Planted nano freshwater tank

[Gin_Tseng]

I know this is almost the opposite of reefkeeping but I was wondering if anyone has a planted freshwater tank. I am thinking of starting one in a few weeks with the least amount of $$$. I was wondering about how to get started and if any of you guys have any floruite (clay/dirt I guess) or going order some I can help with the order. Also if you have to harvest your plants I didn;t mind taking them from you guys.

[Henry]

I think that would be cool. My friend Jeff has a planted 68gal at his house that looks cool. I can just imagine what a nano would look like.

Henry

[MikeP]

Gin, sounds like a neat idea. I thought about doing it with a spare eclipse I had sitting around. Problem is I wanted a LOW maintenance tank and all the reading I've done on planted tanks is even small ones are moderately high maintenance comparable to a reef.

[Nano_Steve]

hey gin,

i started the aquarium hobby with freshwater with those little plastic plants, then upgraded to planted for awhile, then went onto reef tanks. the deal with planted tanks is you will need a certain number of certain things. first, a good chlorine remover(unlike reef tanks you CAN use tap water with freshwater unless you get your water from a well), next a good light(nothing real fancy like we use here just a couple of good wattage flourescents) then a bit of sand and gravel(the kind of sand and gravel they use to pave running trails in parks works well) be sure to clean this to the point that no dirt floats out when you add water to it. and the most important piece to a planted tank is...A CLOWN LOACH!

a clown loach is to a freshwater tank what a sixline wrasse is to a reef tank. not only does it get rid of pest snails and worms but also will forage on the bottom for leftovers. these fish are crucial as you would soon see without one when apple snails have completely overrun you tank.(trust me on this one)

some really great chemicals to look into are amquel and novaqua since one takes out harmful ammonia and the other adds a mucus-like slime to the water that gets onto the fish and their scales to help ward off disease.

as long as you keep a good eye on it, the tank can become very beautiful as the plants grow. also to help stimulate growth you will want to check into some liquified plant food(its a lot like phytoplankton for corals just for plants instead) i forget the name but ask for it and anyone who knows what theyre talking about will know(hee hee i guess i dont know what im talking about then :P

for what its worth there's my two cents, steve

[Work_Puppy]

Ok, First, I broke my planted tank down almost two years ago when I moved into an apartment that wouldn't let me have a big tank. I went all the way, professional grade C02 kit, lighting, you name it. Here are my suggestions.

For a small tank I heartily advise AGAINST getting a clown loach, while they are great at picking off snails (the pest of a fresh water tank) the do like to take chunks out of your plants, you can see this as a horse shoe shaped bite on your leaves, this becomes especially annoying on a very slow growing plant like anubis.

I do advise that you get a Siamese Algae Eater, there are several species, and you need a very specific one... Crossocheilus siamensis, do not confuse this with the agressive Chinese Algae Eater! Crossocheilus siamensis is a voracious eater of black hair algae and can be compared to a Trochus snail in it's effectiveness, it is the cadillac. They are hard to find, but Texas Tropical and Marine on Vance Jackson and 410 in San Antonio has gotten them in for me in the past. They worked for me great, and I watched as they tossed a ball of black hair algae in at the store and it dissapeared as the little guys ate it up!

You can also look for malaysian trumpe snails, they don't hurt your plants and eat lost of algae, also can compare to sand sifting species in the reef, without hurting or uprooting your plants. Don't be afraid to thin them out, they are not as bad as some snail pests in breeding, but they can become a problem.

Substrate, I reccomend Flourite, it's great stuff.

Fertilizer, I reccomend Kents stuff, awesome. LIghting is a cinch, get 2 double strip shop lights from HOme Depot 12 inches, they are about 12 bucks a fixture. lights are about 5 dollars, I used to use a combo of sun bulbs and plant grow lights. (You don't need the fancy ones from the petstore, in this instance, they are renamed and marked up versions of the same thing!) To make it pretty, make a nice little wood canopy. It's cheap, and effective.

