1 nana

fauna:
trumpet snails(hitched a ride on my anubias)

future fauna:
1 male betta
3-6 cherry shrimp
6-9 microrasbora

substrate is 75% eco-complete and 25% sand and gravel from established tank.

filtration is aquaclear 20 on lowest setting running 24/7

lighting is 2 14w, 5000k, 800 lumens cfl's about 3'' from the surface

currently fertilizing with root tabs, excel and kent freshwater K-Fe micro( excel and micro at half dose).

put the plants in yesterday and already rearranged them half a dozen times. promised myself i wouldnt futz with them again for at least a few weeks. it looks skimpy right now but im hoping all the fast growers will fill in quick. the hygro, sprite, vals and wisteria were just clippings but i got them all for $2.

i know the fake log and lucky bamboo are corny and i'll probably replace the log once i find a nice piece of driftwood. as for the bamboo... i thought it would be cool and go with my "Asian" tank but now im not so sure. sorry for the long post but im just so exited. any comments or criticisms are very much appreciated. thanks!

p.s.- please excuse the awful pictures. i will post more awful pictures when i see some results.

 

[jart]

Looks good. Update?

 

[Knotyoureality]

My usual excuse for getting into planted tanks is they provide me with houseplants I *can't* forget to water. And I even get to have emergent plants thanks to my riparium--hard to forget to water when their roots are submerged 24/7!


Don't worry about the design aspect too much yet, plenty of time for that once you figure out what grows well for you and get a feel for the characteristics of each plant.

 

[moneymark]

10 gallon progress

Been about 4 weeks since planting. A few things have changed like I got rid of the fake wood, a few new plants and a rearranging yesterday and I think it's looking ok. Everything is growing well except the Val. It's roots look good and it's sending out runners but the leaves look weak. Guess its from the excel but I'm gonna leave it in and hope for the best. Java fern has a bunch of new plants growing off the leaf tips. Water sprite and wisteria not growing as fast as I'd hoped but I'm trying to be patient. Overall I'm really happy with how it's going. Got some livestock too. Let my six year old pick out a betta. She named him pitbull. Also picked up three pencil fish and I have to say the are really nippy to the point where I may have to rehome them. Got four Amano shrimp. They hide under the leaf litter a lot but they always come out at feeding time. These are my first shrimp and they are so cool to watch. Most recently got two Pygmy Cories and I want to get more they are my favies in the whole tank. So much personality in such a small package. Split photoperiod was causing algae I think so I just went with straight eight hours and now no more new algae. Cell phone only letting me post one pic at a time. Pain in the bones.

 

[moneymark]

My little dude busy at work

 

[moneymark]

Bully

 

[moneymark]

Pitbull swimming around. Such a peaceful guy. Not at all aggressive like I thought he might be.

 

[moneymark]

Just another tank shot. Thanks to everyone on this forum I have gotten so much helpful information here. I think I wanna dirt this tank now so maybe next month.