New pics, planting in progress

[happygirl65]

OK, so I once would have thought this was a lot of plants. LOL Now I know I need more, especially looking for tall background plants. I am posting in the barter/trade section. Since I have to buy my plants online anyway I would much rather get them from people here.

Comments or suggestions appreciated. Especially with placement. As I am unfamiliar with how big some of these will get, I may have planted them in the wrong area.

Some specs:
55 gallon about 2 months old...not certain without looking up the date, but new tank.

I began planting this tank at the same time as adding fish and have increased both plants and bioload as I can.

The lighting is 2x65w PC with both being 50/50 bulbs.

I am dosing modified EI once per week per suggestions from a few members.

I was inspired to use live plants when I first started looking at AA and saw so many lovely tanks with live plants. Then I set up my tank with a couple of plastic ones that I had in storage and I knew instantly I would never be happy with it. So I upgraded and have slowly added what I can.

I now know that I need a lot more plant biomass to help with the algae so I am looking to plant much more.

[maxwell1295]

Looks nice.....

Make sure you take an updated pic with the room lights off. You may also want to look into replacing those 50/50 bulbs with some daylight bulbs for better lighting. From my experience, tanks with 50/50 bulbs also seem to better at growing algae than they are at growing plants.

[happygirl65]

DOH!

I did turn off all the lights, the reflection is from windows that I cant easily cover SO I will wait until dark then try again...lol.

I am using the 50/50 bulbs so that I could avoid CO2 for now.....I do plan to upgrade some day, just not quite ready yet. So I hope they will be ok in there for a while.

[GlitcH]

That's the first thing I thought of too........replace the 50/50's.
But are you are or are you planning on injecting co2?
If you replace the 50/50s you should inject CO2.

I have some Limnophila Aromatica available in the barter/trade section.
It's a high light plant for the background that is considered "difficult".

[rich311k]

Looking good!!!

[happygirl65]

Originally Posted by GlitcH

That's the first thing I thought of too........replace the 50/50's.
But are you are or are you planning on injecting co2?
If you replace the 50/50s you should inject CO2.

I have some Limnophila Aromatica available in the barter/trade section.
It's a high light plant for the background that is considered "difficult".

I think my light level is Med-low so that one may not be good for this tank.

I am not planning on injecting CO2 for a while yet, so I am not looking at replacing bulbs until then.

[drobertson]

Good looking tank!!!!!!!

[blazeyreef]

Awesome looking tank!!!

[majolo]

For what it's worth, I have a 55 and had the same lighting as you, then went for the full daylight instead of 50/50. I don't run CO2, and have had no algae problems (yet ). Fertilizing with Flourish only. It's been running for about a month, so we'll see what happens...

[Purrbox]

I would recommend some Rotala Rotundifolia for the background. It should do great with your lighting and will blush a pretty pink when it gets close to the surface. A variety of Anubias and Crypts could be quite nice too, and depending on the species would be appropriate for many areas of your tank.