Who keeps FW plant tanks?

[briancarlile]

Just checking to see if anyone in Austin, San Antonio, or central texas in general is keeping freshwater plant tanks. Anyone know of a local group or club?

[caferacermike]

I know I once found a local club for Austin. It was a whole water plant club though, ponds, landscaping and fish tanks.

[urban79]

there couple for ponds and thats all I know off.

[erikharrison]

Ive got a F/W plant tank for sale! It's a 47g column, lmk!

[Ram_Puppy]

i am starting up a 7 1/2 gallon planted nano tank using an ADA cube and some of their products.

planning on using a 70 watt HQI, and the red sea CO2 system that uses paintball CO2 tanks

[MikeP]

I have a couple fish tanks with plants but no planted tanks!

1 x 30 gallon long tanganikyan mostly rock but a nice field of vallisnera.

1 x 60 Gallon cube with west african cichlids lots of java fern, crypts, lotuses

1 x 14 gallon biocube with breeding pair of Limbochromis robersti with some anubias, bolbitis and java fern.

As for if you are looking to find people with planted tanks I'd check www.theplantedtank.net seems to be most complete site I've found and there may be an austin group that flies under the radar here.

[Ram_Puppy]

ANyone that is a reefer that has never done a planted tank should give it a try. a planted tank is right along the same concept, they are gorgeous in their own right, and in many ways, just as difficult, if not more so, in some ways...

(And one heck of a lot cheaper equipment wise!!!!) well.. mostly.

;)

[captexas]

I had a 75g freshwater tank with live plants before I converted it and got into saltwater. I recently started up a 29g freshwater tank and have several plants in it. Unfortunatley it's not doing that well and I'm dealing with a bad hair algae problem. With all the problems I had with my 45g saltwater tank, I've been half tempted to shut it down and try to do a better planted tank.

[Ram_Puppy]

chris,

do you have any algae eating shrimp? how much light, and are you using CO2?

algae in a planted tank can be amazingly difficult to control, you basically need to create an environment that allows the plants (proper plants) to outcompete the algae.

I have also heard that flourish excel squirted right on the algae will kill it.

[captexas]

No, no shrimp in the tank. I've kept away from buying a pleco as they can be destructive. I've got a 65watt PC and a 36watt T5 light fixtures on the tank. I'm not using CO2 yet as I figured I could get the tank started with some plants without it. I dose Flourish about every other week. I was just using tap water for the tank and with my last water change I went ahead and used some RO/DI water I had made up for my saltwater tank. I know that RO/DI water needs some elements added back to it for freshwater use, but I figured maybe it would help with the algae.