# First tank with plants in it.



## XbrandonX (Nov 22, 2007)

Hey guys,

I had a thread in another section about this tank but I thought I'd start one here.

This is my first planted tank.. its not so much a 'planted tank' as it's just a tank with some plants in it..

Its a 45G long (48") with T5 HO's (4 54W 10000K, 2 atinics 2 whites, and 4 led moonlights) a Rena XP3, and medium sized stone substrate...

I don't really know much about planted tanks except that they're gorgeous. I wasn't planning on building it up as a planted tank it just sorta worked out like that and now I think it looks great and am thinking about doing more to help grow plant life.

I was wondering about mixing in more substrate thats a little more beneficial to plants... I used the medium gravel because I had it.

Right now it has 6 Amano shrimps and 3 Koi Swords ( i love those swords, they're great little fish!) and a bunch of Java Ferns and some Swords and anubias. I dont know the technical term for any of the plants I just gave a friend $20 and he gave me 2 bags of plants from his tank.

I took Pablo's advice and tied the fern down and am going to add some more wood and tie more down to the wood. Although, I was told it does better planted properly into the substrate (Rhizome exposed) because it prefers the nutrients that collect there (in the substrate).

I'm on a 50% weekly water change schedule as advised by the guy who hooked me up with the plants and I'm dosing SeaChem Flourish organic liquid carbon and their Comprehensive blend as well.

I'm going to switch those lights up for simple T5 HO's ( 2 bulb) when I get a chance, I bought this system for a reef tank I'm building piece by piece over time.

The pic is of the first day with plants.. they've grown a bit in the couple weeks I've had them, and there's the 3 Koi swords in there now too. (did I mention I love those fish?)

Any suggestions or comments would be great


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## Darkblade48 (Jan 28, 2008)

You will want to change out those actinic bulbs, as they are not entirely suited for a planted tank. If you can find two 6500K or two more 10000K bulbs, that would be perfect.

Also, I'm not sure if that wattage is right, but if you have four 54W bulbs, this puts you at 4.8 wpg, which is very high light. Once your plants are established, you will definitely want to start a fertilization regime as well as a CO2. However, since this is your first planted tank, you may want to avoid all this hassle and simply reduce the lighting that you currently have.

Plants need light, carbon (in the form of carbon dioxide, or you can use Seachem's Excel as an alternative) as well as nutrients (i.e. macronutrients such as nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, sulfur, etc and micronutrients such as iron, boron, manganese, etc). An imbalance in these three will lead to algae.

Edit: Yay. 100th post.


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## dekstr (Oct 23, 2007)

Yup with that amount of lighting, (4x 54w right?) you have no other choice but to use a pressurized co2 system and lots of fertilzer addition to keep plants growing. T5HOs are sexy though! Lots of efficient, powerful lighting there!

Basically light is the main driver for plant growth, so with high light plants are very hungry (use carbon source, micro/macro nutrients very quickly). With any limitations / fluctuations you will easily get algae very fast and plants won't grow healthy. Not only that but you will need fast growers and/or heavily plant to keep up with the light. The plants you have right now, mostly swords and java fern are slow growers, only hornwort is a fast grower. Plus its sparsely planted so most of that light won't be used effectively (but great for algae ).

On the other hand if you lower the lighting, say 2x 54w 10000k, about 108 watts in a 45g will grow just about anything without things getting out of control. Plants grow slow enough so that you don't need to use co2 addition for healthy, steady growth.

So this depends on your goals: If you want to grow just about any plant species really fast and lots of pruning (weed hacking ) and water changes then go for high lighting. If you want slow, steady plant growth that doesn't need as frequent water changes and pruning, then go for lower lighting. As for CO2 addition, it helps regardless of high light or low light, but it is a required for high light.

Another factor to keep in mind for good plant growth is water movement. Plants can reduce water current a lot, more than what you think at first. So keep that in mind as there are more plants. Something as simple as gentle, steady water current throughout the entire tank can do a lot for plant growth. Increasing water surface movement can also promote good oxygen distribution in the water.

Actinic bulbs don't do anything for plants, you can see them but the plants can't use it to photosynthesize. As long as its somewhere 5000k and 10000k would be good for a planted tank, it can be up to you and plants will grow well. 

