Planted 120 - Journal

[maddog10]

Well, I am sure this will end up as "What Not To Do" by the time its done, but I figured I would provide (for your entertainment) a journal of my attempt at a planted tank. I decided I will not use the Manzanita wood I bought at the auction (probably). Instead of trying an elaborate aquascape, I decided I needed to practice growing plants first.

Tank is 120 gallons (4' x 2' x 2'). I am using ADA Amazonia soil and pressurized CO2. Filtration will be by two Fluval 304/305 canister filters (only 1 is installed now). Right now lighting is 660W of compact fluorescents (old fixtures I had laying around). Half the bulbs are 10,000k the other half are 6400k. I will need to figure out the timing and duration of the lights as I do not want them all on, all the time. I will post a plant list, once I figure out what they all are and once I decide on final species and location (I already do not like how some of it looks, but wanted to let it grow a bit before I yank it). I plan on dosing dry ferts and may eventually go to an auto doser.

* Photo quality is not the greatest, i flipped the camera on Auto and only used available light (its been a long day) *
Right Side:


Left Side:


Right now the plan is to let the Dwarf Hair Grass fill in the foreground and run to the back of the tank in the center.

I will try an update this thread every so often, so you can see my successes and failures. Wish me luck!

[ingg]

Low grow hygro, rotala verticilarris (cans pell it and not say it lol) rotala umm, colorata?, hygrophila angustifolia, eleocharis parvulus, anubias barteri, cryptocorene... it is either pontediferolia or moehmannii, Crypt Balansae, and umm, no idea what the thing on the beanstalk is, and have no idea what that is right under the Hygro Angustifolia.

Those should be your plants

I actually think it is going to look pretty good, let it grow in some!

[maddog10]

Plant List

Rotala verticillaris
Rotala macranda 'green'
Rotala sp. 'colorata'
Rotala sp. 'green narrow'

Eleocharis parvula (Dwarf Hairgrass)

Echinodorus 'Africanus'

Cryptocoryne balansae
Cryptocoryne moehlmanni

Hygrophilia corymbosa 'low grow'
Hygrophilia corymbosa 'angustifolia'
Hygrophilia polysperma
Hygrophilia polysperma 'pink'

Anubias barteri

[Aaron]

That looks like a good start Mike. Don't dose any ferts aside from just a little bit of potassium for the first 4-6 weeks. The Aquasoil has enough nutrients from the start.

[maddog10]

That looks like a good start Mike. Don't dose any ferts aside from just a little bit of potassium for the first 4-6 weeks. The Aquasoil has enough nutrients from the start.

That was part if the education I got today (well worth the 3 hours of drive time).

[Jeff120]

By the plant selection I would say you were at Ghazanfar's house!
It looks good so far. I would run the light for 7-8 hours at first, then adjust from there. I find 8-9 to be about the max for my tanks

[maddog10]

Yep, I was at Ghazanfar's. Watched him prune the 2 display tanks in the basement, asked a bunch of questions, took some pictures and generally bugged the heck out of him. Then I took all the trimmings Just so happened that he has a lot of the plants that I wanted (and a few I didn't know that I wanted yet).

[maddog10]

Well I have been pretty lax in updating this thread. I had a HUGE algae problem for weeks before I got some good advice from Jeff and Kris (and others). Their advice was to crank up the CO2 (since I did not have any fish in the tank) until the algae went away. It worked. Here are some updated photos.

Right Side: (I have already cut this side back once and the H. polysperma needs it again)


Left Side: (Have not pruned anything on this side yet)


Unfortunately, this tank may be a victim of me deciding to cut back on my tanks. I have decided to have 1 tank at work and all my other tanks must fit back into my fishroom. No more tanks spreading across the basement, it is getting to be to much work maintaining the tanks. Debating on taking this tank to my office.

[krisw]

I'm glad your algae problems are behind you. It's a shame that you might tear this down to move it, as it's starting to really fill in. Keep up updated.

[ingg]

Don't do it! You can't tear that down, it is really quite great!

You guys have me thinking of resetting my 75g to be a stem tank like this, tons of rotalas... man the left side is just incredible!