# My First Planted Tank



## FreedPenguin (Aug 2, 2011)

Hello All,

This is my first post here at APC and glad to be here!
I've been reading and learning a lot about planted aquariums here and wanted to show you all my tank. 

So far
30 gal bow front tank
Eheim 2234 external canister filter
T5 HO dual lights : 6000k and daylight bulb

100% silica play sand 
1 bag eco complete

Dwarf Baby Tears, Hemianthus callitrichoides
Dwarf hair grass
Cyprus Helferi
Alternanthera reineckii v. 'roseafolia'
Echinodorus angustifolia Vesuvius
Nesaea pedicellata 'Golden'
Anachris 
One other plant I'm not too sure of

Neon Tetras x 7
Dwarf Gouramis x2
Fancy Guppies x5
Brichardi babies x5
julidochromis transcriptus babies x 5
electric yellow babies x3

This is my first attempt at a planted tank and most of my fish and plants are new, less than a week since inception.
The baby non community fish like the cichlids I will be adding to my 40 gal cichlid tank as soon as they are big enough to withstand the existing cichlids or start bullying my community fish

I used a bit more than half (60-70% RODI and rest tap water) for the tank and when I do water changes, I use about 50/50 mixture for it.

As far as water treatment, I use the typical dechlorinator and for the plant nutes, I use Flourish, Flourish Excel ( as I have to CO2 setup as of yet ) and I have flourish root tabs I have yet to use. 
I will be moving in about a month and I wanted to reorganize the tank and add the root tabs then.
I plan to monitoring growth and the effectiveness of Excel in my tank and gauge whether or not to purchase a CO2 setup. (student and on a low budget)




























What do you think? Any advice or criticism welcome and appreciated.


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## FreedPenguin (Aug 2, 2011)

Question:
I have been soaking manzanita driftwood that has already been sand blasted and its been steadily leeching tannins. I have noticed that the water starts to smell somewhat like methane (fart kind of smell)
I'm guessing that there some sort of bacteria in the water or most likely in a piece of wood that might be rotting.

How do i remedy this situation? I have used tap warm water and used a clean scrubber to scrub the surface of the wood pieces so far yet the smell remains, slightly...

I dont have a big enough container to boil the wood, so thats out of the question. 

Should I leave it out under the sun?
Dry it out? 

Thanks in advance for any help!


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## Ever Inquisitive (Jul 12, 2011)

What type of container are you soaking it in now? If it is heat resistant or if you can find something heat resistant, like a bathtub or sink if need be, try boiling a lot of water, (I used every burner on my stove with the biggest pots I have) and then pouring it all in and let it soak a few hours to overnight. Repeat if you need too. This should leech the tannins faster and hopefully get rid of the smell by sterilizing it. If you cant do this, replace the water your soaking it in and add a powerhead or airstone, adding movement might help deter bacteria that would occur in stagnet water. Hope this helps


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## FreedPenguin (Aug 2, 2011)

^ Thank you, though it may be a PITA, Im gonna try the boil water and lugging it around method.


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## Ever Inquisitive (Jul 12, 2011)

No problem, Your right its a pita, but wayy better than a nasty smell.  good luckk


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## Tex Gal (Nov 1, 2007)

You have a pretty good plant list. You may have trouble with Alternanthera reineckii v. 'roseafolia' and Nesaea pedicellata 'Golden' You have the emersed leaf form. It's hard to get these to transition over. They both prefer CO2 and higher light. If you have higher light you almost always need CO2 supplementation. Both plants are also nutrient hogs. You will need to dose fertilizers for them. Eco complete just doesn't have what they need in it. Flourish and the root tabs you have used only have micro nutrients in them. You will need to supply macros somehow. 

You also might want to try having a background, mid ground and foreground arrangement of your plants. The differing heights will make it must more "interesting".

You do have a good start.


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## FreedPenguin (Aug 2, 2011)

*Thanks Texas Gal!*
I appreciate your input. I will look into getting some macros in the mix. 
Am also in the process of saving up for a CO2 setup as I see that I am going to have to add it. Also I am considering abandoning this tank and going bigger 40-60 considering I can use my external filter for bigger tanks. 
I am planning on rearranging the plants soon, as I have to move at the end of this month and while moving, add more substrate and increase the planting space as to achieve the affect of fore mid and background plants.

As for the current setup, my goal was more to see how much plant growth could be achieved using just nutrients and carbon liquid. 
Its just been a few days and I am noticing much change in the plants as they seem to have become settled.










I added a clay pot from home depot (not quite aesthetically pleasing but a need of the julido transcriptus I am trying to raise big enough to add to my 40gal.)

Upon checking the water parameters, I saw that nitrites were a bit high at .25 but everything else seemed ok. Planning on a 20% water change tomorrow.


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## FreedPenguin (Aug 2, 2011)

So some of the plants have grown, some have died off, and heres what I have now:








Having a bit of a problem with brown algae, I am not really sure why.


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## FreedPenguin (Aug 2, 2011)

This is growing in rather well. As is the anachris.


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## FreedPenguin (Aug 2, 2011)

I have a 40 gal tank which currently houses these guys









Im planning on swapping out the tanks, adding 40 more lbs of eco complete, more playsand and adding finally the wood work.
The piece in the tank currently im gonna move over here for the cichlids
The wood Im planning on using is 12-24" manzanita pieces. I have 10-15 pieces.