As opposed to fish / live animals, it's always smart to pack your aquariums with tons of plants right from the start.

This might be harder to do as it means you need to buy more plants, but you can simply buy a bunch of fast growing stem plants and floating plants like hygrophila polysperma, hornwort, duckweed, salvinia that like to take in nutrients very quickly (they are literally aquatic weeds) that can propogate super fast. You can then slowly take them out and replace with more delicate / slower growing plants.

No point starting slow when it comes to # of plants! They outcompete the algae for all the light, thus algae has no chance to sneak up on you.


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## XbrandonX (Nov 22, 2007)

im late for work...

so very quickly, THANKS for your responses, thats awesome.

Ya I dont run the actinics at all on this tank and I only have this lighting system for my future reef tank.

I am already using the excell, glad thats the right thing to do  

I'm very interested in getting co2 but know nothing about it and really want to finish starting up my reef tank. So I'll back burner that for a bit.

How's my substrate? can I improve it easily?

Thanks for the support

I want to try and grow one of those aquatic lawns in there somehow, I've seen it in pictures and love it.


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## Chris S (Dec 19, 2007)

With those plants and the amount you have, even using one T5 is going to be too much in my opinion - Java fern and Anubias are both low light plants. So either add more plants, or take away a lot of lighting  Stem plants are always a great choice, especially when setting up a planted tank.

Some suggestions for easy to grow stem plants - Hygrophila polysperma (all are good, sunset, ceylon, etc.), Hygrophila corymbosa, Hygrophila difformis (water wisteria), most Bacopa species, and plants like Ludwigia brevipes will do well for you.

To help your substrate, you could just mix a couple bags of eco-complete or flourite with your current substrate - both products work well, I prefer the eco-complete myself.


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## redclove (Feb 26, 2008)

on a small note you may want to try slightly ramping your substrate so it hills up to the back of the tank a little, it will give a stronger sense of depth and perspective allowing the tank to look bigger.


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## Pablo (Mar 27, 2006)

Chris S said:


> With those plants and the amount you have, even using one T5 is going to be too much in my opinion -


Ya thats some monster lighting to not have co2 with


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## XbrandonX (Nov 22, 2007)

So would I get Eco-complete or Flourite at a LFS ? 

I have absolutely NO OBJECTIONS to adding more plants  

I'll get on it... 

I was actually thinking about raising the substrate grade along the back... I read that on some Amano thing somewhere, maybe plantedtank.net..

Again, those lights are temporary though.


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## dekstr (Oct 23, 2007)

Sloping the substrate to be higher in the back will add a lot more optical depth... it's very trippy. I should now as I've been dealing with 12" wide tanks for a while now... I'm planning to get a 18" wide tank which will help a lot more w/ planting and aquarium "depth".

EC and flourite are both great planted substrates. Flourite is more consistent in size whereas EC has more variance in grain size.

EC also temporarily buffers your KH for the first few weeks.


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## XbrandonX (Nov 22, 2007)

so I'm trying to find out more about substrates and so far I've found out flourite is either black or red and EC is a black and white mix... 

I notice that Takeshi Amano and many others have natural colored substrate.

Is there a good quality substrate thats natural colored you know of?

Can I use sand from any hardware store?

Please help.

(also what is the plant used to create the short lawn of green in many planted tanks... looks amazing!)


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## dekstr (Oct 23, 2007)

There are lots of different planted substrates but they aren't cheap. Worth the initial $$$ though.

Locally you can find flourite (in different colours, black, red, standard brownish colour and also some in sand form), eco complete (dark brown / black), soilmaster select, umm.... I think those are the main ones.

The best planted substrate on the market for the $$$ before the shipping today is ADA aquasoil II. However they aren't sold locally and have to be shipped from BC or the states... and shipping soil is very expensive. However definitely the best on the market if you consider the price before shipping.

Some people choose to layer several different types of gravel (i.e. regular gravel / planted substrate) to save some money. They use a variety of regular gravel, laterite, peat moss and potting soil. It's very messy but some people use that and it works.

You can also add fert tabs (basically tabs of fertilizer similar to what you do for terristrial plants) into the substrate. You don't really need it unless you have heavy root feeding plants like anubias / crypts. Otherwise almost all aquatic plants take in nutrients from water column.

Personally you're better off w/ one colour / brand of substrate (for the consistent look as well as being easier to sell off in the future).

