Need a slow growing low maintenance setup

concealed said:

I may be dreaming here - I'm looking to setup a decorative tank for a restaurant. I'm building a custom stand/topper for a 55 gallon that will limit my ability to easily get into the tank. I'm looking to scape out a good looking but slow growing environment so that I don't have to open up the tank more than once a month for maintenance and trimming.

I'm open to all ideas about plants, fish, substrate, etc. I've been searching for tutorials that provide a picture of the setup and a list of plants and hard goods to buy to build a copy of their aquascape.... any ideas out there?

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Your not dreamin at all, your goal is very possible. Fixture selection is really important so do some research. Youll want to stick with t5NO t8 or t12. You could use ecocomplete for substrate w/ root tabs and as far as plants go stick with anubias, ferns, crypts and mosses.

Anubias, crypts, java ferns. Alot of them. No maintenance required. All I do is top off water due to evaporation

|GTO| said:

Anubias, crypts, java ferns. Alot of them. No maintenance required. All I do is top off water due to evaporation

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Bingo. Stick with a low-power light fixture like a T8 shop light, use a good substrate (like potting soil capped with sand) and you should have a seriously low-maintenance tank.

|GTO| said:

Anubias, crypts, java ferns. Alot of them. No maintenance required. All I do is top off water due to evaporation

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+ bobitis, fissidens fontanus, flame moss, mariomo moss balls, and downoi. Watch out for other mosses like java moss and christmas moss, because they grow quite fast and can make a mess of the tank. Flame moss looks awesome and grows vertically and fissidens has a nice compact form. You can super glue it onto wood and rocks.

You can easily light the tank with T8 shop light fixtures. When you buy the bulbs, make sure at least half of them are 6500 K.

A low light setup is all about setting up the hardscape. Take a lot of time choosing driftwood and rocks. I would highly recommend spending the money on a canister filter, since they're totally silent. I would recommend black flourite sand as the substrate.

Good luck!!

ps, welcome to the board. You can find all the help you need here and you can get good plants in the swap'n shop. What is your budget for the project?

I'd skip mosses all together, personally. Most of them need trimming, and trimming moss is super messy. Pieces float all over the place and latch into all sorts of nooks and crannys where you don't want it... lol

I agree stick with java ferns, anubias, bolbitus. Chain swords, Sagittaria species, and larger swords also are good options, along with crypts.

I'd avoid stem plants. They require higher lighting and more maintenance to keep looking nice.

Heh, I have all my mosses (java, xmas, and now peacock) tied to rocks and small driftwood, so if i need to trim, I just pull the entire thing out of the tank and hang it upside down. And yes, you can deal with that once a month if that's your maintenance timeframe.