My planted tanks

[nkoyko]

I've gotten my 10g setup today. Planted to a point but I want some moss in there soon, if I can find the moss I want. I figured I would start a thread on here to document my planting journey so I can look back and think of what an a** I was. The first picture is my newly setup 10g (it is very cloudy because its only a few hours old. The second picture is my 6g that has been up and running for about 2 and a half months.

Tank specs

10g Aqueon
Aqua Clear 20
7600K 15w light
Heater
Black Diamond Blasting sand (fine)
Driftwood
4 cyperus helferi
6 cryptocoryne wendtii red
1 anubias (can't remember the type)
Would like to add flame moss to the driftwood
Will be adding a ceramic pot or two

6g fluval edge
Aqua Clear 20
Factory LED lights
Heater
Instant Aquarium Moonlight sand
Driftwood
Ceramic pot
Glass stones
2 amazon swords
2 anubias (can't remember species)
2 cryptocoryne undulata

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[nkoyko]

Put the Java moss in tonight. The whole tank is looking a little rough with all the plant die off. Guess it doesn't help to have a large number of plants that need to acclimate before growing. Rearranged the cyperus helferi and removed a lot of the dead leaves hoping to stimulate growth, cleared out some melted crypt leaves, and did a small water change to accomplish the plant clean up. Can't figure out a good location for that anubias. I keep placing it in different areas. Also having an issue with brown algea even though I only keep the lights on for 5-6 hours a day.

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[brennae]

I still like the betta tank best

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[ImACoolguy]

I like the planted tank play with the driftwood! Shift it left or right maybe even prob one side up, it will help add depth to the tank.


Caleb

 

[nkoyko]

I like the 6g more too at this point, brennae. It is so green and all of the plants did amazing from the start. I'm doing a pretty hefty wc on that tank today to combat the dang isopods in it and I'll post a picture of it after I get done.

Thank you, Caleb! I have been twisting this piece of driftwood in the tank to see better placement. I want some height from it to transition from the cyperus to the crypts. I have moved it up in the tank but it is such a weird shaped piece that it doesn't really look like it spans the entire width on the tank when positioned upright but it does. It is still cycling so I have time to play with it before anything moves in.

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[TheresaM]

They both look nice, 6g is great for a betta! What stock do you have or are planning for the 10g?

 

[nkoyko]

The 10g will be the female betta's new home. She will be sharing with 2 ADF (a male and female). Once my male passes (hopefully not anytime soon) I'll move the female into the 6g and have a community tank. I have finally found an amazing pet store that has amazing stock that are all super nice looking.

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[nkoyko]

Here is the 6g after the wc yesterday. Those dang isopods are killing me in there. Fred won't eat them and they seem to be thriving no matter what I do. I'm thinking maybe I should get some ammano(sp?) shrimp and see if they might take care of them. I think the ammano would be safe since Fred refuses to eat live or frozen food, he would probably just make pals and swim around with them. My professor suggested a guppy but since this is a 6g I don't think getting a guppy is a good idea. All the plants in here are doing really well despite the isopods. The swords have new leaves, the crypts are growing, and the anubias have crazy long roots. I've been using root tabs, and dosing seachem's ferts.

I did play around some with 10g yesterday as well and noticed that there are now detritus worms in there (no fish so they aren't from over feeding). I did see my largest MTS eating the detritus worms along with the brown algea. I took out the cyperus and cleaned up as much of the dead as possible and separated into smaller clumps to see if that would aid it in growing. I need to pull other the crypts and get all of the melted yellow leaves off. I may do that tonight. I'll try to post a pic of the 10g later when I get home to show the changes.

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[nkoyko]

Here is the 10g today. The driftwood fell over last night so I had to redo it this morning. It is currently being propped up by a rock. The crypts are melting like crazy and the cyperus is just gross looking. At the moment part of me wants to tear it all apart and start over but part of me doesn't want to throw away $50 worth of plants if they have the ability to come back. I've started dosing a little heavier on the ferts hoping that it will help the plants. I've also decided not to put any livestock in here until I can get the plants to grow. So who knows how long it will be before anything besides the MTS are in there.

 

[ImACoolguy]

Definitely looks like one happy betta!


Caleb

 

[nkoyko]

Fred is very happy in his 6g! I tried to net him the other day so I could do a 100% wc to see if I could knock out the isopods and he refused to be caught so I was only able to do a 75% wc and it did nothing to the number of isopods.

He is doing great in there though. His fins are the longest they have ever been and he loves laying in and on his plants. He even likes the driftwood. He occasionally tries to squeeze into the little crevices to hide.

 

[Nils]

I've got the same thing as you have in my 16. I have 4 amanos in there and they don't touch them. They don't bother me that much, plus they do help break down wastes. They are part of the "microorganism" clean up crew in the natural aquarium.

For your planted tank, what kind of a light do you have? I small Finnex light + DIY Co2 should do the trick. You could throw a FInnex Stingray Cliplight on there. DIY Co2 is easy, definitely helps the plants along.