CO2 Supplimentation:

2 cups of sugar to one quarter teaspoon of activated yeast, puti n a 3 liter soda bottle and mix well. The cap should be drilled with a air line stuck in and silicone sealed. The airline should not go into the solution. The other end goes into the tank, take a small bottle, or baby food jar, and invert it, run the line into it, and secure the bottle upside down on the back wall of the tank. (You can do this with silicone) and have water run across the opening. A bubble of Co2 will form in the bottle, and be absorbed into the water. Compare this to Kalkwasser dosing your corals. Witht he light and the CO2 and plants, your tank will pobably saturate the tank with oxygen, which is good, you will know your saturated when little oxygen bubbles can be seen rising in a stream off the surface of your plants leaves. However, plants resperiate oxygen at night just like fish, so have a air pump on a timer to stir the water a few hours after the lights go off, and turn off an hour or so before the lights go on.

A 10 gallon is kind of small for many species of plant, you will want to look for cryptecorns and other small plants that can hug the bottom of your tank.

Great websites with info on plant tanks are The Krib, and a name to search on for inspiration is Takashi Amano, his creations rival reef systems in beauty.

great online source for plants is arizona aquatic gardens, avoid petsmart plants like the plauge, every time I added them I got algae problems.

No Undergravel filter, and during the day you want the waters surface to be broken as little as possible, you can stir the tank with a powerhead, but remember CO2 leaks out of a bubbling water surface like theres no tomorrow. in a ten you need at least two inches, maybe three of substrate, I realize this can easiliy eat up a lot of space, but plants need room for their roots! (A 15 tall or 20 tall would be cool!)

plants in a planted tank, done right, wil always otucompete algae for nutrients, but if you have to much nutrients, then you get algae blooms.

Maintenance isn't a big deal except for a few things, algae does need to be cleaned off leaves when present. Many times it is easier to remove the leaf.

Every now and then, maybe twice a week or so you will need to cut back a few plants, trim some dead spots.

Top off the water like a reef tank.

Do water changes like any other tank, I rarely did them on my 55, the plants sucked EVERYTHING out of the water, even with a finicky arrowana (get gill curl at the drop of a hat) I kept great water quality with few changes... just like colerpa in a refugium, groing plants is a method of filtration, just be sure to remove dying leaves before they decay.

Keep your water topped off, and every now and again add kent trace minerals... easy as pie. Shouldn't be to much of a challenge for a reef keeper!

Oh, sorry, no plants to give away, I got rid of them years ago. I will see if I can find some old pics of my tank when it was planted, but if you want to see some recent ones, here they are. Big change though, it is now a terrarium providing home to various species of tropical carnivorous plants.. Nepenthes, Drosera, so on... (plants are one of my first loves)

http://www.brokenwatch.net/~rampuppy

Oh... and don't laugh.. I put that site up at 2 AM, and stupidly designed it at 1600 X 1200... everything in it is HUGE! lol... hopefully fix it soon.

[TexasState]

Dosing from a Co2 Cylinder is the way to go. If you can't afford a CO2 setup, check out this link:
http://www.aquaticreefsystems.com/autocheck_valve.htm

For cheap plant, there's ton of plant in the San Marcos River. Peoples said not to use it b/c of bacteria, disease, contamination. The Texas Cichlid live in the San Marcos River if you can catch them.

It's recommended that you change water and prune the plant as much as possible.

[Gin_Tseng]

Thanks you guys for all the help. Work Puppy I might just have to hold up on the planted aquarium idea and make one of terriaums like you have. Carnivous plants are just too cool. I have really think about what to do now :twisted: . well I have another question is there any other source of fluriote besides Seachem. Could I get a close substitute from Home Depot or a garden store.

[Ed]

Gin,

There is a substrate at Home Depot designed for ponds that my wife used in her planted tank. Seems to work well and is much cheaper than the Seachem stuff. I have forgotten the name, but we found it in the 'tropical' section at HD next to the African Violet soil. Hope this helps.

-Ed

[Ram_Puppy]

if carnivorous plants really interest you, check out my website www.petflytrap.com

good stuff.