6 Foot Planted...

[wobbles]

hey wobbles, great looking tank, is that a 125gal? your getting my gears turing thinking about trying one out myself in my 125g... what plants do you have in there? what about lighting, what kind of lighting system do you use? do you have co2? sorry for the many questions...

Its a 180gal. I have rotala, blue stricta, Java ferns, thin val, red lotus lily and hair grass. I have a T5HO lighting system @ approx 3.5 wpg. I have pressurized C02, a uv filter and more ferts than I know what to do with! Also a Fluval FX5 filter.

 

[Acer]

wow..... sounds like a lot of work but well work it.

 

[rob28]

man o man o man oman!!! i just brought home a 150 gal and your tank really makes me wanna plant mine. im too intimidated though

love your tank!

 

[brutus]

that's huge....i like it

 

[FishCrazyBenBOMB]

Looks good man keep it up!

 

[Ziggy953]

Awesome looking tank. Those neons look amazing against the bright green!

 

[mike47517]

woe that looks great.

 

[ingg]

man o man o man oman!!! i just brought home a 150 gal and your tank really makes me wanna plant mine. im too intimidated though

love your tank!

Don't be!

While it takes a lot more plants at startup, I find larger tanks much simpler to maintain and keep stable than smaller tanks.

My 180g is still the simplest of all my tanks to keep steady and stable by a long shot, it just takes some wet armpits sometimes to do trimming now and then.

 

[rob28]

Don't be!

While it takes a lot more plants at startup, I find larger tanks much simpler to maintain and keep stable than smaller tanks.

My 180g is still the simplest of all my tanks to keep steady and stable by a long shot, it just takes some wet armpits sometimes to do trimming now and then.

i do appreciate the encouragement. I did decide to partially plant halff the tank with a low light/maintainance set up. hopefully my research pans out.

 

[elwaine]

...I find larger tanks... just takes some wet armpits sometimes to do trimming now and then.

If I bought a tank that large, my wife would chop off my long arms!

wobbles - Beautiful aquarium!

 

[wobbles]

Latest pic. Had to do some industrial trimming, and im only half done....

 

[Purrbox]

This is coming along very nicely. Great Work! and thanks for sharing.

 

[czcz]

The fantastic center looks like green fire! Beautiful.

 

[wobbles]

A bit of a new scape. I got rid of the Blue Stricta in the middle and replaced it with 2 Red Devils. The Ludwigia left of the middle is taking off now, and im have a hard time controlling the hair grass!!

 

[FishCrazyBenBOMB]

wish my hairgrass looked like that haha.

 

[elwaine]

Excellent. When the Blue Stricta dominated the center, it drew and held the eye there. Now the whole scape is alive.

How are you controlling the hair grass? Are you removing random small clumps so that it fills in the newly created "holes?" Or are you just removing the growth that extends into the mid ground?

 

[wobbles]

Excellent. When the Blue Stricta dominated the center, it drew and held the eye there. Now the whole scape is alive.

How are you controlling the hair grass? Are you removing random small clumps so that it fills in the newly created "holes?" Or are you just removing the growth that extends into the mid ground?

Im attempting to remove it from the mid ground. Its proving to be an uphill battle though. Its so aggressive. Originally I only wanted it on the left foreground, and glosso for the rest, but it had its own plan. I kind of like it, but it really wants the whole tank. Oh the fun of it all!

Ive never heard of the hole filling plan. Is that creating room for it to spread?

 

[elwaine]

Ive never heard of the hole filling plan. Is that creating room for it to spread?

Well, I'm sort of new to this hobby of heavily planted fresh water aquariums, even though I've had aquariums of one sort or another for over 40 years... so I'm not sure. I read that some plants need to be thinned out a bit and then allowed to re-grow and fill back in. That's what I meant by creating small holes in the grass. I hope one of the experts can comment on this.

I chose to use a few aggressive plants. The two I have are dwarf hair grass and Potamogeton gayi. Once they establish themselves they "grow like weeds." So I thought that I'd try putting down barriers to the spread of their roots... in a similar manner to the method used by terrestrial gardeners to control the confines of species specific planted beds. Here's what I did:
http://www.aquariumadvice.com/forums/showpost.php?p=930846&postcount=18

It worked well with dwarf chain swords, but it is a bit too soon for me to know whether or not my plan will work with hair grass and P. gayi. I'll report back in a few weeks... maybe start a new thread if it is successful.