My planted tank

[aprilmayjune]

Even though I'm still sad that I had to take a break from the marine world while going to school, I'm very happy with my planted tank. It is a Oceanic 30 gallon cube with 80 watts of PC lighting. I add in liquid carbon, iron, and fertilizer supplements. I had a problem with hair algae for a while but throwing in 5 cheap comets and cutting back on the lighting for a week killed the hair algae without killing the plants. And as you can see, I'm a little obsessed with rainbows.


I have amazon swords, a madagascar lace, moss balls, lots of anubias nana, dwarf hair grass, and a couple plants that i forgot the name. The driftwood has a moss culture tied to it in hopes it will take over the wood.






My gold ram owns the tank.


I couldn't get a good picture of the other inhabitants. There are 5 signifer rainbows who are trying to breed and I have another tank set up just in case! 2 boesmanis, 2 turquiose, and 4 australian rainbows, who will hopefully breed also. 2 clown loaches, 6 ottos, and the 1 gold ram. I purposely overstocked the tank for fertilizer purposes.

I had 2 AMAZING red rainbows that were the brightest red you can imagine. Unfortunately rainbows are sensitive to changing water conditions and a 25% partial stressed them out too much :( Hopefully soon I will upgrade to a much larger planted tank.

I still haven't decided on a background for the tank. I don't want to do one of those tape-on ones. If anyone knows of a place to get fiber glass backgrounds please let me know! I want maybe a root or rocky background.

[greenmako]

Very pretty tank!

[erikharrison]

Looks very nice April!

[captexas]

Great looking tank! I've got a 29g with live plants but I haven't put much effort into it and I've got a bad hair algae problem. A few questions for you. What type of PC bulbs are you using? What substrate did you go with? Other than the liquid supplements, do you use CO2? What filtration do you have? I'm thinking of tearing down my 29g and starting over with it and would like to do it right.

[aprilmayjune]

I bought the Coralife Freshwater Aqualight. It is a 65 wt 6700K 24" PC bulb and I got it for I think $60. They don't make a lot of sizes, mine overhangs the aquarium by a couple inches- but I do think they make a 30" or 36". Check out eBay. I started using an onyx sand because I liked the contrast of the green and black but I didn't like it after a while. You could see the fish poop sitting on the sand, my water was never completely clear, and it clouded the water like crazy if you barely touched it. So I got a bag of the Red Sea Plant Substrate which supposedly has minerals and nutrients in it already. I think it looks better than the sand, it doesn't cloud as much, my water is clear, and my plants seem to be doing better. I know the tank at Tx Tropical has the Red Sea stuff in it too and his tank is doing great. I don't have a CO2 machine now so I'm adding the SeaChem liquid carbon. I am going to make my own CO2 machine I just haven't got around to it. You take a large coke bottle and drill a small hole in the lid just big enough for airline tubing. Seal in some airline tubing and run it from the bottle to the intake of your filter (the impellor breaks up the CO2 bubbles so it doesn't just float to the surface of the water). Inside the bottle mix yeast, sugar, and water and it should supply you with CO2 for a while. There are instructions online. As far as my filter, I'm using a Rena XP2. The flow is a little much so I have to adjust it. I had one from a previous tank so I just moved it to this one and I really like it.

And thanks everyone!

[captexas]

Yeah, I've got a Coralife PC fixture, but I think it has bulbs in it for a saltwater setup. Need to get new bulbs for it. I haven't gotten around to dosing CO2 either. I've read up on making the coke bottle setup, just haven't tried it yet.

[Ross]

which one is the anubias nana? i just set up a 3g planted and i'm got some of that coming to me in the mail.

[OceanInMotion]

a big planted tank, like a 20 long, with a lone male crowntail betta would look sweet!

[aprilmayjune]

It is the big broad leafed one, mostly on the left and right of the driftwood. The second picture is a good one. I love it. It isn't needy and grows like crazy.