Planted 20H

[Cooter]

OK, Santa was good to my son and I for Christmas. Right now it (20 gallon high) has had water in for 5 days, temp is 79°, Ammonia, Nitrite are both 0, Ph is vvaryingbetween 6.8 and 7.2, 5 neon tetras, 1 rock, 1 piece of driftwood (unknown species) and 16 or so plants of vvarying species.

I am looking for help in identifying the plants. I have surfed around and I think I have found most of the names, but I am a little sketchy on a couple yet. The LFS and Petco did not have tags for the plants, so I am starting blind.

Thanks for any comments, help and criticism.

 

[Simpte]

Pic is small but I will help where I can...........
Banana plant in front center.
Crypt towards the back right from banana plant.
Cant really see the rest of them. Looks like some hairgrass on the right. A java fern middle left slightly hidden.
Hornwort in the back center right
Maybe a melon sword back right (some type of sword anyway)
Giant Val back left. Hope this helps. Cant be sure on most of them.

 

[Toirtis]

Agreed...larger, closer photos will help immensely.

 

[Cooter]

The photo supplied was reduced way down for posting. I will upload a larger picture in my gallary. I was thinking the plant of the far left was Star Grass "Heteranthera zosterifolia"?

EDIT: added link to photos tank pictures. Picture number 3 is the one that I am having trouble identifying.

More questions, what shoudl I expect for a cycle? Different websites say that with a planted tank should not see a cycle as one would see if the tank was planted lightly or not at all. Also, should I be concerened with hitchhiker snails from one of the plants?

 

[Apocalypse_Gold]

Plants will suck up nitrogen and so you may not see any real spikes. How much light do you have on this tank? High light makes them gobble it even faster. Snails can be a real nightmare so watch for them. If they came in on plants, they eat plants. A favorite method of removal is placing a weighted leaf of lettuce in the tank at night and pulling it out covered in snails in the morning.

 

[Cooter]

OK, forgot one of the things that I didn't want to forget, the wpg, 3.25 (20G/65W PC 6700°K). I currently have not done anything drastic to the tank conditions except to remove the pots and plant the plants. I am planning on a 30% PWC tonight to help remove some of the tannins from the driftwood.

I will try and get a map of the plants and suspected names done sometime in the next day or so. Might half to wait a couple of days to feed it into the scanner at work.

Happy New Year to all

EDIT: Checked the light bulb, it is 65W not 55W, sorry for the mixup.

 

[Wizzard~Of~Ozz]

The driftwood looks like Mopani (bogwood), if it's light on top and very dark and solid on the bottom (solid to the point that I broke a titanium drillbit on a piece) then it definately is.

Removing the piece and soaking it for 4 hours in very hot water, then cooling it and returning it will resolve the tannins problem.

 

[Simpte]

Your wpg is 2.25 The plant looks like a sag of some sort. Very healthy too. Could be a type of chain sword also. How does it propogate?