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The plant on the right could very well be Nesaea sp. 'Red', a very difficult plant to keep looking good. It's hard to tell because the pic is a little blurry, but the color is spot on for Nesaea. It needs as much light as you can give it, CO2, and good trace/Fe fertilization, otherwise it will...

Fissidens moss would also be an interesting foreground in a tank like yours. It doesn't need much light, grows slowly, and can easily be sandwiched between two pieces of plastic mesh for use in a foreground. You can see some pictures here.

Very sharp looking setup. It's going to look nice. I might move the large sword plant on the left in from the edge a little bit because it is going to need a little more growing room down the line.

Soft substrates and non-cloudy substrates seem to be mutually exclusive categories. ADA's Aquasoil substrate is very soft - you can smash it in your fingers - but is also very cloudy if disturbed. Eco-Complete does not cloud much but is significantly harder, although not nearly as hard and...

I have a friend who swears that it works wonders in the short term but that it can create a great deal of skimmate so you should check your skimmers at least daily. MichaelsLilGray - I would definitely not recommend it for any FW purpose as it would likely create a massive bacterial bloom that...

Is your fixture a VHO (very high output) fixture? In order to use VHO bulbs you need a fixture/ballast that will drive them, otherwise they won't even fire. Unfortunately, if you have a regular/NO (normal output) fluorescent fixture, you can't simply crank it up to higher output by putting...

It sounds like you've done a great job of selecting hardware for your planted tank. Your lighting and CO2 supplementation should allow you to grow just about anything you're interested in keeping. Two great resources for dwarf aquarium shrimp are Petshrimp.com and ShrimpFanatics.com. Arizona...

I'm with Gene, Malaysian trumpet snails seem to be completely harmless to plants. Nerite snails (Neritina reclivata) have also worked very well for me in providing janitorial services without causing any plant damage.

I don't have any experience with Dennerle's product line but I can tell you that HC does best in fine-grained substrates. Even inert sand works well for HC as long as you provide the water column with the proper nutrient levels/CO2/etc. Mineral rich substrates are not a requirement for HC and...

Oxygen tanks use a regulator with a different thread type than CO2 tanks so they will not be compatible for use with CO2 regulators.

RO water is basically pure water: pH ~7.0, KH 0, GH 0, TDS ~0. It has no buffering capacity so its pH is easy to alter and is subject to large fluctuations. For best use it needs to be remineralized by adding carbonates for KH, and other salts (sulfates, chlorides, etc.) for GH, bringing each...

From your description of the bulb and the color and shape of the plant's leaves it would appear to be a variety of Nuphar, likely Nuphar japonicum, a pond lily native to Japan that has been introduced to the waters of the southeastern United States. It is a very colorful plant and can get very...

Wow Glen! Now I see what you've been up to the last few months. That is incredible. The plants look as healthy as any I've ever seen and the aquascaping is right up my alley :) And I really like the MH lights. I completely agree with you about the growth rates you get with them - almost out...

You're putting together one beautiful tank there Neilan. I'm guessing that the Boesmanis are turning blue because they are overjoyed at their new surroundings. I've seen fish (mainly African cichlids, but it probably holds true for a lot of other types) that never displayed good coloration...

Ah, but I am injecting CO2. My tank is awash in a sea of carbon :) Although I use Excel in combination with CO2 mainly for its algicidal benefits.

Yikes, that looks like a vicious case of the same algae I've gotten in my hard water planted ARLC tank. It only affects certain plants, and it appears as a black surface algae on leaves and stems that does resemble rust. I suspect it may have something to do with the high amount of carbonates...

Top and replant. It is a very fast grower when it is happy so you should expect to do a lot of this. You can also leave the bottom portion in the substrate and it will sprout new stems in time.

The first plant may be Spathiphyllum tasson, a marginal plant that does not do well in the long term when kept submersed. It is commonly sold as Brazilian sword but, not being a member of the Echinodorus genus, is not a true sword plant and will likely die if kept submersed. The second plant...

Awesome work man. I admire the attention to detail you have put into the technical side of the tank construction. The aquascape is also beautiful. I am anxious to see it fill in. The zebra otoes are a great choice, too. IME they get considerably larger than standard otoes and look a heck of...

If your sand is the crushed coral/aragonite/oolite type of sand commonly used in SW tanks it will not work well for most plants. The alkaline composition of the substrate is bad for most common plants, although I think you might get away with growing some Anubias, Vallisneria, and Java fern...

If you've got a plastic hood you are very limited in your lighting options because you only have two little slots for light to enter. You could retrofit your existing light fixtures with T-5 bulbs, which may be more work than its worth. Glass lids are the way to go for planted tanks because...

Is your tank a 55G? Just guessing that it is with 2x24" lights. If so, they are barely sufficient to grow low-light plants. Vallisneria and Anubias nana will probably do OK, but it really won't be enough light to keep Amazon swords happy. They may survive, but they will not thrive. I would...