My planted 55gal community tank

[Brickster]

I'm a newcomer to marine tanks, but I am much more comfortable and experienced building worlds in the freshwater environment. This is my 'big' tank, a 55 gallon that is about a year old.







This was/is an experimental tank in some ways, simple to the point of sillyness. The tank was completely unfiltered for most of it's life, but as they loaches grew up, their digging led to clarity problems that were solved recently by adding a little Fluval 205. The canister has been a blessing and a curse, clearing the water but leading to some strange algae outbreaks as the system adjusts itself. For now, it's running a half unit of Chemi-Pure Elite and the shrimp and livebearers are cleaning up the mess. There is no biomedia in the canister, it's basically a mechanical scrubber. The plant mass is what is mainly filtering the tank. I don't bother with fertilizers, co2 or any of that. No worry about water changes either. I collect about a pound or so of trimmings every few weeks for nutrient export, and cull baby plants for friends/other tanks.

There is a massive amount of livestock in this tank. Something on the order of 200+ fish and shrimp. The numbers on the stock list are estimates and guesses with the big groups. It isn't easy to line them up and count them.

30-40 Neon Tetras
15-20 Black Neon Tetras
10-15 Rasboras (don't remember which flavor)
10 Variatus Platies
5 Tinwini Danios
5 Yo Yo Loaches
1 King Betta
3 Bamboo Shrimp
20-30 ghost shrimp
1 billion or so Malaysian Shrimp (prolific breeders, algae eaters, tasty babies, dense foliage. Their numbers rise and fall)

All and all it is massively overstocked, and I feed lots of food but the tank successfully processes all of it. Having a foot in each at the moment, I can say that all of you keeping these reef tanks can master something like this pretty quickly. It's like reef-lite in terms of knowledge and budget.

[SinisterLou]

Nice, I remember my freshwater days.

[allan]

Man, this tank is outstanding!!! and I hate freshwater... very nice dude.

[Brickster]

Thanks for the kind words. I meet quite a few people that are very anti-freshwater, and I always advocate trying the heavily planted 'living tank' thing. Its a different world than undergravel filters and plastic pirate ships. You even get bright lights and big water movement to play with. I keep several tanks, this one is a 20L that is about half native plants. It's fun stuff.

[allan]

plastic shipwrecks... man, you know that's what I think of when I think of fresh water... but the heavily planted tanks do look cool as heck.

I've seen some of the online freshwater tanks from that little zapanese fellow, and his stuff just looks awesome. But I like the thick full look of your tank, could watch if for quite awhile and always see something new. Do you dose CO2?

[Brickster]

Amano is the Japanese guy, and his stuff is incredible. The plant world is like the reef world in some ways. It's diverse, high tech, and filled with passionate people building amazing stuff. No CO2 for the 55, it was made from day 1 to be low maintenance and undemanding. Most of these plants are relatively slow growers that prune themselves as they shuck off old growth or make babies. The big tape grass is the nutrient sink, and you trim by opening the lid and ripping out big chunks of it. It's great. Probably the most algae resistant tank I have ever owned (present condition aside).

You can watch this tank for hours. The fish act much more naturally in an environment like this, and you can use the plants to cover up the weird dimensions of the 55. Much easier to make an attractive arrangement in a tall skinny tank with f/w as opposed to salt. You also don't get peaceful quiet communities in the ocean. These 'boring' fish do great stacked on top of each other in lush, relaxing environment. They get neurotic and crazy in the unnatural habitats they're usually stuck in, do you blame them?