38g Low light Journal

I LOVE reading all of the journals on here, so I thought I'd start my own for my new used 38g tank. This aquascaping is still really new to me, so I'd appreciate all the help I can get!

The landscape theme for the tank is a river bank/bed running down a hill. With lots of rounded rocks and pebbles, and a few bits of wood. I'm emphasizing grassy plants at the top of the hill, and bushy bigger leaved plants at the bottom.

Here is the tank:

I'm using a 48 inch shop light with 2 34w 6700k bulbs:



The substrate will be Pea gravel, pool sand, and eco-complete:




The hardscape will use these rocks, and two bits of driftwood that I don't have pictures of because they are in other tanks.

The hill will be built up on a styrofoam base, with a 3 inch level of sand and eco-complete on top-- the sticks are guides to determine substrate level, and will come out once the substrate is in.

These are the plants I'm looking at for the hill part (these are all plants I have in my other tanks except the val):
Lobelia cardinalis
Sagittaria (the dwarf kind)
Echinodorus (I'm not sure which variety, maybe melon)
V. spiralis (Italian val)
Cryptocoryne Retrospiralas
Aponogeton crispus
pygmy chainsword--echinodorus quadricostatus I think

Then on down the hill I'd like to have these plants(I have all but the first two):
Cryptocoryne lutea
Cryptocoryne wendtii
Microsorum pteropus
Vesicularia dubyana
A. barteri var. nana

Here is the planned layout--the rocks are in grey, and the open area in front will be the pea gravel and small stones.

I will post pictures as the tank comes together. The planning is half the fun--so any suggestions to improve my plan would be great.

It is going to be a tiger barb tank--so that is why there is so much open space up front. There will be 14 barbs.

I've been working on getting my tank set up--though the fish wont be coming in for quite some time. The plants are slowly going in as I get them from my other tanks and from other people .

Last night I cleared a space for the tank, by moving the furniture in my living room around. I then went and bought a stand and a bag of eco-complete. Then I attempted to assemble the stand and the lights I'd already bought. It took a lot longer then I thought it would, proving that I am not handy at all. the stand is rated at 450lbs per shelf, and has four shelves that can be installed in two sets of two.

Once I got the stand assembled:
I placed the tank on top of the stand, and put the styrofoam base in the tank.

Even though it was 12:30 at night, and letterman was over, I decided to play with the rocks and added the substrate. I added gravel in the front and far sides, then layered sand and eco-complete in the back to a level of three inches. I put the rocks in the tank, and tried to form a river bank look.

After a short night's sleep--I came back to play with my tank. I pulled the java fern covered log that reiverix gave me from one tank, and a moss covered log from another. Here is where I thought I was going to put them:

The tank isn't as wide as the layout I sketched--I'm not too good at scale models, so the log takes up more space then I'd thought.

Anyway, I finished rinsing the gravel in the tank, by filling it partway and draining it a couple of times, then filled up the tank to the top. Lo, and behold, there was a half-inch difference between the water level at the front and back of the tank. Since I wasn't sure what wasn't level, I ran to the store and bought a level and some buckets. It turns out the floor isn't level along that wall. So I crawled along the floor looking for a level spot to put the tank--it turns out that the only space that was level that doesn't already have a tank on it, was behind my couch. It was at an angle to the wall already, so I just moved it out further and put the tank behind.

So I took out all of the substrate and rocks, and transfered the tank and stand across the room. This time I added a slab of styrofoam beneath the tank. Also I put sand in with the gravel at the front and side, and changed the angle on the wood. I then planted a red melon sword, Cryptocoryne Retrospiralas, Aponogeton crispus, a baby crypt wendtii, pygmy chainsword, two Lobielas, and put in some anubias.


Here is a shot of my living room, with the 38 and 55. It is still kind of messy, but I live alone and the fish don't complain. I keep their tanks' cleaner. :red:

I got the stand at Meijer--it was cheeper then Lowes, but they only had the smaller units. It was 37$, and will work for two distinct stands, each that can hold two tanks--a pretty good deal!