# my four various planted tanks from australia!



## gti_rsi (Aug 27, 2012)

hi guys, new member here. my name is jace and i'm from australia. hoping tolearn a whole bunch more on planting tanks hence why i have joined the forum!

i have only recently just gotten into keeping fish and planting my tanks, i have only had my 500L/125gal australian native tank for a little over 8 months and both my smaller ones for only a couple of months, in this peroid i have increasingly become more interested in aquatic life and more improtantly aquatic plants. i have had a huge learning curve since starting but feel i am still very much a beginner in such a wonderful hobby.

let me start off by showing the four of my planted freshwater/brackish tanks!

first up i'll show off my large 6'x2'x2' brackish australian native aquarium. this tank has only been up and running for a little while and originally started out as a mix between natives and cichlids. at the time of setting it up i was way too confused with what i wanted overall. after going through multiple phases within a few weeks time, i finally agreed to create an australian river biotope with native species plants and fish, this meant i had to entirely rescape (including gravel type! what a mission that was!). i have since completed this task to an extent, i simply couldnt resist using exotic plant's aswell. i still think the general outcome is very aussie river like. this tank is still a work in progress in terms of planting, as i have a bunch of assorted crypt wendtii's on thier way to me as we speak. plus it's alot of trial and error with some of my herbivore fish species. my main goal with this tank after countlessly hearing/reading online that big fish don't work in a planted aquarium is to prove that it can be done. so far with the right species plants this appear's to be working well.

the driftwood compliments the river look with tannins leached in the water coloumn.

fish species include:

sooty grunter
butlers grunter
silver perch
2x silver scat
3x red scats
murray cod
archer fish
giant trevally
jade perch
bullrout/stone fish
3 bristlenose catfish (surprisingly these guys have survived 6 months worth of brackish water at 1.005-1.008 salinity! absulute champs!)
brown back freshwater crab

filtration consists of a sun sun 304B 2200lph with 9w uv
and an aqua one aquis 1000

lighting is a 5ft unit with 2x t5 HO 80w 10000k
T-8 dual fixture with DIY alluminium wrap reflector and 2x 36w 6500k
ebay blue led for night light.

heating is 1 x aqua one 300w adjustable.

substrate is just regular crucher dust (blue metal)
looking at capping this with flourite or something similar

plant's currently consist of;

egeria densa
thin val
corkscrew val
echinodurus tenellus
microsorium pteropus
bacopa monnieri
rotala rotundifolia
banana lily
salvinia molesta
watersprite
unknown grass yet to be ID (collected from local stream)

excuse the crappy photo's, i need to invest in a decent camera.









thi photo won't work on here?
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/15/20120827212732.jpg/

next up is my smaller 60L tank, that i attempted to "iwagumi". although i don't quite think it was succesful. i would love to be able to re-scape it but since everything is established i'd rather not disturb it.

plants are;

HC cuba
pogostemon stellatus
crytocoryne wendtii green gecko (leaves are turning red now)
hydrocotyle tripartita
echinodorus tenellus
lilaeopsis brazilliensis
java moss

fish are just cardinal and rummynose tetras with cherry shrimp.

eheim 2213 filter
fluval 88g co2 kit
2x24w T-5 10000k
regularcrusher dust capped with flourite










next tank is my smaller 30L, i feel i had much more success scaping this tank with better plant choices. this tank runs diy co2 for the time bieng, i have a co2 bell and disposable can setup usually but trying diy co2 for added co2 generation.

plants are;
hydrocotyle tripartita
eleocharis accularis
rotala rotundifolia
myriophillum aquaticum (parrots feather)
cryptocoryne wendtii green
basalt rocks for decoration
this tank sports an organic soil mix capped with play sand.

fish are espei rasbora's and later this week some paratya australiensis (glass algae eating shrimp)










last tank i have setup is my emmersed cube, this is something i decided to try after seening a few on the net. just using some hydrocotyle tripartita again along with some HC cuba and rotala rotundifolia. i'm not expecting this to work out well but the hydrocotyle is sprouting new leafs everyday. the photo is when i first planted it all. will get a few updated better quality photo's tomorrow arvo maybe.


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## gti_rsi (Aug 27, 2012)

oops double post.


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