You can find pool filter sand at local pool supply store, silica sandblasting sand at local hardware store (i.e. Home Depot) for very cheap.

If you want a natural coloured substrate just take a nature hike to see what colour the ground is in nature (brown, black, dirt coloured lol.) Nothing that's colourful, eveything is very subtle. 

As for different carpeting plants, most carpet plants are not easy to maintain (debris gets trapped easily on it, they need good strong light, and most of them need co2 addition. The only one that doesn't need strong light and co2 addition to carpet is dwarf hairgrass... but it will grow very, very slowly. 

A lot of them are actually found in semi-aquatic areas so they are adapted to living in shallow water / moist ground. Which is why sometimes really deep (I'm talking 3, 4, 5 feet deep in the water) tanks have more trouble with carpeting plants.

However, each one is very different so you will have to make sure you have the requirements to grow a nice carpet before you start off. (i.e. glosso and HC need high, intense lighting + co2 to carpet. THey will still grow in lower light except they won't carpet. In low light they will grow thin and upwards.. not very good looking).

These carpet plants range from glosso (glossostigma elatinoides), HC (hemianthus callitrichoides), pearlweed, riccia, dwarf hairgrass (Eleocharis acicularis), dwarf sagittaria (sagittaria subulata), microsword (Lilaeopsis brasiliensis), umm... HM (hemianthus micranthemoides). A whole bunch.

Another neat one is Utricularia graminifolia, it is actually a carniferous plant (eats micro-organisms), so you actually won't see any "deaths" with your naked eye. 

Another one people use as a carpet plant is actually not a true carpet plant, which is riccia fluitans aka crystalwort. It is actually a floating plant that people like to tie down and make nice green tuffs. It will eventually break off and float upwards... good to look at but extremely high maintenance and very messy.


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## XbrandonX (Nov 22, 2007)

Man Dekstr you sure know how to reply! Thats awesome of you to share so much helpful info.

So I took a trip and hit a bunch of LFS yesterday looking at substrates and plants and didn't end up buying anything and felt pretty overwhelmed by it all. I had to spend my money on a Sea Swirl for my future reef tank (off another forum) and didn't want to blow all my money on fish stuff (again).

Today I tied all the ferns to another piece of wood I was using in the 20G and introduced the BN Pleco to this tank... He's very happy to see his wood again ( I transfered it yesterday) but hasn't checked out his new tank at all, lol.

Anyways its looking nice in there, I re-arranged all the plants, sloped the substrate, and am liking it.

What a major PITA it was tying all that fern down with fishing line though!

Anyways, I'll take a couple shots of it in a bit and post them up so's you can have a look see.

( I am very interested in getting more plants, if you have some you'd like to pass off for cheap, please PM me, I'll come pick em up... I'm not picky just want to fill in my tank and thwart off the great green & brown algae monster thats on its way )


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## XbrandonX (Nov 22, 2007)

Hey here's the shots i mentioned.

They'll get more interesting as the tank does  

There's 3 snails so far that have materialized and one of them has gotten pretty fat... I think they hitchhiked in on the plants, they're doing a good job on any algae that pops up though.


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## Pablo (Mar 27, 2006)

very cool unusual patterned platys


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## Ciddian (Mar 15, 2006)

are those the creamcicles? I really like those platy


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## XbrandonX (Nov 22, 2007)

No they're Koi Swords. 

Those are the females so they look like platys but platys and swords are related anyways aren't they?

I'll get a pic of the male later, I'm just heading out soon.

He was the only male in the tank. I got them at BA's on Steeles..


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## Chris S (Dec 19, 2007)

XbrandonX said:


> Hey here's the shots i mentioned.
> 
> They'll get more interesting as the tank does
> 
> There's 3 snails so far that have materialized and one of them has gotten pretty fat... I think they hitchhiked in on the plants, they're doing a good job on any algae that pops up though.


Those are pond snails btw, so I'd remove them if you can. I remove them from my tanks when I see them. I don't think any snails are as bad as some people make them out to be, but pond snails do, and will, eat plants.

They typically eat dead/dying leaves for the most part though.


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## XbrandonX (Nov 22, 2007)

Those snails have been LOVIN the algae on the glass.. big time lovin.. almost McLovin


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