# First Planted Tank 60G



## xPat (Jan 31, 2008)

Hello everybody, I'm new to the forum and planted tanks, I did use this forum and a few other to gather information on equipment, dosing etc etc.

I'm also pretty sure I've started this tank off on the wrong foot but only time will tell. The tank started off as a standard Ferplast Cayman 110 kit, but is slowly being transformed. First to get upgraded was a retro fit kit from AH Supply. 2 international 96W bright kits. The back bulb is 6,700k and front is 10,000k. My CO2 kit hadn't arrived yet so I rigged up two 2L DIY CO2 system running into a Ferplast reactor. This will be replaced with a JBL Proflora CO² kit if it ever arrives. But for now the DIY CO2 is keeping my 25~30ppm

Well end of last week my plants arrived from AquaSpotWorld and my dry ferts arrived from Rex Grigg. So I did a 50% water change pulled all the algae covered plants I put in before I knew any bette and removed and scrubbed my driftwood.

Here is the tank the next morning and some pics of the AHS kit and canopy venting I had to install to keep the temp under control.




























Equipment
TertraTec EX1200 Canister Filter
Lighting PC 96W 6,700K, PC 96W 10,00K 8hr a day
DIY CO2 into Ferplast reactor, 11hr a day
2 80mm Canopy fans 11hr a day
200W Ferplast Heater

Dosing
3x a week
2.5g - KNO3
7g - K2SO4
0.5g Plantex CSM+B,

Plants
Blyxa japonica
Eleocharis parvula
Hemianthus callitrichoides 
Ludwigia arcuata
Myriophyllum tuberculatum
Rotala wallichii
Anubias barteri

Comments and suggestions are greatly appreciated.


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## trenac (Jul 16, 2004)

Welcome to APC  ... That's a nice start... _What type of substrate are you using?_


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## phishphan (Jan 7, 2008)

Are those cherry barbs on the bottom left of the first pic?


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## xPat (Jan 31, 2008)

trenac said:


> Welcome to APC  ... That's a nice start... _What type of substrate are you using?_


Thanks, the substrate is just plain gravel with some Seachem root tabs in it. There is only 3~4 pet stores in Sarajevo and none of them care specialty substrates  And substrate is to big and bulky for me to order online and ship.



phishphan said:


> Are those cherry barbs on the bottom left of the first pic?


Yes they are cherry barbs, 10 of them in total. But I'm a little disappointed because they don't shoal at all just random fish around the tank. I may switch them out with the 12 rummy nose tetras I have in my 30G


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## trenac (Jul 16, 2004)

xPat said:


> Thanks, the substrate is just plain gravel with some Seachem root tabs in it. There is only 3~4 pet stores in Sarajevo and none of them care specialty substrates  And substrate is to big and bulky for me to order online and ship.


Well I like it. It looks to be black and white, but it may not be.


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## hoppycalif (Apr 7, 2005)

May I suggest that you replant the bunches of plants, with each stem planted individually, spaced 2 cm or so apart? That will give them a better chance to grow well. You are a little bit short of having an ideal amount of planting for a new tank, so spreading them out will help that too.


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## xPat (Jan 31, 2008)

trenac said:


> Well I like it. It looks to be black and white, but it may not be.


It has a few different colors in it white, browns, grey and black. It's sold by the lfs very cheap ~$1 a kg. It's nice but if I have my way in a few month it will barely be seen 



hoppycalif said:


> May I suggest that you replant the bunches of plants, with each stem planted individually, spaced 2 cm or so apart? That will give them a better chance to grow well. You are a little bit short of having an ideal amount of planting for a new tank, so spreading them out will help that too.


Thanks for the suggestion, and I do understand it's the right thing to do for the best possible plant growth. But I want to keep the left side of the tank very open, and have it densely planted on the right hand side. sort of the grass lands meet the forest! In the week since this picture was taken the Myriophyllum tuberculatum is almost at the top of the tank, so it seem to be doing ok. But maybe I'll separate the Rotala wallichii because it's not doing as well.


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## lauraleellbp (Jan 31, 2008)

I think that looks incredible for your first tank! Good job!


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## xPat (Jan 31, 2008)

lauraleellbp said:


> I think that looks incredible for your first tank! Good job!


Thanks laura but I must confess this is not my first tank, It's just my first planted tank. Before this my focus has always been rift lake cichlid tanks.

Well tomorrow will be the first trim so I though I would post up a pre trim photo of the growth. The HC isn't doing so well but the dwarf hair grass has started to send out little runners already. I'm also battling a little algae that is covering the substrate. But I think that might be from the Seachem root tabs. In response I have stopped dosing Plantex CSM+B and started dosing KH2PO4. The Anubias also has some green spot algea on it but I hope that will go way with time. I have also gone from 10hr photo period to 8hr.


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## djarmstrong (Feb 12, 2008)

Looks good , but for me i would't trim it yet , let it grow abit more .

Edit ; and i probily would put a few more taller plants in the back right corner .


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## lauraleellbp (Jan 31, 2008)

ditto.

Awesome job for your first PLANTED tank then!


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## xPat (Jan 31, 2008)

Week 5 update:

The tank is now recovering from an outbreak of BGA. I noticed that the substrate was starting to get darker about 2 weeks ago but it didn't seem that bad. Then I went away for 3 days and came back to a tank full of BGA. The substrate was 80% covered and everything except for the Ludwigia was covered.

I couldn't removed any of it from the plants without destroying them. Removing it from the substrate was frustrating as each piece of gravel only removed a tiny little bit. So I skipped a black out attempt and tried a dose of Erythromicyn based on the success I'd read about on the forum. Well that success is well founded as it has worked great. All the BGA has changed to a lite tan color and the SAE's and Oto's are clearing it away faster than i could ever remove it by hand 










I think (opinions welcome) that the BGA outbreak might have been caused by not dosing enough Phosphate. I was only dosing Nitrate and Potassium and getting Phosphate from the KNO3 !?!?! I had changed my dosing before i added the Erythromicyn and the BGA had stopped spreading but wasn't going away. Tomorrow is the last day in the Erythromicyn cycle and i hope i don't see BGA come back.

This is my current dosing schedule
3x a week
KN03: 2.8g=8.60ppm
K2S04: 6g=19ppm
KH2P04: 0.6g=2ppm

I'm not dosing anything for trace and iron as i have Seachem root tabs in the substrate that i belive are providing pleaty for the next ~6 month (that assumption is open to opinions)


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