Fishiez's first (and second?) planted tank

[Fishiez]

Warning: There maybe a lot of text, feel free to skip them and just look at the pics =)

Alrighty! It seems that my really really original thread title has brought you here! Welcome everyone, lets get this started!!!

The day:
It was a warm summer day on the 1st of September, I decided it was time to get myself an aquarium! After a few days of intense reading and research online, I felt ready, BRING IT ON! Little did I know how little I knew... You know nothing, Fishiez.

The place:
If you're an aquarium hobbyist, and you've visited Hong Kong, you'll know there is only 1 place to go for all your aquarium needs. Tung Choi Street in the Mongkok district. It is a whole street with probably over a hundred shops selling fishes and supplies. If you're planning to visit HK, I highly recommend you make some time (2 hours is probably the minimum) and visit this place, it's super awesome. Here's a google street view, the pics seem to have been taken early in the morning so all the shops were closed. A good time to visit would be after 10am till late in the evening.

https://www.google.com.hk/maps/@22.3234939,114.1696878,3a,75y,163.11h,75.22t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1spVlBAr3HS66sQzOnZLxWnw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?hl=en

The plan:
Armed with a few screenshots of beautiful aquascapes (thank you google search images), and the knowledge that I'll need a tank, a filter, and lights, I headed into the shops to begin my first steps to creating an aquatic paradise.

The tank, filter, and lights:
Telling the staff that

 

[Fishiez]

Fishiez's first (and second?) planted 20G

Hey all! Here are some pics of my first (and second) tank!

10 gallon:
Version 1.0

I had NO IDEA what I was doing, no idea how to plant the glosso, I actually planted it with the gel in 1 big clump instead of cutting it up and planting it properly. The 10 shrimps inside died within a few days, which brings us to...

Version 1.1

Glosso planted right this time, with some moss tied down to wood added. 4 fishes and 5 shrimps were also introduced. The shrimps died after 2 weeks, and there were lots of tiny snails popping up, with a huge floaty stringy algae everywhere! Which gives me the opportunity for a total clean, and...

Version 1.2

Added 5 marimo balls, propagated 2 of my existing plants by cutting them in half and replanting them, added a purple leafy one and a fern looking one. Sorry I couldn't give the names of the plants and fishes, as they are in Chinese and the shop doesn't know the English names. Much appreciated if anyone could identify them!

A closer look at some of the fishes. 6 orange, 6 blue, 4 orange and black.

25 Shrimps and 1 small assassin snail, hopefully it can help control any pond snail problems that got smuggled in on the plants!

2 of these guys that look like tiny crayfishes, they're less than an inch long.

A tiny yellow catfish? To help with controlling algae, I hope...

20 gallon:
The 10 gallon felt too small, so it's time for an UPGRADE! I loved the Iwagumi style aquascapes, so I decided to make one for the next tank! I'm doing a drystart with seed to create a carpet (don't know the english name of the seeds). I also planted some Eleocharis acicularis 'Mini' from tropica's 1 2 grow. Using the Elos Terra Black Medium as substrate, with ADA power sand for the bottom layer.

This is currently day 2 of planting, with no sprouts yet. I did not soak the substrate nor cover the top, but I do mist very regularly. I've added some Mycorrhizae on the soil for the Eleocharis to see if it helps stimulate root growth and faster carpeting.

A closer look at the Eleocharis.

Closer look at the seeds.

I'll see if I can keep the dry start tank progress updated, if this is the right forum for that.

 

[Fishiez]

DSM tank update!

Quick update on seed start tank, the seeds have almost all sprouted by 96 hours (4 days) since planting and misting. It is looking to become a super dense carpet soon, perhaps a little too quickly!

I moderately mist 4-5 times a day, leaving the top uncovered (the ambient temperature is around 82-85f during the day, and a little lower at night, with RH ranging from 70-80%). My light schedule is around 10-12 hours a day under a 30w LED.

As a side note, I used 6 containers worth of seeds for my tank, each little container was the size of a quarter and 1 cm deep. That was WAY too many seeds. I suspect the shop just wanted to make more $$ off noobs like me. I think maybe 3, or even 1 of those would have been more than enough for my 3x1 sqft tank (of which around 2/3 planted with these seeds). Each container was HKD60, or around USD7.5.

As for my background plant, Eleocharis sp Mini from Tropica's 1 2 grow line, it's doing fine, but there is no sideways growth yet. I expect it is still developing it's roots, and will probably take a while before spreading occurs.

Anyways, here are some pics for the past 3 days!

Tank after 48 hours

Getting some tiny tap roots going!

Tank after 72 hours

Tap roots growing down, first leaves opening!

Tank after 96 hours

More seeds sprouting

A top down look

 

[Autumnsky]

Wow, are those seeds innumerable! Yes, I think the shop must have thought you were going into the plant business with those. Apparently fresh seeds.

You could begin removing some of them in maybe using plastic tubs with some substrate, grow and sell off a bunch or save for the tank in the event something happens and you get any bare spots (doesn't seem like it now of course).

Are you using any ferts in the water. (I am not implying you need to, just curious.)

 

[Fishiez]

There has been some huge problems with mold on the seed grown dry start, the leaves turning dark dark green and dying, and spreads even when the tank was flooded. I had to pull out more and more, as sometimes I don't get all the infected plants. Luckily, it doesn't seem to infect my hairgrass, which is fortunate.

I wouldn't use these seeds anymore in the future, as the leaves are getting too big and messing with the scale in my tank.

My dwarf hairgrass seems to be doing some slow spreading, I may pull out all of the leaves from seed and just let the hairgrass spread the carpet slowly.

The tank runs no CO2 and no ferts (at least for now), just dealt with a huge ammonia and nitrite spike these few days using Prime (from 5+ppm down to 0 now). If I do use ferts, it will probably be liquid ferts, but won't start them for at least a month to let my shrimps and fishes de-stress from the cycling.

Since somebody replied, I'll post some pics tomorrow of how the tank looks now!

Oh, I've also ordered a 3 foot 10g super shallow and long tank, and I've got something special planned for it! It's going to have a tiny hedge maze of around 12x8 inches, created using custom lengths of acrylic and a carpeting plant. The shrimps will be able to cheat and swim over it, but I thought it'd look pretty sweet (at least in my mind) lol!

 

[shellyx]

Following along!
Great looking set up wish I could make my tank's look like that [emoji4] it's going to look beautiful when finished.
Oh your fish, I see guppies and endlers.