# CB's 33 Gallon Long Planted Tank!!!!



## Canadianbettas

Hi and welcome to my 33 G long journal!

Tank size _12" x 48" x 12.5"_

For the longest time I've wanted/loved long tanks so I upgraded my 20 G L into a 33 G L.... 48" footprint what more can you ask for?
If anyone is interested here is my lame 20GL that I got rid of awhile ago lol
http://gtaaquaria.com/forum/showthread.php?t=15584

Last few pics are current.. first few were few months - to - a year ago..
I am not sure what I am doing with the scape.. probably just a crazy jungle with lots of hiding spaces since it is a community tank.....

I did have much trouble with this tank as of how to scape it.. Stock/lighting/co2 etcetc... everything is still being worked on in time lol

*Previous Spec : *
1x 54W HO T5 10 000k bulb
DIY Co2 (1bottle)
2 Aqua Clear 30 Filters
150W Heater
EI dosing
Lights on about 10 hours a day.....

*Current Spec:*
1x 54W HO T5 10 000k bulb
1x 28W T5 6700k bulb (switching to 1x 54W HO T5 6700k bulb very soon)
1 Aqua Clear 30 Filter (temp)
Eheim Ecco Pro 2336 Canister Filter
Pressurized Co2 1.5-2.5 BPS
EI dosing
Lights on about 11 hours a day....

*Current Livestock :*
3 SAE (free - giving them away very soon pm if you want or I'll donate them to franks... haha thats where they came from in the first place!)
2 Vampire Shrimp
1 Flower Shrimp
8 Cardinal Tetras
10 White Clouds
3 Galaxy Rasboras (adding more soon..)
3 Kuhli Loaches (still deciding to keep or not)
1 Striped Nerite snail (yes I am crazy, but it is living fine with the assassin for a year now!!)
1 Assasin Snail with 3 tiny babies
1 Oto (adding few more soon)
1 Yamato shrimp
2 CPO'S
1 Random baby guppy










*Some Videos:*

33 Gallon Long Planted Tank Update #1

33 Gallon Long Planted Tank Update #2

Latest update... :










Comments?
Likes?
Dislikes?
Thoughts?
All input is welcomed.....


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## iBetta

god i love the dimensions of your tank *.*. u should try a Hc cuba/glossostigma carpet? 
also, does that mean you'll be selling your 20g perhaps? dimensions? XD ive been looking for a low and long tank too *.*!! very nice!


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## iBetta

oh correct me if im wrong, but i think i already see small bunches of HC cuba from your pics right? my bad my bad, never mind what i said then


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## Canadianbettas

iBetta said:


> god i love the dimensions of your tank *.*. u should try a Hc cuba/glossostigma carpet?
> also, does that mean you'll be selling your 20g perhaps? dimensions? XD ive been looking for a low and long tank too *.*!! very nice!


lol I know i love dimensions too !!!!!!!!! 

I have a hc cuba carpet going on in the middle its growing slowly I just planted it.. in a few updates you should be able to see it.. if it doesn't melt!  haha

oh the 20g long sold long time ago  sorry haha!


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## iBetta

arg nooooooooooooooooooo! lol oh well thanks anyways . btw, i heard people talking about HC cuba melting...why is that? lighting too intense?


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## Canadianbettas

not sure i had.. one portion in there was growing slowly.. (was transferred from my 2.5 gallon nano)

Then I bought 2 portions from a member off the classifieds... and seems to be taking awhile to adjust maybe it was grown emersed? :|


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## iBetta

hmm that could be the case. I'm trying to spread a carpet of HC in a 2.5g with the dry method. they were grown submersed but so far no melting!  i AM dosing with 1-2 sprays of a solution containing 10% excel though. i can already some runners


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## iBetta

could the HC cuba also "melt" from over dosing ferts maybe?


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## Canadianbettas

lol I have no clue...  nothing else is melting so ...I dunno..
Some are yellow... they haven't actually melted.... yet so we'll see...


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## ubr0ke

hc usually melts when co2 levels are not high enough...its a really good indicator plant on co2 
levels in tank....most typically when grown emersed it will melt when submersed because of the huge co2 difference.
ibetta...there is no reason to use excel during a dry start...its a carbon supplement..co2 in the air is roughly 10-15x higher then a co2 injected tank.
if you want it to spread faster...add a dash of kno3 and k2po4 to the spray bottle.


