[junko]

Please! I hope this is the right place to post this!

As soon as I find the perfect piece of driftwood and finish my stand/light fixture, I will buy my plants. This is for a 56g 30"x18"x24" low tech (will dose flourish and if necessary, flourish excel), low/med light hopefully, with angels and rummynoses and maybe a pair of rams. I am not the best interior decorator, and a bit of a plant noob, so I am not too confident in choosing my plants.

I'm thinking:
10-12 jungle val
8-10 crypt. beckettii
hygro pinnatifida (just because I think it is SO cool looking)
water sprite
3 ozelot red swords (how big do these get?)
1 amazon sword (is there a smaller, similar looking sword? 20-24")
3 aponogeon crispus
anubias nana gold if I can find it
I will also steal some java fern from my daughter's tank

If there's a slow growing, idiot proof, low-med light red plant out there, I'd be interested in info on that as well.

Equipment:
Eheim classic 2217
2 sunblaze 24" T5 6700K, staggered to span 30", and spaced about 6" apart, close to the top of the tank but will raise if necessary.

I've ordered the lights but not the filter yet.

Thank you so much in advance!

 

[BBradbury]

Planting Your Tank

Good morning Junko...

Good idea to go with a larger tank. It will give you plenty of room to work. If you keep ferns, mosses and Vallisneria, I'd avoid using Seachem's Flourish Excel and use a liquid without the carbon. I used Flourish Excel and lost my Vals and the other two were damaged. Just my experience though, someone else may love the stuff.

You have a good list of low to moderate light plants. The Water sprite will do best floated, at least it does for me.

A good red colored plant would be Hygrophila corymbosa "Stricta". It's also called Giant Hygro. In the right conditions, the stems get bright red and the leaves too for a time. I think most of the red colored plants will need pretty bright light.

I'd include some Pennywort. It's a great plant, undemanding and a fast grower too.

Your bulbs should be in the 6500 K, light blue color range. These are closest to natural daylight at 5500 K. All these plants do best in extremely clean water, so it's important to change half the water in the tank weekly to replenish macro nutrients. The fish will provide the rest of the macros. Your commercial ferts will provide the micros.

I keep low tech, low light tanks and can recommend some other plants if you're interested.

B

 

[junko]

Thanks so much!

Are all vals sensitive to Excel? I'm not planning on using it- just if I need to. But I could sub italian val or some other val for the jungle val which is the only one I heard was sensitive, just in case.

I'm looking for slow to moderate growers for the most part- the water sprite just until things fill in, and I was going to replace it with something else if it got out of control.

I got the lighting wrong in my original post- I have 6500 K ones ordered.

Thanks again!