 

[nkoyko]

Both tanks of mine are planted. The 6g just has stock lighting but it does just fine with the swords, crypts, and anubias. Those isopods just showed up after the filter spurted out brown gunk letting me know that I hadn't cleaned it. I've heard ghost shrimp will actually eat the isopods. However, I've been noticing at the big chain stores that they aren't actually carrying ghosts (the ones they have are the other ones that eat fish). At this point I think I will just keep an eye on the betta to make sure they aren't harming him and wait for them to die off some.

The 10g was free and came with an incandescent hood so I went and got an aquarium/plant 7500k light from Home D. I eventually want a more updated light for the 10g but don't have the funds at the moment. I graduate college in December and will hopefully have a job soon after and can then begin acquiring a better lighting system. CO2 setups scare the life out of me so I've been dosing Excel as a substitute. I've also been using Seachem comp, iron, and potassium.

I may need to get their nitrate fert for my 6g because Fred barely puts out any waste. My nitrates in the 6g barely register on the kit and the tank has been fishless cycled properly but with just him in the tank I don't think it's enough for all of the plants even though they are doing well at the moment.

 

[nkoyko]

Today I made Mebbid's root tabs and added them to the 10g to see if I can't bump this process up. I had been using Seachem and API tabs in the 10g but wanted a better option. Before adding the tabs, the crypts are growing back very quick from the melt. A little surprised by that because I thought they were slow growing plants but the new leaves are already opening up. There are some new leaves poking up on the cyperus which is also promising because I was certain they were goners. The Java moss looks to already be attaching to the driftwood which is also an improvement.
The downsides of the 10g right now are diatoms everywhere. They are covering everything in horrible little brown clumps. The detritus worms are still in there. They are currently lounging on the anubias leaves. The anubias is looking a little rough and to be honest I don't care if it makes it. The driftwood is still releasing tannins in crazy amount even after I had boiled it for a few hours.

The 6g is doing good still. I will be adding Mebbid's tabs during the next wc. The isopods are still thriving and have now taken to crawling on the glass and lid of the aquarium. Fred still has no interest in eating the darn things.

I'll be trying to get a FTS on the 10g every week to have a visual record of the change the tabs make.

 

[nkoyko]

Update on the 10g. I'm breaking it down. I've learned my lesson. I will never add a plant that I don't dip first. Since adding the moss, I now have midges, parasitic flatworms (just watched one eat a baby MTS), hydra, and a slew of other things including algae. I'm throwing the towel in on this one. I'm going to drain, toss the substrate, find potassium permanganate to soak the plants, boil the driftwood, and toss the filter media. I will then rescape and refill the tank and start over. This sucks.

 

[TheresaM]

Oh no, really sorry to hear that. Worst I've gotten is pest snails, and they're bad enough

 

[Laeris]

Update on the 10g. I'm breaking it down. I've learned my lesson. I will never add a plant that I don't dip first. Since adding the moss, I now have midges, parasitic flatworms (just watched one eat a baby MTS), hydra, and a slew of other things including algae. I'm throwing the towel in on this one. I'm going to drain, toss the substrate, find potassium permanganate to soak the plants, boil the driftwood, and toss the filter media. I will then rescape and refill the tank and start over. This sucks.

That's so heartbreaking Next go will be fantastic!

 

[brennae]

Update on the 10g. I'm breaking it down. I've learned my lesson. I will never add a plant that I don't dip first. Since adding the moss, I now have midges, parasitic flatworms (just watched one eat a baby MTS), hydra, and a slew of other things including algae. I'm throwing the towel in on this one. I'm going to drain, toss the substrate, find potassium permanganate to soak the plants, boil the driftwood, and toss the filter media. I will then rescape and refill the tank and start over. This sucks.

Yikes that's awful! I've been lucky I've only gotten snails of various sorts and mystery fry that hatched from eggs on the leaves. Still not sure what they are. Can you dose the whole tank with Potassium permanganate? Coral bandit is the expert on that and he has a whole thread if you use the search function.

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[ImACoolguy]

Ouch. I've ordered many plants from eBay and still never experienced any of this.

That sucks but maybe turning the tables is for the better? Plenty of time to thing of rescaping


Caleb

 

[nkoyko]

Thank you.

I hope so, Laeris.

Brennae, I have talked to coral and my thought was to dose the whole tank. However with the different bugs in the tank I think it would be more cost effective to just tear it down. To begin treatment if I choose to not break down I would need fenbendazole, the pp, and then a product I can't obtain in the US. I have 45lbs of the black diamond blasting sand left, and that's really all that will be lost (besides the darn pests) and there will probably be a few baby MTS that get pitched too because I am not going to go crazy sorting through the sand.

Caleb, I think it might just be my luck and it was bound to happen. This is my first larger tank (the others are 6g or less) and I should have been more cautious but I wasn't. I think it is for the best to start over with it and this time nothing will be added with out being dipped in pp.

Quick question for everyone, once I tear this bad boy down, I'm going to bleach the daylights out of the aquarium to make sure nothing living remains. If I left bleach for about an hour in the aquarium and then rinsed it for awhile and then added dechlorinator a few times, and then let it sit out and dry, do you think the bleach will still be harmful to any fish/snails/ADF going into the aquarium later on?