My new 20 long

Got a great deal on CL recently and I am just starting this 20 L planted tank. This will be mostly plants and my shrimps from my 12 G which will be shut down after moving everything over. I bought a Beamswork LED, a great value at around $50 shipped, for this tank. Tank is only 12 inches high, so this 0.5W x 54 LEDs at 6500K is probably overkill. All my other tanks have PFS but I've read that play sand also works great for plants. So I went to Menards and bought their play sand. I always wash my substrate until the water is clear. But oh my, play sand is SO dirty! I spent hours washing this stuff today. Compared to PFS, it's much finer grain and so it seems to compact more than PFS. I hope my plants grow well in this sand to. I've also read that play sand is darker; more brown than PFS. When I looked at it in the bag, it was brown, but after countless rinsing, its more gray than brown. A bit darker than my PFS but very close. After putting it in my tank and with my LED lights, it's not dark at all actually. I really like the fine particle size and the light color. It's almost white under these lights. Anyways, I just wanted to post that not all play sand is dark brown. This brand when rinsed countless times turns almost white! Now I need to think about how I want this tank to look!

I bought this at Menards, It's like $3 a bag.



Just got done filling the tank, yes I need a background! Look how bright the sand is. I moved the canister from the 12G to this tank, so this tank is "cycled" on day 1. The 12G has a HOB also, so that tank will be ok.



Close-up of the play sand.



My 12 G shrimp tank that will be moved to the new 20G L.



I'm not a fan of dark substrate, so I'm so happy how this is turning out!!!

Well, I spent the better part of today moving all the plants over to my new 20 long. I had way more RCS than I thought. It's incredible that I only started with 12 of them back in November I think. I think it looks good, but I think I want one red plant to give it pop. Maybe I'll replace the money wort. But I like how it looks. I stuck about 10 fert tabs and added liquid ferts also. I hope these plants don't melt too much from the move. It will be a low tech, no CO2 at all. It has bunch of RCS, some ghost shrimps and 2 cories.



Left side



Center



Right side

Thanks! My daughter says we should put some fish in there. Maybe some CPDs if I can find some.

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