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## iBetta

ohhh i never knew that O:. thank you thank you!


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## iBetta

oh and where could I find this stuff? I assume they are in powder form?


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## ubr0ke

potassium nitrate and mono potassium phosphate are available at hydroponic stores...If none are in ur area..just got to ur lfs and buy seachem nitrogen, potassium, and phosphate..
Also if you go to a hydroponic store ask for a trace mix as well...if you go to an lfs just buy seachem flourish....Mix this in a seperate bottle with a few drops of excel ...spray the nitrate one day and the trace mix the next..


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## iBetta

ok thanks a lot for your help!


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## Canadianbettas

ubr0ke said:


> hc usually melts when co2 levels are not high enough...its a really good indicator plant on co2
> levels in tank....most typically when grown emersed it will melt when submersed because of the huge co2 difference.
> ibetta...there is no reason to use excel during a dry start...its a carbon supplement..co2 in the air is roughly 10-15x higher then a co2 injected tank.
> if you want it to spread faster...add a dash of kno3 and k2po4 to the spray bottle.


Most of the dwarf babytears already melted... the ones left are now spreading... 

aw well least it stopped dying!


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## ubr0ke

if you see new healthy growth ur good....when i move plants from co2 injected tanks to non co2 tanks there is always some melting but they bounce back quick.


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## Canadianbettas

new update...

new plants.. lesser hc.. but remaining is coming back..

next update this scape is gonna change up a bit.. bit shifting, plants moved, and maybe a drift wood to balance left side..


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## Canadianbettas

Miny update...
I put some flat rocks down in the substrate where I want things to not spread runners to...
Hc cba is growing back slowly yay!
Dwarf hairgrass spreading runners everytime I cut!
Tiger lotus is exploding with growth..
Duckweed is getting out of control.. I throw a handful away everyweek...
Moved my sag/dwarf sags to far left placed some giant baby tears behind it along with some whorled pennywort...

Been adding stock slowly... here is my new
Current Livestock :
2 Vampire Shrimp
1 Flower Shrimp
12 Cardinal Tetras
10 White Clouds
5 Mosquito Rasboras (they are so darn tiny!!)
8 Galaxy Rasboras 
3 Kuhli Loaches (still deciding to keep or not)
1 Striped Nerite snail (yes I am crazy, but it is living fine with the assassin for a year now!!)
1 Assasin Snail with 3 tiny babies
6 Oto
2 Yamato shrimp
2 CPO'S
2 Random baby guppy


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## iBetta

did you start EI dosing or using dry ferts?


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## Canadianbettas

iBetta said:


> did you start EI dosing or using dry ferts?


Yup been EI dosing with Dry ferts lol..

+/- ¼ tsp KN03 3x a week
+/- 1/16 tsp KH2P04 3x a week
+/- 1/16 tsp (5ml) Trace Elements 3x a week
50% weekly water change


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## iBetta

duuuuude, where did u get your powder? (lol) i've been looking for some for a while now


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## iBetta

ps. vampire shrimps are so da ****. they are so cool *.*! and i finally got a long-ish tank! yay!


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## Canadianbettas

iBetta said:


> ps. vampire shrimps are so da ****. they are so cool *.*! and i finally got a long-ish tank! yay!


lol yay.. yeah vampire shrimps are my fav invert..next to orange dwarf cray... and smaller shrimps...










My last one was around 2.5yrs old.. he was like 3.5 inches



iBetta said:


> duuuuude, where did u get your powder? (lol) i've been looking for some for a while now


on the street corner... 

You can get them from plant stores.. but I ordered mine online ...


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## iBetta

would you mind sharing the site with me?  thank you!!


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## Canadianbettas

iBetta said:


> would you mind sharing the site with me?  thank you!!


check ur inbox


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## iBetta

thank you!!


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## Canadianbettas

I'd like to move the Cambomba... to far left side... but kinda lazy :|
I'll wait till things get more crazy then I will be forced to


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## Ciddian

Looks soooo nice!


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## Canadianbettas

Ciddian said:


> Looks soooo nice!


thanks ^^

And heres a video update... one of my last updates for awhile..... (school starting soon/getting busy :| eeks)


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## Ciddian

The vid is awesome... I have to look at your C02 and learn some stuffs :3


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## jimmyjam

great vid... booo school!


