My First Planted tank - 45g Journal

[PaulieFish]

Daily Update:

Added root tabs last night and plants I can see a minor difference, at least I think. Still wondering what type of ferts to get, everyone talks about ferts left and right but there are millions. Any suggestions?

Didnt even think to add pictures of the baby fry!

 

[PaulieFish]

So shrimp was doing something odd today..

No clue he was doing but he was making basically a slime ball, and I THINK no 100% sure this popped out.

Not 100% sure if that really came from him, but i have an all sand bottom and no other idea where it would of come from..

Another little update, cleaned my poor fry container, it was getting a little dirty now its sparkly clean, little elbow grease and some warm water really does the trick.

I also went and cleaned my filter, what a disaster that was, there was literally 1/4 inch of sand at the bottom of it :/. Thank goodness my filter didn't explode. So now I am off to get my water checked soon because yet another fish died.

Final count for what I have is, all my guppies, 2 tetra and 3 gourmai.

MTS are suppose to be arriving tomorrow, so I want to make sure my tank is ready for them. Will find out what my LFS says about the parameters of my tank, since I cant afford test strips.

 

[PaulieFish]

Went to my LFS and got my water checked. He said everything is fine, but my water is a little hard. So I am gonna do about a 25-30% water change.

Also went to another LFS and got 10 more fish, I know i know! I just lost some, but they need to be replaced. They had an unbeatable sale. So I got 4 neon tetra and 6 glowlight tetra, they are beautiful. Some pictures coming soon.

 

[DragonFish71]

Wow Love your tank, what substrate are you using, PFS or play sand, or some other variant? Also what is the purpose of the air stone, I heard it only disrupts the water and causes to much CO2 loss.

Thanks.

We went with PFS. I use airstones because I like the bubbles. From what I've read, they do cause CO2 loss, but I haven't seen any problems with our other tanks. All of our tanks have them.

 

[DragonFish71]

Suggestions for ferts?

The Seachem line is what I see suggested most. I use their Excel along with root tabs that I get from the place I order plants. $10.00 for 75 of them, I can't complain.

 

[PaulieFish]

Suggestions for ferts?

The Seachem line is what I see suggested most. I use their Excel along with root tabs that I get from the place I order plants. $10.00 for 75 of them, I can't complain.

wawawa what!!! 75 for 10 bucks.. where can i find this website!

 

[DragonFish71]

here's the link: AquariumPlants.com's own: SUBSTRATE VITALIZATION SYSTEM

If you look down into the the "box" it shows the different pellets and the item number, I get item # FERT1 , those are the total pellets.

 

[PaulieFish]

Quick Update:

Post about my day and the tank coming! in a bit!

 

[PaulieFish]

So I was talking earlier how there is no places around me for plants or ferts or ANYTHING really, well i was checking craigslist and apparently there is a aquatic society around me and they were having an auction in two days!! (That was two days ago, I will tell you everything)

So I got my MTS today from a member of the forums THANKS A TON BY THE WAY. Well they arn't really moving yet, because I just added them but excited to see them one night!

So today! The auction, my first ever! Well I ended up spending around 60-80 bucks and man what a load I got! I dont remember half the plants, but I will tell you what else I got. I got a 10g tank and hood for 10 bucks! I know I know I could of probably bought it cheaper, but it was the first item I bidded on and was excited! Well that was the first thing I got, so I decided that I am going to make it my QT tank since I do not have one yet, I already have a filter, now I just need another small heater.

So I also got two other bottles of stuff, I got a bottle of leaf zone, I got the leaf zone for I think 5 bucks, pretty big bottle and since they didnt seem to be selling the other ferts, I just got this. I also got a big bottle of what seems to be a CO2 supplement, I do not know exactly how it works, but once I get home I will get some pictures etc.

The plant setup in the post above is not how the plants are gonna look when I am done rearranging and aquascaping. I just had to leave in a hurry so I just wanted to plant them, put in my liquid CO2 and ferts and see how things seemed tomorrow.

I got some crazy good deals on some plants, I mean insanely awesome. I got what I think is abuot 5-8 java ferns for about 4 bucks.. which at least I thought was a good deal, 50 cents a plant is amazing, AND they are pretty big. I also got some other plants prices ranging between 2-10 bucks. The 10 bucker was a crazy amount of plants. If you can see it floating in the top right, I didnt have time to plant them all because they were all clustered so I just let them float, and I really wanted them.

I forget what most of the plants are, but I love them. It was funny, I was on my phone while he was auctioning off reading up on some of the plants. Now some might not survive (thinking some of the red leaved ones) because I am sure they are high light, but hey, why not give it a try.

I also got 5 platys for pretty cheap which are very nice.

Im sure I am forgetting a bunch of things that happened today but basically I got some liquid ferts and CO2 and I hope they work well. And I am SOO excited for my MTS finally arriving!

Anyway, off to enjoy the rest of the night thanks for reading! I will update pictures once I rescape! Any ideas for scaping let me know!

 

[Etunes]

sounds like you got yourslef a nice find there, and some nice prices.

 

[PaulieFish]

sounds like you got yourslef a nice find there, and some nice prices.

I hope so

 

[PaulieFish]

Little update:

My snail going through the grass hehe,

Here are my MTS that a kind person on the forums was so kindly to give me.

And here is my updated tank, I know its not that good looking, but I only had 90 bucks to buy plants and well that's what I did. I know its a little foggy but i didnt wait to take the pictures until all of it settled down.

Now when pruning them, how can I replant them.

 

[WhiteDevil]

Turkey basters are the best tool in a tank, suction and pressure, that little baster can do tons of work in the tank. from cleaning to feeding finicky or shy fish.

 

[PaulieFish]

Stole my moms nice camera, and well inc pictures!!

Just some of my rockscaping

beautiful MTS (thanks again dkpate i LOVE them, can you tell?)

Some of the guppies

Mystery Snail:

Some of the neons as well as plants:

Enjoy the pictures!

 

[Aquarium1]

Very nice

 

[PaulieFish]

Very nice

Thanks, I cant wait for the plants to fill out a little more, so I can make it more.. umm. I dunno more plant like .

 

[discus_lover]

oh wow,looking really really nice...

 

[Etunes]

Looking good, keep it up.

 

[PaulieFish]

Aww thanks guys!

 

[WhiteDevil]

Its a good thing you got em from DK, if I am right, her original batch came from me, so either way you got descendants of ones I raised.

I am having an issue getting the colonies started again. their numbers arent there in a invert tank as they were in the community tank, food quantity and waste is why but youd think they would be multiplying due to the overfeeding to compensate for the fish waste loss.

I ended up tossing an assassin in my new 45g planted, found some of those nasty black part transparent pond snails in there, I am squishing the ones I see but I hope the assassins eat it cause snails are not welcome in this tank.

I like how its shaping up, scaping can be the most patience testing and nerve racking part of keeping aquariums.