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## FreedPenguin (Aug 2, 2011)

On a side note, I also purchased 8 juvie german blue rams I have currently raising in a 10 gal which im gonna try to breed and artifically hatch and raise fry.


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## Tex Gal (Nov 1, 2007)

Looks like you are doing a good job learning about your plants and how they grow. What you have left looks healthy. Check out this thread about trimming of your plants. You will get branching and full stands of plants. Try this with the plants that you have and try to get the affect you want.

http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/forumapc/aquascaping/57960-pruning-timeline.html


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## FreedPenguin (Aug 2, 2011)

Thank you for the guidance tex, i appreciate it.
Actually did a 50% water change and scrubbed the tank down as well as the fry holder.
Also checked the water parameters and all readings check out just fine, PH 7.4, ammonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrate 0.
I havent checked GH and KH but I am sure they are fine.

I had one of my shrimp die and one of my gouramis literally ate the whole thing X_X.
Now the gourami is acting strange, his frontal belly portion is ENLARGED and while I was changing water, he was swimming all crazy in circles like he was chasing his own tail. Also hes laying on some anachris near the top. Is he about to die? 
I've read somewhere that dwarf gouramis frequently have health problems due to some hereditary reason?

Also I am moving at the end of this week, and I am going to properly move plants around and rescape and trim and replant and add root tabs. I have 40 more pounds of eco complete standing by as well as wood. I want to add some moss plants that I could tie around the wood formation. Any recommendations on type of mosses?

Thanks again!


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## Tex Gal (Nov 1, 2007)

Good luck with your move. Your nitrate shouldn't be zero. That is the number one nutrient that plants use. If you are going to add root tabs it will probably improve. I would not wait a week. Hopefully your water change added a little N K & P.

Hope your gourami feels better!


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## FreedPenguin (Aug 2, 2011)

Its been a while since Ive updated this thing but here goes:

Since the move, I have added pressurized CO2 as well as Micro Macro Nute mix from aquariumfertilizer.com

First when I moved, I moved the inhabitants flora and fauna over to the 40 gallon tank. I also removed what I could of the silica sand and added 2 more bags of eco complete.

So I have a 40 gal tank with 
-60 lbs of eco complete 
-flourish root tabs (which I've added per instructions yesterday)
-AquariumFertilizer.com Macro Micro Nutrient Mix Equal Parts : 1. KNO3, K2SO4, MgSO4, and CSM+B. I dissolved a 1/4 cup of ferts to 2 cups of water and dosing about 5.5 mL/day.
*Question: I have been dosing like this and yet my nitrates are still 0? (Its been 3 days since I've started the dosing regimen) *

-I am planning a 50% waterchange every week.
-I have a 10lb CO2 container with a RedSea CO2 setup, which I am using all of except the reactor which I have a Elite Hagen Mini filter which I've rigged the CO2 line to and it seems to produce fine bubbles. I have the output of the Eheim Ecco 2234 filter I have facing angular downwards at the bubble group and it seems to push the CO2 bubbles around sufficiently.
*I have a Koralia Nano 400gph water pump on the way to increase circulation within the tank*
I am hoping the increased circulation would help with my problem with algae


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## FreedPenguin (Aug 2, 2011)

I have added the Koralia Nano pump aimed downward shooting the CO2 bubbles away and the eheim exhaust pointing up at the water surface.










I am having some issues with a diatom bloom, it has been on going for a while now and I am hoping some stability in the tank will eventually be rid of them. I am doing water changes once a week 50% with RODI water.

The last 2 50% WC's I did were using the local SD tap water and the algae came back strong within 1 week.

I scrub what I can off of the glass but there is also much accumulation on leaves of the plants I have. I don't think it kills the plants because they seem to be growing just fine.










I am dosing a premixed Micro Macro Nutrient Mix for fertilizer from aquariumfertilizer.com and dosing 5.5ml of the solution a day.

EI method is very confusing for me... I understand the concept and what its meant to accomplish yet from the mixing of the dry ferts and the changes to account for the local water supply to existing bioload and plants... its pretty confusing for me.

Currently using the nute premix, I have seen moderate to high growth in my opinion, there is new growth on nearly all of the plants, and I am noticing the the new growth seems to be lighter in color than the older leaves.


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## FreedPenguin (Aug 2, 2011)

I have ordered the necessary dry nutes to start dosing a PPS PRO method. hopefully this will foster better growth


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## FreedPenguin (Aug 2, 2011)

GREAT NEWS! the plants in the aquarium are PEARLING! amazing!
this is the first time I've seen this in my tank!

I have not yet switched over the the PPS-Pro method yet.


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## FreedPenguin (Aug 2, 2011)




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## PAXpress (Sep 22, 2011)

FreedPenguin said:


>


Very nice  I think your tank is coming along quite nicely. Don't let the diatoms get you down you'll get things under control shortly. I noticed your driftwood log in the earlier picture of your 40G looks strikingly similar to one that I have. I'm curious what type of CO2 unit you have? (looking into getting some for my tanks once I can afford it, too scared I'll kill my fauna with a DIY yeast model).


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## FreedPenguin (Aug 2, 2011)

I have a 10# tank with a Red Sea system.
I don't recommend it as I don't think it is as good as some you'll find on here.
I got the system and tank for a steal so thats why I have it.
As far as the driftwood, Its some manzanita and the one in the middle with moss on it is a piece of african root wood or something like that.

My brown algae is turning into green algae!
Good and Bad I suppose.

Update is coming!


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