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## Canadianbettas

New video... I think old scape was a bit better... :/

1 Vampire Shrimp
12 Cardinal Tetras
10 White Clouds (plan to give away.. and get more cardinal or neon/black neon)
8 Galaxy Rasboras
2 misquote Rasboras... (others didn't survive....)
3 Kuhli Loaches
1 Striped Nerite snail (yes I am crazy, but it is living fine with the assassin for a year now!!)
1 Assasin Snail with 3 tiny babies
6 Otos
2 Yamato shrimp
2 Random baby guppy
1 Albino Cory.. (want to give away.. keeps unrooting my... hc.. lucky i didnt get more... :| )

Oh stay tune... as soon as I dig up some free time... I MIGHT switch this tank into igwami.... for a much better scape... I have trouble scaping wide tanks....


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## Canadianbettas

ok.. everyone new update... i put some root tabs in a week ago.. things kinda exploded lol

I really want to change the scape... but its gonna be very hard work to get everything out etc etc etc.. :| plus those mini scape rocks are so damn expensive  so that will have to hold off for awhile...










oh yeah no more white clouds and more new stock...new fishies


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## Al-Losaurus

The tank looks great nice job. I noticed the Nerite snail was dropping some eggs on you. Those things are so annoying especially if they lay them all over the filter intakes and glass. I have spent hours with a knife scraping those things off my filter intakes lol at one point i had 2 of them dropping tons of them every couple of weeks.


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## Canadianbettas

Al-Losaurus said:


> The tank looks great nice job. I noticed the Nerite snail was dropping some eggs on you. Those things are so annoying especially if they lay them all over the filter intakes and glass. I have spent hours with a knife scraping those things off my filter intakes lol at one point i had 2 of them dropping tons of them every couple of weeks.


yes.. omg right you are... eggs are everywhere drives me crazy ...  to the point i gave up I don't scrape them anymore lol :/


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## Al-Losaurus

lol i gave up on a small 5 gal i had one in and eventually they fade away a fair bit. I am not sure if they end up eating them or not but all u see after awhile is a little white ring. Still having all that other nice stuff to look at in your tank i am sure they are barely noticeable.


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## Fishlover_680

I like your tank very much. You have done a great job.


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## Canadianbettas

thanks guys...

i would love to change it up, but can't afford what i want atm lol


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## Canadianbettas

iBetta said:


> here are the 4 little guys i was talking about


txt me i want em!


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## Ciddian

I love that explosion look! XD Fantastic, which tabs did you go with?


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## Canadianbettas

Ciddian said:


> I love that explosion look! XD Fantastic, which tabs did you go with?


I was using flourish tabs.. but they got way too expensive...

I went on eBay and bought about 40 tabs (I think their homemade by someone) for about the price I bought a pack of 12 from Flourish...

And they seem to work better then flourish!


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## Canadianbettas

Update...

crazy hair algae.. some bba .. ugh not sure whats wrong!



















FULL SHOT!










Just added driftwood.. does it look off? or is that just cause it's naked looking without any moss attached to it.. :|


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## Canadianbettas

This tank is taken down and in process of full rescape... stay tuned... :\


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## iBetta

Definitely. :d


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## Canadianbettas

a simple layout.. wish i had few more variety of rocks to choose from.. and more time :| to think of the scape

damn mid terms


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## iBetta

i like it!  
i think 1-2 bigger rocks that could stick out taller more towards the surface of the water would even look nicer! 
good job bro!
the only thing that bothers me a bit is the flattest gray rock from the second left side, would it help if it was stood up a little at more of an angle?
but great job indeed!


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## Canadianbettas

iBetta said:


> i like it!
> i think 1-2 bigger rocks that could stick out taller more towards the surface of the water would even look nicer!
> good job bro!
> the only thing that bothers me a bit is the flattest gray rock from the second left side, would it help if it was stood up a little at more of an angle?
> but great job indeed!


haha will do 

gonna buy another pot of hc and plant some after i rummage the tank again!


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## iBetta

sweet, i cant wait until it grows out nicely! u're using T5HO right? 2 tubes? and what temp (K)?  how long is the photoperiod? sorry for all the questions


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## Canadianbettas

iBetta said:


> sweet, i cant wait until it grows out nicely! u're using T5HO right? 2 tubes? and what temp (K)?  how long is the photoperiod? sorry for all the questions


T5HO x 2 54w's yea.. 6500k, and 10 000k

Photoperiod is around 6-9 hours I'm still trying ot figure out whats good XD


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## iBetta

oh i see! ya me too for my HC -_- good luck! ill definitely stay subscribed!


