New 60g Planted Tank-everything sound good?

[DanTheGuppyMan]

So after all the questions I asked, I finally got my plants and everything and set up my new 60 gallon tank. It's my first planted tank. Here is what I have done...I have Fluval Stratum as the substrate, I have a large piece of driftwood and some slate rocks. I have various plants-
Vallisneria, Corkscrew (Vallisneria americana var. biwaensis)
Moneywort (Bacopa Monnieri)
Anubias, barteri Broad Leaf
Java Fern (Microsorium pteropus)
Sword, Amazon (Echinodorus bleheri)
Tiger Lotus, Red (Nymphaea zenkeri)
Baby Tears , Dwarf (Hemianthus callitrichoides)
Ludwigia inclinata var. verticillata 'Cuba'
Limnophila hippuroides (Limnophila aromatica 'hippuroides')
The plants are really scrunched up and haven't rooted yet so they don't look so good right now...I am dosing some dry ferts- I dose iron, phosphate, and total (all by "AquaFertz") every month as directed. Every day I dose one capful of Flourish Excel but I am currently saving up for a nice C02 system...that's next on my list. I will add a few pics later...does everything sound good to you? Oh- also I noticed some white stringy looking fungus-like thing attached to one of the shoots of anubias...is that bad? I cut that new growth out and trimmed it a little. Anyways...anything I need to tweak about my stuff? Thanks!

 

[DanTheGuppyMan]

Pictures

Here is the tank..

 

[AaronW]

That's a beautiful setup! It looks so awesome. Here's my 60 gallon planted community.




I need to practice my aquascaping!

 

[Aqualady40]

Here is the tank..

Really nice Dan

 

[AprilMartinez]

Ooohhhhh! That's nice. I like!

 

[DanTheGuppyMan]

Video!

Ok here I made a video for it...sorry for the bad quality! The purple plant that is under the green plants is the limnophila hippuroides...it's not unraveled yet...and the plants behind it look like they are dead but that's the red Ludwigia I have in there...the camera made it look ugly and yellow. Behind the slate I have corkscrew vals, and against the left wall I have some amazon swords. The little carpet plant that is still growing is the dwarf baby tears. Then I have some moneywort and the bulbs at the base of the driftwood is the red tiger lotus. Attached to the driftwood is some anubias barteri and some java fern. Also floating in the water is some dwarf water lettuce. The pregnant guppy is in there to create some ammonia to cycle the tank because its the only fish I have left before i start with the angelfish. She is almost ready to give birth also the light fixture is a Glo T5HO double high output with two life-glo 54 watt 6700K high output bulbs. I am running an AquaTop CF-500UV with a UV sterilizer and an air pump....I'm currently working on getting a C02 system, and for right now I'm using Excel. Everything look good? Ok so it won't let me upload the vid directly...here's the link:

New Re-Scaped 60g Aquarium - YouTube

 

[Rivercats]

One thing I noticed is you planted your stem plants in bundles. You need to remove them, trim about an inch off the bottom of each stem, and replant each stem individually. When you plant each stem make sure it can almost but not quite touch the stems around it. You need to plant each stem like this so light can reach all the way to the bottom of the stems and water can circulate through them. If a stem has a bad or smashed bottom, cut off all the bad area.

 

[DanTheGuppyMan]

Oh thanks! I separated some but then my lfs said to just keep them together in the weight but I was hesitant about it...anyway I will seperate them tomorrow morning. Also-how fast do your corkscrew vals grow? I've noticed all the plants except the vals growing...

 

[Rivercats]

They are the slowest growing plant in my tank but they also take a long time to really get acclimated. The LFS is wrong in this matter. Keeping the stems smushed together with the weigh on them will actually cause the stems to begin rotting along with the fact they can't get light that way. When you planted your swords did you leave a large area for them to grow and spread in? They get quite large.

 

[DanTheGuppyMan]

Wow thanks for the heads up on the smushing the roots thing! And yes I have each sword about 5 inches between each other being I only had 6 of them to fill up the other half of my tank I had to separate them out equally...also I am looking for some more colorful plants other than green...any recommendations? I have another tank I may want to plant and I think I want to move some of the moneywort over to that one and add some more color into this one.

 

[Rivercats]

Alot of non-green plants need high light. An easy one you don't have is Telanthera Rosefolia (Alternanthera reineckii). You can also try Myrio Red, Myriophyllum tuberculatum, and Rotala Indica (Rotala roundifolia) which will get pink tops if your light is high enough.

 

[DanTheGuppyMan]

Well, my light fixture says "High Output" on it and my bulbs say "54 Watt High Output T5HO on the box...does that count as high lighting? It's a double fixture. Also, do you have red the lotus? If so, did you recover yours as bulbs as I did? And how fast do those grow? Thanks!

 

[Rivercats]

I would consider your lighting medium but that's just my opinion. I run metal halides and T5HO's and that is high light. As for Red Tiger Lotus, yes I have one. I received 1 already sprouted bulb. IMO they are slow to really take off but grow well once established. Just lay them on the substrate and once you see roots growing roll the bulb roots down on top of the substrate where you want it to grow. Then leave it alone and it will root itself down there and the leaves will grow towards the light. I don't bury the bulb, some do but it can cause it to rot.