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## Canadianbettas

Ok... I changed it a bit AGAIN.. 

Planted tiny pieces of Dwarf Baby Tears.. You can't really see it though.. hopefully they don't get un-rooted.... or at least not until roots grow in... :|

Change 1:









Final Change:









Wish I had more substrate to level it out as a slope..


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## iBetta

like! 
are you going to keep using DIY c02? the reason im asking is because even with EI, i have some green algae on my HC, so its either a C02 issue or light issue for me . hope yours wont have the same problem !


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## Canadianbettas

I don't use DIY :|

I use pressurized lol

I only seem to get spot algae, on walls and some bba ..sometimes


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## iBetta

ahhh lucky! i dont get bba but i get spot/green algae on my HC leaves and somtimes walls . how much does it cost you to get your tank refilled? and how often?


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## Canadianbettas

Well I bought this tank... like 5 months ago... its still going strong I predict its gonna last a year ... I have the thing that turns it off at night...

I think its 20 dollar a refill 20 a year not bad.. I hated the DIY method lol so I switched over


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## Canadianbettas

iBetta said:


> oh i see! ya me too for my HC -_- good luck! ill definitely stay subscribed!


haha thx 

Oh and this is a Photoshopped version of my tanked..

how it should look with hc grown in... :|
That's if the fish don't unroot it all


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## iBetta

dude, it'll definitely look even nicer once the carpet thickens and becomes uneven near the rocks' edges!


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## Canadianbettas

iBetta said:


> dude, it'll definitely look even nicer once the carpet thickens and becomes uneven near the rocks' edges!


how fast do you think it will grow? lol


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## iBetta

Canadianbettas said:


> how fast do you think it will grow? lol


i cant really say, mine takes SUPER LONG and grows slow. but with pressurized CO2, im sure you''ll only take about 1 month or 2 max


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## Canadianbettas

Tore down... tank again.. converted to DIRT... walstad method with high lights and co2 lets see how that goes..

Plant list:
Hygrophila difformis
Lysimachia nummularia 'Aurea'
Green/Brown Crpyts.
Sunset Hygro
Hygrophila polysperma
Dwarf Hairgrass
Dwarf Sag
Blyxia
Glosso
Red Tiger Lotus
Rotala rotundifolia
Pellia
Riccia fluitans 
Ludwigia arcuata 
Ludwigia broadleaf (palastrus)
Amazon Sword
Jungle Val
Water Lettuce
3 Unknown plants..


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## Canadianbettas

OK I scrapped it and rescaped again!

Now with Walstad method (dirt) and high lights (I removed 1HO T5, and raised fixture .... about 4" above the top...

New photo :










Got glosso going in the front ... its spreading )
bit of hairgrass too but i'll probly remove it


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## Canadianbettas

Sad to say... this might be my last update.. I am taking this apart... and scaping a 55 gallon.. :S

With that said... lets go to the update

Lights were raised 4" above the top of the tank, and now only using 54W T5 HO. No algae. Plants growing fine. No dosing. Co2 + soil tank

Glosso / dwarf hairgrass spreading fast.
I put a stem of Dwarf baby tears randomly in the tank it is also spreading lol


>


Stargrass doing well..









Creeping Jenny doing well too..









I wish I have converted to dirt sooner.. everything is growing really well!!

I noticed with Soil my Tiger lotus is staying low and bushy rather Tall and big lol


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## Ciddian

What sorta dirt did you go with? I used a pond soil and that was a nightmare D: I do love that tank, sad to see it go.


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## Canadianbettas

Ciddian said:


> What sorta dirt did you go with? I used a pond soil and that was a nightmare D: I do love that tank, sad to see it go.


Thanks Ciddian!

lol I used ... Miracle Gro Organic Potting soil and covered it with a small layer of fluorite and on top play-sand. Rather cheap 11 dollars for a giant bag..

Just make sure to cover it good so nothing will get out into the tank and float around.


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## Ciddian

haha...-thats- where I went wrong. Thanks for the tips  I had to redo my 90 as well, dug out a lot of the soil and added flourite/gravel on top


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## ubr0ke

Ciddian said:


> haha...-thats- where I went wrong. Thanks for the tips  I had to redo my 90 as well, dug out a lot of the soil and added flourite/gravel on top


if ur thinking about soil go with worm castings...mix it with sand 50/50...then cap with whatever..


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